Podcasts about 18f

r amithejerk? where AITA for locking the office fridge after someone kept stealing my lunch? AITA for sneaking out and causing my sister to lose her job? AITA for throwing a cup of cold water on my naked husband? AITA for blowing up at my parents for something my adult sister did? AITAH for telling my six year old nephew he is not special, after he told me he can do and get what he wants because everyone calls him special? AITA for refusing to give my sister the wedding dress I bought even through I'm not getting married anymore? AITAH for calling myself (18F) disabled in front of a disabled person? AITA for not leaving apartment for a week AITA for saying no to hosting my SIL and her additional needs kid overnight again? AITA for telling my family that my sister strongly implied that she doesn't want me at her wedding, causing most of them to RSVP no? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Daily Scoop listeners and readers of FedScoop will recall the shocking news earlier this year when 18F, a decade-old digital services consultancy in the General Services Administration, was shuttered by the Trump administration's Department of Government Efficiency. Members of the team have banded together since their termination to keep an active presence online through 18F.org in the wake of their dismantling. But the group isn't going out without a fight. Several senior members of 18F in late May filed a class action appeal to the Merit System Protection Board claiming that GSA lacked a “valid reason” for firing them and targeted them as an act of “retaliation” for their political beliefs. In the appeal, they call for a hearing and to have their removal reversed. Lindsay Young is the former executive director of 18F and one of the name appellants representing the class in the appeal. She joins the podcast for a conversation about how the “deletion” of 18F went down, what she and her team have been doing since, and what they hope to accomplish with the appeal. U.S. officials violated federal privacy law and flouted cybersecurity protocol in sharing Office of Personnel Management records with DOGE affiliates, a federal district court judge in New York ruled Monday, granting a request for a preliminary injunction against the administration. In a 99-page order, Judge Denise Cote of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York concluded that federal worker and union plaintiffs had shown that the government defendants in the challenge shared OPM records with “individuals who had no legal right of access to those records” in violation of the Privacy Act of 1974 and cybersecurity standards. “This was a breach of law and of trust,” Cote said in the order. “Tens of millions of Americans depend on the Government to safeguard records that reveal their most private and sensitive affairs.” The ruling is the latest in a challenge to DOGE's data access at OPM brought by a coalition of federal unions and current and former government employees or contractors. A new executive order from President Donald Trump aims to boost drone manufacturing in the United States, an effort the administration hopes will spur productivity and technological development and secure the country's industrial base. Meanwhile, a second executive order aims to combat the risk that, as drone usage proliferates, the technology could also be used to threaten public safety and endanger critical infrastructure. The “Unleashing American Drone Dominance” and “Restoring American Airspace Sovereignty” executive orders, both signed last Friday, come amid growing concerns about the operation of the National Airspace System, the airspace the Federal Aviation Administration monitors for commercial flights, space launches, and other aerial activity. Drones, sometimes called unmanned aerial systems, are also used to smuggle drugs and assist in criminal activity. Unauthorized UASs have increasingly shown up near some nuclear facilities, military bases, and commercial airports, raising concerns, too. The new executive order on airspace sovereignty aims to combat the problem, broadly charging federal agencies to detect drone activity, which will require the use of tracking and identification technology. The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every Monday-Friday afternoon. If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast  on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Spotify and YouTube.

Former employees of the General Services Administration's 18F digital tech consultancy team filed an appeal Wednesday challenging their alleged wrongful termination and the “targeted” shuttering of the program by the Trump administration's Department of Government Efficiency earlier this year. The employees, represented by the law firm Mehri & Skalet, submitted a class-action appeal with the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board to request a hearing and have their removal reversed. Former 18F leaders Lindsay Young, Miatta Myers, Christian Crumlish, James Tranovich and Kate Fisher are named as appellants, representing that larger class of about 80 terminated permanent and term employees from the team who served for more than a year. The group claims that GSA — along with the Office of Personnel Management, DOGE and the Office of Management and Budget — lacked a “valid reason … for the [reduction in force] targeting 18F” that took place Feb. 28, and claimed the action was a result of “retaliation.” Fannie Mae, the government-sponsored enterprise overseen by the Federal Housing Finance Agency, is enlisting data analytics giant Palantir in a new partnership aimed at cracking down on mortgage fraud. Under the agreement, Palantir's technology will be deployed to uncover fraud in mortgage packages before they reach Fannie Mae. Priscilla Almodovar, president and chief executive officer of Fannie Mae, said the tech will allow the organization “to see patterns quicker.” “We're going to be able to identify fraud more proactively, as opposed to reactively,” Almodovar said during a press conference Wednesday in Washington, D.C. “We're going to be able to understand the fraud and stop it in its tracks. And I think over time, this really becomes a deterrent for bad actors, because we're creating friction in the system when they do bad things.” FHFA Director Bill Pulte, who also serves as chairman of the Fannie Mae board, said the financial crimes division that monitors Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac “is only able to root out crime that it gets made aware of.” Palantir's red-flag approach, meanwhile, tips off those investigators to conduct probes they otherwise might not have known to launch.Almodovar recalled an exercise where Palantir's technology was given four actual loan files to assess. The tech, she said, scoured the “reams of paper” and identified instances of fraud in 10 seconds. The same exercise could take human investigators roughly two months. The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every Monday-Friday afternoon. If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast  on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Spotify and YouTube.

 Santi: Hi, this is a special episode of Statecraft. I've got a wonderful guest host with me today. Kyla Scanlon: Hey, I'm Kyla Scanlon! I'm the author of a book called In This Economy and an economic commentator. Santi: Kyla has joined me today for a couple reasons. One, I'm a big fan of her newsletter: it's about economics, among many other things. She had a great piece recently on what we can learn from C.S. Lewis's The Screwtape Letters, which is a favorite book of mine.Kyla's also on today because we're interviewing Wally Adeyemo, who was the Deputy Secretary of the Treasury in the Biden administration. We figured we each had questions we wanted answered.Kyla: Yeah, I've had the opportunity to interview Wally a couple times during the Biden administration, and I wanted to see where he thinks things are at now. He played a key role in implementing the Inflation Reduction Act, financial sanctions on Russia, and a whole bunch of other things.Santi: For my part, I'm stuck on Wally's role in setting up the IRS's Direct File program, where you can file your taxes for free directly through the IRS instead of paying TurboTax a hundred bucks to do it. “Good governance types” tend to love Direct File, but the current admin is thinking of killing it. I wanted to understand how the program got rolled out, how Wally would respond to criticisms of the program, and what he learned from building something in government, which now may disappear.Kyla, you've talked to Wally before. How did that conversation go? Kyla: I actually was able to go to his office in D.C., and I talked to a couple of key people in the Biden administration: Jared Bernstein, the former chair of the CEA, and Daniel Hornung, who was at the National Economic Council.We're talking to Wally on the day that the House passed the one big beautiful bill. There's also so much happening financially, like the bond market is totally rebelling against the US government right now. I'm really curious how he thinks things are, as a key player in the last administration.Santi: Wally, you've spent most of your career in Democratic Party institutions. You worked on the Kerry presidential campaign in 2004. You served in the Obama admin. You were the first chief of staff to the CFPB, the president of the Obama Foundation, and, most recently, Deputy Treasury Secretary in the Biden admin.30,000ft question: How do you see the Democratic Party today?My view is that we continue to be the party that cares deeply about working-class people, but we haven't done a good job of communicating that to people, especially when it comes to the things that matter most to them. From my standpoint, it's costs: things in America cost too much for a working-class family.I want to make sure I define working class: I think about people who make under $100,000 a year, many of whom don't own homes on the coast or don't own a significant amount of stocks (which means they haven't seen the asset appreciation that's led to a great deal of wealth creation over the last several decades). When you define it that way, 81% of Americans sit in that category of people. Despite the fact that they've seen their median incomes rise 5-10% over the last five years, they've seen the cost of the things they care about rise even faster.We haven't had a clear-cut agenda focused on the standard of living, which I think is the thing that matters most to Americans today.Santi: There are folks who would say the problem for Democrats wasn't that they couldn't communicate clearly, or that they didn't have a governing agenda, but that they couldn't execute their agenda the way they hoped to in the time available to them. Would you say there's truth to that claim?Most people talk about a communications issue, but I don't think it's a communications issue. There are two issues. One is an implementation issue, and the second is an issue of the actual substance and policy at the Treasury Department. I was the deputy secretary, but I was also the Chief Operating Officer, which meant that I was in charge of execution. The two most significant domestic things I had to execute were the American Rescue Plan, where $1.9 trillion flowed through the Treasury Department, and the Inflation Reduction Act. The challenge with execution in the government is that we don't spend a lot on our systems, on making execution as easy as possible.For example, the Advanced Child Tax Credit was intended to give people money to help with each of their children during the pandemic. What Congress called on us to do was to pay people on a monthly basis. In the IRS system, you pay your taxes mostly on an annual basis, which meant that most of our systems weren't set up to pay a monthly check to Americans. It took us a great deal of work to figure out a way to recreate a system just to do that.We've underinvested in the systems that the IRS works on. The last time we made a significant investment in the IRS's digital infrastructure was the 1960s; before we had an ATM machine, before we sent a man to the moon, before we had a personal computer. So that meant that everything was coded in a language called COBOL.So execution was quite hard in the American Rescue Plan. People were left out and felt that the government wasn't working for them. If you called the IRS, only 13% of your calls were being answered. We got that back up to 85% before we left. Ultimately, I think part of this is an execution challenge. In government we want to spend money coming up with new policies, but we don't want to pay for execution, which then means that when you get the policy passed, implementation isn't great.When Jen Pahlka was on your show, she talked about the need to focus on identifying the enablers to implementation. Direct File was one of the best examples of us taking implementation very seriously.But also, on some policy issues that mattered most to Americans, we weren't advancing the types of strategies that would've helped lower the cost of housing and lowering the cost of medicine. We did some things there, but there's clearly more that we could have done, and more we need to do going forward to demonstrate that we're fighting to bring down those costs. It's everything from permitting reform — not just at the federal level, but what can we do to incentivize it at the state and local level — to thinking about what we can do on drug costs. Why does it cost so much more to get a medicine in America than in Canada? That is something that we can solve. We've just chosen not to at the federal level.At the end of the year, we were going to take action to go after some of the middlemen in the pharmacy industry who were taking out rents and large amounts of money. It dropped out of the bill because of the negotiations between the Republican Congress and then President-elect Trump. But there are a lot of things that we can do both on implementation, which will mean that Americans feel the programs that we're passing in a more effective way, and policy solutions that we need to advance as a party that will help us as well.Kyla: Some people think Americans tend to vote against their own self-interest. How can your party message to people that these sorts of policies are really important for them?Ultimately, what I found is that most people just understand their self-interest differently, and for them, a big part of this was, “Who's fighting for me on the issues that I care most about?”From my standpoint, part of the problem we had with Direct File, which I think was an innovative solution, was that we got to implementing it so late in the administration that we didn't have the ability for it to show the impact. I'm hoping future administrations will think through how to start their implementation journey on things like Direct File sooner in the administration, when you have a great deal of political capital, so people can actually feel the impact over time.To your question, it's not just about the messaging, it's about the messenger. People tend to trust people who look like them, who come from the places they come from. When it came to the Child Tax Credit and also to Direct File, the biggest innovation wasn't the technology: the technology for Direct File has been used by the Australians, the British, and other countries for decades.The biggest innovation was us joining that technology with trusted people in communities who were going out to talk to people about those programs and building those relationships. That was something that the IRS hadn't done a great deal of. We invested a great deal in those community navigators who were helping us get people to trust the things the government was doing again, like the Child Tax Credit, like Direct File, so that they could use it.We often think that Washington is going to be able to give messages to the country that people are going to hear. But we're both in a more complicated media environment, where people are far more skeptical of things that come from people in Washington. So the best people to advocate for and celebrate the things that we're doing are people who are closer to the communities we're trying to reach. In product advertising today, more companies are looking to influencers to advertise things, rather than putting an ad on television, because people trust the people that they follow. The same is true for the things that we do in government.Santi: I've talked to colleagues of yours in the last administration who say things like, “In the White House, we did not have a good enough sense of the shot clock.” They point to various reasons, including COVID, as a reason the admin didn't do a good enough job of prioritization.Do you think that's true, that across the administration, there was a missing sense of the shot clock or a missing sense of prioritization? No, because I'm a Lakers fan. These are professionals. We're professionals. This is not our first rodeo. We know how much time is on the shot clock; we played this game. The challenge wasn't just COVID. For me at Treasury — and I think this is the coolest part of being Deputy Secretary of the Treasury — I had responsibilities domestic and international. As I'm trying to modernize the IRS, to invest all my time in making the system work better for customers and to collect more taxes from the people who owe money, Russia invades Ukraine. I had to turn a bunch of my attention to thinking about what we were going to do there. Then you have Hamas attacking Israel.There was more we should have done on the domestic end, but we have to remember that part of the presidency is: you get to do the things you want to do, but you also have to do the things you have to do. We had a lot of things we had to do that we weren't planning for which required all-of-the-administration responses.I think the most important lesson I've learned about that is that it comes down to both being focused on the things that matter, and being willing to communicate to the American people why your priorities have to change in light of things that happen in the world.But the people I'm sure you've talked to, most of them work on domestic policy alone, and they probably never have been in a National Security Council meeting, where you're thinking about the risks to the country. The president has to do both of those things. So I get how difficult it is to do that, just given where I sat at the Treasury Department.Santi: Looking back from an implementation perspective, are there things you would've done differently during your time at Treasury?The most important thing that I would've done differently was to immediately set up a permanent implementation and delivery unit in the Treasury Department. We always like to pretend like the Treasury Department is just a policy department where we make policy, we collect taxes. But in any crisis the country ever has, a great deal of responsibility — for execution or implementation of whatever the response is — falls to the Treasury Department. Think about the financial crisis, which is clearly something that's in the Treasury's domain. The vast majority of money for COVID flowed through the Treasury Department. You think about the IRA, a climate bill: the vast majority of that money flows through the Treasury Department.And Treasury doesn't have a dedicated staff that's just focused on implementation: How do we do this well? How do we make sure the right people are served? How do we make sure that we communicate this well? We did this to a degree by a team that was focused on the American Rescue Plan. But it was only focused on the American Rescue Plan. If I could start again, I would have said, “I want a permanent implementation structure within the Treasury Department of people who are cross-cutting, who only think about how we execute the policies that we pass through Congress and that we put together through an executive order. How do we do that extremely well?”Kyla: What you're talking about is very people-centric: How do we get an implementation team, and how do we make sure that the right people are doing the right jobs? Now we have DOGE, which is less people-centric. How do you reconcile what Doge is doing relative to what you would've done differently in this role that you had?As you would suspect, I wasn't excited about the fact we had lost the election, but initially I thought DOGE could be helpful with technology. I think marrying technology with people — that's the key to success for the government. We've never really been great at doing technology in the government.Part of the reason for that is a procurement process that is very slow because of how the federal acquisition rules work. What we are trying to do is prevent corruption and also waste, fraud, and abuse. But what that does is, it leads to slowness in our ability to get the technology on board that we need, and in getting the right people.I was hoping DOGE would bring in people who knew a great deal about technology and put us in a position where we could use that to build better products for the American people. I thought they would love Direct File, and that they would find ways to improve Direct File and expand it to more Americans.My view is that any American in the working class or middle class should not have to pay a company to file their taxes. We have the ability in this country, and I think Direct File was proving that. My goal, if we'd had more time, was to expand this to almost any American being able to use it. I thought they'd be able to accelerate that by bringing in the right people, but also the right technology. We were on that path before they took those two things apart.My sense is that you have to reform the way that we hire people because it's too hard to hire the right people. In some cases, you don't need some of the people you have today because technology is going to require different skills to do different things. It's easier to break something, I found, than it is to build something. I think that's what they're finding today as well.Santi: When I talk to left-of-center folks about the DOGE push, they tend to be skeptical about the idea that AI or modern technology can replace existing federal workers. I think some of that is a natural backlash to the extreme partisan coding of DOGE, and the fact that they're firing a lot of people very quickly. But what's your view? After DOGE, what kinds of roles would you like to see automated?Let me say: I disagree with the view that DOGE and technology can't replace some of the things that federal workers do today. My view is that “productivity enhancing” tech — it's not that it is going to make employees who are currently doing the job more productive. It is going to mean you need fewer employees. We have to be honest about that.Go to the IRS, for example. When I got there, we had a huge paper backlog at the IRS because, despite what most people think, millions of people still file their taxes by paper, and they send them to the IRS. And during the pandemic, the commissioner, who was then working for President Trump, decided to shut down the IRS for public health reasons — to make sure employees did not have to risk getting COVID.There were piles of paper backing up, so much so that they had filled cafeterias at the IRS facilities with huge piles of paper. The problem, of course, is that, unlike modern systems, you could not just machine-read those papers and put them into our systems. Much of that required humans to code those papers into the system by hand. There is no need in the 21st century for that to happen, so one of the things that we started to do was introduce this simple thing called scanning, where you would scan the papers — I know it sounds like a novel idea. That would help you get people's tax returns faster into the system, but also get checks out quickly, and allow us to see if people are underpaying their taxes, because we can use that data with a modern system. But over time, what would that mean? We'd need fewer people to enter the data from those forms.When we get money for the IRS from Congress, it is actually seen as revenue-raising because they expect it to bring down the debt and deficit, which is completely true. But the model Congress uses to do that is reliant on the number of full-time employees we hire. One challenge we have with the IRS — and in government systems in general — is that you don't get credit for technology investments that should improve your return on investment.So whenever we did the ROI calculations for the IRS, the Congressional Budget Office would calculate how much revenue we'd bring in, and it was always based on the number of people you had doing enforcement work that would lead to certain dollars coming in. So we got no credit for the technology investments. Which was absolutely the opposite of what we knew would be true: the more you invested in technology, the more likely you were to bring in more revenue, and you would be able to cut the cost of employees.Santi: If the CBO changed the way it scored technology improvements, would more Congresspeople be interested in funding technology?It is just a CBO issue. It's one we've tried to talk to them about over the last several years, but one where they've been unwilling to move. My view is that unlocking this will unlock greater investment in technology in a place like the IRS, because every dollar you invest in technology — I think — would earn back $10 in additional tax revenue we'd be able to collect from people who are skipping out on their taxes today. It's far more valuable to invest in that technology than to grow the number of employees working in enforcement at the IRS. You need both, but you can't say that a person is worth 5x their salary in revenue and that technology is worth 0. That makes no sense.Kyla: When we spoke about Direct File many months ago, people in my comment section were super excited and saying things like, “I just want the government to tell me how much money I owe.” When you think about the implementation of Direct File, what went right, and how do you think it has evolved?The thing that went right was that we proved that we could build something quite easily, and we built it ourselves, unlike many technology projects in government. We didn't go out and hire a bunch of consultants and contractors to do it. We did it with people at the IRS, but also with people from 18F and from GSA who worked in the government. We did it in partnership with a number of stakeholders outside the government who gave us advice, but the build was done by us.The reason that was important — and the reason it's important to build more things internally rather than hiring consulting firms or other people to build it — is that you then have the intellectual capital from building that, and that can be used to build other things. This was one product, but my view is that I want the IRS home page to one day look a lot more like the screen on your iPhone, so that you can click on the app on the IRS homepage that can help you, depending on what you need — if it's a Direct File, or if it's a tax transcript.By building Direct File internally, we were getting closer to that, and the user scores on the effectiveness of the tool and the ability to use it were through the roof. Even for a private sector company, it would've been seen as a great success. In the first year, we launched late in the filing season, mostly just to test the product, but also to build stakeholder support for it. In the limited release, 140,000 people used it. The average user said that before Direct File, it took them about 13 hours to file their taxes, and with Direct File, it took them just over an hour to file their taxes.But you also have to think about how much money the average American spends filing their taxes: about $200. That's $200 that a family making under $100,000 could invest in their kids, in paying some bills, rather than in filing their taxes.Even this year, with no advertising by the Trump administration of Direct File, we had more than 300,000 people use it. The user scores for the product were above 85%. The challenge, of course, is that instead of DOGE investing in improving the product — which was a place where you could have seen real intellectual capital go to work and make something that works for all Americans — they've decided to discontinue Direct File. [NB: There has been widespread reporting that the administration plans to discontinue Direct File. The GOP tax bill passed by the House would end Direct File if it becomes law. At the time of publication, the Direct File has not been discontinued.]The sad part is that when you think about where we are as a country, this is a tool that could both save people money, save people time, improve our ability to collect taxes, and is something that exists in almost every other developed economy. It makes no sense to me why you would end something like this rather than continue to develop it.Santi: People remember the failure of healthcare.gov, which crashed when it was rolled out all at once to everyone in the country. It was an embarrassing episode for the Obama administration, and political actors in that administration learned they had to pilot things and roll them out in phases.Is there a tension between that instinct — to test things slowly, to roll them out to a select group of users, and then to add users in following cycles — Is there a tension between that and trying to implement quickly, so that people see the benefit of the work you're doing?One of my bosses in the Obama administration was Jeff Zients, the person who was brought in to fix healthcare.gov. He relentlessly focused on execution. He always made the point that it's easy to come up with a strategy to some degree: you can figure out what the policy solution is. But the difference between good and great is how you execute against it. I think there is some tension there, but not as much as you would think.Once we were able to show that the pilot was a success, I got invited to states all over the country, like Maryland, to announce that they were joining Direct File the next year. These members of Congress wanted to do Direct File events telling people in their state, “This product that's worked so well elsewhere is coming to us next.” It gave us the ability to celebrate the success.I learned the lesson not just from Zients, but also from then-professor Elizabeth Warren, whom I worked for as chief of staff at the CFPB. One challenge we had at the CFPB was to build a complaint hotline, at that point mostly phone-operated, for people who were suffering. They said it would take us at least a year to build out all the product functions we need. We decided to take a modular approach and say, “How long would it take for us to build the system for one product? Let's try that and see how that works. We'll do a test.”It was successful, and we were able to use that to tell the story about the CFPB and what it would do, not just for mortgages, but for all these other products. We built user interest in the complaint hotline, in a way that we couldn't have if we'd waited to build the whole thing at once. While I think you're right that there is some tension between getting everyone to feel it right away and piloting; if the pilot is successful, it also gives you the opportunity to go out and sell this thing to people and say, “Here's what people who did the pilot are saying about this product.”I remember someone in Texas who was willing to do a direct-to-camera and talk about the ways that Direct File was so easy for them to use. It gets back to my point on message and messenger. Deputy Secretary Adeyemo telling you about this great thing the government did is one thing. But an American who looks like you, who's a nurse, who's a mom of two kids, telling you that this product actually worked for her: That's something that more people identify with.Healthcare.gov taught us the lesson of piloting and doing things in a modular way. This is what companies have been doing for decades. If it's worked for them, I think it can work for the government too.Santi: I'm a fan of Direct File, personally. I don't want this administration to kill it. But I was looking through some of the criticism that Direct File got: for instance, there's criticism about it rivaling the IRS Free File program, which is another IRS program that partners with nonprofits to help some folks file their taxes for free.Then there's this broader philosophical criticism: “I don't want the feds telling me how much I owe them.” The idea is that the government is incentivized to squeeze every last dollar out of you.I'm curious what you make of that, in part because I spoke recently to an American who worked on building e-government systems for Estonia. One of the things that has allowed Estonia to build cutting-edge digital systems in the government is that Estonia is a small and very high-trust society. Everybody's one degree of separation from everybody else.We're a much bigger and more diverse country. How do you think that affects the federal government's ability to build tools like Direct File?I think it affects it a lot, and it gets back to my point: not just the message but the messenger. I saw this not just with Direct File, but with the Advanced Child Tax Credit, which was intended to help kids who were living in poverty, but also families overall. What we found initially in the data was that, among families that didn't have to file taxes because they made too little, many of them were unwilling to take advantage of Direct File and the Advanced Child Tax Credit because they couldn't believe the government was doing something to just help them. I spent a lot of time with priests, pastors, and other community leaders in many of the communities where people were under-filing to try and get them to talk about this program and why it was something that they should apply for.One of the challenges we suffer from right now in America, overall, is a lack of trust in institutions. You have to really go local and try to rebuild that trust.That also speaks to taking a pilot approach that goes slower in some cases. Some of the criticism we got was, “Why don't you just fill out this form for us and then just send it to us, so that Direct File is just me pressing a button so I can pay my taxes?”Part of the challenge for us in doing that is a technology challenge: we are not there technologically. But the other problem is a trust problem. If I were to just fill out your taxes for you and send them to you, I think people, at this stage, would distrust the government and distrust the technology.Direct File had to be on a journey with people, showing people, “If I put in this information, it accurately sends me back my check.” As people develop more trust, we can also add more features to it that I think people will trust. But the key has to be: how do you earn that trust over time?We can't expect that if we put out a product that looks like something the Estonian government or Australia would put out, that people would trust it at this point. We have to realize that we are on a journey to regain the trust of the American people.The government can and will work for them, and Direct File was a part of that. We started to demonstrate that with that product because the people who used it in these communities became the spokespeople for it in a better way than I ever could be, than the Secretary or the President could be.Everyone knows that they need to pay their taxes because it's part of their responsibility living in this country. The things that make people the most upset is the fact that there are people who don't pay their taxes. We committed that we were going to go after them.The second frustration was: “Why do you make it so hard for me to pay my taxes? Why can't I get through to you on the phone line? Why do I have to pay somebody else to do my taxes?” Our goal was to solve those two problems by investing money and going after the people who just decided they weren't going to pay, but also by making it as easy as possible for you to pay your taxes and for most people, to get that tax refund as quickly as possible.But doing that was about going on a journey with people, about regaining their trust in an institution that mattered to them a great deal because 90 something-percent of the money that funds our government comes in through the IRS.Kyla: You have a piece out in Foreign Affairs called “Make Moscow Pay,” and what I found most interesting about that essay is that you said Europe needs to step it up because the United States won't. Talk through the role of Treasury in financial sanctions, and your reasons for writing this piece.People often think about the Treasury Department as doing a few things. One is working with Wall Street; another one is collecting your taxes. Most people don't think about the fact that the Treasury Department is a major part of the National Security Committee, because we have these tools called financial sections.They use the power of the dollar to try and change the behavior of foreign actors who are taking steps that aren't consistent with our national security interests. A great example of this is what we did with regard to Russia — saying that we're going to cut off Russian banks from the US financial system, which means that you can't transact in US dollars.The problem for any bank that can transact in dollars is that the backbone of most of the financial world is built on the US dollar. It increases their cost, it makes it more difficult for them to transact, and makes it harder for them to be part of the global economy, nearly impossible.And that's what we've done in lots of cases when it comes to Russia. We have financial sanction programs that touch all over the world, from Venezuela to Afghanistan. The US government, since 9/11, has used sanctions as one of its primary tools of impacting foreign policy. Some of them have gone well, some of them I think haven't gone as well, and there's a need for us to think through how we use those policies.Santi: What makes sanctions an effective tool? Positions on sanctions don't line up neatly on partisan lines. Sanctions have a mixed track record, and you'll have Republicans who say sanctions have failed, and you'll have Democrats say sanctions have been an effective tool, and vice versa.The way I think about sanctions is that they are intended to bring change, and the only way that they work is that they're part of an overarching foreign policy strategy. That type of behavior change was what we saw when Iran came to the table and wanted to negotiate a way to reduce sanctions in exchange for limits on their nuclear program. That's the type of behavior change we're trying to accomplish with sanctions, but you can't do it with sanctions alone. You need a foreign policy strategy. We didn't do it by the United States confronting Iran; we got our allies and partners to work together with us. When I came into office in 2021, Secretary Yellen asked me to do a review of our sanctions policies — what's worked, what hasn't — because it had been 20 years since the 9/11 attacks.And the most important lesson I learned was that the sanctions programs that were the most effective were the ones we did on a multilateral basis — so we did it with our friends and allies. Part of the reason for this is that while the dollar is the most dominant currency around the world, oftentimes if you can't do something in dollars, you do it in a euro, or you do it in a Japanese yen, or pound sterling.The benefit of having allies all over the world is that the dominant, convertible currencies in the world are controlled by allies and partners. When we acted together with them, we were more effective in curtailing the economic activity of our adversary, and our pressure is more likely to lead to them changing their behavior.We had to be very cautious about collateral damage. You might be targeting an individual, but by targeting that individual, you might make it harder for a company they're affiliated with to continue doing business, or for a country that they're in to get access to banking services. Let's say that you're a huge bank in America, and you're worried about sanctions risk in a small country where you do little business. Why not pull out, rather than having to put in place a huge compliance program? One of the challenges that we have is that the people who make the decisions about whether to extend sanctions don't necessarily spend a lot of time thinking about some of these economic consequences of the sanctions approach.Whenever I was around the table and we were making a decision about using weapons, there was a process that was very elaborate that ended up with something going to the president. You'd often think about kinetic force very seriously, because you were going to have to get the president to make a decision. We didn't always take that kind of rigor when it came to thinking about using our sanctions policy, but the impact on the lives of people in these countries was just as significant for their access to not only money, but to food and to the resources they needed to live.Santi: What do you make of the effectiveness of the initial sanctions on Russia after the invasion of Ukraine? I've heard mixed reviews from folks inside and outside the Biden administration.Sanctions, again, to my point, are only a tool. They've had to be part of a larger strategy, and I think those sanctions were quite effective. I think the saving grace for the Russians has been the fact that China has largely been able and willing to give them access to the things they need to continue to perpetuate.There was a choice for Ukraine, but when you think about Russia's economy today vs. Russia's economy before the sanctions were put in place, it's vastly different. Inflation in Russia still runs far higher than inflation anywhere else in the world. If you were a Russian citizen, you would feel the impacts of sanctions.The challenge, of course, is that it hasn't changed Vladimir Putin's behavior or the behavior of the Kremlin, largely because they've had access to the goods and supplies they need from China, Iran, and North Korea. But over time, it means Russia's economy is becoming less competitive. They have less access to resources; they're going to struggle.I think everyone hoped that sanctions would immediately change the calculus of the Kremlin, but we've never seen that to be the case. When sanctions are effective, they take time, because the economic consequences continue to compound over time, and they have to be part of a larger strategy for the behavior of the individual. That's why I wrote the article, because while the Kremlin and Russia are under pressure, their view is that ultimately the West is going to get tired of supporting Ukraine, financially and politically, because the economic consequences for us — while not as significant as for Moscow or for Kiev — have been quite significant, when you think about the cost of living issues in Europe.I think it's important to write this now, when it appears that Russia is stalling on negotiations, because ultimately, US financial support is waning. We just know that the Trump administration is not willing to put more money into Ukraine, so Europe is going to have to do more, at a time when their economic situation is quite complicated as well.They've got a lot to do to build up their economy and their military-industrial base. Asking them to also increase their support for Ukraine at the same time is going to be quite difficult. So using this money that Russia owes to Ukraine — because they owe them compensation at this moment — can be quite influential in helping support the Ukrainians, but also changing Russia's calculus with regard to the ability of Ukraine to sustain itself.Kyla: On CNBC about a month ago, you said if we ever have a recession over the next couple of months or so, it would be a self-inflicted one. Do you still resonate with that idea? To build on the point I was making, the economy has done quite well over the course of the first few months of the year, largely because of the strength of the consumer, where our balance sheets are still quite strong. Companies in America have done well. The biggest headwind the US economy faces has been self-inflicted by the tariffs the president has put on. Part of what I still do is talk to CEOs of companies, big and small. Small businesses feel the impact of this even more than the big businesses. What they tell me is that it's not just the tariffs and the fact that they are making it more expensive for them to get the goods that they need, but it's the uncertainty created by the off-again, on-again, nature of those tariffs that makes it impossible for them to plan for what supplies they're going to get the next quarter. How are they going to fulfill their orders? What employees are they going to need? It's having a real impact on the performance of these companies, but also their ability to hire people and plan for the future.If you go to the grocery store, you're going to start seeing — and you're starting to see already — price increases. The thing that Americans care most about is, the cost of living is just too high. You're at the grocery store, as you're shopping for your kids for the summer, you're going to see costs go up because of a self-imposed tax we've put in place. So I still do think that if we do find ourselves in a recession, it's going to be because of the tariffs we've put in place.Even if we don't enter a technical recession, what we're seeing now is that those tariffs are going to raise the cost for people when they go out to buy things. It's going to raise the cost of building homes, which is going to make it harder for people to get houses, which is ultimately going to have an impact on the economy that isn't what I think the president or anyone wants at this point.Kyla: Is there anything else we haven't asked about? I think the place where we continue, as a country, to struggle is that, given the federal system we have, many of these problems aren't just in Washington — they're in state and local governments as well. When you think about the challenges to building more housing in this country, you can't just solve it by doing things at the federal level. You have to get state and local governments unified in taking a proactive approach. Part of this has to be not just financial or regulatory from the federal government, but we have to do more things that force state and local governments to get out of the way of people being able to build more housing. I think that the conversations that you've had on your show, and the conversations we're having in government, need to move past our regular policy conversations of: “Should we do more on LIHTC? Should we try to fix NEPA?” Those, to me, are table stakes, and we're in the middle of what I'd say is a generational crisis when it comes to housing. We have to be willing to treat it like a crisis, rather than what I think we've done so far, which is take incremental steps at different levels to try and solve this. That's one thing that I wanted to make sure that I said, because I think it's the most important thing that we can do at the moment.Kyla: Absolutely. During your time there, the Treasury was doing so much with zoning reform, with financial incentives. What I really liked about our last conversation was how much you talked about how important it is that workers can live close to work. Are you optimistic that we will be able to address the problem, or do you think we are sinking into quicksand?I'd say a little bit of both, and the thing that I'm doing now is getting hyperlocal. One of the projects I'm working on in my post-administration life is I'm working with 15 churches in D.C., where they have vacant land and want to use it to build affordable housing as quickly as possible.I'm learning that even when you have the land donated for free and you're willing to work as quickly as possible, it's still quite hard because you have regulations and financial issues that often get in the way of building things. Part of what we have to do now is just launch as many natural experiments as possible to see what works.What I've learned already from this lived experience is that even cities that are trying to get out of the way and make it easier to build housing struggle because of what you all know to be true, which is that the local politics of this is quite complicated. Oftentimes, the way that you get them over the line is by creating incentives or disincentives.In the past, I talked a lot about incentives in terms of “giving people money to do things.” I'm now in favor of “not giving money to people who don't do things” — if you don't take steps to fix your zoning, some of the federal money that you regularly get is not coming to your jurisdiction. I'm going to reallocate that money to places that are doing this activity. I think we have to take those types of radical steps.It's similar to what we did with the Emergency Rental Assistance Program, where if you didn't spend your money, we could take your money back and reallocate it to people who were giving away emergency rental assistance money.That motivates people a lot — when they feel like something's going to be taken away from them. I'm of the view that we have to find more radical things that we can do to get housing built. If we don't, costs will continue to rise faster than people's incomes.Santi: Wally, I have to ask after that point you just made: did you read the paper by my colleague Chris Elmendorf on using LIHTC funds? The idea is to re-allocate those federal funds away from big, expensive cities and into other places in a state, if the cities don't commit to basic zoning reforms.I completely agree with him, and I think I would go even further than just LIHTC money. I would reallocate non-housing money as well, because from my standpoint, if you think about the most important issue for a family, it's being able to find housing that is affordable near their place of work and where their kids go to school. I said that on purpose. I didn't say “affordable housing.” I said “housing that is affordable,” because affordable housing is, in lots of ways, targeted towards a population of people who need it the most. But for even people who are middle income in this country, it crowds out their ability to pay for other things when housing costs continue to creep higher.The only way we solve that problem is if you get rid of restrictive zoning covenants and fix permitting. The natural thing that every city and state is thinking about right now is throwing more money at the problem. There's going to need to be money here, just in light of some of the headwinds, but it's going to be more costly and less effective if we don't fix the underlying issues that are making it hard to build housing where we want it.Right now in California, we're having a huge debate over what we do with infill housing in urban areas. A simple solution — you don't have to do another environmental review if one was already done in this area— is taking months to work through the California legislature, which demonstrates that we're going too slow. California's seeing an exodus of people. I just talked to a CEO who said, “I'm moving my business because the people who work for me can't afford to live in California anymore.” This is the kind of problem that you can solve. State legislatures, Congress, and executives have to get together and take some radical steps to make it easier to build housing.I appreciate what you said about what we were doing at Treasury, but from my standpoint, I wish we had done more earlier to focus on this issue. We had a lot going on, but fundamentally, the most important thing on housing is taking a step to try and build housing today, which is going to have an impact on the economy 10, 20, 30 years from now. We just have to start doing that as soon as possible.Thanks to Emma Hilbert for her transcript and audio edits. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.statecraft.pub

