Podcasts about United States Digital Service

In this episode, Patrick McKenzie (@patio11) is joined by Mikey Dickerson to discuss the complex realities behind government software projects. Mikey shares insights from leading the healthcare.gov rescue effort and founding the United States Digital Service, explaining how procurement processes create requirements through committee decision-making without market-based feedback loops. They explore how government systems handle software development differently than industry, with Mikey noting that the issues are less about individual competence and more about systemic incentives that reward risk aversion. The conversation covers the challenges of "modernization" efforts, the loss of organizational management knowledge over decades, and reflection on when and how technologists might effectively contribute to public service. –Full transcript available here: –Sponsor:  MercuryThis episode is brought to you by Mercury, the fintech trusted by 200K+ companies — from first milestones to running complex systems. Mercury offers banking that truly understands startups and scales with them. Start today at Mercury.com Mercury is a financial technology company, not a bank. Banking services provided by Choice Financial Group, Column N.A., and Evolve Bank & Trust; Members FDIC.–Recommended in this episode: www.complexsystemspodcast.com/fixing-government-technology-with-mikey-dickerson/Bureaucracy by James Q. Wilson: https://www.amazon.com/Bureaucracy-Government-Agencies-Basic-Classics/dp/0465007856 Movie: The Pentagon Wars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pentagon_Wars Mikey Dickerson's company Layer Aleph: https://layeraleph.com/ Marina Nitze's article, I tried to fix government tech for years: https://reason.com/2025/02/13/i-tried-to-fix-government-tech-for-years-im-fed-up/Complex Systems with Dan Davies https://open.spotify.com/episode/5QKxzgumJXSQuaWCmYAoM9?si=uQWgAx1iSzGm5iCUBWei8A Complex Systems with Dave Guarino https://open.spotify.com/episode/0UlTIRosmjtvpcdHQ7t2tK?si=MlUqO3uWRie1E_GRQ5D7jg –Timestamps:(00:00) Intro(00:24) Government software procurement(06:02) Fighter planes and requirements(08:37) Software development cycles(11:37) Deadline challenges(12:18) California vaccine scheduling(16:15) Pandemic priorities(17:27) Sponsor: Mercury(18:40) Government employee competence(22:30) Government pay scales(25:56) IRS modernization reports(27:48) System modernization plans(34:33) Healthcare.gov lessons(40:29) Feedback loops in civil service(44:09) Legislative expertise(46:49) Applied mathematics(47:57) Loss of knowledge(49:28) Tour of duty recommendation(53:06) Wrap

Jennifer Pahlka believes America's bureaucratic dysfunction is deeply rooted in outdated processes and misaligned incentives. As the founder of Code for America and co-founder of the United States Digital Service, she has witnessed firsthand how government struggles to adapt to the digital age, often trapped in rigid procedures and disconnected from the real-world impact of its policies. Disruption is clearly needed, she says—but can it be done in a way that avoids the chaos of DOGE? Tyler and Jennifer discuss all this and more, including why Congress has become increasingly passive, how she'd go about reforming government programs, whether there should be less accountability in government, how AGI will change things, whether the US should have public-sector unions, what Singapore's effectiveness reveals about the trade-offs of technocratic governance, how AI might fundamentally transform national sovereignty, what her experience in the gaming industry taught her about reimagining systems, which American states are the best-governed, the best fictional depictions of bureaucracy, how she'd improve New York City's governance, her current work at the Niskanen Center, and more. Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links, or watch the full video. Recorded March 4th, 2025. Help keep the show ad free by donating today! The British remake of Ikiru referenced in today's podcast is: Living Other ways to connect Follow us on X and Instagram Follow Tyler on X Follow Jennifer on X Sign up for our newsletter Join our Discord Email us: cowenconvos@mercatus.gmu.edu Learn more about Conversations with Tyler and other Mercatus Center podcasts here.

Join me Jeff Tigger Erhardt, Rebecca Wanner AKA BEC and my crew as we find out how data decides the bulls at Keller Broken Heart Ranch.  Using technology to provide the top bulls to customers.  Plus sale recaps, cattle sale info and market commentary that you will only get on this all new episode of The Ranch It Up Radio Show. Be sure to subscribe on your favorite podcasting app or on the Ranch It Up Radio Show YouTube Channel. Season 5, EPISODE 226 Data Decides The Bulls At Keller Broken Heart Ranch & Beef Checkoff Updates Using Technology At Keller Broken Heart Ranch For Bull Selection Genetics That Combine Data & Functionality At Keller Broken Heart Ranch, great cattle are more than just numbers—they must also look and function well. This philosophy has produced standout donor cows like WS Miss Sugar C4 and BarCK 106Z, whose offspring consistently lead the herd and excel in other breeding programs nationwide. These cows and their progeny have shaped the Keller herd's genetics, with their descendants now leading the charge in improving carcass traits and maintaining physical quality. Sons of these donors are used in AI programs, and daughters have become foundational to future breeding success. A Vision For Continuous Improvement The Kellers embrace the mindset of lifelong learners, always striving to improve their herd. By mating cattle on paper and analyzing performance data, leveraging RightMate by Allied Genetic Resources, the Keller Broken Heart Ranch achieves uniformity in their herd without sacrificing performance. Focus on data-driven decision-making has become the cornerstone of their success. This commitment to innovation and adaptability ensures that Keller Broken Heart Ranch remains a leader in the Simmental and SimAngus industries, producing cattle that excel in data, performance, and visual appeal. The Future Outlook  The ranch remains steadfast in its mission: to improve the herd. By annually selling 120 bulls and 80 heifers, the Kellers stay dedicated to producing cattle with high marks on the ASA (American Simmental Association) All-Purpose Index (API) and Terminal Index (TI). Some Say The DOGE Should Look At The Beef Checkoff According to Meating Place, the Ranchers-Cattlemen Action Legal Fund United Stockgrowers of America or R-CALF, CEO Bill Bullard encouraged ranchers and cattlemen to reach out to President Trump's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to request the agency audit the USDA's Beef Checkoff Program.  Bullard said that we've long argued that the beef checkoff program, which is a USDA program that requires cattle producers to pay $1 for every head of cattle they sell; and it collects about $70 million each year, which he says, much of that comes from producers who do not support the mandatory government program.  He went on to say that while the beef checkoff program is supposed to fund education, promotion and research for beef, and not fund lobbying, evidence of abuse has surfaced and an independent audit report found that $216,000 of mandatory producer contributions had been misspent. The Beef Checkoff has strong cattle producer support, according to The National Cattlemen's Beef Association (NCBA), and undergoes annual audits and posts that information on their website. NCBA Vice President of Government Affairs Ethan Lane told Meating Place that the Beef Checkoff is an example of individual farmers and ranchers coming together to create a program that conducts research, educates consumers and builds demand for beef with a return on investment to producers of $13.41 for every $1 invested—all while operating with annual financial audits, strict oversight and at no cost to American taxpayers. R-CALF is a non-profit organization serving as a voice for independent cow-calf and sheep producers and feeders across America. NCBA is a non-profit trade association representing U.S. cattle producers.  DOGE is a temporary contracted organization under the United States Digital Service, which has asked the public to contact the organization with ideas for “reducing waste, fraud and abuse.” Imports Of Mexican Cattle Are Expected To Resume  A temporary suspension of imports of Mexican cattle into the United States is ending, according to several reports. The Mexican Agriculture Minister said that USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service  or  (APHIS) signed the first memorandums to allow the suspension to be lifted. The National Cattlemen's Beef Association (NCBA) thanked the Trump administration and USDA for “working swiftly” to protect the U.S cattle supply from the threat of New World Screwworm, which sparked the import suspension late last year. APHIS has developed a comprehensive protocol that involves layers of veterinary inspections and treatment to prevent the spread of screwworm and other types of ticks and insects. RanchChannel.Com Now Has The Futures Markets & New Listings Futures Markets RanchChannel.com now has futures markets at your fingertips!  Feeder Cattle, Live Cattle, Corn, Wheat, Soybeans, Soybean Oil, Milk Class IV, and Ethanol.  Information is provided by DTN and market information may be delayed by as much as 10 minutes.  Click Here for more information! UPCOMING SALES & EVENTS Dry Creek Ranch: March 1, 2025 Lucky 7 Angus:  March 1, 2025 Pederson Broken Heart Ranch: March 5, 2025 Mar Mac Farms:  March 5, 2025 Keller Broken Heart Ranch:  March 6, 2025 Eichacker Simmentals:  March 7, 2025 Fast/Dohrmann/Strommen: March 8, 2025 Leland/Koester Red Angus:  March 14, 2025 Arda Farms/Freeway Angus:  March 14, 2025 U2 Quality Seedstock:  March 18, 2025   Vollmer Angus Ranch:  April 1, 2025 CK Bar Ranch: April 4, 2025 Jorgensen Land & Cattle:  April 21, 2025 World Famous Miles City Bucking Horse Sale: May 15 - 18, 2025 BULL SALE REPORT & RESULTS Click HERE for the latest Bull Sale Results https://ranchchannel.com/category/past-bull-production-sales-archive/ FEATURING Luke Keller Keller Broken Heart Ranch https://kbhrsimmental.com/ @kbhrsimmentals Mark Vanzee Livestock Market, Equine Market, Auction Time https://www.auctiontime.com/ https://www.livestockmarket.com/ https://www.equinemarket.com/ @LivestockMkt @EquineMkt @AuctionTime Kirk Donsbach: Stone X Financial https://www.stonex.com/   @StoneXGroupInc    Shaye Koester Casual Cattle Conversation https://www.casualcattleconversations.com/ @cattleconvos Questions & Concerns From The Field? Call or Text your questions, or comments to 707-RANCH20 or 707-726-2420 Or email RanchItUpShow@gmail.com FOLLOW Facebook/Instagram: @RanchItUpShow SUBSCRIBE to the Ranch It Up YouTube Channel: @ranchitup Website: RanchItUpShow.com https://ranchitupshow.com/ The Ranch It Up Podcast is available on ALL podcasting apps. https://ranchitup.podbean.com/ Rural America is center-stage on this outfit. AND how is that? Tigger & BEC Live This Western American Lifestyle. Tigger & BEC represent the Working Ranch world and cattle industry by providing the cowboys, cowgirls, beef cattle producers & successful farmers the knowledge and education needed to bring high-quality beef & meat to your table for dinner. Learn more about Jeff 'Tigger' Erhardt & Rebecca Wanner aka BEC here: TiggerandBEC.com https://tiggerandbec.com/ #RanchItUp #StayRanchy #TiggerApproved #tiggerandbec #rodeo #ranching #farming References https://www.stonex.com/ https://www.livestockmarket.com/ https://www.equinemarket.com/ https://www.auctiontime.com/ https://gelbvieh.org/ https://www.imogeneingredients.com/ https://alliedgeneticresources.com/ https://westwayfeed.com/ https://medoraboot.com/ https://www.tsln.com/ https://transova.com/ https://axiota.com/ https://axiota.com/multimin-90-product-label/ https://jorgensenfarms.com/ https://ranchchannel.com/ https://www.wrangler.com/ https://www.ruralradio147.com/ https://www.rfdtv.com/ https://www.meatingplace.com/Industry/News/Details/118051 https://www.meatingplace.com/Industry/News/Details/117836

