Technology and Trust: The Challenge of 21st Century Government

Technology and Trust:
The Challenge of 21st Century Government
Tim O’Reilly
@timoreilly
Social Innovation Summit
November 20, 2013

codeforamerica.org

@codeforamerica

Wednesday, November 20, 13

When you see the title of this talk, Technology and Trust, you perhaps think of Edward Snowden and the ongoing scandal of NSA spying on the American people and our allies. But I’m actually here
to talk about something that is perhaps even more fundamental. And it starts here...


How many of you are old enough to remember a time when you had to physically walk into a bank and talk to another human being in order to get cash?
I remember….
And that memory seems quaint to all of us because we know how much personal finance has been revolutionized over the last 25 years because of digital, networked technology.


Leave Bitcoin to the side for a moment, I’m still amazed that I can take a picture of a check with my phone and the money will show up in my account a few hours later.
The same digital, networked technologies, it seems obvious to say, have revolutionized almost every aspect of our lives. Not just banking but everything from education to how we interact with our friends.


But there’s one place where that revolution has largely not yet taken place: in government. This is the Department of Motor Vehicles,
which in the US is a symbol of bureaucracy. Just about everyone has to go at some point in their lives and almost no one has a good experience.

91% of Americans own a cellphone
67% use Facebook, 33% have a tablet...

Why is this how we engage with government?


And this is a microcosm of the problem we try to address at Code for America--when the tools are available for people to connect with anyone in the world and
access every piece of information one could ever want, why do we make it so hard to access government?

6

Even
when
government
tries
to
do
digital,
we
get
messes
like
healthcare.gov.
It
doesn’t
have
to
be
that
way.

But
when
the
government
does
end
up
building
technology
that
doesn’t
work
and
costs
way
too
much,
not
only
do
ci=zens
get
gypped,

but
it
breaks
our
trust
in
government.

7

Democracies get their strength from the people’s trust. When the interactions that people have with government are so divorced from how they live their lives, or are hard and unpleasant, what is that doing to the trust that underlies our
democracies? Obviously, the decline of trust in government has to do
with a lot of other factors besides technology, but the way government is so out of step with ordinary life certainly is symptomatic
of the deeper problem.

8

There
are
lots
of
people
doing
great
work
in
government,
and
we
see
alterna=ves
star=ng
to
appear
to
the
broken
way
that
government
acquires
and
deploys
technology.

In
the
last
couple
of
years,
the
UK’s

Government
Digital
Service
has
replaced
something
like
1700
bad
government
web
sites
with
one
that

has
more
usage
than
all
1700
combined
had
before.
The
service
has
had
ci=zen
sa=sfac=on
go
through
the
roof,
and
has
won
plaudits
from
everyone.

9

In
the
US,
the
Consumer
Financial
Protec?on
Bureau
has
similarly
built
simple,
eﬀec?ve
interfaces
to
government,
in
plain
language,
that
gets
results.

10

And that’s what we’re all about at Code for America. The organization was founded to change the culture inside government that supports bureaucracy, breeds disengagement
with citizens, and makes it hard for government to come up with innovative solutions to longstanding problems--all using
modern networked, digital technology and user-centered design principles.
We take four approaches: 1) we work directly with government officials (at the local level) to create the capacity inside government to build innovative solutions to hard problems; 2) we build communities of technologists and citizens who
want to lend their skills to help build their governments; 3) we build tools that make citizen interactions with government easier, simpler, and more elegant, so that the experience of government is positive and breeds trust. 4) We incubate
and accelerate civic startups to create new
economic models for those tools. In this, we’re influenced by the idea that government should act like a platform. Before the iPhone, phones had twenty or thirty applications; now they have millions. When governments open data, for
example, private companies can deliver innovative services. (Eg GPS, weather, healthcare innovation)

11

One big reason governments don’t innovate is because there is no benefit to taking risks on new approaches. The price of failure is too high. So we support cities in creating departments modeled on the Mayors Office of New Urban
Mechanics in Boston, which acts as a risk aggregator for city governments. These departments, which exist in some form in thirteen cities in the US and at least one city--Mexico City--outside the US, are specifically mandated with taking on
the projects that other departments fear are too risky or experimental. If they work, those departments get the credit. If they don’t, New Urban Mechanics takes the blame. It turns out, when you give city officials permission to experiment
they are really eager to try new things. So we place a premium on creating spaces that empower them to experiment (and I’ll tell you a story about one of their tools in a moment).