What would you do if your child or friend was dating someone just about 3 times their age!?

Wes Hightower is a currently operational SF 18F and through his training company, Rally Point Security and Training he offers a multitude of courses. In this episdoe which aired a few months ago but had to be taken down for reasons beyond Wes' control. There is no classified info or Opsec in the episode but is full of actionable Information! Wes and Rally Point ST is also a new sponsor for the show and I am honored to have him and his support for the podcast!  Later this week a previously recorded, but unaired episode with Wes will also be up! Ypu can find our new sponsor, Rally Point ST and Wes' course work here https://rallypointst.com You can find the show website here, https://www.thedistinguishedsavage.com You can find our sponsor Absolute Security and Lock here http://absolutesecurityandlock.com You can find more info on Mountain Readiness here https://www.mountainreadiness.com The views, information, and opinions expressed in this podcast are solely those of the host and guest speakers and do not necessarily represent those of any associated organizations, employers, or sponsors. The opinions and views shared do not reflect the positions of our sponsors or their affiliated companies. This podcast is for entertainment and informational purposes only and should not be considered professional advice in any field including but not limited to legal, medical, financial, or technical matters. All content is provided "as is" without warranties of any kind. We make reasonable efforts to ensure accuracy but cannot guarantee that all information presented is correct, complete, or up-to-date. Listeners should verify any critical information independently. Guest opinions belong to them alone. Our interviews with various individuals do not constitute endorsement of their views, products, or services. By listening to this podcast, you agree that we are not responsible for any decisions you make based on the information provided. Please consult with qualified professionals before making important decisions related to your health, finances, or legal matters. This podcast may contain explicit language or mature themes. Listener discretion is advised. © 2025 The Distinguished Savage, Savage Concepts LLC

Hillary Hartley, the former Chief Digital Officer of Ontario and former Co-Founder and Deputy Executive Director at 18F, and David Eaves, Associate Professor of Digital Government and Co-Deputy Director of the Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose at University College London, join Kevin Frazier, AI Innovation and Law Fellow at Texas Law and Contributing Editor at Lawfare, to discuss the recent closure of 18F, a digital unit within the GSA focused on updating and enhancing government technological systems and public-facing digital services. Hillary and David also published a recent Lawfare article on this topic, “Learning from the Legacy of 18F.”To receive ad-free podcasts, become a Lawfare Material Supporter at www.patreon.com/lawfare. You can also support Lawfare by making a one-time donation at https://givebutter.com/lawfare-institute.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Lyssna till dagens predikan av Magnus TunehagDagens texter:Andra Moseboken 16:11-18Första Petrusbrevet 2:1-3Johannesevangeliet 6:24-35

Paris Marx is joined by Kate Green and Milo to discuss how Elon Musk's DOGE is dismantling the US Digital Service and the consequences that has on really improving service delivery in government.Kate Green and Milo are former US Digital Service engineers.Tech Won't Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Support the show on Patreon.The podcast is made in partnership with The Nation. Production is by Eric Wickham.Also mentioned in this episode:Find out more about We The Builders and read perspectives of federal workers.USDS workers have resigned en masse from DOGE, and Musk's agency has fired many of those who haven't left.The General Services Administration has also cut the 18F technology team, and has been doing mass layoffs at the Technology Transformation Service. Support the show

This week in Portland startup news, Ampere eyes a big exit, GeekWire considers an award for Jama's big exit, and the shuttering of 18F creates a positive tech movement in Portland. Let's get into it…PORTLAND STARTUP LINKS- Ampere acquired by SoftBank https://amperecomputing.com/press/softbank-group-to-acquire-ampere-computing- Vote for Portland's Jama in the GeekWire Awards https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/2025AwardsVoting- TiE Oregon Westside Pitch https://www.tieoregon.org/pitch-oregon/westside-pitch- 18F https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/18F- Portland Digital Corps https://digitalcorpspdx.org/- Vancouver Washington startup incubator https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5R4PY7lRWU- Goodbye Genie, Hello Rides https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/we-built-ai-companion-kids-entertained-thousands-every-monsef-8kg1c/PORTLAND OREGON STARTUP NEWS00:00 Portland Oregon startup news00:15 Build Week with Vanport Studio and Instrument01:45 Ampere Computing acquired for $6.5 billion05:50 Jama exit up for GeekWire Awards09:45 TiE Oregon Westside Pitch12:15 18F shuttering creates Portland win18:20 A startup incubator in Vancouver Washington19:50 Darius Monsef launches new startupFIND RICK TUROCZY ON THE INTERNET AT…- https://patreon.com/turoczy- https://linkedin.com/in/turoczy- https://bsky.app/profile/turoczy.bsky.social- https://siliconflorist.substack.com/ABOUT SILICON FLORIST ----------For nearly two decades, Rick Turoczy has published Silicon Florist, a blog, newsletter, and podcast that covers entrepreneurs, founders, startups, entrepreneurship, tech, news, and events in the Portland, Oregon, startup community. Whether you're an aspiring entrepreneur, a startup or tech enthusiast, or simply intrigued by Portland's startup culture, Silicon Florist is your go-to source for the latest news, events, jobs, and opportunities in Portland Oregon's flourishing tech and startup scene. Join us in exploring the innovative world of startups in Portland, where creativity and collaboration meet.ABOUT RICK TUROCZY ----------Rick Turoczy has been working in, on, and around the Portland, Oregon, startup community for nearly 30 years. He has been recognized as one of the “OG”s of startup ecosystem building by the Kauffman Foundation. And he has been humbled by any number of opportunities to speak on stages from SXSW to INBOUND and from Kobe, Japan, to Muscat, Oman, including an opportunity to share his views on community building on the TEDxPortland stage (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cj98mr_wUA0). All because of a blog. Weird.https://siliconflorist.com#pdx #portland #oregon #startup #entrepreneur

Vi är tillbaka med en Ramadan special – denna gång med ingen mindre än projektledarna bakom det uppmärksammade mosképrojektet i Rinkeby.I detta avsnitt djupdyker vi i historien bakom moskébygget och utforskar varför det har tagit tid att förverkliga projektet sedan den första insamlingen. Under avsnittet passar vi även på att ställa de mest förekommande frågorna om projektetDu kan stötta moskébygget i Järva genom att swisha till:123 395 86 18Följ moskébygget på Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/ikcr_officiell/Hemsida: https://www.islamiskakulturcenter.se/Glöm inte att följa oss på Spotify, Apple Podcasts och SoundCloud.Prenumerera på vår YouTube kanal @islampodden och följ oss även på Instagram @islampodden för att hålla er uppdaterade. 