America joined Russia, Iran, North Korea, and Israel, led by indicted corrupt criminal and Putin pal Netanyahu, wanted for war crimes, to vote against Ukraine's United Nations resolution calling for peace and an end to Russia's genocidal invasion. In this week's Gaslit Nation, Andrea and Terrell Starr, of the Black Diplomats Podcast and Substack, joining from Kyiv, explain how we got here and what to do about it. Fascism helped build America, and global resistance to fascism will help us overcome the threats we face in this dangerous crossroads for America, and the world.    People are waking up from their shock and fighting back. Over $250,000 was raised on GoFundMe for Dr. Teresa Borrenpohl, the woman roughly dragged out of a town hall. The sheriff who threatened her with arrest from the stage is under investigation, along with his three unidentified rent-a-cops. Protests continue at Tesla dealerships, as well as Republican town halls across the country. Tesla owners face vandalism threats and pay to remove the logo, as the company's stock plummets. Twenty-one civil servants of the United States Digital Service, taken over by DOGE, resigned, writing in their letter: “We swore to serve the American people and uphold our oath to the Constitution across presidential administrations. However, it has become clear that we can no longer honor those commitments.” France's President Emmanuel Macron fact checked Trump at the White House and helped a banned AP reporter ask a question, and promised to strengthen security across Europe, including for Ukraine. At the Governors Ball in the White House, before Trump, the Army Choir sang the resistance anthem against tyranny, from Les Miserables, "Do You Hear the People Sing?"    To help us lift up our hearts and minds for the work ahead, this week's bonus show, for our Patreon members at the Truth-teller level and higher, is our recorded first ever Gaslit Nation book club, looking at Albert Camus' The Stranger (Matthew Ward translation) and Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning, to see what wisdom they hold for us today, and how these two works “talk to each other.” Thank you to everyone who supports the show–we could not make Gaslit Nation without you!   Want to enjoy Gaslit Nation ad-free? Join our community of listeners for bonus shows, ad-free episodes, exclusive Q&A sessions, our group chat, invites to live events like our Monday political salons at 4pm ET over Zoom, and more! Sign up at Patreon.com/Gaslit!   Show Notes:    Want ideas on how to resist?  Friday February 28 – U.S. Economic Blackout: No corporate spending, shop small, plan ahead. Details here: https://thirdact.org/texas/2025/02/10/u-s-economic-blackout-planned-for-feb-28/ Tuesday March 4 – 50501 Protest. Find one near you or start one here: https://www.fiftyfifty.one/ Tuesday March 4 – Protect Our Kids Protest by the American Federation of Teachers, to protest the destruction of the Department of Education. Details here: https://www.aft.org/ProtectOurKids and here: https://www.mobilize.us/aft/ Friday March 7 – Stand Up for Science Protest. Details here: https://standupforscience2025.org/ Tesla Takedown Protests – ongoing. Details here.: https://www.teslatakedown.com/ Friday March 14 – NOW March in Washington, DC. Details here: https://nowmarch.org/ Don't Just Do Nothing: 20 Things You Can Do to Counter Fascism: https://itsgoingdown.org/dont-just-do-nothing-20-things-you-can-do-to-counter-fascism/ Protect democracy by protecting yourself: Bookmark! The Ultimate Guide to an Untrackable Phone : https://www.tacticalprivacywire.com/the-ultimate-guide-to-an-untrackable-phone/   Two days after a woman was dragged from a Coeur d'Alene town hall, Sheriff Bob Norris and other parties will face investigation into conduct https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2025/feb/24/two-days-after-a-woman-was-dragged-from-a-coeur-da/   Justice for Dr. Teresa Borrenpohl: Fight for the First https://www.gofundme.com/f/justice-for-dr-borrenpohl-fight-for-the-first/cl/s?lang=en_US&utm_campaign=fp_sharesheet&utm_content=amp13_t1-amp14_c&utm_medium=customer&utm_source=copy_link   Hegseth Defends Trump's Firing of Joint Chiefs Chairman Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said in an interview on Sunday that Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. was “not the right man for the moment” and praised President Trump's handling of the war in Ukraine. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/23/us/politics/hegseth-trump-cq-brown-pentagon.html   Trump and Hegseth's Pentagon purge undermines the armed forces How to damage military morale and recruiting? Trump and Hegseth seem to be trying to find out, alas. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/02/23/trump-hegseth-pentagon-generals/   New FBI director Kash Patel plans to relocate up to 1,500 employees https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/new-fbi-director-kash-patel-plans-relocate-1500-119064886   Mike Galsworthy ‪on BlueSky: “Just America & Israel voting with Russia, Iran, North Korea... ...against Ukraine.” https://bsky.app/profile/mikegalsworthy.bsky.social/post/3lix7n4o4tc2w   French prosecutor seeks 5-year jail sentence and ban from office for far-right leader https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/french-far-right-leader-marine-le-pen-faces-5-year-ban-office-rcna180103   TikTokers Are ‘Hunting' Tesla Cybertrucks to Project Anti-Musk Messages on the Tailgate https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/tiktokers-hunting-tesla-cybertrucks-project-174834791.html

https://timesofsandiego.com/business/2025/02/14/report-horton-plaza-redevelopment-in-jeopardy-with-firm-facing-foreclosure/ https://reason.com/2025/02/10/5-of-the-worst-usaid-scandals-in-history/ https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5136681-musk-on-ron-paul-as-fed-chairman-great-idea/ https://x.com/havivrettiggur/status/1849009784948675062 https://reason.com/2025/02/14/doge-needs-data-to-survive-these-lawsuits-are-trying-to-starve-it-of-information/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Digital_Service https://reason.com/2025/02/07/will-elon-musk-cut-as-much-government-as-al-gore-did/ https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c04nw1pg3k2o https://www.downsizinggovernment.org/education https://finance.harvard.edu/financial-overview

CISA and FBI detail exploit chains used by Chinese hackers to compromise Ivanti Cloud Service Appliances. Energy systems in Central Europe use unencrypted radio signals. A critical SonicWall vulnerability is under active exploitation. The Nnice ransomware strain isn't. Cisco discloses a critical vulnerability in its Meeting Management tool. GhostGPT is a new malicious generative AI chatbot. ClamAV patches critical vulnerabilities in the open-source anti-virus engine. A new report questions the effectiveness of paying ransomware demands. DOGE piggybacks on the United States Digital Service. On our Industry Voices segment, we are joined by Joe Gillespie, Senior Vice President at Booz Allen, discussing Cyber AI. Jen Easterly leaves CISA a legacy of resilience and dedication.  Remember to leave us a 5-star rating and review in your favorite podcast app. Miss an episode? Sign-up for our daily intelligence roundup, Daily Briefing, and you'll never miss a beat. And be sure to follow CyberWire Daily on LinkedIn. Industry Voices Today on our Industry Voices segment, we are joined by Joe Gillespie, Senior Vice President at Booz Allen, discussing Cyber AI. Selected Reading FBI/CISA Share Details on Ivanti Exploits Chains: What Network Defenders Need to Know (SecurityWeek) Researchers say new attack could take down the European power grid (Ars Technica) Critical SonicWall Vulnerability Exploited In Attacks Execute Arbitrary OS Commands (Cyber Security News) Nnice Ransomware Attacking Windows Systems With Advanced Encryption Techniques (GB Hackers) Cisco Fixes Critical Vulnerability in Meeting Management (Infosecurity Magazine) New GhostGPT AI Chatbot Facilitates Malware Creation and Phishing (Infosecurity Magazine) Open-Source ClamAV Releases Critical Security Patch Updates – What's Inside! (Cyber Security News) Companies who pay off ransomware attackers rarely get their data back, survey shows (Cybernews) Elon Musk Plays DOGE Ball—and Hits America's Geek Squad (WIRED) Under Trump, US Cyberdefense Loses Its Head (WIRED)  Share your feedback. We want to ensure that you are getting the most out of the podcast. Please take a few minutes to share your thoughts with us by completing our brief listener survey as we continually work to improve the show.  Want to hear your company in the show? You too can reach the most influential leaders and operators in the industry. Here's our media kit. Contact us at cyberwire@n2k.com to request more info. The CyberWire is a production of N2K Networks, your source for strategic workforce intelligence. © N2K Networks, Inc. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Join host Brian Fox as he interviews Frank McNally, an acquisition strategist with the United States Digital Service (USDS), about the pivotal role of procurement in government tech modernization. Frank shares insights from his career, spanning from the TSA to private consulting and now USDS, where he helps agencies tackle modernization challenges alongside top designers and engineers. He highlights the Digital IT Acquisition Professional training program and the importance of “failure as an option” to foster agile, adaptable solutions. Tune in for valuable insights into the evolving landscape of federal acquisition.

This week on the Ameritocracy show, host Troy Edgar is joined in Washington, D.C. by Author, Jennifer Pahlka, a leading voice in transforming government for the digital age. They discuss Jen's New York Times-acclaimed book, "Recoding America: Why Government is Failing in the Digital Age and How We Can Do Better." Jen also helped establish the United States Digital Service while serving as U.S. Deputy Chief Technology Officer. She is currently the co-founder of U.S. Digital Response, a non-profit organization assisting governments, nonprofits, and public entities in responding quickly to critical public needs. She is a Senior Fellow at both the Niskanen Center and Federation of American Scientists, think tanks in Washington, D.C.   Follow Jen on Substack at Eating Policy, where she talks about the problems of state capacity (government's ability to achieve its policy goals) and how to fix them.    Ameritocracy™ is produced by Prospect House Media and recorded in studio locations in Los Angeles and Washington DC.

On this episode of Embracing Erosion, Devon chats with Janine Gianfredi, the Chief Marketing Officer at Transcarent and the former Chief Marketing Officer at the United States Digital Service under the Obama Administration. They discuss the healthcare industry and why and how it needs to be simplified, the differences between making decisions at a startup vs an enterprise, lessons from working within Google's innovation unit, X, what it's like getting recruited by the White House and serving as the Digital Service's CMO, tons of leadership advice, and much more. Enjoy! --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/devon-orourke/support

Rachael Dietkus is a social worker-designer. Her practice, research, and writing at the intersections of social work values, trauma-responsive principles, and care-focused design research methods. Rachael is the founder of Social Workers Who Design and an active member of the Design Justice Network and the Social Work Futures Lab. Since September 2022, she has served as a Digital Services Expert in Design and Social Work and a Trauma-Informed Practice Subject Matter Expert with the United States Digital Service, a design and tech unit under the White House.  In this episode, Rachael reflects on the different civic and public interest roles she has had over the last twenty years to explore how social work and design are intrinsically connected in her practice. She explains how she encountered trauma-informed design and more recently trauma-responsive design. She stresses the importance of language, of care, of intentionality and relationality. To learn more about Rachael's work, follow her on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rachaeldietkuslcsw/ and check the Social Workers Who Design website: ⁠https://www.socialworkerswho.design⁠ To learn more about the topics we discussed: 'Trauma-Informed Care: A Sociocultural Perspective' / ⁠⁠https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK207195/⁠⁠ Social Work Futures Lab / ⁠⁠https://www.socialworkfutureslab.org⁠⁠ Racism Untaught / ⁠https://racismuntaught.com⁠ Some of the references Rachael's made in the podcast: Desmond Patton's / 'Applying Reflexivity to Artificial Intelligence for Researching Marginalized Communities and Real-World Problems' / ⁠https://scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu/items/7607e8e6-db3b-45c6-87c5-516e8e67ba08/full⁠ Resmaa Menakem / ⁠https://resmaa.com⁠ + ⁠https://onbeing.org/programs/resmaa-menakem-notice-the-rage-notice-the-silence⁠ Karen Treisman's 'Trauma River' / ⁠https://media.churchillfellowship.org/documents/Treisman_K_Report_2018_Final.pdf⁠ AJ Singh's 'Justice Sensitivity is the Cure, Not the Sickness' / ⁠https://ajs4dlg.substack.com/p/justice-sensitivity-is-the-cure-not⁠ Credits: Conception, host and production: Anne-Laure Fayard Sound design & Post-production: Claudio Silva Music & Art Work: Guilhem Tamisier

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.

