General Discussion
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Subsidizing Exclusion
Exclusionary zoning reduces affordable housing and exacerbates racial segregation. Adding insult to injury, taxpayers actually subsidize these outcomes through special tax breaks and incentives for suburbanites. Continue reading
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A Resolution for Digital Transformation
No one gets fit overnight, or even in a whole month. It is a process that takes time and requires consistent commitment and the right approach to be successful. Digital transformation are the same. If you approach the process correctly, you’ll change the way your organization works forever. Continue reading
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Moar Reading in 2023
In the last couple of years, I’ve been trying to read more books. Here’s what I have done to pick my reading habit back up. Maybe one of these strategies will work for you if, like I once did, you miss being a reader. Continue reading
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Finding Balance In How We Budget for Government IT
When we talk about the government budgeting process, we almost always talk about the first three phases. But the often overlooked fourth phase of the budget process is one reason why cross-agency funding for things like a better customer experience is so hard. Continue reading
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More Writing, Less Words
More posts. Shorter words. It’s time to leave the bird site and all the bad habits I picked up there behind. Continue reading
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Accelerating the ATO process with a platform approach
Embracing a platform approach can help agencies lower barriers to deployment of software and more efficiently deliver important services to the public. Continue reading
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Amplifying Administrative Burden
How Poor Technology Choices Can Magnify the Challenges Faced by Those Seeing Government Services For every 10 people who said they successfully filed for unemployment benefits during the previous four weeks three to four additional people tried to apply but could not get through the system to make a claim. Two additional people did not… Continue reading
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2013 Civic Blogging in Review
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2013 annual report for this blog. Here’s an excerpt: The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 11,000 times in 2013. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 4 sold-out performances for that many… Continue reading
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2012 Blogging Year In Review
It’s been a busy year for blogging – my WordPress.com 2012 annual report for this site is now available. If you’re interested, take a gander. Here’s an excerpt: 600 people reached the top of Mt. Everest in 2012. This blog got about 9,300 views in 2012. If every person who reached the top of Mt.… Continue reading
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Bizzaro Budgeting and Public Sector Innovation
Why is it so hard for governments to adopt innovative new technologies? Why does the public sector lag so far behind the private sector in leveraging new technology to create efficiencies? As an organization that works at the intersection of government and technology, these are questions we hear a lot at Code for America. Through… Continue reading
About Me
I am the former Chief Data Officer for the City of Philadelphia. I also served as Director of Government Relations at Code for America, and as Director of the State of Delaware’s Government Information Center. For about six years, I served in the General Services Administration’s Technology Transformation Services (TTS), and helped pioneer their work with state and local governments. I also led platform evangelism efforts for TTS’ cloud platform, which supports over 30 critical federal agency systems.
Civic Innovations 