Mike talks with Stephen Harrison about why authoritarian governments hate Wikipedia and Georgia talks with Kyle Chayka about how to have fun on the internet. Also: Kidpix!–Become a Never Post member at https://www.neverpo.st/ for access to extended and bonus segments, and our side shows like “Slow Post”, “Posts from the Field” and “Never Watch”–Call us at 651 615 5007 to leave a voicemailDrop us a voice memo via airtableOr email us at theneverpost at gmail dot comSee what interstitials we need submissions for–Intro Linksubuweb.comPoetica: Three Sound Poets: Jaap Blonk, Amanda Stewart, Christian Bok (2014)), ubuweb.comSkilled technologists are being forced out of government, Don MoynihanGSA eliminates 18F, NextGovDoppelgänger: New disinformation campaigns spreading on social media through Russian networks, IntrinsecNEW REPORT: Russian propaganda may be flooding AI models, American Sunlight ProjectKevin Rose, Alexis Ohanian acquire Digg, TechCrunch–Authoritarians vs WikipediaCensorship of Wikipedia, Wikipedia.orgFind Stephen:SourcenotesStephen's novel, The EditorsStephen on Bluesky–Are We Having Fun Yet?Find Kyle: Twitter Bluesky InstagramKyle at The New YorkerTitanium Daydream (also on YouTube and Instagram) Read Kyle's book Filterworld: How Algorithms Flattened Culture–Never Post's producers are Audrey Evans, Georgia Hampton and The Mysterious Dr. Firstname Lastname. Our senior producer is Hans Buetow. Our executive producer is Jason Oberholtzer. The show's host is Mike Rugnetta.Oh! to be almost loquaciousRather than fatally overloquacity's edgeExcerpt of #36 the-faux-ailing-abacus by Wayne KoestenbuamNever Post is a production of Charts & Leisure ★ Support this podcast ★

Early in the morning on March 1, without notice, the General Services Administration eliminated its 18F program, what was an internal team of tech consultants and engineers that developed open-source tools to improve digital services across the federal government. Just short of its 11th birthday, 18F had grown to be a staple in the federal government's digital services development and acquisition space. Now when you type in "18F.gov" to visit its website, you're met with an error message. The team has been completely wiped from the face of the federal government. GSA hasn't given much reasoning for the termination. Thomas Shedd, head of the agency's Technology Transformation Services organization that housed 18F, said during a town hall last week that the decision was based purely on its reported cashflow struggles and that it hadn't been cost-recoverable. Dan Tangherlini, former GSA administrator when 18F was founded, joins the Daily Scoop to share his thoughts on what 18F meant to good government, the legacy of the organization, and how GSA will continue to serve as the federal government's center of tech excellence without this key team moving forward. Roughly a month after being replaced as acting CIO of the Department of Energy, Principal Deputy CIO Dawn Zimmer is now back serving in the department's top IT role, multiple sources familiar with the change confirmed to FedScoop. Zimmer is filling the CIO position for the second time since Inauguration Day after Ryan Riedel briefly took on the role overseeing the department's $4.3 billion IT portfolio in early February. As FedScoop first reported, Zimmer returned to her primary role as principal deputy CIO at Energy when Riedel, previously a network engineer at Elon Musk-owned SpaceX, was appointed to the CIO role. She took over the acting CIO role after Biden administration Energy CIO Ann Dunkin stepped down at the change of administrations. It's unclear why Riedel departed the role after just over a month. The Energy Department did not return questions about his short tenure. President Donald Trump nominated Sean Plankey to head the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency on Tuesday, the last major piece to fall into place for cybersecurity leadership in his administration. Plankey served in the first Trump administration, holding a few posts with cyber responsibilities. He was the principal deputy assistant secretary for the Energy Department's Office of Cybersecurity, Energy Security and Emergency Response in 2019 and 2020. Before that he was director of cyber policy at the National Security Council, starting in 2018. He has most recently been at the global cybersecurity advisory company WTW. Plankey was briefly under consideration in 2020 to lead the agency he's now nominated to be director of after Trump forced Chris Krebs out of the role. He had long been thought to be Trump's pick this time around, too. The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every Monday-Friday afternoon. If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast  on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Spotify and YouTube.

US Gov Shuts Down Tech Unit, Chinese AI Exploits, Microsoft Outage: Hashtag Trending Updates In today's episode of Hashtag Trending, host Jim Love dives into the abrupt closure of the US government tech unit 18F by the GSA and billionaire Mark Cuban's offer to support former employees in forming a new consulting firm. The episode also covers China's AI advancements, including DeepSeek's release of the 3FS high-performance parallel file system and the upcoming R2 AI reasoning model. Additionally, Microsoft faces another outage due to a problematic code update, impacting thousands of users. Stay tuned for all these updates and more! 00:00 Introduction and Headlines 00:23 Mark Cuban's Offer to 18F Employees 02:51 DeepSeek's AI Innovations Amid US Sanctions 05:49 Microsoft 365 Outage and Its Implications 07:20 Conclusion and Sign-Off

The General Services Administration has eliminated its 18F program, an internal team of tech consultants and engineers that develops open-source tools to improve digital services across the federal government. The announcement, which came over the weekend, is the latest in the Trump administration's ongoing efforts to slash the federal workforce. The move was foreshadowed weeks ago when Elon Musk, who's become become the figurehead for the Trump administration's slashing of government programs and the federal workforce, tweeted that the decade-old program had been “deleted.” Early Saturday morning, Thomas Shedd — a mechanical engineer and former Tesla employee recently appointed as the director of GSA's Technology Transformation Services, which houses 18F — announced the program had been eliminated as part of the ongoing reduction-in-force effort, according to an email viewed by FedScoop. A GSA spokesperson also confirmed the terminations to FedScoop on Saturday, writing in an email that members of the 18F office were notified that they had been identified as part of GSA's Reduction in Force and reorganization plan and were being separated from federal service. The top-10 highest-paid consulting firms contracting with the federal government are set to make “$65 billion in fees” in 2025 and beyond, the General Services Administration says. But according to the agency's acting leader, that “needs to, and must, change.” GSA acting Administrator Stephen Ehikian issued last week a memo, obtained by FedScoop, calling for the termination of contracts with those top-contracted consultants: Deloitte Consulting LLP, Accenture Federal Services LLC, General Dynamics IT, Booz Allen Hamilton, Leidos, Guidehouse, Hill Mission Technologies Corp., Science Applications International Corp., CGI Federal and IBM. Ehikian wrote in the memo dated Feb. 26 sent to senior procurement officers: “Consistent with the goals and directives of the Trump administration to eliminate waste, reduce spending, and increase efficiency, the U.S. General Services Administration has taken the first steps in a Government-wide initiative to eliminate non-essential consulting contracts.” By March 7, agencies are asked to provide a list of contracts with the 10 firms that they intend to terminate as well as those they will maintain. The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every Monday-Friday afternoon. If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast  on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Spotify and YouTube.

Wes Hightower is a currently operational Special Forces soldier, 18F or Intel specialist, and also has a training company Rally PointST. He is a wealth of knowledge and is everything you think of in an SF guy, smart, cool under, pressure, highly knowledgable, and highly capable.  In this converation we get in to the training he offers through his training company, as well as his personal EDC and recommendations, tips on digital and personal security, and his thoughts on possible upcoming terrorist attacks on US soil.  You can find all things Wes here https://rallypointst.com You can find the show sponsor, Absolute Security and Lock here http://www.absolutesecurityandlock.com You can find the Sig P365 lower Wes mentioned here https://www.icarusprecision.com You can find the lite Wes referenced here https://flashlight.nitecore.com/product/edc23 as well as Amazon.  You can find the snakestaffsystems tourniquet and holder here https://www.snakestaffsystems.com You can find the Radio Contra podcast here https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/radio-contra/id1568575640   No financial affiliations in these links and recommendations. 

Reddit rSlash Storytime r entitledparents Mom refuses to work and continues to ask me for money My mom said she'd kill me and give herself in to the police My mom isn't happy with my wedding plans 19M guys south asian parents wont allow him to be with me 18F. thoughts on what next? My dad told me I could die for all he cares "You don't look Japanese!" Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Look at us getting you your new episode on time for your commute! I'm proud of us! Happy Tuesday, y'all! This one is a rollercoaster of emotions and a lot of open and shut cases, but that doesn't mean we don't get to have a great discussion about it!! Come one, come all, to the messiest show on the internet!We're hopping in these threads:Me(20 M) and my gf (18F) had a fight due to her obsession with her ex and she somehow thinks I am just being insecure. I need advice as to how exactly I should solve this problem or like is this relationship just done for?I (32f) think that I have to break up with my fiancé (35m) after he embarrassed me in public over a sandwichMy partner 25M and i 24F have broken up but he still wants to remain friends and i was wondering if anyone has an ex to friends to lovers again story?What if I (M18) feel uncomfortable that my gf (F18) told me she wants to get passed around?Thanks for listening!Socials: @ourrelationshippod on IG, Ify is @ifynwadiwe on Twitter and IG, Emmy is @ohmyemilylouise on IG Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/OurRelationshipPodcastwithIfyandEmilyEmail: ourrapodcast@gmail.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Department of Commerce's Tech Hubs program, a key initiative supported by the CHIPS and Science Act, aims to bolster federal research and innovation in emerging technologies, especially in areas outside major cities. Senior Biden administration officials discussed the program's impact during a call announcing 12 new initiatives that will receive funding. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo emphasized the need to decentralize the tech ecosystem, noting that 90% of new tech jobs have been concentrated in just five cities over the past two decades. Key focus areas for these Tech Hubs include uncrewed aerial systems, IT, semiconductors, high-performance materials, and grid resilience systems. Among the recent grant recipients are the Elevate Quantum TechFund in Colorado and the Wisconsin Biohealth TechHub. In other news, the General Services Administration (GSA) has announced a request for proposals for the Alliant 3 Governmentwide Acquisition Contract, notable for its unprecedented no-ceiling dollar amount. This contract seeks to cover a broad range of IT services, including AI, biometrics, quantum computing, and more, with a focus on emerging technologies. Greg Godbout and Noah Kunin, former leaders of the GSA's 18F digital team, join The Daily Scoop Podcast host Billy Mitchell to discuss their new initiative, info2insight. This open-source community aims to foster data-driven decision-making in government and accelerate the adoption of data analytics. They highlight the progress in government digital services and the need to pivot towards data analytics to manage the increasing information from AI and ML technologies. They share their vision for info2insight as a collaborative platform for civil servants, private-sector technologists, and academics to drive better governance through data insights.

Victor Udoewa is Service Design Lead  for the CDC (centers for Disease Control and Prevention). Prior to this role, Victor was Chief Technology Officer, Chief experience Officer and Service Design Lead at NASA. Prior to NASA, Victor served as the Director of Strategy at 18F, a civic consultancy for the federal government inside the federal government. Previously, as a Global Education Instructional Designer and Training Development Specialist at Google, he designed learning experiences and learning software for people in low-to-middle-income countries around the world. In this episode, Victor shared with us his "non-linear" journey to being a service designer: from being a teacher to working with USAID and then Google and NASA while being a health crisis and trauma counsellor. He shares the different definitions of service design and contrasts them with his perspective and practice in the public sector. He then explains why he talks about radical participatory design (rather than participatory design) and introduces us to relational design and pluriversal design. To learn more about Victor's work, follow him on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/udoewa/ You can also read some of his academic papers: Introduction to Radical Participatory Design: Decolonizing Participatory Design Processes  Radical Participatory Design: The Awareness of Participation Relational Design  Credits: Conception, host and production: Anne-Laure Fayard Sound design & Post-production: Claudio Silva Music & Art Work: Guilhem Tamisier

Series: Guard the TreasureTitle: What matters most: character on competency? Scripture: 2 Timothy 2:20-26 NIVBottom line: Honorable vessels are used for honorable purposes. People with Christlike character will be used by God for kingdom purposes.INTRODUCTIONCONTEXTSERMON OUTLINECONCLUSIONNOTESQUESTIONS TO CONSIDER OUTLINESDISCUSSION QUESTIONSMAIN REFERENCES USEDINTRODUCTIONI remember in the early 90's, in the wake of the Monica Lewinsky scandal, the argument about whether or not President Clinton's character mattered regarding him being able to lead the country. One argument is that we're not electing him to be our pastor or priest but our president. This doesn't have to be an either-or argument, first of all. Competency (skillfulness) matters, of course. But the case that Paul makes here is that in ministry, character is paramount. It's essential. I'm making the case that it's paramount in all leadership. While I realize that there are some jobs that it matters less in, I think we still underestimate its importance. Some would say do you want a surgeon with competency or character? Well, for starters, again, it's not an either-or. I want both. But I think when dealing with life and death decisions in the moment I want someone with character that does the right thing every time. (At least strives for this) There are many ways that a doctor can be tempted to compromise on the operating table for their own benefit instead of for the person on the table. And the President is certainly making moral and ethical judgments every day in that job. Yes, character matters most. It's not really close. CONTEXTPaul makes the point here with Timothy (regarding guarding the treasure) that character doesn't just matter for those in ministry but it's everything! (Hughes)The making of his vessel/person requires a radical cleansing (purifying), so it can be used for honorable purposes.The maintenance of his instrument involves intense flight and intense following—flight from youthful passions, impatience, quarreling, and harshness and the pursuit of profound virtues. The ministry of his vessel must not be quarrelsome but pastoral—kind to all, teaching, enduring evil, gently correcting. The hope of such a servant is the eternal blessing of his enemies. (Hughes)Bottom line: Honorable vessels are used for honorable purposes. People with Christlike character will be used by God for kingdom purposes.SERMON Outline heavily influenced by Kent Hughes (see below)I. The Making of a Noble Instrument (20-21) or How we get clean. A. Honorable/noble/special articles/utensils/instruments—Believers in good standing with the Lord. When these cleanse themselves from the dishonorable, GodHonors themSets them apart (sanctifies)Makes them usefulPrepares them (makes them ready for use)B. Dishonorable/ignoble/common instruments—non-believers and false teachers within the church far from the LordII. The Maintaining of an Instrument for Noble Purposes (22) or How we stay clean.Flee the evil desires of youthPursueRighteousnessFaithLovePeaceAlong with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart (therefore, remain at peace here too)III. The Ministry of a Noble Instrument (23-26) or How we serve the Lord cleanly.Don't have stupid arguments, leads to fightsLord's Servant must Not be quarrelsomeBe kind to everyoneAble to teach (rebuke, correct, train)Able to be treated wickedly without resentmentGently instruct/correct opponents with the goal RepentanceLeading to knowledge of that truthWhy? So that they will escape traps and gladly submit to the LordCONCLUSIONLast week we talked about how to shepherd well. (2 Tim 2:14-19) This requires Christlike character, for sure. “I watched the father who sat in front of us today (in church) manage his squirrelly kids by not reprimanding them, but rearranging the seating so he was sitting in the middle of them, and they all just leaned into him and relaxed, and there's just a whole sermon there.” @GretchenRonnevikIt's unlikely that these children would relax this way if this father didn't have Christlike character. They felt safe with him. This is the fruit of Christlike character. It makes us better shepherds.(I would add that sometimes 2 parents tackle this differently. The point is that the kids relaxed and submitted when they felt loved with boundaries.)Bottom line: Pastors, elders and deacon teams should take note here on how to lead the church in ministry.Churches should pray for, care for, and provide for their leaders as they engage this essential work.We should all seek to lead our spiritual household (oikos) well shepherding the flock under our care starting with ourselves and moving to the ends of the eart.What is God saying to me right now?What am I going to do about it? Write this down on a sheet of paper. What I hear you saying, Lord, is ___________________.[my name] is going to believe/do __________________________________________________ as a result.Finally, share this with your Home or Mission group this week when you gather as a testimony about what God is doing in your life. You don't have to get too specific to give him praise.PrayNOTESGangreneOkay, I'll try to explain gangrene in a way that's easy to understand for a middle school student.Gangrene is a serious condition that can happen when part of your body doesn't get enough blood supply. Blood carries oxygen and nutrients that all parts of your body need to stay healthy and alive.Imagine your body is like a house plant. If you don't water the plant, it will start to wilt and die. That's kind of what happens with gangrene. If an area of your body isn't getting enough blood flow, the cells in that area start to die off.There are a few different reasons why blood flow might get blocked or reduced:1) An injury that damages blood vessels and cuts off circulation.2) Diabetes or other diseases that affect blood flow.3) Severe infections that clog up blood vessels.When cells start dying from lack of blood/oxygen, that area can turn black, green, or become smelly. It's your body's way of showing that part is dying.If gangrene isn't treated quickly by doctors, it can spread to more areas of the body and become life-threatening. Treatments may involve giving antibiotics, surgically removing the dead tissue, or in severe cases, amputating the affected limb to stop it from spreading.The best way to avoid gangrene is to take good care of any injuries, manage diseases like diabetes properly, and see a doctor right away if you notice any areas of discolored, smelly, or decaying skin or tissue.Does this help explain what gangrene is in simpler terms? Let me know if you need any part clarified further.-Claude.aiQUESTIONS TO CONSIDERWho is God?What has he done/is he doing/is he going to do?Who am I? (In light of 1 & 2)What do I get to do? (In light of who I am)How do I do it?Let's ask some summary sermon questions:Q. What do I want them to know?A. Q. Why do I want them to know it?A. Q. What do I want them to do about it?A. Q. Why do I want them to do it?A. Q. How can they begin to do this?A. OUTLINESOutline Bible (Willmington)—OUTLINE (by WW)“The essentials for a successful ministry have not changed: courageous enthusiasm, shameless suffering, and spiritual loyalty.” -WWTHE PASTORAL APPEAL—chapter 1A. Courageous enthusiasm—1:1–7 4 Encouragements:Paul's love. (1-2)Paul's prayers. (3-4)Paul's confidence in Timothy. (5)God's gift to Timothy. (6-7)B. Shameless suffering—1:8–12Be not ashamed of the Lord's testimony. (8-10)God gives us power. (8)2 Timothy 1:8 (The Bible Exposition Commentary): “Years ago, I read about a Christian who was in prison because of his faith. He was to be burned at the stake, and he was certain he would never be able to endure the suffering. One night, he experimented with pain by putting his little finger into the candle flame. It hurt, and he immediately withdrew it. “I will disgrace my Lord,” he said to himself. “I cannot bear the pain.” But when the hour came for him to die, he praised God and gave a noble witness for Jesus Christ. God gave him the power when he needed it, and not before.” (WW)God has called us by his grace. (9)Christ has defeated death. (10)Four reasons not to be ashamed of his association with Paul, the prisoner:Paul was called by God. (11)A herald—official messenger of the kingAn apostle—one sent with a commissionA teacher—shepherd to the local churchPaul was confident in Christ. (12)C. Spiritual loyalty—1:13–18Be loyal to God's word. (13-14)Be loyal to God's servant. (15-18)Outline by MeridaI. A Gospel-Centered LetterII. A Gospel-Centered Leader (1:1-7)A. Paul: Called by the will of God (1:1)The origin of Paul's apostleship (1:1b)The purpose of Paul's apostleship (1:1c)B. Timothy: Shaped by the grace of God (1:2-7)A personal mentor (1:2-4)A godly mother (1:5)The Spirit and the gifts (1:6-7)OUTLINE by WWKey theme: Preparation for the ministry in the last daysKey verses: 2 Timothy 1:13–14I. THE PASTORAL APPEAL—chapter 1A. Courageous enthusiasm—1:1–7B. Shameless suffering—1:8–12C. Spiritual loyalty—1:13–18II. THE PRACTICAL APPEAL—chapter 2A. The steward—2:1–2B. The soldier—2:3–4, 8–13C. The athlete—2:5D. The farmer—2:6–7E. The workman—2:14–18F. The vessel—2:19–22G. The servant—2:23–26III. THE PROPHETIC APPEAL—chapter 3A. Turn away from the false—3:1–9B. Follow those who are true—3:10–12C. Continue in God's Word—3:13–17IV. THE PERSONAL APPEAL—chapter 4A. Preach the Word—4:1–4OUTLINE by BKCI. Salutation (1:1–2)II. Call to Faithfulness (1:3–18)A. Thanksgiving for Timothy (1:3–7)B. Call to courage (1:8–12)C. Call to guard the truth (1:13–14)D. Examples of unfaithfulness and faithfulness (1:15–18)III. Challenge to Endurance (2:1–13)A. Enduring hardship for Christ (2:1–7)B. Christ's example of endurance (2:8–10)C. A faithful saying (2:11–13)IV. Marks of a Good Workman (2:14–26)A. Faithfulness in ministry (2:14–19)B. A clean instrument (2:20–21)C. Faithfulness in conduct (2:22–26)V. Predictions of Faithlessness (3:1–9)VI. Challenge to Faithful Preaching (3:10–4:8)A. Faithfulness in the face of opposition (3:10–13)B. Faithfulness to God's Word (3:14–4:5)C. Faithfulness of Paul (4:6–8)VII. Reminder of God's Faithfulness in Paul's Adversity (4:9–18)A. Paul's enemies and friends (4:9–16)B. Paul's deliverance by the Lord (4:17–18)VIII. Final Greetings (4:19–22)DISCUSSION QUESTIONSDiscovery Bible Study process: https://www.dbsguide.org/Retell the story in your own words.Discovery the storyWhat does this story tell me about God?What does this story tell me about people?If this is really true, what should I do?What is God saying to you right now? (Write this down)What are you going to do about it? (Write this down)Who am I going to tell about this?Find our sermons, podcasts, discussion questions and notes at https://www.gracetoday.net/podcastAlternate Discussion Questions (by Jeff Vanderstelt): Based on this passage:Who is God?What has he done/is he doing/is he going to do?Who am I? (In light of 1 & 2)What do I get to do? (In light of who I am)How do I do it?Final Questions (Write this down)What is God saying to you right now? What are you going to do about it?MAIN REFERENCES USED“1 - 2 Timothy,” by David Helm, Preaching the Word Commentary, Edited by Kent Hughes“1 & 2 Timothy” by John StottExalting Jesus in 1 & 2 Timothy & Titus, David Platt, Daniel Akin, Tony Merida“Look at the Book” by John Piper (LATB)“The Visual Word,” Patrick Schreiner (VW)“The Bible Knowledge Commentary” by Walvoord, Zuck (BKC)“The Bible Exposition Commentary” by Warren Wiersbe (BEC)Outline Bible, D Willmington (OB)Willmington's Bible Handbook, D Willmington (WBH)NIV Study Bible (NIVSB) https://www.biblica.com/resources/scholar-notes/niv-study-bible/Chronological Life Application Study Bible (NLT)ESV Study Bible (ESVSB) https://www.esv.org“The Bible in One Year 2023 with Nicky Gumbel” bible reading plan on YouVersion app (BIOY)ChatGPT https://openai.com/blog/chatgptAnswerThePublic.comWikipedia.com“The Treasure Principle” by Randy Alcorn