Tune in to “Doing Tech Better in Government” for an inspiring conversation on reshaping institutions and empowering change. We are joined by Jennifer Pahlka, Former US Deputy CTO, The White House, Office of Science and Technology Policy and Author as she shares her mission to recode America through principles and values in government. From founding "Code for America" to helping shape what would become the "United States Digital Service," her impact has been profound. Now, she's extending her vision to promote advancements in the military and elevate voices often overlooked in leadership circles.

On this episode of Embracing Erosion, Devon chats with Janine Gianfredi, the Chief Marketing Officer at Transcarent and the former Chief Marketing Officer at the United States Digital Service under the Obama Administration. They discuss the healthcare industry and why and how it needs to be simplified, the differences between making decisions at a startup vs an enterprise, lessons from working within Google's innovation unit, X, what it's like getting recruited by the White House and serving as the Digital Service's CMO, tons of leadership advice, and much more. Enjoy! --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/devon-orourke/support

Dave Kaufman is responsible for the marketing for one of the biggest tech bets of all time; the Metaverse. As Director of Global Marketing for VR and the Metaverse for Meta (formerly Facebook), it's fair to say Dave has a pretty sizeable task on his hands. He's no stranger to large marketing bets, having been on the marketing team for Google Glass, which ultimately failed. But sandwiched in-between working for Google and Meta, Dave worked for Obama's Whitehouse for the United States Digital Service.In this episode we discuss if the US is behind the UK in terms of marketing thinkers, why marketing education is overlooked, why Google Glass failed and what the future holds in terms of the Metaverse.LinksDave's LinkedInDave's viral LinkedIn articleJon's LinkedInJon's TwitterWatch the Uncensored CMO on YouTubeTimestamps00:00 - Intro00:58 - Dave's favourite episodes of Uncensored CMO01:50 - Elon vs Mark in a fight02:31 - US vs UK marketing03:57 - How to not be full of sh*t in marketing09:16 - Was Google Glass a failure?15:50 - Launching the Meta X Rayban Sunglasses20:28 - Explaining the metaverse24:02 - How to quantify the success of the metaverse26:29 - When will the metaverse become mainstream?30:58 - Making virtual reality more familiar32:28 - Does tech have a marketing problem?38:20 - Working for founders46:39 - Working at President Obama's Whitehouse53:35 - Working with low budgets56:47 - Dave's bets for 2024

Marina Nitze is an author and a crisis engineer. She co-authored Hack Your Bureaucracy with Nick Sinai, it contains over 50 tactics, each with real-world examples, for making lasting change in bureaucracies from PTAs all the way up to the White House and Fortune 500 companies.Marina is currently focused on improving America's child welfare system, helping organisations solve mission-critical IT challenges. Before this she was the Chief Technology Officer of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and helped establish the United States Digital Service. She also served as a Senior Advisor on technology in the White House under the Obama Administration.We talked about: What it means to have a high-functioning bureaucracy What hacking your (low-functioning) bureaucracy means Where to start to get results The mistakes that keen people make Why Marina is obsessed with stabbing people in the chestAnd much, much more.Find out more about Marina here:https://www.marinanitze.com/And buy her brilliant book here:Hack Your Bureaucracy: Get Things Done No Matter What Your Role on any Team https://www.amazon.co.uk/Hack-Your-Bureaucracy-Things-Matter/dp/0306827751

Can government do the things that it says it is going to do? One of the hardest things that public servants have to do is implement and it gets to the heart of a state's capacity to deliver. In the digital era, that means being able to deliver digitally. And when we think about state capacity in this context, it often seems that we find our institutions coming up short.State capacity is something that this week's guest has thought a lot about. Jennifer Pahlka is a leading figure in the digital government movement in the United States, and recently authored a new book, "Recoding America: Why Government is Failing in the Digital Age and How We Can Do Better." (See below on how to enter a draw for a free copy!)Jennifer served as Deputy Chief Technology Officer for the US Government under President Obama's Administration where she helped to create the United States Digital Service. She is also the founder and former executive director of Code for America which she led for 10 years. More recently she co-founded and is Chair of the Board of Directors for the United States Digital Response, which was a new organization that was set up to help governments respond to the COVID-19 crisis through mobilizing volunteer tech talent. She spoke to Ryan at the FWD50 Conference in November about why governments seem to find themselves in a crisis of implementation and delivery regardless of partisan stripe. They also talk about ways to get unstuck, and stay motivated, including a really heartwarming end to the interview where Jennifer talks about what to do when we are feeling demoralized and that change is never going to come. Enter a draw to win a free copy of Recoding America!If you'd like to get a copy of Recoding America, sign up to the Think Digital newsletter by December 22, 2023 at 11:59pm ET and you'll be entered into a draw to receive a free copy! Anyone who is signed up to the newsletter by the deadline is eligible. Go to letsthinkdigital.ca to sign up!Watch the Episode on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IuTzJ7LtiiYChapters00:04 Introduction and Welcome03:15 Interview with Jennifer Pahlka05:20 The Importance of State Capacity in Government06:24 Policy vs. Implementation09:38 Key Takeaways from Recoding America15:36 The Role of Political Leadership24:20 Are Our Systems of Democratic Governance Still Fit for Purpose?28:23 Commonalities Across Jurisdictions32:19 The Role of Civic Tech in Government37:41 Don't Give Up38:55 Closing Remarks and Book Giveaway Announcement

Transformation — it's a word that's tossed around in government leadership meetings all the time, but what does it really mean? Is it about process improvements, technology modernization, or workforce changes? All the above?Join us as our government and industry experts define what transformation means for government and walk through examples of agencies that have achieved true transformation.Specifically, you'll learn: What transformation means in the context of individual roles.How to get funds for your own modernization priorities.How successful organizations have made big and small transformations at their agencies.Speakers:Jonathan Alboum, Federal CTO, ServiceNowSusan Little, Director, Division of Records and Information Systems, Center for Medicare and Medicaid ServicesFredy Diaz, Deputy Chief Data Officer, U.S. Department of AgricultureGlorimar Ripoll Balet, Director of Product, United States Digital Service, Executive Office of the President (Invited)See video recording here: link to YouTube (https://youtu.be/G0BLIPmNW2Q)See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transformation — it's a word that's tossed around in government leadership meetings all the time, but what does it really mean? Is it about process improvements, technology modernization, or workforce changes? All the above?Join us as our government and industry experts define what transformation means for government and walk through examples of agencies that have achieved true transformation.Specifically, you'll learn: What transformation means in the context of individual roles.How to get funds for your own modernization priorities.How successful organizations have made big and small transformations at their agencies.Speakers:Jonathan Alboum, Federal CTO, ServiceNowSusan Little, Director, Division of Records and Information Systems, Center for Medicare and Medicaid ServicesFredy Diaz, Deputy Chief Data Officer, U.S. Department of AgricultureGlorimar Ripoll Balet, Director of Product, United States Digital Service, Executive Office of the President (Invited)See video recording here: link to YouTube (https://youtu.be/G0BLIPmNW2Q)See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We're pulling one out of the archives to start off 2023! This time we talk discovery sprints! We're joined by Jenn Noinaj (https://www.linkedin.com/in/actuallyjenn/)} and Kathryn Jurick(https://www.linkedin.com/in/kathrynjurick/), authors of the United States Digital Service guide to discovery sprints. We'll chat about what these are, how they're run, and how they can help. ### Resources and Shoutouts: - USDS Discovery Sprint Guide(https://sprint.usds.gov/)

In this episode Steve has a conversation with Marina Nitze about political capital (what it is and how to get it), tackling big challenges, navigating organizational dynamics, inclusive innovation, hacking bureaucracy, and her affection for dry-erase boards. Marina is author of Hack Your Bureaucracy, and a partner at Layer Aleph, a crisis response firm that specializes in restoring complex software systems to service. Marina is also a fellow at New America's New Practice Lab, where she works on improving America's foster care system. She was previously the Chief Technology Officer of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (2013-2017), helped found the United States Digital Service, and served as a Senior Advisor on technology in the White House under the Obama Administration. In the book,  and during our conversation, Marina shares a story about how not even the leader of the free world could mandate that agencies and stakeholders cooperate with her vision and plans to make it easier for veterans in VA healthcare to get the services they need and consolidate over 1500 disparate websites into a single veteran-friendly website.   I hope you find this conversation with Marina and her new book as insightful as I did.  Share the links with a colleague or a friend, grab a copy of the book from your favorite bookseller, and get started with bureaucracy hacking today.

As COP27 unfolds in Sharm El-Sheikh. John and Simar are joined by Ryan Panchadsaram, Co-Author of Speed & Scale, advisor at Kleiner Perkins, and formerly Former U.S. Deputy Chief Technology Officer. Drawing on Ryan's experience and knowledge they unpack : - Ryan's backstory - Speed & Scale as a blueprint and plan to mobilize collective action towards tackling the climate crisis - Where and how technology can help service this mission - A resounding CTA for both individuals, companies, and governments to strive towards the Climate goals being discussed at COP27 - A whole lot more... See below... #cop27 #2030 #climateaction #unitednations Individuals Mentioned: John Doerr https://twitter.com/johndoerr Todd Park https://www.linkedin.com/in/todd-park-3232573/ Bill Gates https://twitter.com/billgates Al Gore https://algore.com/ Christiana Figueres https://unfccc.int/about-us/the-executive-secretary/former-executive-secretary-ms-christiana-figueres Companies/ Organizations/Gov Departments Mentioned: KleinerPerkins https://www.kleinerperkins.com/ Speed & Scale https://speedandscale.com/tracker/ Department of Health and Human Services https://www.hhs.gov/ United States Digital Service https://www.usds.gov/ Rock Health https://rockhealth.com/ Unilever https://www.unilever.com/planet-and-society/climate-action/ Chevron https://www.chevron.com/ Shell https://www.shell.com/energy-and-innovation/the-energy-future/our-climate-target.html#iframe=L3dlYmFwcHMvY2xpbWF0ZV9hbWJpdGlvbi8 NASA, Methane leaks https://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/methane-super-emitters-mapped-by-nasa-s-new-earth-space-mission FlowCarbon https://www.flowcarbon.com/ Climate Draft https://www.climatedraft.org/ Breakthrough Energy Ventures https://breakthroughenergy.org/ Lower carbon https://lowercarboncapital.com/ School of Sustainability Stanford https://sustainability.stanford.edu/ UN mentions: The Paris agreement https://unfccc.int/process-and-meetings/the-paris-agreement/the-paris-agreement COP27 https://unfccc.int/cop27 COP26 https://ukcop26.org/ UN integrity Measures https://www.unglobalcompact.org/about/integrity-measures OKRs https://www.whatmatters.com/ Timestamps 00:00 Intro 03:10 Ryan's Story 07:00 What are you most curious of? 09:16 Why Speed & Scale Exists 13:37 Solutions & Accelerants 16:25 What are you seeing since the plan is out? 19:30 Code reds Methane, Coal, Beef, Nature.. 23:29 COP27 26:40 Coordination at a global level 29:30 Sustainability School of Stanford 32:44 Carbon Removal 35:36 View on Carbon Markets 41:00 Natural Market Trends 46:10 Growth/De-Growth 48:16 Re-designing Money & Deploying Capital 56:29 CTA -------------------------------------------- Connect with Ryan and check out Speed & Scale https://twitter.com/rypan https://speedandscale.com -------------------------------------------- Join the conversation on Twitter, follow: https://twitter.com/ReFiDAOist https://twitter.com/climateXcrypto https://twitter.com/simarsmangat https://twitter.com/johnx25bd Thanks to our friends at Feed Ignite for the podcast and micro-content production: https://feedignite.com --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/refipodcast/message

