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Complexity and (Potential) Corruption
The more burdensome, lengthy, or expensive a government process is, the more opportunities there are for powerful individuals to use their influence to obtain more favorable treatment. Complexity is the fertile ground in which the seeds of corruption can find purchase. Continue reading
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On Zealotry and Cryptocurrency in Government
People that advocate for the use of blockchain technologies or cryptocurrencies in government tend to sound evangelical about it. They are true believers. I can relate to that. But this new enthusiasm for blockchain in government is misplaced. It is a poor foundation for public policy and government operations. Continue reading
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Hands Across America
I’ve always been a hard typer and I’ve not always used proper form. After many years of undisciplined typing, I found myself in a place where every time I typed it hurt. After living with this pain for a while, I decided to get some help and change my habits. Continue reading
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What Lies Beneath
Procurement challenges don’t end when a government agency selects a vendor to fulfill a contract. In many ways, they are just beginning. If you’ve been paying any attention at all to the world of civic tech for the last 5–10 years then you don’t need to be told that one of the major challenges to… Continue reading
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PFC: A Cautionary Tale for Civic Tech
In a month of chaotic vaccine distribution rollouts, no government’s effort has been more dysfunctional, or controversial, than that of Philadelphia. To spearhead delivery of COVID-19 vaccines to city residents, the City of Philadelphia decided to partner with a young startup called Philly Fighting COVID (PFC). Continue reading
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On Unbecoming a Hotshot
My four-year anniversary at my current job snuck up on me a few weeks back. It’s not an anniversary I have a lot of experience with — it’s been a while since I worked somewhere for four years in a row. My professional career has taken me on an interesting journey, and I’ve bounced around… Continue reading
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Virtuous Roadblocks and Digital Service Delivery
If Men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and… Continue reading
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Filling up the Civic Tech Toolbox
It’s sort of a cliche to say it these days, but digital transformation in government is largely not about technology. It seems like this is an idea that has broad consensus, but much of the work that gets done in and around government technology modernization still views problems solely through the lens of technology. What… 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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Process Eats Culture for Breakfast
Simply telling agencies what they need to do misses the influence of existing processes — all working exactly as designed — on technology project outcomes. The need to reform these fundamental processes underscores that our most important work is not about technology. 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 