Series: Guard the TreasureTitle: How do we shepherd our flock well?Scripture: 2 Timothy 2:14-19; John 10:1-15 NIVBottom line: We guard (pass on) the gospel by shepherding our flock well.INTRODUCTIONCONTEXTSERMON OUTLINECONCLUSIONNOTESQUESTIONS TO CONSIDER OUTLINESDISCUSSION QUESTIONSMAIN REFERENCES USEDINTRODUCTIONShrek the SheepHistoric Vids@historyinmemes On XThis is Shrek. He was just your everyday, average, run-of-the-mill Merino sheep living in South Island, New Zealand when he decided to escape from his enclosure and make a break for it to some nearby caves. He managed to live on his own for 6 years before he was eventually tracked down by his owner John Perrian, who had this to say when he finally found him: "He looked like some biblical creature."While some sheep breeds naturally shed their wool, like Bighorn sheep in North America, Merino sheep never do. Their wool will continue to grow until it completely engulfs them and even impairs their vision (what you would call "wool blind"). Domesticated sheep have evolved based on the way humans have groomed them for thousands of years.The earliest domestication of sheep dates back to 11,000 BCE in ancient Mesopotamia, where they were primarily used for meat, milk, and wool.After 6 years without a shave, Shrek had enough wool on his body to produce 20 suits for large men. In total, his fleece weighed 60 pounds.Shrek's fleece was shaved off on national television and then auctioned off to support medical charities for children. He even got to meet the Prime Minister and has since been depicted in several children's books.Sadly, Shrek passed away in 2011 at the age of 16.One powerful image in scripture is that of the good shepherd who takes care of his sheep well. He knows them by name and protects them fully even if it costs him his life. Read John 10:1-15This kind of care is rare in life. It's rare in church life too. Yet this is what God calls us to. Starting at home, God calls parents to shepherd their flock (family) to follow the good, great and chief shepherd Jesus Christ.How are we doing? It doesn't seem like we're doing this very well. Church Growth?In 2023, the American church is struggling:Churches in decline = 54%Churches stable = 12%Churches growing = 33%Therefore, only 1/3 of churches in America are growing.The Church in America is becoming more and more partisan.Billy Graham endorsed Richard Nixon in his bid for the White House. You may have heard of Watergate and the scandal that led to Richard Nixon resigning for fear of being impeached. Billy Graham later shared that he regretted endorsing a political candidate. He realized that while you can the church through a partisan lense, that only leads to short-term growth and not necessarily the kind of growth that matters.There is a trend for churches (left and right leaning) to double down on the partisan issues that are part of the culture war to grow their church. This is short-sighted and I believe will lead to long-term harm to the kingdom.Sharing Our Faith“Yet the most dramatic divergence over time is on the statement, “Every Christian has a responsibility to share their faith.” In 1993, nine out of 10 Christians who had shared their faith agreed (89%). Today, just two-thirds say so (64%)—a 25-point drop.” -Barna.org I share these to say that we're not guarding the treasure like we used to in America. While Paul speaks to Timothy as an Apostle to a pastor, the principles apply to all Christians who believe that they also have the responsibility to guard the treasure by shepherding the flock. Based on the above Barna research, only 2/3rds of Christians believe this is their responsibility down from 90% in the 1990s.Paul writes to Timothy, the shepherd (pastor) of the flock (church) in Ephesus, on how to shepherd them well. He has summed it up in the key verse that Timothy is to guard the treasure (gospel/good news). We are called to do this in our own context. This is hard. It includes suffering and testing. Will we persevere? That's the question, isn't it. We can in Christ. But will we?CONTEXT“Certainly, I'm happy to discuss 2 Timothy with you from the perspective of someone with extensive experience in Christian ministry and theological training. As a fellow minister of the Gospel, grounded in sound exegesis and hermeneutics, you'll understand the profound wisdom and pastoral guidance contained in this epistle.The apostle Paul's second letter to Timothy carries a sense of solemnity and urgency, as he imparts his final instructions to his beloved spiritual son. Having fought the good fight and kept the faith, Paul knew his departure was imminent. He seized this opportunity to exhort Timothy to remain steadfast in the face of sufferings, false teachings, and apostasy that had already begun infiltrating the church.Central to this epistle is the call to endure hardship as a good soldier of Christ Jesus (2:3). Paul uses vivid metaphors—the soldier, athlete, and hardworking farmer—to underscore the discipline, single-mindedness, and perseverance required in gospel ministry. He charges Timothy to guard the gospel as a sacred trust, contending earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints.Paul's prophetic warnings about the rise of false teachers, characterized by arrogance, greed, and spiritual deception, ring as true today as they did then. His antidote? A clarion call to remain rooted in the inspired Scriptures, which are profitable for teaching, reproof, correction, and training in righteousness (3:16).No discussion of 2 Timothy would be complete without revisiting the immortal words of 2:1-2—perhaps the apostolic succession passage par excellence. Here, Paul solemnly charges his protégé to entrust the gospel to faithful men who will be qualified to teach others also. This multi-generational transfer of truth encapsulates the great commission's essence.As seasoned ministers, we can surely resonate with Paul's poignant reflections, his tender affection for his spiritual offspring, and his longing to see the torch of biblical truth carried forth. May we, like Timothy, fan into flame the gift of God within us, unashamed of the gospel's testimony.” -Claude.ai SERMON I. Remind one another how to guard the good news.A. Standing tall, not ashamed of publicly following Jesus Christ.B. Passing on the good news that you've received from God through others to reliable people who will pass it along to others. Do soIntentionallyConsistentlyEquippedC. Persevering through the tests and suffering and so finish approved by God.As a good soldierAs a dedicated athleteAs a hardworking farmerAs a faithful shepherd (14)D. Keeping to the pattern of sound instruction E. Resting in the resurrectionsThe spiritual resurrection we have in Christ from second birthThe bodily resurrection we will have when we're glorified in Christ (at our death or his second coming)CONCLUSIONI've often described Christians as canals that are conduits of God's love. And there's truth in that. But this reservoir picture is even better. -DarienIf you are wise, therefore, you will show yourself a reservoir and not a canal. For a canal pours out as fast as it takes in; but a reservoir waits till it is full before it overflows, and so communicates it's surplus. We have all too few such reservoirs in the Church at present, though we have canals in plenty... They (canals) desire to pour out when they themselves are not yet inpouredThey are readier to speak than to listenEager to teach that which they do not knowMost anxious to exercise authority on others, although they have not (yet) learned to rule themselvesLet the reservoir of which we spoke just now take pattern from the spring; for the spring does not form a stream or spread into a lake until it is brimful.... Be filled yourself, then, but discreetly, pour out your fullness... Out of your fullness help me if you can; and, if not, spare yourself! - Bernard of ClairvauxThe question I want you to consider is, Do you think you personally have the responsibility to guard the treasure by passing on the good news to those who are far from God but close to you? Or do you think it's primarily the responsibility of the local church on your behalf? I would go with the former. Because the great commission and Paul in 2 Timothy makes it clear that, as the Church, we're to guard this treasure together. Bottom line: We guard (pass on) the gospel by shepherding our flock well.What is God saying to me right now?What am I going to do about it? Write this down on a sheet of paper. What I hear you saying, Lord, is ___________________.[my name] is going to believe/do __________________________________________________ as a result.Finally, share this with your Home or Mission group this week when you gather as a testimony about what God is doing in your life. You don't have to get too specific to give him praise.PrayNOTESSpiritual vs bodily resurrection “You make an excellent point. The New Testament does teach about both a spiritual resurrection that occurs at conversion as well as a future bodily resurrection for believers.On the spiritual resurrection:- Ephesians 2:4-6 speaks of believers being "made alive" and "raised up" with Christ spiritually when they put their faith in Him.- Colossians 2:12-13 refers to believers being "raised with Him through faith" when they were spiritually dead in sins.- This spiritual resurrection represents being transferred from death to new life in Christ.And on the future bodily resurrection:- 1 Corinthians 15 and 1 Thessalonians 4 give extensive teaching on the bodily resurrection of believers at Christ's return.- This will involve receiving glorified, imperishable bodies fashioned like Christ's resurrection body.- It is the culmination of the believer's redemption - both soul and body made new.So you are absolutely right that there is both a present spiritual dimension of resurrection for the believer's soul/spirit at conversion, as well as a promised future bodily resurrection still to come. Paul upholds both of these resurrection truths.The error of Hymenaeus and Philetus seems to be denying or reducing the future bodily resurrection aspect, which was a central hope of the gospel. Thank you for raising that important clarification. The New Testament holds both the spiritual and bodily dimensions of resurrection together.” -Claude.ai Gangrene"Sure, I can explain what gangrene is in a way a 7th grade boy would understand.Gangrene is basically when a part of your body starts to die and rot away. It's really gross and can be super dangerous if not treated quickly.Imagine you get a really bad cut or wound, and instead of healing normally, it starts turning an ugly greenish-black color. The skin around it gets all mushy and smells terrible, like something that's been left out to rot for weeks. That's gangrene setting in.It happens when the blood flow to that area gets cut off, usually because of an infection. Without fresh blood bringing oxygen and nutrients, that part of your body just starts to decay and die right on you. It's like it's being eaten away from the inside out by bacteria.If gangrene is allowed to spread too far, it can get into your bloodstream and make you really sick, even killing you if not stopped. Sometimes the only way to stop it is by cutting off the dead, rotting part - like having to amputate a toe, foot or even a whole leg if the gangrene gets too bad.It's nasty stuff that you definitely don't want happening to your body. Keeping any cuts or wounds clean and watching for signs of infection is important to avoid getting gangrene. If you ever see signs of it, you'd need to get to the doctor right away before it spreads too far.“ -Claude.ai Good summary of 2:14-19:“2 Timothy 2:14-19 is a poignant exhortation from Paul to Timothy regarding the grave responsibility of rightly handling the word of truth. Let me summarize the key points:Verses 14-15 - Paul charges Timothy to keep reminding the believers not to quarrel about words, as it leads to the ruin of the hearers. Instead, he should diligently present himself as a workman approved by God, rightly dividing the word of truth. This underscores the minister's duty to accurately exposit Scripture without distortion.Verse 16 - He warns against engaging with irreverent babble and opposition to the truth, as it only leads to further ungodliness. Ministers must avoid profane chatter masquerading as deep truth.Verses 17-18 - Paul cites the example of Hymenaeus and Philetus, whose teaching spread like gangrene, upsetting the faith of some by claiming the resurrection had already occurred. This illustrates how seemingly small errors can metastasize into damning heresies.Verse 19 - In the midst of such threats, Paul provides assurance that the firm foundation of God stands sure, sealed with this inscription: "The Lord knows those who are His," and "Let everyone who names the name of the Lord depart from iniquity." While apostasy abounds, God preserves His elect, calling them to holy living.In summary, this passage emphatically calls ministers to diligent, precise, and reverent handling of God's Word while fleeing from profane speculations that shipwreck the faith. It balances a sober warning about insidious false teaching with the comforting truth that God sovereignly preserves His church amid such threats.” -Claude.ai QUESTIONS TO CONSIDERWho is God?What has he done/is he doing/is he going to do?Who am I? (In light of 1 & 2)What do I get to do? (In light of who I am)How do I do it?Let's ask some summary sermon questions:Q. What do I want them to know?A. How to shepherd well.Q. Why do I want them to know it?A. So that they'll be more equipped to shepherd the flock around them.Q. What do I want them to do about it?A. Shepherd their flock starting with themselves.Q. Why do I want them to do it?A. To keep them from being caught up in godless chatter that destroys people's faith.Q. How can they begin to do this?A. Regularly remind yourself by re-reading 1 Timothy 1-2 about how to guard the gospel treasure.OUTLINESOutline Bible (Willmington) 2 TIMOTHY 2Paul describes the duties assigned to a pastor.I. THE ROLE MODEL (2:1-7): Paul likens the ministry to four secular occupations.A. A teacher (2:1-2)1. As a student Timothy was taught many things by Paul (2:1-2a).2. As a pastor Timothy must now teach those things to other godly people (2:2b).B. A soldier (2:3-4)1. Give all of your energies to the warfare (2:3).2. Give none (or little) of your energies to worldly affairs (2:4).C. An athlete (2:5): Strive for the victor's crown.D. A farmer (2:6-7): Work hard to harvest a large crop.I. THE REMINDERS (2:8-10): A prisoner in Rome, Paul asks Timothy to reflect on two things.A. God's messenger is chained (2:8-9a).B. God's message cannot be chained (2:9b-10).III. THE RESULTS (2:11-13)A. If we die for Christ, we will live with Christ (2:11).B. If we endure hardship for Christ, we will reign with Christ (2:12a).C. If we deny Christ, he will deny us (2:12b).D. If we are unfaithful, Christ remains faithful (2:13).IV. THE RESPONSIBILITIES (2:14-26): Paul lists some of Timothy's duties as a pastor.A. Remind your people of the great scriptural truths (2:14a).B. Warn them against petty arguments (2:14b).C. Strive to become an approved workman before God (2:15).D. Avoid godless controversies (2:16-19, 23-26).1. The examples (2:16-17): Paul points out two men, Hymenaeus and Philetus, who have involved themselves in these controversies.2. The error (2:18-19): They are claiming that the resurrection from the dead has already occurred.3. The endeavor (2:23-26): Timothy must gently instruct those who would oppose him with the goal of leading them to repentance.E. Present your body as a clean vessel to God (2:20-21).F. Avoid evil, and pursue good (2:22).Outline by MeridaI. A Gospel-Centered LetterII. A Gospel-Centered Leader (1:1-7)A. Paul: Called by the will of God (1:1)The origin of Paul's apostleship (1:1b)The purpose of Paul's apostleship (1:1c)B. Timothy: Shaped by the grace of God (1:2-7)A personal mentor (1:2-4)A godly mother (1:5)The Spirit and the gifts (1:6-7)OUTLINE by WWKey theme: Preparation for the ministry in the last daysKey verses: 2 Timothy 1:13–14I. THE PASTORAL APPEAL—chapter 1A. Courageous enthusiasm—1:1–7B. Shameless suffering—1:8–12C. Spiritual loyalty—1:13–18II. THE PRACTICAL APPEAL—chapter 2A. The steward—2:1–2B. The soldier—2:3–4, 8–13C. The athlete—2:5D. The farmer—2:6–7E. The workman—2:14–18F. The vessel—2:19–22G. The servant—2:23–26III. THE PROPHETIC APPEAL—chapter 3A. Turn away from the false—3:1–9B. Follow those who are true—3:10–12C. Continue in God's Word—3:13–17IV. THE PERSONAL APPEAL—chapter 4A. Preach the Word—4:1–4OUTLINE by BKCI. Salutation (1:1–2)II. Call to Faithfulness (1:3–18)A. Thanksgiving for Timothy (1:3–7)B. Call to courage (1:8–12)C. Call to guard the truth (1:13–14)D. Examples of unfaithfulness and faithfulness (1:15–18)III. Challenge to Endurance (2:1–13)A. Enduring hardship for Christ (2:1–7)B. Christ's example of endurance (2:8–10)C. A faithful saying (2:11–13)IV. Marks of a Good Workman (2:14–26)A. Faithfulness in ministry (2:14–19)B. A clean instrument (2:20–21)C. Faithfulness in conduct (2:22–26)V. Predictions of Faithlessness (3:1–9)VI. Challenge to Faithful Preaching (3:10–4:8)A. Faithfulness in the face of opposition (3:10–13)B. Faithfulness to God's Word (3:14–4:5)C. Faithfulness of Paul (4:6–8)VII. Reminder of God's Faithfulness in Paul's Adversity (4:9–18)A. Paul's enemies and friends (4:9–16)B. Paul's deliverance by the Lord (4:17–18)VIII. Final Greetings (4:19–22)DISCUSSION QUESTIONSDiscovery Bible Study process: https://www.dbsguide.org/Retell the story in your own words.Discovery the storyWhat does this story tell me about God?What does this story tell me about people?If this is really true, what should I do?What is God saying to you right now? (Write this down)What are you going to do about it? (Write this down)Who am I going to tell about this?Find our sermons, podcasts, discussion questions and notes at https://www.gracetoday.net/podcastAlternate Discussion Questions (by Jeff Vanderstelt): Based on this passage:Who is God?What has he done/is he doing/is he going to do?Who am I? (In light of 1 & 2)What do I get to do? (In light of who I am)How do I do it?Final Questions (Write this down)What is God saying to you right now? What are you going to do about it?MAIN REFERENCES USED“1 - 2 Timothy,” by David Helm, Preaching the Word Commentary, Edited by Kent Hughes“1 & 2 Timothy” by John StottExalting Jesus in 1 & 2 Timothy & Titus, David Platt, Daniel Akin, Tony Merida“Look at the Book” by John Piper (LATB)“The Visual Word,” Patrick Schreiner (VW)“The Bible Knowledge Commentary” by Walvoord, Zuck (BKC)“The Bible Exposition Commentary” by Warren Wiersbe (BEC)Outline Bible, D Willmington (OB)Willmington's Bible Handbook, D Willmington (WBH)NIV Study Bible (NIVSB) https://www.biblica.com/resources/scholar-notes/niv-study-bible/Chronological Life Application Study Bible (NLT)ESV Study Bible (ESVSB) https://www.esv.org“The Bible in One Year 2023 with Nicky Gumbel” bible reading plan on YouVersion app (BIOY)ChatGPT https://openai.com/blog/chatgptAnswerThePublic.comWikipedia.com“The Treasure Principle” by Randy Alcorn

Brian Fox, Senior Director of Strategic Partnerships at Omni Federal and the Former Director of the National Security and Intelligence Portfolio at 18F joins the show and we dive into some of the pockets of innovation happening in government and why it has exploded the way that it has in recent years. We also talk about the work he is doing at Omni Federal, how his experience in government has shaped his approach in the private sector, and how the book “[RE]coding America” has helped shape his views on government innovation.