On this episode of the podcast, Grizz sits down with two former US financial regulators, Sultan Meghji (former FDIC Chief Innovation Officer) and Jennifer Lassiter (founding member of the Innovation Lab at the FDIC), to discuss the regulator perspective on open source in financial services. There are ups and downs, twists and turns, and we also discuss the value of using open source as a tool to attract and retain talent both in financial services, and for financial regulators as well. Sultan Meghji https://www.linkedin.com/in/sultanmeghji/ Former FDIC Chief Innovation Officer, 30 years of tech background. Current Scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, member of Bretton Woods and Professor at Washington University. Jennifer Lassiter - Executive Director, The Digital Dollar Project & Former Founding Member of the Innovation Lab at the FDIC https://www.linkedin.com/in/jbrookslassiter/ As Executive Director of The Digital Dollar Project (DDP), Jennifer convenes private sector thought leaders to explore the future of money and advance the exploration of a U.S. central bank digital currency. Prior to joining DDP, Jennifer served as a founding member of the Innovation Lab at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and was a senior leader in the Innovation and Technology Offices at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. During her career as a civil servant, Jennifer stood up the first U.S. financial regulator Tech Sprint Program; elevated the use of data science and analytics to executive levels; and built and scaled an award-winning design-centric technology team that changed how technology and data shaped federal regulation. This included leading teams that collaborated with the United States Digital Service to create the first iteration of the U.S. Web Design System and participated in the drafting of the first U.S. Federal Source Code policy. OSSF is now OSFF - Dates - Call For Papers Now Open! Open Source in Finance Forum - https://events.linuxfoundation.org/open-source-finance-forum/ OSFF London Call for Proposals - https://events.linuxfoundation.org/open-source-finance-forum-london/program/cfp/ OSFF New York Call for Proposals - https://events.linuxfoundation.org/open-source-finance-forum-new-york/program/cfp/ Grizz's Info | https://www.linkedin.com/in/aarongriswold/ | grizz@finos.org ►► Visit FINOS www.finos.org ►► Get In Touch: info@finos.org

Remote Collaboration, Tech Efficiency, and Career Journeys.In this episode of The Outspoken Podcast, host Shana Cosgrove talks to Lauren Lockwood, Founder & Principal, Bloom Works LLC, and Emily Wright-Moore, Principal at Bloom Works LLC. Lauren and Emily give their insight on the very real effects of outdated vital government services and what can be done to mitigate those effects. They also discuss their very different paths that led them to starting Bloom and why following their passion has been so powerful. Lauren and Emily also reveal their favorite projects with Bloom and how those projects reflect Bloom's mission. Finally, we hear what they wanted to be when they grew up, combating ageism and sexism within tech, and their advice to their younger selves! QUOTES “One of my favorite moments in a meeting was early on, working with the state. Me, Emily, and this other woman show up for our first meeting with their team to redesign some of their systems. The people from this agency walk in and the Commissioner is a woman, her deputy is a woman... they sit down with us, and they were so relieved that we weren't just a team of dudes walking into the room.” - Lauren Lockwood [50:10] “I feel like we default to this specialist mindset. And I think being a generalist is pretty, pretty great. I like knowing a lot of things and I like pulling in a lot of past jobs and past skills. So I feel like I would just stop worrying about that. Like, it's fine” - Emily Wright-Moore [52:33] “Switching careers is not a failure, I don't think. I think it is like you learned a lot and it was good for that time, but not necessarily forever. Think of this time as an exploratory time, rather than a first step on a journey.” - Lauren Lockwood [53:14]   TIMESTAMPS  [00:04] Intro [01:43] Meet Lauren Lockwood and Emily Wright-Moore [02:11] How Lauren and Emily met [03:04] What is Digital Transformation? [04:57] The Cost of Inefficiencies in Vital Services [05:26] Updating Outdated Technology [08:28] What is Bloom Works? [10:04] Bloom's Tech Stack [11:30] Bloom's Ideal Sample Size of Users [12:51] User Groups [15:45] Lauren's Favorite Bloom Projects [18:30] Emily's Favorite Bloom Projects [19:57] Sharing Bloom's Work with the World [21:00] Starting Bloom Works [21:58] Lauren's Experience after Harvard [26:14] Lauren's Unique Career Path [29:09] Lauren's Work with the Mayor of Boston [30:53] Redesigning Boston.gov [31:30] What Lauren Wanted to be as a Kid [33:31] What Emily Wanted to be as a Kid [36:39] Emily's Experience at Parsons School of Design [39:46] Correcting Misperceptions in the Industry [41:35] What is United States Digital Service [43:56] Emily's Journey after her Tour [44:27] Lauren's Work Background [46:31] Combating Ageism within Tech [50:04] Sexism in Tech [52:17] Advice to their Younger Selves [54:01] Lauren's Book Club [54:37] Final Thoughts [57:44] Outro   RESOURCES https://www.va.gov/ (US Department of Veterans Affairs) https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/09/coronavirus-unemployment-benefits-claims-are-the-worst-in-history.html (Issues with Unemployment during COVID) https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/outlook/email-and-calendar-software-microsoft-outlook (Microsoft Outlook) https://maps.google.com/ (Google Maps) https://reactjs.org/ (React) https://dotnet.microsoft.com/ (Microsoft .net) https://www.microfocus.com/en-us/what-is/cobol (COBOL) https://www.figma.com/ (Figma) https://www.nsf.gov/news/special_reports/i-corps/ (I-Corps) https://usds.gov/ (United States Digital Service) https://www.thinkof-us.org/ (Think Of Us) https://www.thinkof-us.org/about/who-we-are/ceo (Sixto Cancel) https://www.hbs.edu/ (Harvard Business School) https://www.morganstanley.com/ (Morgan Stanley) https://www.boston.gov/departments/mayors-office/martin-j-walsh (Marty Walsh) https://www.python.org/ (Python) https://www.defense.gov/ (US Department of Defense)...

Glennette Clark is a UX researcher and an entrepreneur. We talk about UX research, research teams, and UX Camp DC. Listen to learn about: UX research — What is it? The U.S. Digital Service Onboarding new team members Trauma-informed research and design UXCamp DC and the unconference format   Our Guest Glennette Clark is a design researcher at United States Digital Service. She brings human-centered design practices to federal agencies including U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. She's an adjunct professor at MICA in the Design Leadership program. She founded UXCamps DC & NYC and joined the DC Innovation & Technology Inclusion Council in 2010. Glennette has a Strategic Design MBA from Philadelphia University and BA in journalism from Howard University. She lives in DC with her husband, two children and a dog.   Show Highlights [01:05] Glennette's journey into UX began with a degree in journalism, where she learned the interviewing skills that would serve her later in her research work. [03:01] The difference between moderated and unmoderated interviews. [04:37] What is UX research? [05:08] The importance of interviews in UX research. [06:48] How Glennette uses interviews to help people understand UX research and how to use it. [08:18] The different ways Glennette presents research results depending on the audience. [11:22] Glennette shares one of her favorite research stories. [13:22] Why interviewing people with lived experience is so important when researching. [15:18] Glennette's work with the United States Digital Service. [17:01] Advice for those about to embark on their own problem space research. [17:33] The benefit of “How might we” questions. [19:57] Why the language you use in framing your research matters. [21:37] Trauma-informed design and how it fits into human-centered design. [23:04] Glennette talks about a community design project she worked on. [24:06] Ways to reduce the chance of doing harm when conducting interviews. [26:35] The importance of team health, and what it means to have a healthy team. [29:05] How to help a new person get up and running with a team. [32:09] UXCamp DC's beginning, and where it is now, twenty years later. [34:17] How the “unconference” format works. [35:29] Past presentation topics. [36:22] Glennette's desire to combine community-based design and service design to help community organizations achieve their missions. [39:17] Books and resources Glennette recommends. [42:16] Tools Glennette likes to use in her work.   Links  Glennette on Twitter Glennette on LinkedIn Glennette on MICA Designing with Empathy U.S. Digital Service UXCamp DC Book Recommendation: Mismatch: How Inclusion Shapes Design, by Kat Holmes Book Recommendation: Thinking in Systems: A Primer, by Donella H. Meadows Book Recommendation: 100 Things Every Designer Needs to Know About People, and 100 More Things Every Designer Needs to Know About People, by Susan Weinschenk Book Recommendation: 101 Things I Learned in Architecture School, by Matthew Frederick Book Recommendation: Meeting Design: For Managers, Makers, and Everyone, by Kevin M. Hoffman The Values Deck | A Card Sorting Game to Explore Your Personal Values Creative Whack Pack Innovative Whack Pack IDEO Method Cards   Other Design Thinking 101 Episodes You Might Like Design Thinking for the Public Sector + Building and Training Design Thinking Teams with Stephanie Wade — DT101 E14 Teaching Yourself Design Thinking + Innovating in Government with Amy J. Wilson — DT101 E19 Democracy as a Design Problem with Whitney Quesenbery — DT101 E68  

Glennette Clark is a UX researcher and an entrepreneur. We talk about UX research, research teams, and UX Camp DC. Listen to learn about: UX research — What is it? The U.S. Digital Service Onboarding new team members Trauma-informed research and design UXCamp DC and the unconference format   Our Guest Glennette Clark is a design researcher at United States Digital Service. She brings human-centered design practices to federal agencies including U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. She's an adjunct professor at MICA in the Design Leadership program. She founded UXCamps DC & NYC and joined the DC Innovation & Technology Inclusion Council in 2010. Glennette has a Strategic Design MBA from Philadelphia University and BA in journalism from Howard University. She lives in DC with her husband, two children and a dog.   Show Highlights [01:05] Glennette's journey into UX began with a degree in journalism, where she learned the interviewing skills that would serve her later in her research work. [03:01] The difference between moderated and unmoderated interviews. [04:37] What is UX research? [05:08] The importance of interviews in UX research. [06:48] How Glennette uses interviews to help people understand UX research and how to use it. [08:18] The different ways Glennette presents research results depending on the audience. [11:22] Glennette shares one of her favorite research stories. [13:22] Why interviewing people with lived experience is so important when researching. [15:18] Glennette's work with the United States Digital Service. [17:01] Advice for those about to embark on their own problem space research. [17:33] The benefit of “How might we” questions. [19:57] Why the language you use in framing your research matters. [21:37] Trauma-informed design and how it fits into human-centered design. [23:04] Glennette talks about a community design project she worked on. [24:06] Ways to reduce the chance of doing harm when conducting interviews. [26:35] The importance of team health, and what it means to have a healthy team. [29:05] How to help a new person get up and running with a team. [32:09] UXCamp DC's beginning, and where it is now, twenty years later. [34:17] How the “unconference” format works. [35:29] Past presentation topics. [36:22] Glennette's desire to combine community-based design and service design to help community organizations achieve their missions. [39:17] Books and resources Glennette recommends. [42:16] Tools Glennette likes to use in her work.   Links  Glennette on Twitter Glennette on LinkedIn Glennette on MICA Designing with Empathy U.S. Digital Service UXCamp DC Book Recommendation: Mismatch: How Inclusion Shapes Design, by Kat Holmes Book Recommendation: Thinking in Systems: A Primer, by Donella H. Meadows Book Recommendation: 100 Things Every Designer Needs to Know About People, and 100 More Things Every Designer Needs to Know About People, by Susan Weinschenk Book Recommendation: 101 Things I Learned in Architecture School, by Matthew Frederick Book Recommendation: Meeting Design: For Managers, Makers, and Everyone, by Kevin M. Hoffman The Values Deck | A Card Sorting Game to Explore Your Personal Values Creative Whack Pack Innovative Whack Pack IDEO Method Cards   Other Design Thinking 101 Episodes You Might Like Design Thinking for the Public Sector + Building and Training Design Thinking Teams with Stephanie Wade — DT101 E14 Teaching Yourself Design Thinking + Innovating in Government with Amy J. Wilson — DT101 E19 Democracy as a Design Problem with Whitney Quesenbery — DT101 E68  

This time we talk discovery sprints! We're joined by [Jenn Noinaj](https://www.linkedin.com/in/actuallyjenn/) and [Kathryn Jurick](https://www.linkedin.com/in/kathrynjurick/), authors of the United States Digital Service guide to discovery sprints. We'll chat about what these are, how they're run, and how they can help. ### Resources and Shoutouts: - [USDS Discovery Sprint Guide](https://sprint.usds.gov/){:target="_blank"} ##### Music Credit: [Tumbleweeds by Monkey Warhol](http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Monkey_Warhol/Lonely_Hearts_Challenge/Monkey_Warhol_-_Tumbleweeds

On episode 23 of The Public Sector Heroes Podcast, host Frank McNally talks with Florence Kasule, Director of Procurement at the United States Digital Service, to talk about inspiring women in procurement, innovating in government technology, and overcoming acquisition challenges.

Hello folks! Below you'll find the original description for the first episode we ever released. It was this day three years ago that this adventure started. So let's sit back, listen, and take stock in how far we've all come since then. Our inaugural episode features a panel discussion with [Kristi Leach](https://twitter.com/kristil), an independent Design Researcher and Information Architect, [Tom Dooner](https://twitter.com/tomdooner), a Developer Evangelist for Code for America, and [Cyrus Sethna](https://twitter.com/c_sethna), a Digital Services Expert with the United States Digital Service. We'll talk about what Civic Tech is, where the movement stands, and how you can get involved. ### Web Resources mentioned in the episode - *Code for America Brigade*: [brigade.codeforamerica.org](https://brigade.codeforamerica.org) - *Code for America Public Interest Tech Job Board*: [jobs.codeforamerica.org](https://jobs.codeforamerica.org) - *Open Uptown*: [uptown.codes](http://uptown.codes) -

Don Bauer has been pushing offices in the federal government forward in their software since the turn of the century. “I was one of the co-founders of Quick Hire, which was one of the first commercially available staffing products for the federal government. Back in ’99, 2000, we were doing software as a service before it was a thing,” Don says. After years of building programs for the National Park Service, NASA, the United States Digital Service and more, he now serves as the Chief Technology Officer for the Bureau of Global Talent Management at the U.S. Department of State, working at the intersection of HR and IT. In this episode of Government Enabled, host Linda Sue Kirschner talks to Don about his role in the State Department, the challenges he has faced in recent years and how he’s managed to get the department to modernize. It hasn’t always been easy given the security protocols and budget restrictions of federal agencies, but he’s made it his mission to transition the office to smooth, easy-to-use systems for HR management. “Our mission is making our software as easy to use and as reliable as possible because when you're in the field, it's not your primary mission and you don't need to be distracted by it,” he says.

In this episode of “Technically Human,” I talk to Hana Schank, Director of Strategy for Public Interest Technology at New America. We discuss a new vision for technologists working in the public sector, we discuss the relationship between ethical technology and public interest technology, and Hana persuades me that the future of the tech workforce is in solving public problems.Hana Schank is the Director of Strategy for Public Interest Technology at New America, where she works to develop the public interest technology field via research, storytelling and fostering connections. She founded and edits The Commons, a publication for people working in and around government innovation efforts.Previously, as a part of the United States Digital Service, Schank was a director with the Department of Homeland Security, where she worked with TSA and Customs and Border Protection to improve the air travel experience. In the private sector, Schank founded and ran CollectiveUX, a user experience consultancy, for over a decade, working with startups, Fortune 500 companies, and governmental organizations to research and design human-centered products.In addition to her research and design work, Schank is a frequent contributor to the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Atlantic, and the author of three works of nonfiction. She is a graduate of Northwestern University, and holds an MFA in nonfiction writing from Columbia University. Schank lives in Brooklyn, N.Y. with her husband and two children.Cal Poly joined the Public Interest Technology University Network in 2019.

The Women in Tech with Ariana podcast is a weekly podcast that talks about the latest news in tech, showcasing guest, and sharing tangible resources to help women navigate the tech industry and entrepreneurship. Whether we are talking about funding opportunities for your startup, a conference you should attend, coding boot camps or a VC fund you should apply for, we want to provide you access to these tools and opportunities! In this episode, Ariana interviewed one of her most prominent guests, Kat Jurick, Director of Design for the White House, United States Digital Service. Connect with Ariana: https://www.wallwaytech.com/ariana-waller Connect with Podcast: https://www.wallwaytech.com/podcast