Series: Guard the TreasureTitle: How to Keep the Faith in Uncertain TimesScripture: 2 Timothy 1:1-18 NIVBottom line: We keep the faith in uncertain times by standing tall, suffering well, following the pattern of sound teaching, and guarding the deposit together. INTRODUCTIONCONTEXTSERMON OUTLINECONCLUSIONNOTESQUESTIONS TO CONSIDER OUTLINESDISCUSSION QUESTIONSMAIN REFERENCES USEDINTRODUCTION“There was no doubt that Timothy could do this. He was a prime candidate because, in Oswald Chambers's words again, ‘All through history God has chosen and used nobodies, because their unusual dependence on him made possible the unique display of his power and grace. He chose and used somebodies only when they renounced dependence on their natural abilities and resources.'God is looking for a few good "nobodies" —people who know they cannot succeed in serving him in their own strength.” -Hughes, P. 195CONTEXTSerious uncertainties exist:Timothy's struggles in Ephesus continueNow Paul is imprisoned with execution imminentFeels like the future of the Church hangs in the balanceWe live in uncertain times as well:Threat of WW III (Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan, Sudan, Nigeria)Threat of Enemy attack on US (EMP, power grid, southern border, bio warfare, terrorism)Threat of civil war over the culture war (Blue vs Red states)Threat of corrupt leaders at the highest levelsThreat of the basics (college; jobs; retirement; healthcare; inflation; energy indedependence)SERMON In light of these uncertain times, we can keep the faith despite the fears if we'll embrace Paul's 4 commands to Timothy also living in uncertain times. These 4 commands include:Stand tall. (“Don't be ashamed”)Suffer with me.Follow the Pattern of Sound teaching.Guard the Deposit.Paul believes in the power of the Gospel made possible by grace through faith in the power of the Holy Spirit. We must depend on Him. We embrace being a nobody by depending on Christ alone. If we're a somebody, we must do the same or lose the faith. CONCLUSION“As a young preacher from Zimbabwe so memorably expressed it:‘I'm part of the fellowship of the unashamed. I have the Holy Spirit's power.The die has been cast. I have stepped over the line. The decision has been made; I'm a disciple of His! I won't look back, let up, slow down, back away, or be still...I won't give up, shut up, let up, until I have stayed up, stored up, prayed up, paid up, and preached up for the cause of Christ. I am a disciple of Jesus.'” -Hughes, p. 194Bottom line: We keep the faith in uncertain times by standing tall, suffering well, following the pattern of sound teaching, and guarding the deposit together. What is God saying to me right now?What am I going to do about it? Write this down on a sheet of paper. What I hear you saying, Lord, is ___________________.[my name] is going to believe/do __________________________________________________ as a result.Finally, share this with your Home or Mission group this week when you gather as a testimony about what God is doing in your life. You don't have to get too specific to give him praise.PrayNOTES“This was not something Timothy was to work out for himself or was entitled to enlarge. It was divine revelation committed to his care.? In the fifth century St. Leo gave Timothy's charge classic expression:What is meant by the deposit? That which is committed to you, not that which is invented by you; that which you have received, not that which you have devised; a thing not of wit, but of learning; not of private assumption, but of public tradition; a thing brought to you, not brought forth of you; wherein you must not be an author, but a keeper; not a leader but a follower. Keep the deposit.”1 Tim, p. 176Kent HughesOther imagesMamertine dungeonNot ashamedGuard the gospel/depositDepositPowerLoveSelf-discipline FlameGiftTearsGrandmotherMotherPrisonHoly SpiritTo Claude.ai I wrote, “We know that in 2 Timothy of the New Testament Paul called for Timothy to come to him in Rome. About how long would that trip have taken?”It replied:The journey from Timothy's location (likely Ephesus or somewhere in Asia Minor) to Rome during the time of Paul and the early church would have been quite arduous and time-consuming. Here's an estimate of how long it may have taken:- The total distance from Ephesus to Rome was around 1,500-1,600 miles (2,400-2,600 km).- Travel in ancient times was done mostly by walking, riding animals like horses/donkeys, or sailing by ship when possible.- Land travel speeds averaged around 15-20 miles per day on foot or by animal.- Sea travel by ship could cover 50-100 miles per day depending on winds and currents.So if Timothy traveled only by land, walking and riding animals, the journey would have taken around 3-4 months to reach Rome from Asia Minor, covering 15-20 miles per day.However, it's more likely he combined land and sea travel, which could significantly reduce the time:- A ship from Ephesus across the Aegean Sea to Athens was around 5-7 days.- From Athens overland to the port of Brindisi in Italy was around 2 weeks.- A ship from Brindisi up the Italian peninsula to Rome was 5-7 more days.Using this combined route, the total journey could have taken around 1-1.5 months with favorable winds and no delays. Of course, bad weather, shipwrecks, or other issues could have extended this considerably in ancient travel conditions.So in summary, Paul summoning Timothy from Asia Minor to Rome would likely have required at least 1-2 months of very difficult travel in the 1st century AD.QUESTIONS TO CONSIDERWho is God?What has he done/is he doing/is he going to do?Who am I? (In light of 1 & 2)What do I get to do? (In light of who I am)How do I do it?Let's ask some summary sermon questions:Q. What do I want them to know?A. Q. Why do I want them to know it?A. Q. What do I want them to do about it?A. Q. Why do I want them to do it?A. Q. How can they begin to do this?A. OUTLINESOutline Bible (Willmington)—OUTLINE (by WW)“The essentials for a successful ministry have not changed: courageous enthusiasm, shameless suffering, and spiritual loyalty.” -WWTHE PASTORAL APPEAL—chapter 1A. Courageous enthusiasm—1:1–7 4 Encouragements:Paul's love. (1-2)Paul's prayers. (3-4)Paul's confidence in Timothy. (5)God's gift to Timothy. (6-7)B. Shameless suffering—1:8–12Be not ashamed of the Lord's testimony. (8-10)God gives us power. (8)2 Timothy 1:8 (The Bible Exposition Commentary): “Years ago, I read about a Christian who was in prison because of his faith. He was to be burned at the stake, and he was certain he would never be able to endure the suffering. One night, he experimented with pain by putting his little finger into the candle flame. It hurt, and he immediately withdrew it. “I will disgrace my Lord,” he said to himself. “I cannot bear the pain.” But when the hour came for him to die, he praised God and gave a noble witness for Jesus Christ. God gave him the power when he needed it, and not before.” (WW)God has called us by his grace. (9)Christ has defeated death. (10)Four reasons not to be ashamed of his association with Paul, the prisoner:Paul was called by God. (11)A herald—official messenger of the kingAn apostle—one sent with a commissionA teacher—shepherd to the local churchPaul was confident in Christ. (12)C. Spiritual loyalty—1:13–18Be loyal to God's word. (13-14)Be loyal to God's servant. (15-18)Outline by MeridaI. A Gospel-Centered LetterII. A Gospel-Centered Leader (1:1-7)A. Paul: Called by the will of God (1:1)The origin of Paul's apostleship (1:1b)The purpose of Paul's apostleship (1:1c)B. Timothy: Shaped by the grace of God (1:2-7)A personal mentor (1:2-4)A godly mother (1:5)The Spirit and the gifts (1:6-7)OUTLINE by WWKey theme: Preparation for the ministry in the last daysKey verses: 2 Timothy 1:13–14I. THE PASTORAL APPEAL—chapter 1A. Courageous enthusiasm—1:1–7B. Shameless suffering—1:8–12C. Spiritual loyalty—1:13–18II. THE PRACTICAL APPEAL—chapter 2A. The steward—2:1–2B. The soldier—2:3–4, 8–13C. The athlete—2:5D. The farmer—2:6–7E. The workman—2:14–18F. The vessel—2:19–22G. The servant—2:23–26III. THE PROPHETIC APPEAL—chapter 3A. Turn away from the false—3:1–9B. Follow those who are true—3:10–12C. Continue in God's Word—3:13–17IV. THE PERSONAL APPEAL—chapter 4A. Preach the Word—4:1–4OUTLINE by BKCI. Salutation (1:1–2)II. Call to Faithfulness (1:3–18)A. Thanksgiving for Timothy (1:3–7)B. Call to courage (1:8–12)C. Call to guard the truth (1:13–14)D. Examples of unfaithfulness and faithfulness (1:15–18)III. Challenge to Endurance (2:1–13)A. Enduring hardship for Christ (2:1–7)B. Christ's example of endurance (2:8–10)C. A faithful saying (2:11–13)IV. Marks of a Good Workman (2:14–26)A. Faithfulness in ministry (2:14–19)B. A clean instrument (2:20–21)C. Faithfulness in conduct (2:22–26)V. Predictions of Faithlessness (3:1–9)VI. Challenge to Faithful Preaching (3:10–4:8)A. Faithfulness in the face of opposition (3:10–13)B. Faithfulness to God's Word (3:14–4:5)C. Faithfulness of Paul (4:6–8)VII. Reminder of God's Faithfulness in Paul's Adversity (4:9–18)A. Paul's enemies and friends (4:9–16)B. Paul's deliverance by the Lord (4:17–18)VIII. Final Greetings (4:19–22)DISCUSSION QUESTIONSDiscovery Bible Study process: https://www.dbsguide.org/ Retell the story in your own words.Discovery the storyWhat does this story tell me about God?What does this story tell me about people?If this is really true, what should I do?What is God saying to you right now? (Write this down)What are you going to do about it? (Write this down)Who am I going to tell about this?Find our sermons, podcasts, discussion questions and notes at https://www.gracetoday.net/podcastAlternate Discussion Questions (by Jeff Vanderstelt): Based on this passage:Who is God?What has he done/is he doing/is he going to do?Who am I? (In light of 1 & 2)What do I get to do? (In light of who I am)How do I do it?Final Questions (Write this down)What is God saying to you right now? What are you going to do about it?MAIN REFERENCES USED“1 - 2 Timothy,” by David Helm, Preaching the Word Commentary, Edited by Kent Hughes“1 & 2 Timothy” by John StottExalting Jesus in 1 & 2 Timothy & Titus, David Platt, Daniel Akin, Tony Merida“Look at the Book” by John Piper (LATB)“The Visual Word,” Patrick Schreiner (VW)“The Bible Knowledge Commentary” by Walvoord, Zuck (BKC)“The Bible Exposition Commentary” by Warren Wiersbe (BEC)Outline Bible, D Willmington (OB)Willmington's Bible Handbook, D Willmington (WBH)NIV Study Bible (NIVSB) https://www.biblica.com/resources/scholar-notes/niv-study-bible/Chronological Life Application Study Bible (NLT)ESV Study Bible (ESVSB) https://www.esv.org“The Bible in One Year 2023 with Nicky Gumbel” bible reading plan on YouVersion app (BIOY)ChatGPT https://openai.com/blog/chatgptAnswerThePublic.comWikipedia.com“The Treasure Principle” by Randy Alcorn