Laura Stevens:  Hello, and welcome to the Government Digital Service podcast. My name is Laura Stevens and I’m a writer here at GDS. Today we’re going to be speaking about the work of the International Design in Government community. This community has grown rapidly since its inception 2 years ago, and now has 1,500 members from 66 countries and 6 continents.   The group brings together designers and design minded people working anywhere in the world to share best practice, host events and tackle common obstacles. And this summer, they held their first international event in the USA and Scotland.   So let's hear from 2 people directly involved in the community, Kara Kane and Martin Jordan. So please can you introduce yourself and tell me about your role here at GDS.   Kara Kane: Hi, I’m Kara Kane. I’m the Community Lead for User-Centred Design at GDS. So I work on growing user-centered design capability and as well, understanding and awareness of user-centered design across UK government. And I also manage the International Design in Government community.   Laura Stevens: So you’re quite busy.   Kara Kane: Yes.    Laura Stevens And Martin?   Martin Jordan: Yeah. I’m Martin Jordan, Head of Service Design here at GDS. And this means shaping what good service design looks like across government. It means helping government increase its service design capability through recruiting, training and as well, mentoring. And then yeah, building a strong service design community across government and well now as well, internationally.    Laura Stevens: And could you describe the community to me for somebody who has never heard about it before?   Kara Kane: So the community is just a group of people that are all working on similar things in government. So we have a shared purpose around making better government services. And it’s just, as you said in the intro, it’s extremely diverse and extremely international so it’s grown really quickly and as we’ve started kind of running the community in different ways, so we have online channels, we do monthly calls, we’ve now started doing events. So doing, through doing these different formats, we’ve been able to help people meet each other and helping people meet each other face-to-face.   Laura Stevens: Yeah.   Kara Kane: Which then helps the online stuff and helps that make it easier because people are more willing to reach out to someone if they’ve met them in person.    Laura Stevens: And you mention you’ve got countries from all the continents apart from Antartica.    Kara Kane: Yes.   Martin Jordan: Yeah. I think there are no designers there.   Laura Stevens: Yeah. I don’t think that’s going to happen anytime soon.  Ok so, I thought to show how diverse the community is as we mentioned earlier, I’d ask you a few questions about some of the different 66 countries you’ve got involved.   Martin Jordan: Oh gosh.   Laura Stevens: So do you know who your most northerly member is?   Kara Kane: Think it might be Iceland…?   Martin Jordan: Oh yeah, probably.   Kara Kane: We might have people in Reykjavik…?   Laura Stevens: Kara, you are correct.   Kara Kane: Yes!   Martin Jordan: I thought of Helsinki but yes, yeah, that makes more sense, yeah.   Laura Stevens: And then we, who is your most southerly member?   Martin Jordan: So it’s, it’s probably New Zealand. Because there are people, there are people in Wellington.   Laura Stevens: Yes! Martin, you got that right.    Don’t doubt your guess.   And then you have, out of the members, you have both the largest country in the world by area and the second smallest, do you know what those 2 countries are?   Martin Jordan: So one might be Russia. And the second one, I have no idea.   Laura Stevens: OK, you got Russia, so Kara, can you do the second, the second smallest country in the world by area?   Kara Kane: It might be Monaco..?   Laura Stevens: Yes! Well done.   So, and then the final one, just to showcase this diverse group, you have a country that’s a member, that is made up of more than 200 islands.   Kara Kane: I was ready for this one. I did some pre-work. So I know that this is Palau.    Laura Stevens: Well done! So this shows how, even amongst these diverse groups, there’s lots of shared traits with design in government.    Was there a particular catalyst for this International Design in Government group? How did it start?   Martin Jordan: So our former boss Lou Downe, at that time Director for Design, and the UK government, they like to blog. And they wrote a blog post I think in February 2017. And they referenced the D-5 countries.   Laura Stevens: Could you explain the D-5?   Martin Jordan: Yeah. So the D-5 countries were kind of like very digital countries that came together I think around 2011 or so. That included the UK, Estonia, Israel, New Zealand and South Korea. And there’s an ongoing conversation and a regular monthly call around design around government. And there was a special edition on design.   Laura Stevens: Yeah.   Martin Jordan: That we did do in early 2017. And Lou basically wrote a blog post and said like, well we’re having this great community of designers in the UK government, but there’s probably like more stuff to do as well on a global scale, because we very likely have common issues.    We all kind of like, design services that are somewhat similar. Policies might be different, laws might be different but overall, there are a lot of like, similarities. So we might be able to like, scale co-authored patterns, we might be looking at like, how to embed user-centred culture in government.   Kara Kane: Yes.    Martin Jordan: All of those things. So they wrote a blog post and then we were like, ‘ok, what does it actually mean?’.   Kara Kane: We had a form at the end of the blog post for people to let us know if they were interested in joining whatever this thing would be.    Laura Stevens: Yeah.   Kara Kane: So I went away and took that list of people, and kind of started developing the community. So we just invited all of those people to a Google group and then went from there.   Laura Stevens: And it grew really rapidly. Like I’ve got here in the first 10 months, it grew to 250 people from 37 countries. What sort of like challenges did you face when you were growing it at that sort of scale quickly?   Kara Kane: I think with any community, starting it is, is just difficult to start kind of forming relationships and to start getting the conversation going. So as a Community Manager, it was really about trying to get to know people in the community, trying to start introducing people, trying to just, like I would just have calls with people to find out what they’re working on to get to know them a little bit.    And then we started running these monthly calls, which were a way to, to kind of start sharing work in a different way. But again that took a while for the focus to turn away from GDS in to, to be a focus on sharing internationally. So not just us kind of telling, but us learning as well from, from other people.    Laura Stevens: And do you find there are a lot of shared things? ‘Cause obvio--, the countries we mentioned earlier, they’ve got hugely different geographies, populations, all different. But are you finding there’s, they are these shared obstacles that designers face in government and what, what would some of them be?   Martin Jordan: So in some places, there might not be a designer there at all but like a design minded person who’s doing it in some way.   Laura Stevens: Yeah.   Martin Jordan: So they ask like, how do you, how do you make the first business case for the first designer, and then we might be able to like, share like some of, some of the arguments and also there are a lot of, a lot of good stories out there so we try to like, give them good examples that they can kind of like, go to their, their seniors and like, advocate with these stories.   Laura Stevens: Yeah.    Martin Jordan: That is quite, quite, quite, quite powerful.   Kara Kane: Then following on from that, if you think about things like immigration, like that runs across…   Laura Stevens: Yeah.   Kara Kane: ...every, everywhere. So there’s a lot that we can, can learn from the similarities and differences of how, of how we run services related to immigration or employment or benefits.    Laura Stevens: And is it quite a lot of physical meetups or is it more sort of interaction online? You mentioned earlier there’s Google groups, Slack. So how does that, how do you all communicate with each other in the community?   Kara Kane: When it first started it was all online.    Laura Stevens: Uh huh.   Kara Kane: And because it’s an international community and, from the beginning it was really widespread in terms of representation geographically, it was hard to kind of think about you know what’s, what’s something we could do to get people to meet face to face. And I think the monthly calls were a way to do that. Because we were using Zoom, so it was the first way to like, show my face…   Laura Stevens: Yeah.    Kara Kane: ...to the community. And to, for Martin and Lou, when we were all on these calls, and meeting people. But then from there, I think, when I first joined GDS, Martin always wanted to do a conference.   So we were always looking for a reason to run a conference. And then the international community seemed like that was the next natural step, was to get people together face to face.   Laura Stevens:  So yeah. You had your first official conference in London, 2018. Can you talk a bit about that and how you went about getting everybody here from all these different countries, who was able to attend with that?   Martin Jordan: Yeah. So we had a tiny budget to actually make this happen. We didn’t spend much, much money on that. And we kind of relied on kind of, everyone paying for their own flight tickets…   Kara Kane: So when we, when we decided to run an international conference, we really wanted to involve the community in what it would look like. So we started sending surveys and emails out to the community to say, ‘what do you want this to be? Do you want to even come? What kind of format do you want it to be? Where should it be? What time of the year?’ So we kind of used the community to figure out what it should look like.   And then from there, started to shape the agenda.    Laura Stevens: What was the atmosphere like on the day?   Kara Kane: It was exciting.   Martin Jordan: I think people were like, super excited to see each other.    Laura Stevens: Yeah,   Martin Jordan: Because apart from like, interacting via Slack and as well as seeing each other in the monthly calls, people started following each other on Twitter, and there was quite an exchange there.    As well, some people met at other international conferences. So whenever there was kind of a design or service design conference, they were like, like almost like, you how they were like literally like asking like, ‘who else is there?’ I was in Helsinki at some point in winter when it was freezing and I was like, ‘Hey, Finnish government folks, shall we meet for tea?’ and they were like, ‘yeah!’.   So like, you were, yeah. I think it was a really really great atmosphere and for, for the conference, for the 2 days, we tried to have representatives from all continents.    So we tried to like, yeah, have a, have a good representation of of of regions. And then we had workshops on the second day. And for those workshops we really basically asked everyone in the UK government who can kind of like, host a workshop, run a workshop.    Laura Stevens: What came out of that in terms of saying that people were more connected and did any like working groups come out of it?    Martin Jordan: So the Finns, the folks in (the) Finnish government, started kind of like, a local community that gets together every, every month. And literally today, the Finns, as well the Estonians, run a joint workshop meetup together. So we actually started to, regionally we started connecting, connecting people with each other.   Laura Stevens: Yeah.   Martin Jordan: They’re now doing things, which is amazing to see. Yeah.   Kara Kane: I think another thing that came out of it is, so at the very end of the conference, we kind of asked people ‘do you want this to happen again?’, ‘do you want there to be another conference?’.   Laura Stevens: Yeah.   Kara Kane: And people were like, ‘yeah!’. And there’s people, in the community, who are willing to kind of, take on the responsibility to do something. So that was really, really exciting.    But I think, yeah the other thing was just, we’ve had people tell us that they know feel more confident to reach out to people. Like they’ve met people face to face, or at least they saw them at the conference, so now they feel like they can reach out to them.    People are using tools and methods that they learned in some of the workshops. They’re continuing to, to work on the things, if they, if they presented at the, at the  conference, they’re continuing to work on those, on those things that they were presenting about. Whether it was a workshop format or a kind of, yeah, a different way of thinking. So that’s really exciting.    Martin Jordan: Some countries even like, started translating some of the tools they’re using into English to make it more accessible for other community members, which is amazing to see.   Laura Stevens: What, I was also going to ask about that. Because obviously running an international community, you have the time zones and the language, do you, how do you get round those things?   Martin Jordan: Yeah.   Kara Kane: Time zones are really difficult for the monthly calls. In the very beginning, we tried to run, I don’t know why I thought this was a good idea but I was like, we’ll just do the call twice and obviously that did not work. And obviously that’s a ton of work.    So what we started was just to, just to move the times around.    Laura Stevens: Yeah.   Kara Kane: So it’s not like always run a call at the same time. We’re always trying to, to kind of, engage with different people. So we’ll run calls after work, later in the evening so that the Australians and the Kiwis can join.    Martin Jordan: But not too early in the morning.   Kara Kane: Yeah, not too early in the morning. Happy to, happy to do things after work but not before (laughter from everyone).   Laura Stevens: And the languages, are all the calls run in English?   Kara Kane and Martin Jordan (same time): Yeah.   Kara Kane: We haven’t, we haven’t encountered any issues with, with language. But I think you know, going forward we’re trying to be as, as inclusive as we can. We’re trying to reach as many kind of countries working in this space as we can. So that might be something that we have to think about in the future.    Martin Jordan: Yeah we were really impressed to hear recently that at a conference in Taiwan, a government conference, they had subtitles in 12 different languages to reflect like, all the people attending. And we still have no idea how, how to make that work but this kind of like, the level of ambition.    So at the most recent conference in Edinburgh, there was live subtitling in English and we’re looking into like, technologies to make it as inclusive as possible.   Laura Stevens: And that leads me nicely on. Because you mentioned earlier that this, the last event in 2018, led directly to the 2019 events. And this is the first time that the events have gone global. So could you talk through those, what’s happened so far this year?   Kara Kane: The first thing that we did this year was collaborate with Code for America. Code for America is a non-profit in the United States and they work on reforming government nationally. So they work really closely with state and local level government. They do really amazing work, and they run a summit, they run a yearly summit called ‘Code for America Summit’. And our idea was to bring the international community to the summit. So what we did was run a one-day international design in government day…   Laura Stevens: Yeah.   Kara Kane: ...before the Code for America Summit. So that was in Oakland in May of this year. And yeah, it was a real collaboration between between our 2 organisations. And to really bring the community to the US and reach people there that we’re not reaching, you’d think that the US would have a really strong design in government community, but they don’t yet. It’s still kind of nascent and forming. So it was really exciting to kind of, try and get all of those people in the room. Which they found really really valuable just to meet people like them, working on the same types of problems and challenges.   Laura Stevens: Is that because of like, the vast geography of America or is, and the federal...or is that?   Martin Jordan: The latter as well.    Laura Stevens: Yeah.   Martin Jordan: Yeah, totally. Totally.   And of course again like, there’s a lot of stuff that they can share. And then they can share kind of like, their recipes to how to solve a certain thing with other people.   Laura Stevens: Well, and that sharing tool--like I noticed New Zealand picked up the GOV.UK Design System and...   Martin Jordan: Yes.   