Victoria Guido hosts Robbie Holmes, the founder and CEO of Holmes Consulting Group. The conversation kicks off with Robbie recounting his initial foray into the tech world at a small web hosting company named A1 Terabit.net, chosen for its alphabetical advantage in the white pages. This job was a stepping stone to a more significant role at Unisys, working for the state of New York's Department of Social Services, where Robbie inadvertently ventured into civic tech and public interest technology. Robbie shares his career progression from supporting welfare systems in New York to becoming a technological liaison between the city and state, leading to a deeper involvement in open-source solutions. His journey through tech spaces includes developing websites, diving into the Drupal community, and eventually establishing his consulting business. Robbie emphasizes the serendipitous nature of his career path, influenced significantly by community involvement and networking rather than a planned trajectory. Additionally, Robbie gives insights on the impact of technology in public services and his stint with the U.S. Digital Service (USDS), where he contributed to significant projects like vets.gov. Robbie promotes the value of community engagement in shaping one's career, stressing how connections and being in the right place at the right time can lead to unexpected opportunities and career pivots. Follow Robbie Holmes on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/robbiethegeek/), X (https://twitter.com/RobbieTheGeek), Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/robbiethegeek), Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/robbiethegeek), or GitHub (https://github.com/robbiethegeek). Check out his website at robbiethegeek (https://about.me/robbiethegeek). Follow thoughtbot on X (https://twitter.com/thoughtbot) or LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/150727/). Transcript: VICTORIA: This is the Giant Robots Smashing Into Other Giant Robots podcast, where we explore the design, development, and business of great products. I'm your host, Victoria Guido. And with me today is Robbie Holmes, Founder and CEO of Holmes Consulting Group. Robbie, thank you for joining me. ROBBIE: I'm so happy to be here. It's great to talk to you, Victoria. VICTORIA: Yes. I have known you for a long time now, but I don't know everything about you. So, I thought I would start with the question: What was your first job that you ever had? ROBBIE: My first technical job, I ended up working for an internet web hosting company called A1 Terabit.net. And note the A1 because it came first in the white pages. It was a really small web hosting company run by a man named [SP] Maxim Avrutsky. I worked there for about six months before I submitted my resume to an online job forum. That's how old I am. And it ended up in the hands of Unisys, where I eventually worked for the state of New York. VICTORIA: Wow [laughs]. So, what a journey that you've been on to get from starting there, and what a marketing ploy back in the day with the white pages. So, tell me a little bit more about how you went from that first job to where you are today with having your own business in consulting. ROBBIE: Yeah, I wasn't even aware that I was jumping into the sort of civic tech space and public interest technology because the job I ended up with was working for New York State in the Department of Social Services. And welfare is federally funded and distributed to states and then states to localities. And New York City and New York State have a weird parasymbiotic relationship because over 50% of the welfare in New York State goes to the five boroughs in New York City. So, so much of my job was supporting the welfare system within the city, which was run by the human resources administration. So, that just led to this cascade of me, like, getting invested in supporting that, and then eventually jumping over to the other side where I worked for the City of New York. And at that point, I ended up becoming sort of a technology project manager and almost a tech liaison between the city and state. And I was out in the welfare centers, helping get the job centers up to a new application called the Paperless Office System, which was a client-server app that was a wrapper around welfare. All of that ended up leading to me finally making it to the network operation center for the City of New York, where I started replacing expensive solutions like HP OpenView with open-source solutions like Nagios and another open-source solution that provided an interface. And it really opened my eyes to the idea of open source. And I had really paid attention to a lot of open-source operating systems. So, I was kind of just a general tech nerd. And eventually, I started building websites, and that led me to the Drupal community in New York City, which was sort of this cascade that led me to communities. And I think that's sort of a through line for my entire career is I don't really think I ever had a plan. I think my entire career has been this sort of a lucky happenstance of being prepared when an opportunity arose and sometimes being in the right place because of my connections and community. VICTORIA: That's interesting about being involved with the people around you and seeing what problems are out there to solve and letting that lead you to where your interests lie. And then, following that, naturally led you to, like, this really long career and these really interesting, big projects and problems that you get to solve. ROBBIE: Yeah. And I think one interesting aspect is like, I feel I spent a lot of time worried about what I was going to do and where I was going to do it. I don't have a bachelor's degree. I don't have an advanced degree. I have a high school diploma and a couple of years in college. Well, 137 credits, not the right 125 or 124 to have a bachelor's degree. I have enough credits for a couple of minors though, definitely Greek art history, I think mathematics, maybe one more. I just never got it together and actually got my degree. But that was so interesting because it was limiting to what jobs I could find. So, I was in the tech space as an IT person and specifically doing networking. So, I was running the network operation center. I helped, like, create a whole process for how we track tickets, and how we created tickets, and how things were moved along. And, in the process, I started building websites for family and friends. And I built a website for our network operation center, so that way we could have photos to go with our diagrams of the network. So that way, when we were troubleshooting remotely, we could actually pull up images and say, "The cable that's in port six goes off to the router. I think that port is dead. Can we move it to the port two to its right, and I'll activate it?" And that made a really interesting solution for something we weren't even aware we had, which was lack of visibility. So many of the people in the fields were newer or were trying to figure it out. And some of us had really deep knowledge of what was going on in those network rooms and hubs. It led me to this solution of like, well, why don't we just start documenting it and making it easier for us to help when they're in the field? That led me to, like, the Drupal community because I started building sites in the Drupal CMS. And I went to, like, my first Drupal meetup in 2007, and there was, like, five of us around the table. That led to eventually me working for Sony Music and all these other things. But the year before I found my way to the Drupal community, I probably sent out, like, 400 resumes for jobs in the tech space, didn't really get any callbacks. And then, I met the community, and I started attending events, and then eventually, I started organizing events. And then, Sony I interviewed and talked to them a couple of times. And then, a friend of mine became the boss. And she contacted me and was like, "Hey, are you in the market?" And I was like, "I don't know. Why? What's up?" And she's like, "I became Doug." And I was like, "What?" And she was like, "I'm now replacing Doug at Sony. I'm running the team." And I was like, "Yeah, I'm happy to talk." And that was the big transition in my career from IT to sort of development and to delivery, right? Like, when it comes right down to it, is I became the manager of interactive media at Sony Music, which was really a job I landed because I was connected to the community, and running events, and getting to know everyone. VICTORIA: Yeah. And I think it's really cool that you had this exposure early on to what you called civic tech, which we'll get into a little bit, and then you went from the community into a commercial technology space and really getting into engineering with Drupal. ROBBIE: Yeah, it was an interesting transition because what they needed at Sony was sort of somebody who could ride the line between systems engineer, database administrator, and Drupal engineer, and also probably pre-DevOps DevOps person. So, I was responsible for all deployments and all tickets that came in. I was sort of both the technical arm of the help desk. When I joined, there was 24 websites on the Drupal platform, and when I left, there was over 200. And we upgraded it from Drupal 5 to Drupal 6 to Drupal 7 while I was there. So, I was heavily involved in all of those updates, and all those upgrades, and all of the deployments of all the new themes, and all the changes to all these sites. So, what was great was they, I believe, if I understand it correctly, they actually created a role for me out of, like, two or three jobs because they needed a me, and they didn't have a role that existed. So, all of a sudden, they made a manager of interactive media role. And I was able to work there for two years, sort of being what I jokingly say, like, a digital janitor. I used to say that I had, like, an eight-bit key ring in a push broom. And I was always mad at your kids for trying to break my stuff. VICTORIA: [laughs] That's so good. A digital service janitor [laughs]? The connection for me between that and where I met you in the U.S. digital service space [laughs] I feel like there's a lot of parallels between that and where your career evolved later on in life. ROBBIE: Yeah. What's amazing is I did all this early work in my career in civic tech and didn't realize it was civic tech at the time. I just realized what I was doing was providing this huge impact and was value. You know, I spent a couple of years in the welfare centers, and I used to say all the time that the two hardest jobs in the welfare center are the person applying for welfare and the person deciding whether or not that person gets welfare. So, being a technologist and trying to help make that as simple as possible or easier and smooth the edges off of that process was really important. And it really taught me how important technology is to delivering service. And I really never thought about it before. And then, when I was working for Phase2 technologies, I was a director of Digital Services. And I read in a blog post, I believe that was written by Mikey Dickerson, who was the original administrator for USDS, and he talked about HealthCare.gov. And he walked in the door, and he said, "How do you know HealthCare.gov is down?" And I think there was some allusion to the fact that we were like, we turn on the television and if they're yelling at us, we know it's down. And Mikey was like, "We know how to monitor things." So, like, if you don't know Mikey Dickerson, he's the person who sort of created the web application hierarchy of needs in Google. He was an SRE. And his pyramid, like Maslow's hierarchy of needs, was all over Google when I was there. I was so impressed with the idea that, like, we aren't talking about how do we solve this problem? We're talking about knowing when there's a problem. And then, if we know there's a problem, we can put some messaging around that. We can say, like, "We're aware," right? Like if the president calls the secretary, the secretary can say, "We know it's down. We're working on it," which is building up political capital. It's a really amazing process that I kept reading this blog post, and I was like, God, that's how I would approach it. And then, I was like, wow, I wonder if I could use my skills to help America, and very shortly submitted an application and was like, well, we'll see what happens. And about six months later, I walked in the door at the VA and was the eighth employee of the Digital Service team at the VA. That was a franchise team of the USDS model. VICTORIA: And can you say a little bit more about what is the U.S. Digital Service and expand upon your early experience there? ROBBIE: Yeah. So, the United States Digital Service was created after HealthCare.gov had its issues. Todd Park had convinced President Obama to reach out to get support from the private industry. And the few of the people who were there, Todd convinced to stick around and start creating a team that could support if there was this kind of issue in the future. I believe the team that was there on the ground was Mikey Dickerson, Erie Meyer, Haley Van Dyck, and Todd. And there was a few other people who came back or were very close at the beginning, including the current administrator of USDS. She has been around a long time and really helped with HealthCare.gov. It's amazing that Mina is back in government. We're very lucky to have her. But what came out of that was what if we were able to stand up a team that was here in case agencies needed support or could vet solutions before these types of problems could exist? So, USDS was what they called the startup inside the White House that was created during the 2014 administration of President Obama. The team started that year, and I joined in May of 2016. So, I would be, like, sort of the beginning of the second team of the VA U.S. Digital Service team. So, USDS supported this idea of tours of duty, where you're a schedule A employee, which meant you were a full-time government employee, but you were term-limited. You could do up to two years of duty and work, and then you could theoretically stick around and do two more years. That was how these roles were envisioned. I think there's lots of reasons why that was the case. But what's nice is it meant that you would come in with fresh eyes and would never become part of the entrenched IT ecosystem. There are people that transition from USDS into government, and I think that's a huge value prop nowadays. It's something that I don't know they were thinking about when the original United States Digital Service was stood up, but it was hugely impactful. Like, I was part of the team at the VA that helped digitize the first form on vets.gov and all the work that was done. When the VA team started, there was a team that was helping with veteran benefits, and they worked on the appeals process for veteran benefits. And I joined. And there was a team that was...eventually, it became dubbed the veteran-facing tools team. And we worked on vets.gov, which was a new front door to expose and let veterans interact with the VA digitally. And over time, all the work that went into the tools and the solutions that were built there, everything was user-researched. And all of that work eventually got brought into VA.gov in what they called a brand merger. So, we took, like, the sixth most trafficked front door of the VA and took all the modern solutioning that that was and brought it into VA.gov, the main front door. So, all of a sudden, there was an identity, a login provided on VA.gov for the first time. So big, impactful work that many people were a part of and is still ongoing today. Surprisingly, so much of this work has now fallen under OCTO, which is the Office of the CTO in the VA. And the CTO is Charles Worthington, who was a USDSer who's the epitome of a person who goes where the work is. Charles was a Presidential Innovation Fellow who helped out in the times of HealthCare.gov and, joined USDS and did anything and everything that was necessary. He interviewed engineers. He was a product person. Charles is one of the most unique technologists and civic tech people I've ever met in my life. But Charles, at the end of the Obama administration and in this transition, realized that the VA was in need of someone to fill the CTO role. So, he came over to become the interim CTO because one of the values of USDS is to go where the work is. And he realized, with the transition, that Marina Nitze, who was the CTO who was transitioning out, there was going to be a need for continuity. So, he came in to provide that continuity and eventually became the full-time CTO and has been there ever since. So, he has helped shape the vision of what the VA is working towards digitally and is now...he was just named the Chief AI Officer for the agency. Charles is a great person. He has successfully, you know, shepherded the work that was being done early by some of us into what is now becoming a sort of enterprise-wide solution, and it's really impressive. VICTORIA: I appreciate you sharing that. And, you know, I think there's a perception about working for public service or for government, state or federal agencies, that they are bureaucratic, difficult to work with, very slow. And I think that the USDS was a great example of trying to really create a massive change. And there's been this ripple effect of how the government acquires products and services to support public needs, right? ROBBIE: Yeah, I would say there's a couple of arms of the government that were sort of modernization approaches, so you have the Presidential Innovation Fellows, which are the equivalent of, like, entrepreneurs and residents in government. And they run out of...I think they're out of the TTS, the Technology Transformation Service over at GSA, which is the General Services Administration. But the PIFs are this really interesting group of people that get a chance to go in and try to dig in and use their entrepreneurial mindset and approach to try to solve problems in government. And a lot of PIFS work in offices. Like, Charles' early team when he first became the CTO included a lot of Presidential Innovation Fellows. It was basically like, "Hey, the VA could use some support," and these people were available and were able to be convinced to come and do this work. And then, you have the Presidential Management Fellows, which I think is a little bit more on the administration side. And then, we have 18F and USDS. The United States Digital Service is a funded agency with an OMB. And we were created as a way to provide the government with support either by detailing people over or dropping in when there was a problem. And then, 18F is an organization that is named because the offices of GSA and TTS (Technology Transformation Service), where it's housed, are on the corner of 18th Street and F in DC. And 18F is sort of like having a technology or a digital agency for hire within the government. So, they are full-time employees of the government, sort of like USDS, except government agencies can procure the support of that 18F team, just like they would procure the support of your company. And it was a really interesting play. They are fully cost-recoupable subcomponent of TTS, which means they have to basically make back all the money that they spend, whereas USDS is different. It's congressionally funded for what it does. But they're all similar sibling organizations that are all trying to change how government works or to bring a more modern idea or parlance into the government. I used to say to people all the time that at USDS, you know, we would set a broken bone say, and then we would come back around and say, like, "Hey, does your arm hurt anymore?" The idea being like, no. Be like, "Cool, cool. Maybe you should go to the gym, and you should eat better." And that would be, like, procurement change. That would be, like, changing for the long term. So, all the work I was doing was building political capital so we could do better work in changing how procurement was done and then changing how the government delivered these things. So, what was awesome was, like, we used to have these fights at USDS about whether or not we were a culture change or we were firefighters. And I think the reality is once we're involved, culture changes happen. The bigger question is, are we going to be there for the long haul, or are we only there for a shorter period of time? And I think there are reasons why USDS teams had both plays. And I think it really is just two different plays for the same outcome. VICTORIA: Yeah, that makes sense. And to pivot a little bit, I think, you know, our audience, we have clients and listeners who are founders of products that are aimed at making these, like, public service needs, or to give some examples, like, maybe they're trying to track Congressional voting patterns or contact information for different state representatives, and they're trying to navigate this space [laughs]. So, maybe you can give some advice for founders interested in selling their products to government agencies. What can they do to make it more appealing and less painful for themselves? ROBBIE: I wouldn't consider myself a procurement expert, but at USDS, the procurement team called themselves the [SP] procurementati. And I was a secret member of the procurementati. I often was the engineer they would call to evaluate statements of work or sometimes be on technology evaluation panels. And it was fun to be a part of that. Things that most companies don't realize is government agencies will put out things like request for information or sources sought in the government space. And this is a way for industry to influence how government tries to solve problems. If you are trying to go after government work and you're only responding to an RFP, you're probably behind in your influence that you could have on the type of work. So, you'll see if a procurement seems to be, like, specifically focused on an approach, or a technology, or a framework, it's probably because some companies have come through and said, "I think this would probably solve your problem," and they gave examples. So, that's one way to be more connected to what's going on is to follow those types of requests. Another is to follow the money. My wife is this amazing woman who helped write The Data Act and get it passed through government. And The Data Act is the Data and Transparency Act. And that led to her heading over to treasury and leading up a team that built USAspending.gov. So, there is a website that tracks every dollar, with some exceptions, of the funding that comes out of Congress every year. And what's great is you can track it down to where it's spent, and how it's spent, and things like that. For education purposes, I think that is a really good thing that business and growth people can focus on is try to see and target where competitors or where solutions that you've looked at have gone in the past. It's just a good set of data for you to take a look at. The other piece is if you're creating a solution that is a delivery or a deliverable, like a SaaS solution, in order for something to be utilized in the government, it probably needs to be FedRAMP-approved, which is a process by which security approvals have been given so that government agencies have the green light to utilize your solution. So, there's tons of documentation out there about FedRAMP and the FedRAMP approval process. But that is one of those things that becomes a very big stopping point for product companies that are trying to work in the government. The easiest way to work your way through that is to read up on it a bunch, but also find an agency that was probably willing to sponsor you getting FedRAMP approval. Most companies start working with a government agency, get an exemption for them to utilize your product, and then you get to shape what that FedRAMP process looks like. You start applying for it, and then you have to have some sort of person who's helping shepherd it for you internally in the government and accepting any issues that come along in the process. So, I guess FedRAMP approval is one that's a little complicated but would be worth looking into if you were planning on delivering a product in government. VICTORIA: Right. And does that apply to state governments as well? ROBBIE: So, lots of state-related and city and locality-related governments will actually adopt federal solutions or federal paradigms. So, I think in the state of California, I think FedRAMP as one of the guiding principles for accepting work into the state of California, so it's not consistent. There's not a one-to-one that every state, or every city, or every locality will pull this in. But if you are already approved to be a federal contractor, or a federal business, or a federal product, it's probably going to be easier to make your way into the local spaces also. VICTORIA: Right. And as you said, there's plenty of resources, and tools, and everything to help you go along that journey if that's the group you're going for [laughs]. Mid-Roll Ad: When starting a new project, we understand that you want to make the right choices in technology, features, and investment but that you don't have all year to do extended research. In just a few weeks, thoughtbot's Discovery Sprints deliver a user-centered product journey, a clickable prototype or Proof of Concept, and key market insights from focused user research. We'll help you to identify the primary user flow, decide which framework should be used to bring it to life, and set a firm estimate on future development efforts. Maximize impact and minimize risk with a validated roadmap for your new product. Get started at: tbot.io/sprint. VICTORIA: So, kind of bringing it back to you, like, you're saying you want those partnerships within the government. You want someone advocating for you or for your product or your service. Drawing that back to what you said earlier about community, like, how do you form a community with this group of people who are in the state, or federal government, or civic tech spaces? ROBBIE: Yeah, I think it's an interesting problem because so much of it feels impenetrable from the outside. Most people don't even know where to start. There are organizations out there that are pretty good community connections, an example I would give is ACT-IAC. It is a public-private partnership where people from within the government, experts in their fields, and people in the private industry who are experts in their fields will be together on community boards and engaging in panels. And so, it's a really nice way to start connecting those dots. I have no direct affiliation with ACT-IAC. But if they'd like to give me my own account, that would be great. But it is one of those organizations I've seen be successful for people trying to find their way into a community that is a little harder to find. I think, also, so much of the community engagement happens at conferences and around...so, like, if you're in the healthcare space, this last month, you've had multiple conferences that I think were really great for people to get to know one another, you know, an example is ViVE. It just happened out in LA, which is a little more on the private sector health space, but still, government agencies were there. I know that the Department of Veterans Affairs had people there and were on panels. And then, HIMSS is another conference that takes place, and that just took place down in Miami. And in Miami, HIMSS happened and a whole bunch of other social community events took place. So, I'm close with a thing called the Digital Services Coalition, which is 47 companies that all try to deliver good government based on the Digital Services Playbook that was created by USDS that lives at playbook.cio.gov and the way that they try to accomplish this work. And that organization, while they were in Miami, hosted a happy hour. So, there's a lot of connections that can be made once you start seeing the players and getting to know who's around. So, it's a little bit about trying to find your way to that first event, and I think that will really open up everything for you. Within a week or two, I was at an International Women's Day event at MetroStar, which is a really great company that I've gotten a chance to spend some time with. And then, I was at an event for the Digital Services Coalition talking about open source in government. So, there's a lot of stuff out there for you to be a part of that isn't super cost-prohibitive and also doesn't take a lot once you start to open the door. You know, once you peek around that corner and you find some people, there's a lot more to be done. VICTORIA: Yeah. And you touched on something at the end there that wants me to bring up some of the advantages you can have being a small business, a minority-owned business, or woman-owned business, or veteran-owned business, so thinking about how you can form those connections, especially if you have one of those socio and economic set-asides that you might want to consider if they're looking to work with the government as well. ROBBIE: Yeah. Those socioeconomic set-asides include small businesses, woman-owned small business. I think it's Native and Alaskan 8(a), which is historically underrepresented and service-disabled veteran-owned. So, there are also sub-communities of associations, like there's the Digital WOSB, the digital Women-Owned Small Business alliance that was founded by Jess Morris from Pluribus Digital, and a bunch of other companies in the Digital Services Coalition. I believe she's the president of the Digital WOSB right now. That is a sub-community of women-owned small businesses that are trying to connect and create a community that they can support one another. And that's just one example of the type of connection you can make through those types of socioeconomic set-asides. But once you have those official socioeconomic set-asides, it will allow you to get specific contracts engagements in the government that are not allowed or available for others. So, the government procurement process will have some amount of these specific socioeconomic set-asides that need to be hit. Like, 8% of all procurements need to go to this and 10% of all procurements need to go to this. So, I think the VA is probably one of the most effective at hitting any of the socioeconomic set-asides, specifically related to service-disabled veteran-owned small businesses. So, if you happen to be a person of color and you found a business and you are female presenting, right? You may have 8(a) woman-owned small business. If you also happen to be a veteran and you're service-disabled, all of those things stack. You don't just get to have one of them. And they can be really effective in helping a business get a leg up and starting out and trying to help even the playing field for those communities. VICTORIA: Yeah. What I really appreciated about my experience working with Pluribus Digital, and you, and people who had had that experience in the U.S. Digital Services, that there is this community and desire to help each other out and that you can have access to people who know how to move your product forward, get you the connections that you need to be competitive, and to go after the work. So, I love encouraging people to consider civic tech options. And maybe even say more about just how impactful some of it can be. And what kind of missions are you solving in these spaces? ROBBIE: Yeah, I often try to remind people, especially those who are heading towards or considering civic tech, there are very few places in this world that you can work on something that can impact millions of people. Sure, I was lucky enough. I have tons of privilege. I worked at a lot of wacky places that have given me the access to do the type of work that I think is impactful, but very little has the kind of impact. Like, when I was interviewed by Marina Nitze as, my last interview when I joined USDS, she sent me an email at the end of it and said like, "Everything was great. I look forward to working with you. And remember, every time you commit code into our GitHub, you'll be helping 8 million veterans." And then, she cc'd Todd Park. And Todd was the CTO of the U.S., and he responded back within a minute. Todd is one of the most busy people. It was amazing to me how fast he responded. But he was like, "Lemme tell you, as somebody who can talk on behalf of our president, our country needs you." And those kinds of things they're hard to comprehend. And then, I joined the Digital Service team at the VA. And one of the first things that I got to support was the 10-10EZ. It's the healthcare application for veterans. And before I got there, it was a hosted PDF that we were trying to replace. And the team had been working for months to try to build a new, modern solution. What it was is it was, like, less than six submissions were happening a day because it only worked in Adobe Acrobat, I think it was 6.5 and below, and Internet Explorer 8.5 and below. And if you think about the people that could submit utilizing that limited set of technologies, it was slowly becoming homeless veterans who were using library computers that had not been upgraded. So, there was a diminishing amount of value that it was providing. And then, on top of it, it was sort of lying to veterans. If the version of the Adobe Acrobat was out of date, or wrong, or too new, it would tell them to upgrade their browser. So, like, it was effectively not providing any value over time. We were able to create a new version of that and that was already well on its way when I joined, but we were able to get it out the door. And it was a React frontend using a Node backend to talk to that SOAP API endpoint. Within the first week, we went from 6 submissions a day to 60 submissions a day. It's a joke, right? We were all 10x developers. We were like, "Look at us. We're killing it." But about three years later, Matt Cutts came to a staff meeting of USDS, and he was the second administrator of the USDS. And he brought the cake that had the actual 10-10EZ form on it, and it said, "500,000." And he had checked with the analytics team, and there were over 500,000 submissions of that form, which means there are 500,000 possible veterans that now may or may not have access to healthcare benefits. Those are big problems. All of that was done by changing out one form. It opened up the world. It opened up to a group of veterans that no one else was able to do. They would have had to go into a veteran's office, and they would have had to fill it out in paper. And some veterans just don't have the ability to do that, or don't have an address, or don't have a...so, there are so many reasons why having a digital form that worked for veterans was so important. But this one form that we digitized and we helped make modern has been submitted so many times and has helped so many veterans and their families. And that's just one example. That's just one form that we helped digitize. But now the team, I mean, I'm back in the VA ecosystem. There's, like, 2,500 people in the general channel in the office of the CTO Slack organization. That's amazing. There's people there that are working all day, every day, trying to solve the same problems that I was trying to solve when I got here. And there's so much work being done to help veterans. But that's just one example, right? Like, at USDS, I know that the digital filing for the free version of your tax form, the IRS e-file Direct, just went live. That was something that USDS had been working on for a very long time behind the scenes. And that's going to impact everybody who submits their taxes. These are the kind of problems that you get to work on or the scope of some of the problems if you work in these types of organizations, and that's really powerful. It's the thing that keeps drawing me back. I'm back supporting the VA again through some contracts in my business. But it's funny, like, I was working for another agency. I was over working at DHS on an asylum project. And a friend of mine kept telling people to tell me, "Man, veterans need you. If only there was another one of you to help us over here, that would be great." And eventually, it led to me being like, well, veterans need me. I'm going to go back to the VA. And that was my second tour at USDS at the Department of Veteran Affairs. And now I'm back there again. So, it's a very impactful place to work. There's tons of value you can provide to veterans. And, to me, it's the kind of work that keeps bringing me back. I didn't realize just how much I was a, like, impact junkie until I joined USDS, and then it really came to a head. I cannot believe how much work I've gotten to be a part of that has affected and supported those who get benefits and services from the federal government. VICTORIA: [inaudible 33:47] impact junkie. That's funny. But yeah, no, thank you for sharing that. That's really interesting. Let me see if you could go back in time to when you first started in this journey; if you could give yourself any advice, what would you say? ROBBIE: Yeah, I think I spent so much time being nervous about not having my degree that I was worried it was going to hinder me forever. And it's pretty amazing the career I've been able to thread together, right? Like, you know, I've hit on a few of them already. But, like, I started with a small web hosting company, and then New York State in the Department of Social Services, then New York City in the Human Resources Administration, Sony Music, Zagat Survey, Google, Johnson & Johnson, IDT telecommunications, Phase2 technologies, where I got to work on an awful lot of problems in lots of awesome places like NBA.com, and Major League Soccer, and Bassmaster. And then, the United States Digital Service where I got to work on things supporting the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Department of Homeland Security over at ADA.gov in DOJ. I helped them out. And I worked over at USDA helping get Farmers.gov off the ground. So, everything on my left leg, tattoo-wise, is something that changed my life from my perspective. And I have a Drupal tattoo on the back of my leg. I have a DrupalCon. So, anytime somebody said "Drupal" anywhere near a USDS person, I would magically appear because they would just be like, "Oh, Robbie has that Drupal tattoo." So, I got to work on a lot of dot govs that eventually landed or were being built in Drupal. So, I got to support a lot of work. And it meant that I got to, like, float around in government and do a lot of things that others didn't get to do. When CISA stood up, which is the office of security inside of DHS, it's one of the newest sub-communities or subcomponents, they built DHS SchoolSafety.gov, which is a cross-MOU'd site. And I got to sit in and help at the beginning of that because of my Drupal background. But it was really fun to be the person who helped them work with the vendors and make sure that they understood what they were trying to accomplish and be a sort of voice of reason in the room. So, I did all of that work, and then after that, I went and worked at Pluribus Digital, where I got a chance to work side by side with you. And then, that led to other things, like, I was able to apply and become the director of Digital Services and software engineering for my local county. So, I worked for Prince William County, where I bought a house during the pandemic. And then, after that contract ended, I had already started my own business. So, that's led to me having multiple individual contracts with companies and so many people. I've gotten to work on so many different things. And I feel very lucky. If I could go back and tell myself one thing, it's just, take a breath. Everything's going to be okay. And focus on the things that matter. Focus on the things that are going to help you. Focus on community. Focus on delivering value. Everything else will work itself out. You know, I joke all the time that I'm really good at providing impact. If you can measure my life in impact and value, I would be a very rich man. If you can measure it in money, I'm doing all right, but I'm never going to be yacht Robbie, you know, but I'm going to do okay. VICTORIA: Oh my god, yacht Robbie. That's great. So, just to recap, everything's going to be okay. You never know where it's going to take you. And don't be limited by the things that you think, you know, make you not enough. Like, there's a lot of things that you can do out there. I really like that advice. ROBBIE: And I think one last piece is, like, community matters, if you are a part of communities and you do it genuinely, how much that will impact your career. I gave a talk from Drupal NYC to the White House and beyond. And I talked through my entire resume and how everything changed when I started doing community engagement. When I went to the Drupal community in New York City and how that led to Sony, and that led to Zagat, which led to me getting acquired by Google, like, these things all cascaded. And then, when I moved to the DMV, I was able to join here and continue supporting communities, which allowed me to bring people into the local civic tech community from the local DC tech community. So, so many of the best USDS engineers, and designers, and product people I was able to help influence to come to government were people I met in the community or the communities I helped support. You know, I was an early revivalist of Alexandria Code and Coffee. It was a community that was started and then wavered. And then, Sean McBeth reached out to the community and said, "Do we want to help and support getting it off the ground again?" And I immediately said, "Yes." And then, that led to my friends at BLACK CODE COLLECTIVE wanting to create a community where they could feel safe and connected and create a community of their own. And then DC Code & Coffee started. And from there, Baltimore Code & Coffee kicked off. And it's just really nice that, like, it doesn't matter where I've been. All these things keep coming back to be a part of community and help support others. And you will be surprised at how much you get back in return. I wouldn't be the person I am today in my community. I wouldn't have my career if it wasn't for the people who started and helped shepherd me when I was starting out. And I feel like I've been trying to do the same for people for a really long time. VICTORIA: I love that. That's what I say, too, when people ask me for advice on careers and how to grow. And my biggest piece is always to go out and meet people. And go to your community, like, look and see what's happening. Like, find people you like hanging out with and learning from. And just that should be the majority of your time probably if you're trying to figure out where to go with your career or even just, like, expand as a person sometimes [laughs]. Robbie, I was going to ask; you mentioned that you had bought a house in Virginia. One of my other warmup questions was going to be, what's your favorite thing to put on the grill? ROBBIE: My house in Virginia definitely gets a lot of use, especially in the spring and the fall. I'm a big fan of team no extreme when it comes to temperature. But during those time periods, my grill is often fired up. My favorite is probably to make skirt steak on the grill. I'm a huge fan of tacos, especially made out of skirt steak. I'm in all day. That's one of my favorites. I also love to smoke. I have a smoker because I'm a caricature-esque suburban dude. I'm going to live into all of the possible things I could have. But I've had a smoker for a long time, and I love making sort of poor man's burnt ends. It's one of my favorite things to make. But you got to have some time. That's the kind of thing that takes, you know, 14 hours or 16 hours, but it's really fun to take advantage of it. A quick thing I love to make is actually smoked salmon. It takes longer to brine it than it usually does to smoke it. But it is one of the nicest things I've made on my smoker, you know, fresh pesto on a piece of salmon is pretty awesome, or everything bagel. Everything with the bagel seasoning is a pretty fun way to smoke some salmon. VICTORIA: Wow, that sounds so good. I'm going to have to stop in next time I'm in Virginia and get some [laughs] and hang out. Do you have any questions for me? ROBBIE: I'm excited to see where you've gone and how you've gotten here. I think this is such a cool job for you. Knowing who you are as a person and seeing you land in a company like this is really exciting. And I think you getting to be a part of this podcast, which we were joking about earlier, is I've been listening to probably since it started. I've been a big fan for a long time. So, it's cool to be here on this podcast. But it's also cool that my friend is a part of this and gets to be a part of this legacy. I'm really excited to see where you go over time. I know my career has been changing, right? I worked in government. Before that, I did all kinds of other stuff. Nowadays I have my own business where I often joke I have sort of, like, three things I offer, which is, like, consigliere services. Wouldn't it be nice to have a Robbie on your executive team without having to pay them an executive salary? You know, another one is like, you know, strategy and mentoring, but these are all things I know you do also, which I think is cool. But I've been working on contracts where I support companies trying to figure out how they modernize, or how their CTO can be more hands-off keyboard, or how their new director of business development can be more of a technical leader and taking on their first direct reports. So, I just enjoy all those aspects, and I just think it's something that I've watched you do in the company where we worked together. And it's always fun to see what you're working on and getting a chance to catch up with you. I feel like you're one of those people that does a really great job of staying connected. Every once in a while, I'll get a random text message like, "Hey, how you doing?" It always makes me smile. I'm like, Victoria is a really good connector, and I feel like I am, but you're even better at it on the being proactive side. That's how this all came about, right? We caught up, and you were like, "Why don't you come on the podcast?" So, that's really exciting. VICTORIA: Well, thank you, Robbie. Yeah, I think that's one of the great things about community is you meet people. You're like, "Oh, you're really cool. And you're doing cool stuff all the time. Like, how can I support you in your journey [laughs]? Like, what's up?" Yeah, for me, it was hard to actually leave DC. I didn't, you know, really think about the impact of leaving behind my tech community, like, that network of people. It was pretty emotional for me, actually, especially when we finally, like, stopped doing the digital version [laughs]. And I, like, kind of gave up managing it from California, which was kind of funny anyways [laughs]. Yeah, so no, I'm grateful that we stayed in touch and that you made time to be here with us today. Is there anything else that you would like to promote? ROBBIE: You know, just to remind you, you've done a great job of transitioning into where you are today, but anybody can do that, right? Like, before I moved to the DC area, I was in New York, and I was helping to organize JavaScript events. And I started looking at the DC area before I moved down here. And I found the DC Tech Community. And I found the Node School DC GitHub organization and reached out to the person who had ownership of it and said I wanted to help and support. I looked at this the other day. I think I moved on May 8th, and then, like, May 11th, when I walked in the door, somebody was like, "Are you new?" And I was like, "Yeah, I just moved here." And they were like, "Oh, from where?" And I was like, "New York." And they were like, "Are you that guy who's been bugging Josh about running Node school events?" I was like, "Yeah." And like, they were planning an unconference at the end of the month. And they were like, "Would you like to run a Node school at that unconference?" Like, 27 days later. So, it was amazing that, like, I immediately, like, fell from the New York Community where I was super connected, but I went out of my way to try to, like, see what the community looked like before I got there. And I was lucky enough to find the right people, and immediately I joked...I think I wrote a blog post that said like, "I found my new friends. By, like, going from one community to another, gave a person who was in his 40s a chance to meet new people very quickly." And it was pretty amazing, and I felt very lucky. But I did spend a little bit of energy and capital to try to figure it out because I knew it was going to be important to me. So, I think you've done a really good job. You've helped launch and relaunch things that were going on in San Diego and becoming a part of this connection to more people. I think you and I have a very similar spirit, which is like, let's find a way to connect with humans, and we do it pretty effectively. VICTORIA: Well, thank you. That really boosts my confidence, Robbie [laughs]. Sometimes, you show up to an event you've never been to before by yourself, and it's like a deer in headlights kind of moment. Like, oh God, what have I done [laughs]? ROBBIE: Oh, and the last thing I need to mention is I also have a podcast. I have my podcast about film. It's called Geek on Film. I used to record it with my friend, Jon. He's a little busy right now. But I used to pitch it as a conversation show about the current films that were going on. Now, it's one lone geek's ramblings about what he just saw. It's a great podcast for me because it gives me an opportunity to think a little more critically about film, which is one of the things that I probably have almost enough credits to get a minor in. But I absolutely love cinema and film in general. And it's given me an opportunity to connect with a lot more people about this subject and also to scratch the itch of me being able to create something around a community and around a thing I really love. VICTORIA: That's super cool. Yeah. You're top of mind because I also like films. I'm like, what's Robbie up to? Like, what's the recommendations, you know [laughs]? Do you have a top film recommendation from the Oscars? Is that too big of a question? ROBBIE: So, the one I will say that didn't get enough spotlight shined on it was Nimona. So, I'm a huge fan of the Spider-Man movies. I think Spider-Man Into the Spider-Verse and Across the Spider-Verse are both masterpieces. But Nimona is an animated film that was picked up by Netflix, and it is amazing. I don't know that I laughed or cried or was more moved by a film last year. And I don't know that it gets enough credit for what it was. But it did get nominated for best-animated film, but I don't know that enough people paid attention to it. Like it may have gotten lost in the algorithm. So, if you get a chance, check out Nimona. It's one of those beautiful, little gems that, if you travel down its story, there's all these twists and turns. It was based on a webcomic that became a graphic novel. One of the production companies picked it up, and it wasn't going to see the light of day. And then, Netflix bought its distribution rights. There's going to be a great documentary someday about, like, Inside Nimona. But I think the movie itself is really charming and moving, and I was really impressed with it. So, that was the one that got me, like, just before the Oscars this year, where I was like, this is the little animated movie that could, in my opinion. It's so charming. VICTORIA: I will definitely have to check that out. Thank you for giving us that recommendation. ROBBIE: Totally. VICTORIA: Final question. I just wanted to see if you had anything to share about being an advisory board member for Gray and for Hutch Studio. Could you tell us a little bit more about that? ROBBIE: Yeah. So, Gray Digital was founded by a friend of mine. We met through United States Digital Service. And his organization...I had been supporting him for a while and just being behind the scenes, talking to him and talking through business-related issues. And it was really nice. He offered to make me an official advisory board member. It was a great acknowledgment, and I really felt moved. There's some great people that are supporting him and have supported him. They've done really great work. Gray is out there delivering digital services in this space. And I think I was really lucky to be a part of it and to support my friend, Randall. Hutch is different. Hutch is an organization that's kind of like if you think about it, it almost is a way to support entrepreneurs of color who are trying to make their way into the digital service delivery space. Being an advisory board member there has been really interesting because it's shaping how Hutch provides services and what their approach is to how to support these companies. But over the last year, I've convinced the person who's running it, Stephanie, with a couple of other people, to open the door up or crack the door so we could talk directly and support the individual companies. So, it's been really great to be a Hutch advisory member to help shape how Hutch is approaching things. But I've also been a part of, like, many interview processes. I've reviewed a lot of, like, [inaudible 48:01] who want to join the organization. And I've also created personal relationships with many of the people who are part of Hutch. And, you know, like, you know me personally, so you know I run a Day of the Dead party. We'll just party at my house every year. I have a huge amount of affection for Mexican culture and, in general, the approach of how to remember people who are a part of your life. So, this is, like, the perfect way for me to bring people together at my house is to say, like, "Hey, my dad was awesome. What about your family? Who are your people?" What's really nice is that has given me an opportunity to host people at my house. And I've had Hutch company owners at my house the last couple of years and the person who runs Hutch. So, it's a really great community that I look at that is trying to shape the next emergent companies that are helping deliver digital services across the government. And it's really fun to be early on in their career and help them grow. Again, it seems silly, but it's the thing I care a lot about. How do I connect with people and provide the most value that I can? And this is a way I can provide that value to companies that may also go off and provide that value. It's a little bit of an amplifier. So, I'm a huge fan of what we've been able to accomplish and being a part of it in any way, shape, or form. VICTORIA: Well, I think that's a really beautiful way to wrap it up. ROBBIE: Really glad to catch up with you and be a part of this amazing podcast. VICTORIA: Yeah, so much fun. Thank you again so much. It was great to be here with you today. You can subscribe to the show and find notes along with a complete transcript for this episode at giantrobots.fm. If you have questions or comments, email us at hosts@giantrobots.fm. You can find me on thoughtbotsocial@vguido. This podcast is brought to you by thoughtbot and produced and edited by Mandy Moore. Thanks for listening. See you next time. AD: Did you know thoughtbot has a referral program? If you introduce us to someone looking for a design or development partner, we will compensate you if they decide to work with us. More info on our website at: tbot.io/referral. Or you can email us at: referrals@thoughtbot.com with any questions.

A few weeks ago, I got a late night message on our team's Slack that made me do a double-take and was - to be frank - a real shock. It was a link to a Reddit thread that was titled “Ontario Digital Service is Officially Dead.”ODS had a simple but ambitious mission: transform Ontario's government services and practices for the digital age. It was led by Hillary Hartley, a veteran of digital transformation efforts like 18F in the United States Federal Government, who took on the role of not just leading ODS but serving as the first Chief Digital and Data Officer for the Ontario Government.ODS did groundbreaking work for government: New digital service standards and legislation, building user research labs, and creating really great apps and digital tools. But ODS was about more than just digital products. It was just as much about people. Passionate public servants driven by the belief that interacting with government should be easy and, in Hillary's words, delightful.So it came as a shock when I found out that the Ontario Digital Service was being shut down. Not with a bang, but quietly and without fanfare via an internal memo informing staff that ODS was being disbanded. There has been little public discussion on what ODS' contribution to the Ontario government has been, nor what this decision might mean for other government digital teams or the digital government movement more broadly.On this episode of the podcast, we tell the story of the ODS over the past 7 years, and what it means now that it has ended, from those who were there at the beginning. We hear from Hillary Hartley about leading the ODS as Ontario's first Chief Digital Officer. We also hear from Karim Bardeesy who was Director of Policy and Deputy Principal Secretary for Premiere Kathleen Wynne when ODS was first being conceptualized. Tanya Coyle, was a long time public servant in Ontario who became one of the co-founders of this new digital startup team in the heart of the Ontario government. And Honey Dacanay was part of the founding team of ODS when it was still what we sometimes call in the tech world a “two-pizza team”.Related LinksOntario Digital Service is officially dead (Reddit)Ontario government disbands remnants of Ontario Digital Service by David Reevely, The LogicFirst blogpost by the team that set-up ODSByte-Sized Progress: Assessing Digital Transformation in the Government of Canada, The DaisOntario Digital ServiceWatch on YouTubehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-nZ3G14zyUChapters00:04 Introduction03:11 Hillary Hartley joins the ODS04:33 The role of political leadership11:50 Accomplishments of the ODS21:11 What does the disbanding mean?28:14 Hillary reflects on the end of ODS34:22 Conclusion

Guest Jacob Kaplan-Moss Panelist Richard Littauer | Amanda Casari Show Notes This episode of Sustain explores the challenges and dynamics of funding open source projects. Host Richard Littauer and co-host Amanda Casari welcome guest Jacob Kaplan-Moss, Board Member and Treasurer of the Django Software Foundation, and Security Architect at Latacora. The discussion covers Jacob's recent blog post on the criticism faced by open source maintainers who seek compensation, highlighting the backlash encountered from seeing grants to selling T-shirts. The conversation also explores the ethical use of open source software, the importance of supporting maintainers financially, and the complexities surrounding the definition and licensing of open source software. Additionally, this episode touches on the personal connection to open source, the struggle for maintainers to find sustainable funding models, and the potential impact of high net worth individual donations. Download this episode now to hear more! [00:00:53] Richard highlights Jacob's association with Django and his role as a security architect and brings up a blog post Jacob wrote about the experience of being an open source maintainer. He shares examples of maintainers who face undue criticism for monetizing their open source work in various ways and his thesis. Also, Richard endorses the Blue Oak Council and PolyForm Project. [00:06:24] Amanda appreciates the blog's message about the sustainability of open source and the need to pay maintainers. Jacob recounts the largely positive reception of his post but also addresses the critical and unproductive responses, and he clarifies his stance on the importance of formal definitions of open source. [00:10:14] Richard suggests the term “Big Tent Open Source” and discusses the importance of having standards to precent open washing while also encouraging diversity in licensing. Jacob uses the term “monogamish” as an analogy for a more flexible approach to open source licensing. [00:11:46] Amanda discusses her background in releasing various types of open source work and how it sometimes differs from web apps, and touches on the complexities of open source licensing. She asks Jacob about his concerns regarding the adoption of open source in larger systems, and he shares his experience with government technology procurement, stressing the necessity of precise definitions of open source in that context. [00:16:40] Richard shifts the conversation to ethical considerations of open source work, specifically when software is used for harmful purposes, like state interventions. Jacob gives us a nuanced view on the ethical use of open source software and the impossibility of drawing a clear line between good and evil uses. [00:20:56] Jacob provides insights into the Django Software Foundation's current scale, funding, and staffing, highlighting the significant impact even a small increase in funding could have, and he discusses the challenge of scaling funding across the vast number of open source projects to achieve broad sustainability. [00:23:16] Jacobs talks about the potential of engaging high net worth individuals and family foundations for donations as they may be more receptive than corporations. [00:24:54] Richard discusses the groups privilege and raises the question regarding giving back to open source or to the broader community, and Jacob explains he avoids judging others' financial decisions but acknowledges his own better-off position and the personal moral obligation he feels to give back. [00:27:05] The conversation shifts to Richard asking Jacob how to support each other's capitalist ventures while contributing to the open source community. He suggests congratulating individual successes and learning from them, while also being comfortable criticizing the systems and institutions that may be at odds with open source values. [00:28:53] Find out where you can learn more about Jacob on the internet. Quotes [00:01:40] “There's this dynamic that happens around open source, where when someone takes money, someone always shows up to criticize them for it.” [00:04:07] “Anytime an open source maintainer figures out a way to get paid to build a lifestyle, at the very least comfortable, we should be celebrating that.” [00:06:46] “The community has coalesced around a definition of open source as defined by the OSI. I was like wait a minute, how are you conflating the open source community with one foundation? I don't agree with this conflation of the OSI speaks for all open source.” [00:13:39] “If you work in technology for the government ling enough, eventually you come to realize that every problem is a procurement problem.” [00:18:16] “Even the MIT license is, do whatever you want, just don't sue me.” [00:22:18] “To reach a point where I would say that open source as a whole is broadly sustainable, I would want every single project to have that level of funding associated with it.” Spotlight [00:30:11] Amanda's spotlight is a book coming out next month called, “Software Engineering for Data Scientists.” [00:30:42] Richard's spotlight is the book, “Better Living Through Birding: Notes from a Black Man in the Natural World.” [00:31:20] Jacob's spotlight is the PolyForm family of licenses and the book, “Producing Open Source Software: How to Run a Successful Free Software Project.” Links SustainOSS (https://sustainoss.org/) SustainOSS Twitter (https://twitter.com/SustainOSS?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor) SustainOSS Discourse (https://discourse.sustainoss.org/) podcast@sustainoss.org (mailto:podcast@sustainoss.org) SustainOSS Mastodon (https://mastodon.social/tags/sustainoss) Open Collective-SustainOSS (Contribute) (https://opencollective.com/sustainoss) Richard Littauer Socials (https://www.burntfen.com/2023-05-30/socials) Amanda Casari X/Twitter (https://twitter.com/amcasari?lang=en) Jacob Kaplan-Moss LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/jacobian/) Jacob Kaplan-Moss Website (https://jacobian.org/) Jacob Kaplan-Moss Mastodon (https://social.jacobian.org/@jacob) Django Software Foundation (https://www.djangoproject.com/foundation/) Django (https://www.djangoproject.com/) Latacora (https://www.latacora.com/) Jacob's Blog post: “Paying people to work on open source is good actually” (https://jacobian.org/2024/feb/16/paying-maintainers-is-good/) Blue Oak Council (https://blueoakcouncil.org/) PolyForm Project (https://polyformproject.org/) PolyForm Licenses (https://polyformproject.org/licenses/) Pamela Chestek LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/pchestek/) Sasha Magee X/Twitter post on government procurement (https://twitter.com/sashax/status/941036458307076097) 18F (https://18f.gsa.gov/) What you should know about Vermont's proposed wealth taxes (Vermont Edition) (https://www.vermontpublic.org/show/vermont-edition/2024-02-12/what-you-should-know-about-vermonts-proposed-wealth-taxes) Software Engineering for Data Scientists by Catherine Nelson (https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/software-engineering-for/9781098136192/) Better Living Through Birding: Notes From a Black Man in the Natural World by Christian Cooper (https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/671722/better-living-through-birding-by-christian-cooper/) Producing Open Source Software: How to Run a Successful Free Software Project by Karl Fogel (https://producingoss.com/) Credits Produced by Richard Littauer (https://www.burntfen.com/) Edited by Paul M. Bahr at Peachtree Sound (https://www.peachtreesound.com/) Show notes by DeAnn Bahr Peachtree Sound (https://www.peachtreesound.com/) Special Guest: Jacob Kaplan-Moss.

It's fair to say that most governments don't choose to use open source by default. Despite efforts over the past two decades to make open source solutions a viable, or even default solution in government, there's still a lot of skepticism. Those in decision making positions often raise concerns around security and reliability compared to proprietary software that is viewed as being “safe” even if it is more expensive and less flexible in many cases.So what should an open source government look like? And why would we want one?To answer these questions, we are joined by Aaron Snow, Faculty Fellow, and former Acting Executive Director for the Georgetown University Beeck Center for Social Impact and Innovation in Washington DC. Prior to his work at the Beeck Center, Aaron was a US Presidential Innovation Fellow and was subsequently one of the co-founders, and then later Executive Director of 18F, the US government's in-house technology and design consultancy. In 2018 he moved north of the border and became the first CEO of the Government of Canada's Canadian Digital Service. And has twice been named one of the “World's 100 Most Influential People in Digital Government" by Apolitical.In our conversation, we talk about why our current approach to technology actually makes government less transparent, and how open source in government might be a moral imperative. If government is creating or procuring software using taxpayer's money--something that has been in the news with the investigation into the ArriveCan app in Canada--shouldn't government have a requirement to share that code back with the public since it is the public who “owns” it? And how do we ensure that leaders in government know enough about technology to make good decisions about how it is used?Watch on YouTubehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ZJEuTgFK6MRelated LinksDigital Service NetworkAaron Snow's WebsiteGeorgetown University Beeck Center for Social Innovation and ImpactAuditor-General to report Monday on how cost of ArriveCan app grew from $80,000 to more than $54-million (Globe and Mail)Chapters00:00 Introduction04:41 Interview with Aaron Snow06:13 The Security Aspect of Open Source07:46 The Unrealized Promise of Open Source in Government13:15 The Need for Strong Political Leadership in Digital Government24:03 Modular, Reusable Components in Government32:03 Conclusion

Hoy hablamos sobre los resultados de las elecciones en Galicia del 18F de 2024. El Partido Popular (PP) revalida su mayoría absoluta y el Bloque Nacionalista Galego (BNG) obtiene unos muy buenos resultados y se coloca como la oposición gallega. Democracia Ourensana entra en el parlamento gallego. Más allá de eso, la izquierda obtiene una evidente derrota electoral. El PSOE de Galicia (PSdeG) pierde una enorme cantidad de votos. Ni Sumar ni Podemos -además de Vox- consiguen representación. ¿Tiene un problema la izquierda? Con Pedro García Bilbao, mano a mano con Juan Carlos Barba. Escucha el episodio completo en la app de iVoox, o descubre todo el catálogo de iVoox Originals

Hoy analizamos los resultados de las elecciones gallegas del 18F de 2024. El Partido Popular (PP) revalida la mayoría absoluta y volverá a gobernar Galicia sin necesidad de pactar con nadie. El Bloque Nacionalista Galego (BNG) de Ana Pontón tiene unos excelentes resultados y queda segunda. Mientras tanto, el PSOE de Galicia (PSdeG) retrocede con fuerza y pierde una buena cantidad de votos. Por último, Democracia Ourensana consigue un escaño y entra en el parlamento gallego. Más allá de esto, el abismo. Vox se queda muy lejos del 5% de votos mínimo para conseguir sentarse en el parlamento. Y lo mismo sucede para Sumar y Podemos, que obtienen unos pobrísimos resultados. Además, analizamos la polémica de la semana: el fichaje y posterior renuncia de Alberto Garzón por la consultora Acento. Con Íñigo Molina, Carlos García, Toni Hernández y Jorge Amar. Conduce Juan Carlos Barba. Este episodio cuenta con la colaboración de la marca de coches DS. Escucha el episodio completo en la app de iVoox, o descubre todo el catálogo de iVoox Originals

Elena Gijón critica la lectura que está haciendo el PSOE de los resultados del 18F.