This was amazing to see. Yeah, they kind of like took that and kind of made it theirs. Like restyling it, taking a few things in and out.   Laura Stevens: And was that facilitated by the community?   Martin Jordan: Well to some degree. So we have those monthly calls with themes, and the most popular ones were around design systems. So we actually had to, to repeat this theme so we had it in 2018 and did it in 2019 again because there’s so much interest.   And I think this was by far the most popular call we had, with more than 100 people joining.   Laura Stevens: Oh wow. Ok so...   Martin Jordan: And partially it was like a group of people in one room like, counting as 1 right.   Laura Stevens: Oh ok.    Kara Kane: Yeah. It was our biggest call ever. I was just completely shocked to see over a 100 people online joining us on Zoom.   Laura Stevens: Is it quite tricky to manage that as sort of, or does, is everyone quite respectful when somebody’s talking, everyone else will be muted. Is that, how is that to manage?   Kara Kane: Yeah. We have to set some, some ground, ground rules at the beginning to say, ‘everyone please go on mute’. And like yeah, there’s kind of there’s rules around, around how to ask questions. So there’s a chat function which is really easy to use, so you can write your question in the chat.   And then if you feel comfortable enough to go off mute and ask your question during the time for questions, then you can do that. Or I just read through the questions and try and help facilitate, facilitate that.    Martin Jordan: And there’s always recordings as well. So people can go back. So when they join the community later, they’re able to like, watch these previous calls or recordings of those, and once in a while, when people like, raise a question on Slack or on the mailing list, we’re like look, this was already covered, like have a look and they’re so thankful to like, find these resources.   Laura Stevens: And if we can go back to the America, the conference in America. Was the community involved with organising that like it was with the one in London, or was that is that a slightly different way it was organised?   Martin Jordan: Yeah.    Kara Kane: We reached out to some of the North American community members.   Laura Stevens: And who would they be?   Kara Kane: So we had people at Nava [Nava Public Benefit Corporation] in the United States, we had people at the Canadian Digital Service, people at the United States Digital Service, the USDS.   Martin Jordan: Veteran Services.   Kara Kane: So we kind of came up with 3 different kind of themes, which were around getting leadership buy-in for user-centered design, designing services for and with everyone and building design capacity and capability.   Martin Jordan: This was kind of like, although it was called International Design in government day, it was more kind of like, North American design in government.   Laura Stevens: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. With that regionalised context?   Martin Jordan: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.   Laura Stevens: And how did it feel on the day? Did it feel similar to the one you felt, you did in London, or was it different?   Martin Jordan: I mean I was so impressed.   Kara Kane: It was a lot of people that we hadn’t met before from the community, or people that were new to the community. It was people that maybe hadn’t all been in the same room before.   Laura Stevens and Martin Jordan (same time): Yeah.    Kara Kane: As in designers working in government kind of talking about things and realising, ‘oh my gosh, I’m not the only person...’    Laura Stevens: Yeah.   Kara Kane: ...that has these really frustrating things’. Or that has you know, learning about a success of someone like you just feel, you could feel how proud people were. And that was amazing.   Laura Stevens: And do you think that sort of, like talking, you were talking there about that sort of emotional support that the community provides, and that sense of ‘oh no, you’re not alone’. And obviously there’s very practical outcomes like you can use the same user research or you can use parts of the design system, but do you think that emotional support is quite a big part of why people get involved in the community?   Martin Jordan: Absolutely. This is..   Kara Kane: Yeah. Definitely.    Martin Jordan: This is, such a, such a strong, strong point. And yeah, I think, I think we see this as well in the Slack conversations. Like people asking questions and getting then a response from from somewhere, from another part of the world, is, is really reassuring.    Laura Stevens: And we should talk about your second conference as well in Scotland this year. So what happened there?   Kara Kane: So when I mentioned at the conference in London, when we had the hands up, well one of the hands was Anna Henderson, who is a Service Designer in Scottish government, in the Office of the Chief Designer. So Anna and her team got in touch with us and said, ‘hey, like we’re really serious, like we really want to do this, like we’re going to get budget, like everyone is, everyone is excited’. They had you know, from their team level up to their minister, ministerial level, was really excited about running an international conference.   So Martin and I were like, amazing, let’s do this!    Laura Stevens: Great!   Kara Kane: Yeah. Why wouldn’t we do this?    So this was the first time that we were kind of running an event, or this is the first time that we were kind of handing over the responsibility of running a conference to someone else.   Laura Stevens: So you didn’t do the agenda or…?   Kara Kane: So we really kind of stepped back. And our role was to kind of, advise and share what we had learned from running the conference in London.   Kara Kane: Yeah. So it was really shaped around the values of Scottish government, which is a lot about inclusion and participation. So the theme of the conference was participation involving citizens in the design of government and public services. And they had really amazing talks from the community, they had things on inclusive recruitment, they had things on doing international research, they had things on working with policy colleagues, and there was a fantastic keynote by Dr. Sally Witcher, who’s the Chief Executive of Inclusion Scotland.    And I think the whole atmosphere of the conference as well was really also encompassing their values. So as Martin said, they had captioning for all of the keynotes and all of the breakouts. So every single room that you went into, there was live captioning available to you. And for all of the keynotes on the main stage, we also had British Sign Language interpreters.   Laura Stevens: And is this something you’d want to carry forward now having seen it done in action?   Kara Kane: Yeah, I think as Martin said, with trying to figure out like, how can we use technology, and these kind of new technologies that are available, around live transcription and live translation. Like how can we use those better because that’s just, that would be just so amazing to be able to help people feel more involved if they can understand the content better.   Laura Stevens: And we can also look forward as well to the, your final is, your final international event of the year.    Kara Kane: And biggest.    Laura Stevens: And biggest in Rotterdam. And so yeah, can, Martin, can you tell me a bit about that?   Martin Jordan: Yeah, yeah. So yeah, as I said it will be the biggest conference we’ve had so far. So the Dutch government is leading on that. So the, my Dutch is really bad but the Gebruiker Centraal community, so which means like users first.    Laura Stevens: Yes.   Martin Jordan: Which is a community in the Dutch government that is around I think, for a few years now. So they had local events and as well conferences there for a while. And now they’re kind of like, opening up and embracing and welcoming all the international visitors. So they’re aiming although, we’re aiming for like 800 people...   Laura Stevens: Wow.   Martin Jordan: ...that will come together for like a full three days in Rotterdam in like mid-November this year, so 18th until 20th. And there will be workshops again, because we try to like not only in all of the conferences, not only have people talking at you, but you can actually participate and interact with people. So there’s always a lot of time for like, networking and workshopping things.   At the same time as well, kind of like open, other open formats, panel discussions. So all of that is going to happen. And again, there’s been like call for participations, we have been creating a kind of like, advisory board, again an international advisory board. Where people from different continents kind of like help shape as well, the content.    We’re still on an ongoing basis like asking for more content, because there will be so many people so we need a lot of content as well.    Laura Stevens: So you’re doing a call out now live to…   Martin Jordan: Yes!    Laura Stevens: So how if you, how do you put something forward, how do I go to this conference?   Martin Jordan: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you can go to ‘international.gov-design.com’. There you find all of the events that have happened already, and the one that’s happening next.    Laura Stevens: And are you hoping this will, you mentioned for like the American one was a bit more localised to North America. Are you hoping this will have a more global outlook because it’s just a bigger conference?   Martin Jordan: The other day, I was listening to a talk from the Italians and I feel like everybody is kind of innovating in another pocket. So at the beginning some people were like, ‘oh GDS is so far ahead’, but like, we are ahead in some regards. In other regards like, other governments are totally leading. So there’s a lot of stuff we can learn from each other.   Laura Stevens: Is there an example you can think of, maybe from that conference that you were like, ‘oh, they’re doing so much better, we can learn from them’.    Martin Jordan: So the design system that was created by the US folks and as well the design system created by, by the Australians, contains like various components that we might not have had.   So there has been, after one of the calls, like kind of like, an immediate exchange of code...   Laura Stevens: Yeah.   Martin Jordan: ...which was like, wow. We were like, ‘oh this is a component we do not have here’. So that people…   Laura Stevens: Yeah.   Martin Jordan: ...just share code literally, just…   Laura Stevens: Straight away.   Martin Jordan: Yeah. Which is quite amazing, amazing to see. Yeah.   Laura Stevens: And in terms of obviously, you’ve had a really significant growth over these past few years, in terms of where you want to the community to go, is there any plans you’ve got for 2020, in terms of maybe, targeting different countries or growing it further or in a different direction. What would be your take on that?   Kara Kane: In terms of the events, we’re intrigued to see how we can continue running those, and how we can continue having the community take ownership of those events. So we have been in, we’ve had people contact us from 3 different countries saying that they’re interested in running a conference. So we are in talks.   Laura Stevens: Watch this space.    Kara Kane: Watch this space.   So we’re trying to think about you know, how many events should we do a year, and what should those events look like, and how big should they be. So we’re working on a bit of a conference playbook…   Laura Stevens: Yeah.   Kara Kane: ...at the moment, that we can share with people who want to run a conference, to really help them be able to do it.    So in general for the community, going forward, we want it be, we want it to continue to be a place that is supportive for people working in this environment and in this space. We want to continue bringing people together, we want to continue seeing things like the Finns and the Estonians kind of working together and running events together.    And you know, people working on similar service areas coming together to share and learn from each other. But we really you know, in the future, want to get to a point where we’re, as Martin said around the design system example, like how can we share interaction and service design patterns.   Martin Jordan: Yeah.   Kara Kane: There’s so much kind of possibility for that. So how can the community facilitate that and what does that look like and is it possible, and at what level can we get to, and how can we keep you know, stealing from each other.   Laura Stevens: Yeah.   Kara Kane: Stealing code, stealing ideas and just you know, really learning from what everyone else is doing. So it’s really about kind of, maximising share and re-use, which is the theme of the November conference.   Martin Jordan: Exactly, yes.   Laura Stevens: And so if, how would I join this community if I’ve been listening to this, wherever I am in the world, how would I join?   Martin Jordan: So we have quite a few blog posts on the design in government blog, that is one of the GDS blogs.    There you have a dedicated international category, and whatever international blog post you read, at the bottom there are all the links to join the Google group. And then you’re part of the community.   Kara Kane: So once you apply to join the Google group, and join the community, then you’re sent a welcome email. Which kind of tells you about the Slack channels, it tells you about the recordings of the monthly calls, it tells you about the events that are coming up. So you can immediately find out what’s going on and how to get involved.    Laura Stevens: And tell me about applying. Who exactly can join the group?   Kara Kane: So it’s open to people that are working embedded in government, working in user-centered design. So you could be a designer, a user researcher, some working in accessibility, anyone who’s interested in design, and you have to be interested in talking about those things, from any government in the world, is welcome to join.   Laura Stevens: And I don’t know if we could round off with maybe some tips that you, on how to set up your own community, if this is something, if there’s some quick fire tips that you’ve found over learning this community. Sort of, how do you scale, how do you keep momentum going and what tools do you need.   Is there anything you’d want to add those?   Kara Kane: I think the first thing is using platforms that people are already on.    Laura Stevens: Yeah.   Kara Kane: So…   Laura Stevens: Don’t reinvent the wheel.    Kara Kane: Don’t reinvent the wheel. Please.   Just people use Slack, so use Slack.    Laura Stevens: Yeah.   Kara Kane: People use email, so use Google groups. It makes it so much easier if you make it hard for people to actually get to the platform where the conversation is happening, you’re already putting up a barrier to your community.   Laura Stevens: Yeah.   Kara Kane: So make it really easy, easy to access once you’re part of the community. And easy to, easy to respond and join conversations.   Martin Jordan: And if there are events happening, whether they’re kind of like online calls or like physical meetups with talks, like if you can, try to record stuff. So if there is like material you can share, because people will either kind of like, join communities later. Yeah, do that.    Or as well be not able to attend, and if you can then share the materials so they can still consume it in their own time, it’s really beneficial.   Kara Kane: Yeah and I think, building on that, is just having different formats. So not just having a Google group or a Slack group, where it can be really really scary to ask a question or share something.    Having things like monthly calls where you’re kind of, inviting people in to present, inviting people to consume information in a different way, having face to face events where people can network and meet people in a different way. Just having different options for people to feel engaged in the community.    Laura Stevens: So different formats, use the tools people are already on and record what you do.   Kara Kane: Yes.   Martin Jordan: Yeah.   Laura Stevens: Three excellent tips.   Kara Kane: And help introduce people.    Laura Stevens: And is that sort of, facilitating..?   Kara Kane: As a Community Manager.    Laura Stevens: Yeah.   Kara Kane: It’s really, especially in the beginning, is just help facilitate relationship building.    Laura Stevens: Yeah.   Arrange lots of cups of coffee.   Kara Kane: Yeah.   Laura Stevens: So thank you to both Kara and Martin today for telling us about their experience in running the international design in government community. So thank you for coming on.   Kara Kane: Thank you!   Martin Jordan: Thank you.   Thank you to both Kara and Martin today for telling us about their experience in running the international design in government community.    You can listen to all the episodes of the Government Digital Service podcast on Apple Music, Spotify and all other major podcast platforms. And you can read the transcripts on Podbean.    Thank you both again very much.

See the full show notes for this episode on the website at talkpython.fm/219.

We are joined by [David Homes](https://github.com/DavidEHolmes), Director of Engineering over at the United States Digital Service. Our conversation will cover a number of topics including technology accessibility, interacting with partners and translating business rules into code, and the mentorship and development of engineers. ### Resources and Shoutouts: - [Join USDS](https://www.usds.gov/apply) - [Civil Rights Data Collection](https://github.com/DavidEHolmes/crdc) - [School Diversity Report](https://schooldiversityreport.com/#/) - [US Web Design System](https://designsystem.digital.gov/) - [Section 508 Compliance Site](https://www.section508.gov/) ##### Music Credit: [Tumbleweeds by Monkey Warhol](http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Monkey_Warhol/Lonely_Hearts_Challenge/Monkey_Warhol_-_Tumbleweeds)

While we’re on the subject of design systems, it seems worth taking a stop by the United States Digital Service and their release of the Web Design System 2.0 this month. The USWDS has provided...

About the Lecture: This lecture will focus on the background of the build up to the 2014 - 2015 Ebola epidemic in West Africa and what the United States Government did to respond to this epidemic. Steven VanRoekel will discuss how the US tackled the challenges from the epidemic and what the government learned from it. About the Speaker: Steven VanRoekel is the Chief Operating Officer of the Rockefeller Foundation in New York City. Prior to this role, Steve was a technology and innovation consultant for the Foundation, seeking to further its mission through the use of data, technology and innovation. Steven began his engagement with Rockefeller in the Fall of 2017. Steve is a maker, investor and philanthropist. Prior to Rockefeller, Steve was in the Obama Administration where he last served as Chief Innovation Officer at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). At USAID, Steve helped coordinate the Administration's response to the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, including coordinating efforts to clarify and systemize the collection of data from the field and led the maker efforts to redesign the Ebola protective suit. Prior to his role at USAID, Steven was the second Chief Information Officer of the United States, appointed by President Obama in 2011. At the White House as U.S. CIO, Steve led the creation of the PortfolioStat agency review process, launched the “FedRAMP” cloud computing program, co-founded the United States Digital Service and the Presidential Innovation Fellows program, and led the U.S. Government's Open Data and Mobile policies. Wired Magazine named Steve one of the world's top 10 influencers of cloud computing. Concurrently, Steve spent a year as the acting Deputy Director for Management/Chief Operating Officer for the U.S. Before joining the White House, Steve held two prior positions in the Obama Administration at USAID and the Federal Communications Commission. Prior to the Administration, Steve's entire professional career was at Microsoft Corporation where he held many roles, including the longest-serving Business and Strategy Assistant to Microsoft founder, Bill Gates. His final role at Microsoft was as Senior Director of the Windows Server and Tools Division of Microsoft – a division, that at his departure, had risen to the be the second largest revenue generator for Microsoft. Steve is on the board of the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum, the board of the Maret School of Washington D.C., and is on the board of VetSports, a nonprofit that helps veterans with opportunities to reintegrate into their communities through sports, community Service, events, and partnership. Steve, his wife Carrie, and three daughters (age 12, 10 and 8) live in Washington, DC.

Andy Lewandowski, UX designer at the United States Digital Service joins the show to discuss the challenging redesign of the Veterans Affairs website.

Silicon Valley veteran Chuck joins us to talk a little about Social Media Marketing in the firearm industrylink for reporting: https://bit.ly/2PEmEvx A little about Chuck: Social media can be a potent tool in promoting your business. But navigating the rules and regulations can be challenging. Facebook’s Chuck Rossi works with the company’s Policy and Operations teams, and will provide guidance for members looking to optimize their Facebook presence. A 30-year veteran of Silicon Valley as a software engineer and manager for IBM, Google and other corporations, Chuck is also a USPSA and 3-Gun shooter, and an NRA Certified Instructor, an NROI certified Range Officer, and he leads corporate team building shooting events. Through the United States Digital Service, he’s worked as a consultant at the FBI’s CJIS division, working on the Uniform Crime Report and NICS 2.0.

Craig is at YOW! Conference and spends some time with Emily Webber, Agile Coach and author of “Building Successful Communities of Practice” and “The Agile Team Onion” and they chat about: The UK Government Digital Service and gov.uk (and the United States Digital Service and Australian Digital Transformation Agency) Government needs to be fast and … Continue reading →

There's an NBC story from Saturday: Russians launched a pro-Jill Stein social media blitz to help Donald Trump win the election, reports say — as well as" another related story in the New York Times, "Secret Experiment in Alabama Senate Race Imitated Russian Tactics." The report was one of two that leaked this week saying the Russian effort to disrupt the election specifically targeted black voters and harnessed America's top social media platforms. But the reports contained another finding that was largely overlooked — the Russians also focused on boosting Stein's candidacy through social media posts like the one from @woke_blacks. The problem is, the company responsible for writing the report, a research team led by the New Knowledge cybersecurity firm, has admitted it "orchestrated an elaborate ‘false flag' operation that planted the idea that the Moore campaign was amplified on social media by a Russian botnet,” the report says.So, as allegations of Russia's online election machinations came to light last year and the mainstream media is bombarding Americans with stories of Russian hacking, the reality is that New Knowledge created a Facebook page on which they posed as conservative Alabamians, using it to try to divide Republicans and even to endorse write-in candidates to draw votes from Roy Moore. It involved a scheme to link the Moore campaign to thousands of Russian accounts that suddenly began following the Republican candidate on Twitter, a development that drew national media attention.The report claims that the project sought to “enrage and energize Democrats” and “depress turnout” among Republicans, partly by emphasizing accusations that Mr. Moore had pursued teenage girls when he was a prosecutor in his 30s. The project had a budget of just $100,000, in a race that cost approximately $51 million, including the primaries, according to Federal Election Commission records. Look at where the funding came from. Despite its small size, the Alabama project brought together some prominent names in the world of political technology. The funding came from Reid Hoffman, the billionaire co-founder of LinkedIn, who has sought to help Democrats catch up with Republicans in their use of online technology.The money passed through American Engagement Technologies, run by Mikey Dickerson, the founding director of the United States Digital Service, which was created during the Obama administration to try to upgrade the federal government's use of technology. Sara K. Hudson, a former Justice Department fellow now with Investing in Us, a tech finance company partly funded by Mr. Hoffman, worked on the project, along with New Knowledge CEO Jonathon Morgan.So, what we have is a report about alleged Russian bot farms impacting the Green Party Stein election and the Roy Moore Alabama campaign, written by an American company, New Knowledge , which was the company that actually engaged in hiring bot farms to impact elections. This is not being covered by mainstream American media.As the partial government shutdown entered a third day today, President Donald Trump sought to cajole Democrats into a budget agreement, at one point lamenting he was "all alone" waiting for a deal. With little progress on his demand for a $5 billion border wall and most lawmakers away for Christmas, the president repeatedly took to Twitter to argue for the wall funding. He also scheduled a meeting for this afternoon with top Homeland Security officials. Trump blames Federal Reserve Board Chair Jerome H. Powell, his own choice for the post, for the steep stock sell-off. Many on Wall Street say Trump deserves some blame, too. The president has complained about Powell for months, but in recent days he's been asking around about whether he can fire Powell, which would be an unprecedented act in the United States and one that would spook markets and banks. What's going on here?GUESTS:Dr. Ajamu Baraka — American political activist and former Green Party nominee for vice president of the United States in the 2016 election. Dr. Anthony Monteiro — Author, activist, DuBois Scholar and former professor in the African American Studies department at Temple UniversityEugene Craig III — Republican strategist, former vice-chair of the Maryland Republican Party and grassroots activist.

This episode features [Leah Bannon](https://twitter.com/leahbannon), founder of [Tech Rebalanced](https://twitter.com/tech_rebalanced) and Product Manager at the [United States Digital Service](https://twitter.com/USDS). We talk about her path to becoming a thought leader in the civic tech movement and dig into the weeds of doing product management in government. ### Resources and Shoutouts: - [Leah's Website](http://www.chipy.org/) - [Code for DC](https://chipymentor.org/) - [USDS](https://www.usds.gov/) - [Tech Rebalanced](https://techladyhackathon.org/) - [User Research is not Illegal](https://medium.com/@ErieMeyer/user-research-is-not-illegal-uncle-sam-51f2f92a280a) ##### Music Credit: [Tumbleweeds by Monkey Warhol](http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Monkey_Warhol/Lonely_Hearts_Challenge/Monkey_Warhol_-_Tumbleweeds)

For this episode we talk to [Cyrus Sethna](https://twitter.com/c_sethna) about their journey into civic tech. Cyrus works in the [United States Digital Service](https://www.usds.gov/) and is an avid member of [Code for DC](https://codefordc.org/). We delve into that story, truths he's discovered along the way, and we learn about something called 'The National Day of Civic Crafting.' You won't want to miss this one. ### Resources and Shoutouts: - [ChiHackNight](https://chihacknight.org/) - [Chicago Python Users Group](http://www.chipy.org/l) - [Federalist](https://federalist.18f.gov/) - [Code for DC](https://codefordc.org/) - [Cryptoparty @ Code for DC](https://cryptopartydc.github.io/) ##### Music Credit: [Tumbleweeds by Monkey Warhol](http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Monkey_Warhol/Lonely_Hearts_Challenge/Monkey_Warhol_-_Tumbleweeds)

The Office of Federal Procurement Policy is shifting its digital services training program from pilot mode to fully operational. Three years after issuing a challenge to the vendor community to help change the way agencies buy technology, the Digital IT Acquisition Professional Program is ready for broad usage. Joanie Newhart is the Associate Administrator for Acquisition Workforce at the Office of Federal Procurement Policy and Traci Walker is the director of Digital Service Procurement with the United States Digital Service. They told Federal News Radio Executive Editor Jason Miller about why contracting officers will need to and want to obtain a core-plus certification in Contracting for Digital Services over the next few years. Hear the interview on Federal Drive with Tom Temin.

Our inaugural episode features a panel discussion with Kristi Leach, an independent Design Researcher and Information Architect, Tom Dooner, a Developer Evangelist for Code for America, and Cyrus Sethna, a Digital Services Expert with the United States Digital Service. We'll talk about what Civic Tech is, where the movement stands, and how you can get involved. Web Resources mentioned in the episode -Code for America Brigade: https://brigade.codeforamerica.org/ -Code for America Public Interest Tech Job Board: https://jobs.codeforamerica.org/

How should civic-minded technologists approach the ongoing reinvention of government in the Trump era? The Bay Area tech community, like much of the rest of the country, is still grappling with what Trump’s election will mean for the future of the United States. Donald Trump’s stance on innovation and technology is somewhat of an unknown at this stage, and has attracted much less attention than many of his other divisive campaign platforms. The future of many digital efforts—including the United States Digital Service, created by President Obama in 2014 to encourage people with tech expertise to do a tour of duty improving government—is one looming question.

Our guest this week is Jennifer Pahlka. Jennifer is the Founder of Code for America, a nonprofit dedicated to proving that government can work for all people in the digital age. She served as the U.S. Deputy Chief Technology Officer under President Obama, and founded the United States Digital Service dedicated to the same idea. For show notes visit: http://kk.org/cooltools/jennifer-pahlka-founder-of-code-for-america

Code for America was founded in 02009 by Jennifer Pahlka “to make government work better for the people and by the people in the 21st century.” The organization started a movement to modernize government for a digital age which has now spread from cities to counties to states, and now, most visibly, to the federal government, where Jennifer served at the White House as US Deputy Chief Technology Officer. There she helped start the United States Digital Service, known as "Obama's stealth startup." Now that thousands of people from "metaphysical Silicon Valley" are working for and with government, what have we learned? Can government actually be fixed to serve citizens better—especially the neediest? Why does change in government happen so slowly? Before founding Code for America, Jennifer Pahlka co-created the Web 2.0 and Gov. 2.0 conferences, building on her prior experience organizing computer game developer conferences. She continues to serve as executive director of Code for America, which is based in San Francisco.

Haley Van Dyck está transformando a forma como o governo dos Estados Unidos disponibiliza serviços para os cidadãos. No site United States Digital Service, Van Dyck e sua equipe estão usando lições aprendidas com o Vale do Silício e o setor privado para melhorar os serviços para os veteranos, os imigrantes, as pessoas com deficiência, e outros, criando, no processo, um governo ainda mais incrível. "Não ligamos para política", diz ela. "Queremos mesmo é que o governo funcione melhor, pois é o único que a gente tem."

Haley Van Dyck is transforming the way America delivers critical services to everyday people. At the United States Digital Service, Van Dyck and her team are using lessons learned by Silicon Valley and the private sector to improve services for veterans, immigrants, the disabled and others, creating a more awesome government along the way. "We don't care about politics," she says. "We care about making government work better, because it's the only one we've got."

This is session 6 of Technology-enabled Blitzscaling, a Stanford University class taught by Reid Hoffman, John Lilly, Allen Blue, and Chris Yeh. This class features John Lilly interviewing Jennifer Pahlka, the Founder and Executive Director of Code for America, and Co-founder of the United States Digital Service.