Temas: 1.⁠ ⁠“Tenemos que dar la lucha por el alma de nuestro país”, dice Xóchitl Gálvez en la Arena CDMX. 2.⁠ ⁠En modo vocero de campaña, lópez promueve reforma a pensiones. 3.⁠ ⁠El CHAIFA sólo genera aumento de delitos en 8 municipios aledaños. 4.⁠ ⁠Claudia le saca a debatir y Mario quiere impedir la marcha ciudadana del 18F. 5.⁠ ⁠Se cae un pedazo del tren México-Toluca que inauguraron hace 4 meses. 6.⁠ ⁠486 agresiones a militares y marinos, además de 412 policías asesinados, sólo en 2023. 7.⁠ ⁠Un nuevo escándalo del Clan de los Juniors lópez. 8.⁠ ⁠La farmaciotota electorera militar ha surtido 67 medicamentos. 9.⁠ ⁠López quiere destruir a todos los órganos autónomos que le estorban. 10.⁠ ⁠Acarrean a miles para hacer sentir bien a Claudia en su cierre de precampaña. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

You've probably seen any number of stories about how some founder in Silicon Valley says their startup can tackle a big societal problem better and cheaper than the public sector because government just can't do anything right. Or maybe you've heard about a public sector executive immediately dismissing an idea that came from the private sector on how to do things differently because government's unique and this is how it's always been done.These scenarios speak to larger tensions and misconceptions between the private and public sector. But if there's one thing that the pandemic and the resulting sudden need for the deployment of impactful digital tools taught us is that we don't have to accept business as usual as the only way to solve problems and deliver services.This week we're talking about what you can accomplish when you harness tech, talent and modern approaches to digital service delivery in the public sector. Joining us to talk about this is Hillary Hartley, CEO of US Digital Response. USDR was founded in 2020 to pair volunteer tech talent with governments to create critical digital tools needed to respond to the COVID-19 crisis. Today, US Digital Response has grown into a community of over 8000 pro bono digital specialists who have partnered with almost 300 different government and nonprofit organizations across the United States on projects that directly impact communities. Prior to her role at USDR, she was head of the Ontario Digital Service, which she led in conjunction with her deputy minister level position of Chief Digital and Data Officer for the Ontario government. And before that, Hillary was the deputy executive director of 18F, a digital services agency in the US federal government that she helped to create back when she was a Presidential Innovation Fellow in 2013. Hillary is a great example of someone who thought she was headed to a long term career in Silicon Valley, found herself in a public sector role, and then fell in love with the impact that she could make in government.Related LinksUS Digital ResponseCode for CanadaWatch on YouTubehttps://youtube.com/watch?v=o9QD4bfPP64

Temas: 1.⁠ ⁠Claudia le saca a debatir y Mario quiere impedir la marcha ciudadana del 18F. 2.⁠ ⁠Se cae un pedazo del tren México-Toluca que inauguraron hace 4 meses. 3.⁠ ⁠486 agresiones a militares y marinos, además de 412 policías asesinados, sólo en 2023. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Victor Udoewa works in the Office of Public Health Data Surveillance and Technology at the CDC. Previously, he worked at the Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer programs at NASA, as well as at 18F and Google. We talk about his journey into design and leadership, the role of design in the civic space, radical participatory design, and orchestrating relationships in complex systems. Listen to learn about: >> Civic design and social impact design >> Radical participatory design and working with the people and communities you're serving >> The effect of relationships on systems >> The fallacy of problem solving Our Guest Victor Udoewa works in the Office of Public Health Data, Surveillance, and Technology (OPHDST) at the CDC. He previously served as CTO, CXO, and Service Design Lead of the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs at NASA. He was the Director of Strategy at 18F, a civic consultancy for the federal government inside the federal government. He led the digital strategy practice and served as a designer and strategist on projects. Previously, as a Global Education Instructional Designer and Training Development Specialist at Google, he designed learning products and services for people in low-to-middle-income countries around the world. Show Highlights [01:07] Victor started out in aerospace engineering, building computer models. [03:44] How one summer in El Salvador working on composting latrines changed everything. [06:05] Wanting his work to make a positive difference. [06:22] Becoming a science and technology policy advisor for the government. [06:38] Moving to the UK and designing educational products and services focused around literacy. [06:57] Coming back to government work as a civic designer and innovator. [08:39] Civic design and designing for social impact. [09:19] Much of the work of the U.S. government is done by contractors. [10:11] Civic work has numerous challenges. You must be prepared for that struggle. [12:30] Victor talks about finding and working with good people. [15:02] Why Victor uses the term radical participatory design to describe what he does. [16:19] The three main characteristics of the projects Victor works on. [17:08] Why the choice of facilitator is so important. [17:48] Professional designers can underestimate the skills and expertise of the community they are working with. [18:57] The process Victor uses to help community members feel comfortable with leading and facilitating. [21:45] Shifting from problem- and need-based methodologies to asset- and place-based methodologies. [23:30] Victor talks about a community he's working with to create a socially-equitable and racially-just Parent-Teacher Association. [23:42] The Sustained Dialogue methodology. [26:53] The correlation between poverty and the absence of healthy relationships. [27:50] How Victor defines poverty. [28:56] A Miro Moment. [32:18] The effect of relationships on the design space and beyond. [36:41] Viewing school as a service. [40:16] Going beyond human needs. [42:17] How might we create environments that facilitate learning well? [44:39] Making a shift from student-centered to student-led. [45:29] Building innovation and flexibility into institutions. [47:24] “The end of solutions.” [49:44] Solving is not “one and done,” especially when working with complex systems. [52:50] Books and resources Victor recommends. [58:01] Dawan talks about Victor's article, Radical Participatory Design (link is below). Links Victor on LinkedIn Victor on the Federation of American Scientists Victor on ResearchGate Victor on the Service Design Network Control the Room: Victor Udoewa: Giving Up Power In Your Space Guest Lecture - Dr Victor Udoewa - Participatory Design: A Digital Literacy Case Study | UMD iSchool Relating Systems Thinking and Design Association for Community Design – Chicago conference Life Centered Design School Radical Participatory Design: Awareness of Participation, by Victor Udoewa   Book Recommendations Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples, by Linda Tuhiwai Smith Research Is Ceremony: Indigenous Research Methods, by Shawn Wilson Thinking in Systems: A Primer, by Donella H. Meadows and Diana Wright The Non-Human Persona Guide: How to create and use personas for nature and invisible humans to respect their needs during design, by Damien Lutz My Grandmother's Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies, by Resmaa Menakem Designs for the Pluriverse: Radical Interdependence, Autonomy, and the Making of Worlds, by Arturo Escobar   Other Design Thinking 101 Episodes You Might Like Facilitation + Remote Teams + Miro with Shipra Kayan — DT101 E121 Collaboration + Facilitation + Workshops with Austin Govella — DT101 E83 Designing Facilitation: A System for Creating and Leading Exceptional Events // ALD 006 — DT101 E73    

Dr. Jason Crowell talks with Dr. Elsmarieke van de Giessen and Emma Coomans about a newly FDA-approved tau-binding radiotracer [18F]flortaucipir and an accompanying visual read method to support the diagnostic process in cognitively impaired patients assessed for Alzheimer disease. Read the related article in Neurology. Disclosures can be found at Neurology.org.

Welcome back friends! We're starting the new year with a bit of a longer episode with 2 stories with a couple of updates. There is a magic the gathering player who went out for a fun night and ended up losing all his cards. Then we have a young couple entangled with an older friend who thinks he's a better match. Join us and be shocked at the twists these stories throw at us! Years of fun gone, angry and disappointed. 15:54 My (20M) friend (22M) wants me to "step aside" so he can try to date my not-girlfriend (18F) 49:54 JOIN THE DISCORD! https://discord.gg/wtGCdVt2Jr

Con Ignacio Escolar, Elena Pisonero y Carlos Sánchez. La palabra 'polarización' ha sido elegida por la RAE como palabra de este año, una elección que tiene una indudable descripción de la situación política. Este mediodía comienza la moción de censura en Pamplona por el que Bildu alcanzará la alcaldía gracias a los votos del PSN, hablamos con su secretario de Organización, el socialista Ramón Alzórriz. En Galicia, Sumar y Podemos han alcanzado un acuerdo para concurrir juntos, también con IU, a los comicios autonómicos del 18F.

Reddit rSlash Storytime r relationships where Am I (19M) Wrong to ask my bf (22M) to keep using protection until we get tested again? Me(30F) can't sleep in bed with my (26M) Am I expecting too much from my husband? (28F)/(37M) **How/when should I tell the person I am talking to (18F) that I (18M) can't have kids? **How do I(21f) react appropriately when my partner(26m) has a night out and keeps me out of loop? My (27f) bf (28m) doesn't say “I love you” to me unless he is “reminded” + only is affectionate when I am upset The person(23F) I've (22M) been seeing abruptly stopped talking to me. My (27f) boyfriend (30m) gives his number to other women and makes new friendships with other women often. Should I be concerned?? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Drs. Andrea Oliver and Andrew van Eps authors of "Effect of ambulation following 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose injection on standing positron emission tomography of the healthy equine digit in: American Journal of Veterinary Research Volume 84 Issue 9 (2023) (avma.org)" discuss 18F-FDG uptake values for healthy horses undergoing standing PET imaging. Hosted by Associate Editor Dr. Sarah Wright and Editor-in-Chief Dr. Lisa Fortier.INTERESTED IN SUBMITTING YOUR MANUSCRIPT TO JAVMA ® OR AJVR ® ? JAVMA ® : https://avma.org/JAVMAAuthors AJVR ® : https://avma.org/AJVRAuthorsFOLLOW US:JAVMA ® : Facebook: Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association - JAVMA | Facebook Instagram: JAVMA (@avma_javma) • Instagram photos and videos Twitter: JAVMA (@AVMAJAVMA) / Twitter AJVR ® : Facebook: American Journal of Veterinary Research - AJVR | Facebook Instagram: AJVR (@ajvroa) • Instagram photos and videos Twitter: AJVR (@AJVROA) / Twitter JAVMA ® and AJVR ® LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/company/avma-journals

Lead Story:  Reduced Stress-Related Neural Network Activity Mediates the Effect of Alcohol on Cardiovascular Risk Journal of the American College of Cardiology Chronic stress is associated with major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE) via increased stress-related neural network activity (SNA). Light/moderate alcohol consumption (ACl/m) has been linked to lower MACE risk, but the mechanisms are unclear. This study evaluated whether the association between ACl/m and MACE is mediated by decreased SNA. Individuals enrolled in the Mass General Brigham Biobank who completed a health behavior survey were studied. A subset underwent 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography, enabling assessment of SNA. Alcohol consumption was classified as none/minimal, light/moderate, or high (14 drinks/week, respectively).  ACl/m associates with reduced MACE risk, in part, by lowering the activity of a stress-related brain network known for its association with cardiovascular disease. Given alcohol's potential health detriments, new interventions with similar effects on SNA are needed. Read this issue of the ASAM Weekly Subscribe to the ASAM Weekly Visit ASAM  

r/BestofRedditorUpdates - [REPOST] I (17F) saw my best friends dad (30sM) "with" a girl (18F) who has been saying she's had a crush on him since she was 12...should I tell my best friend what I saw or keep my mouth shut??

r/BestofRedditorUpdates - Today i found out my (19M) boyfriend has been cheating on me (18F) with his mother for our entire relationship 

GPT-4's rapid and tangible improvement over ChatGPT has more or less guaranteed that it or a competitor will be built into most new and legacy information and technology (IT) products. Some applications will be pointless; but some will change users' world. In this episode, Sultan Meghji, Jordan Schneider, and Siobhan Gorman explore the likely impact of GPT4 from Silicon Valley to China.   Kurt Sanger joins us to explain why Ukraine's IT Army of volunteer hackers creates political, legal, and maybe even physical risks for the hackers and for Ukraine. This may explain why Ukraine is looking for ways to “regularize” their international supporters, with a view to steering them toward defending Ukrainian infrastructure. Siobhan and I dig into the Biden administration's latest target for cybersecurity regulation: cloud providers.  I wonder if there is not a bit of bait and switch in operation here. The administration seems at least as intent on regulating cloud providers to catch hackers as to improve defenses. Say this for China – it never lets a bit of leverage go to waste, even when it should.  To further buttress its seven-dashed-line claim to the South China Sea, China is demanding that companies get Chinese licenses to lay submarine cable within the contested territory. That, of course, incentivizes the laying of cables much further from China, out where they're harder for the Chinese to deal with in a conflict. But some Beijing bureaucrat will no doubt claim it as a win for the wolf warriors. Ditto for the Chinese ambassador's statement about the Netherlands joining the U.S. in restricting chip-making equipment sales to China, which boiled down to “We will make you pay for that. We just do not know how yet.” The U.S. is not always good at dealing with its companies and other countries, but it is nice to be competing with a country that is demonstrably worse at it. The Security and Exchange Commission has gone from catatonic to hyperactive on cybersecurity. Siobhan notes its latest 48-hour incident reporting requirement and the difficulty of reporting anything useful in that time frame.  Kurt and Siobhan bring their expertise as parents of teens and aspiring teens to the TikTok debate. I linger over the extraordinary and undercovered mess created by “18F”—the General Service Administration's effort to bring Silicon Valley to the government's IT infrastructure. It looks like they brought Silicon Valley's arrogance, its political correctness, and its penchant for breaking things but forgot to bring either competence or honesty.  18F lied to its federal customers about how or whether it was checking the identities of people logging in through login.gov. When it finally admitted the lie, it brazenly claimed it was not checking because the technology was biased, contrary to the only available evidence. Oh, and it refused to give back the $10 million it charged because the work it did cost more than that. This breakdown in the middle of coronavirus handouts undoubtedly juiced fraud, but no one has figured out how much. Among the victims: Sen. Ron Wyden (D.-Ore.), who used login.gov and its phony biometric checks as the “good” alternative that would let the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) cancel its politically inconvenient contract with ID.me. Really, guys, it's time to start scrubbing 18F from your LinkedIn profiles. The Knicks have won some games. Blind pigs have found some acorns. But Madison Square Garden (and Knicks) owner, Jimmy Dolan is still investing good money in his unwinnable fight to use facial recognition to keep lawyers he does not like out of the Garden. Kurt offers commentary, thereby saving himself the cost of Knicks tickets for future playoff games.  Finally, I read Simson Garfinkel's explanation of a question I asked (and should have known the answer to) in episode 448.

GPT-4's rapid and tangible improvement over ChatGPT has more or less guaranteed that it or a competitor will be built into most new and legacy information and technology (IT) products. Some applications will be pointless; but some will change users' world. In this episode, Sultan Meghji, Jordan Schneider, and Siobhan Gorman explore the likely impact of GPT4 from Silicon Valley to China.   Kurt Sanger joins us to explain why Ukraine's IT Army of volunteer hackers creates political, legal, and maybe even physical risks for the hackers and for Ukraine. This may explain why Ukraine is looking for ways to “regularize” their international supporters, with a view to steering them toward defending Ukrainian infrastructure. Siobhan and I dig into the Biden administration's latest target for cybersecurity regulation: cloud providers.  I wonder if there is not a bit of bait and switch in operation here. The administration seems at least as intent on regulating cloud providers to catch hackers as to improve defenses. Say this for China – it never lets a bit of leverage go to waste, even when it should.  To further buttress its seven-dashed-line claim to the South China Sea, China is demanding that companies get Chinese licenses to lay submarine cable within the contested territory. That, of course, incentivizes the laying of cables much further from China, out where they're harder for the Chinese to deal with in a conflict. But some Beijing bureaucrat will no doubt claim it as a win for the wolf warriors. Ditto for the Chinese ambassador's statement about the Netherlands joining the U.S. in restricting chip-making equipment sales to China, which boiled down to “We will make you pay for that. We just do not know how yet.” The U.S. is not always good at dealing with its companies and other countries, but it is nice to be competing with a country that is demonstrably worse at it. The Security and Exchange Commission has gone from catatonic to hyperactive on cybersecurity. Siobhan notes its latest 48-hour incident reporting requirement and the difficulty of reporting anything useful in that time frame.  Kurt and Siobhan bring their expertise as parents of teens and aspiring teens to the TikTok debate. I linger over the extraordinary and undercovered mess created by “18F”—the General Service Administration's effort to bring Silicon Valley to the government's IT infrastructure. It looks like they brought Silicon Valley's arrogance, its political correctness, and its penchant for breaking things but forgot to bring either competence or honesty.  18F lied to its federal customers about how or whether it was checking the identities of people logging in through login.gov. When it finally admitted the lie, it brazenly claimed it was not checking because the technology was biased, contrary to the only available evidence. Oh, and it refused to give back the $10 million it charged because the work it did cost more than that. This breakdown in the middle of coronavirus handouts undoubtedly juiced fraud, but no one has figured out how much. Among the victims: Sen. Ron Wyden (D.-Ore.), who used login.gov and its phony biometric checks as the “good” alternative that would let the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) cancel its politically inconvenient contract with ID.me. Really, guys, it's time to start scrubbing 18F from your LinkedIn profiles. The Knicks have won some games. Blind pigs have found some acorns. But Madison Square Garden (and Knicks) owner, Jimmy Dolan is still investing good money in his unwinnable fight to use facial recognition to keep lawyers he does not like out of the Garden. Kurt offers commentary, thereby saving himself the cost of Knicks tickets for future playoff games.  Finally, I read Simson Garfinkel's explanation of a question I asked (and should have known the answer to) in episode 448.

Kara DeFrias is the current Chief of Staff for the Intuit QuickBooks Platform, with a background rich in both private and public sector experience. Previous work includes serving as senior advisor to the leadership team of the technology and design consultancy 18F in the Obama Administration, founding TEDxIntuit, and being part of the Emmy Award-winning production staff on the Oscars. A do-gooder at heart, Kara has done pro bono digital strategy. Today on the show we talk about UX and moving into, through, and almost out of design.  Listen to learn about: Advice for newcomers wanting to get into design Seeing the world through design The importance of choosing work that aligns with your values The need for new voices in the design industry Designing in-person UX Our Guest Kara DeFrias' passion for designing engaging experiences has brought her to many exciting places, including the Super Bowl, the Oscars, and two White Houses. Kara's background is a unique mix of private and public sector experience, including 9 years with Intuit and an appointment to the first class of Presidential Innovation Fellows. In the latter she served as entrepreneur in residence, reimagining the relationship between the government and the people from a technology perspective. Kara was Director of UX for then-Vice President Biden at the Obama White House, where she led the Cancer Moonshot work around cancer clinical trials. She then served as Senior Advisor in the Office of Technology in the Biden-Harris White House. She's currently Chief of Staff for the Intuit QuickBooks Platform team. Previous work includes Senior Advisor to 18F's Executive Director and senior leadership team, founder of TEDxIntuit, and part of the Emmy award-winning production staff on the Oscars. She also worked on the Women's World Cup press operations team and the Super Bowl. A do-gooder at heart, Kara has done pro-bono digital strategy and communications for the likes of Team Rubicon and spent 10 days in rural India teaching micro-entrepreneur women human centered design, product management, and business skills.  Kara graduated summa cum laude from Penn State University with a masters degree in instructional systems design, and was a finalist for San Diego Woman of the Year. According to her 2nd grade report card, Kara “likes to talk. A lot.”   Show Highlights [02:05] The three stages of Kara's career. [02:34] Her time in instructional design, including a graduate degree from Penn State. [03:03] Moving to California and working in the entertainment industry. [03:51] Starting work at Intuit and finding UX and design. [05:11] Working with the NJM Insurance Group New Media team on usability and user research. [06:39] Developing her UX skillset, and having a great mentor. [09:03] Some of today's challenges for new people wanting to get into design. [12:44] Advice for newcomers wanting to get into design. [13:20] Kara mentions a few good design conferences. [14:34] The need for design veterans to mentor and support, and conferences to make their spaces accessible and welcoming to new voices. [15:02] Volunteering is an important part of skillset and career development. [17:11] Kara sums up her advice. [19:56] The importance of ensuring that one's design work endures, to be used and built upon by others. [21:26] What do you do when you feel like you've done everything you can in design? [22:30] Kara's move out of design, and being Chief of Staff at Intuit. [23:46] Learning design will change how you see the world. [27:05] Kara talks about a life a-ha she had while leaving the Obama White House. [27:57] Dawan and Kara talk about aligning your values with the work you choose to do. [30:50] An early lesson Kara learned about treating one's team well. [33:18] Being OK with making mistakes publicly and taking steps to correct them. [34:54] Asking for help. [36:57] Kara and Dawan joke about a hypothetical Design Twitter Over Dinner podcast. [38:36] Why new voices are a critical need in the design community. [41:51] Book recommendations from Kara. [42:45] Kara's experience with TedX San Diego and founding TedX Intuit. [45:18] Designing great in-person UX. [47:09] Dawan closes by encouraging veteran designers to become mentors to emerging designers. Links Kara on Twitter Kara on LinkedIn Kara on Medium Kara on Women Talk Design Kara's website How to get out of your own way as a designer and get down to business Designing the Intersection of Government, Cancer, and the People Cancer Moonshot   Chicago Camps conference Button content design conference Confab content strategy conference   Book Recommendations  Don't Make Me Think, by Steve Krug The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why It Matters, by Priya Parker    Other Design Thinking 101 Episodes You Might Like  Your Good-Life OS: Designing a System for Living Well and Peak Performance // ALD 004 — DT101 E67 Teaching Yourself Design Thinking + Innovating in Government with Amy J. Wilson — DT101 E19 Design Thinking + Learning Science with Adam Royalty — DT101 E18 

Featuring perspectives from Dr Matthew Smith, including the following topics: Introduction: Abemaciclib for Prostate Cancer? (0:00) Case: A man in his early 70s with a PSA of 150 ng/mL, Gleason 4 + 4 and upper abdominal adenopathy — Jennifer L Dallas, MD (9:30) Case: A man in his late 60s with Gleason 4 + 4, PSA of 147 ng/mL and a negative CT — David S Morris, MD (34:30) Case: A man in his late 60s with coronary artery disease and Gleason 4 + 4 who underwent external beam radiation therapy (EBRT) in 2013 and now has increasing PSA of 3.8 with a 6-month doubling time — Gurveen Kaur, MD (37:56) Case: A man in his mid 60s who experiences M0 progression after EBRT followed by androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) but refuses to continue ADT — Henna Malik, MD (41:44) Case: A man in his early 50s with a slowly rising PSA (now 1.31) after radical prostatectomy and salvage radiation therapy; PSMA PET scan denied by insurance, now appealed — Kapisthalam (KS) Kumar, MD (50:23) Case: A man in his late 70s with Gleason 5 + 4 and a PSA of 23 ng/mL increasing after EBRT followed by ADT, cryoablation and enzalutamide; after a response, 18F-fluciclovine PET shows subtle focus of uptake in left prostate — Susmitha Apuri, MD (57:06) CME information and select publications