12

We’ve
worked
with
25
ci=es
so
far.

We’ve
worked
on
problems
ranging
from
blight
in
New
Orleans
and
Detroit,
to
beOer
management
of
alterna=ves
to
incarcera=on
in
NYC,
status
repor=ng
on
311
requests
in
Chicago,
access
to
public
records
in
Oakland,

business
permiSng
in
Santa
Cruz,
and
access
to
social
services
in
San
Mateo
and
San
Francisco.


The second way we approach the government innovation problem is by building new avenues for citizens to participate.
We started in 2011 with one program, our fellowship, which remains our flagship program. This year we have 27 fellows… We recruit talented coders,
designers, and urbanists to do user research and build applications that serve real citizen needs. But the output of the fellowship isn’t really the
applications. It’s culture change in government, and a change in what people think is possible.

14

Our
fellows
do
write
code
and
build
apps,
and
open
up
public
data
for
re-‐use,
but
what
they
mainly
do
is
help
ci=es
learn
how
to
approach
government
IT
with
a
diﬀerent
mindset.
A
lot
of
our
work
is
informed
by
the
UK’s
Government
Digital
Service
Design
Principles.

15

The
ﬁrst
of
these
is
to
start
with
needs
-‐
user
needs,
not
government
needs.

This
is
so
cri?cal.


For
example,
we
worked
with
Honolulu
last
year
on
rethinking
their
website.

With
only
three
fellows,
we
couldn’t
take
on
the
task
of
rebuilding
the
en?re
website.
So
what
they
did
instead
was

build
a
site
that
beTer
conformed
to
the
way
people
look
for
informa?on.
They’re
usually
looking
for
quick
answers
or
steps
for
ac?on
they
need
to
take
and
a
site
that
looks
like
this
is
really

frustra?ng
to
navigate.

How
oVen
have
you
come
to
a
government
website
like
this,
full
of
press
releases
(mee?ng
government
needs,
not
ci?zen
needs).


So
they
built
Honolulu
Answers,
a
super-‐simple
and
elegant
search
interface
that
allows
ci?zens
to
enter
keywords
or
ques?ons
and
get
quick
answers.

18

They applied another one of the GDS design principles, to design with data.
They mined the visitor logs of the existing site and the city’s call center to ﬁnd out what people are really looking for,
instead of what government departments want to say about themselves. And one of the things that they found was that
driver’s license information was one of the top searches. (In Hawaii, the city manages this for the state.)

19

Take
a
look
at
the
city’s
exis=ng
start
page
of
driver’s
license
informa=on,
complete
with
such
“need
to
know”
informa=on
as
the
fact
that
the
driver’s
licensing
sta=ons
have
a
new
statewide
computer/camera
licensing
system!
We
even
have
a
link
to
a
picture
of

a
driver’s
license.

But
the
informa=on
about
how
to
get
one
is
hard
to
ﬁnd.
This
is
the
kind
of
thing
that
breaks
trust
with
government.


And
get
back
plain
language
answers
that
direct
a
user
toward
ac?on.
The
site
itself
was
easy
enough
to
build.
But
the
team
was
faced
with
the
challenge
of
how
to
populate
all
the
content.
It
would
have
taken
the
three
of
them
a
very
long
?me,
especially

considering
none
of
them
were
from
Honolulu.

So
they
did
something
that’s
actually
preTy
radical
when
you
think
about
how
government
is
used
to
working.


They
asked
ci?zens
to
write
the
content.

You
may
have
heard
of
a
hackathon.
Well,
they
held
a
writeathon


Where
members
of
the
community
picked
from
among
the
most
popular
topics
and
ques?ons
and
wrote
the
answers
to
them.
Over
the
course
of
a
Saturday
aVernoon
they
had
created
almost
all
of
the
content
for
the
site.
But
more
importantly
than
that,
they
created
a
new
way
for
ci=zens
to
par=cipate
in—to
build—their
government.


I
think
that’s
a
great
story
in
itself,
but
it
doesn’t
end
there.
In
June,
on
the
Na=onal
Day
of
Civic
Hacking,
in
Oakland
(where
I
live)
we
held
our
own
writeathon
for
Oakland
Answers.
The
Code
for
America
Oakland
team
took
the
code
base
from
Honolulu
Answers
and
redeployed
it.


I
got
into
the
act,
along
with
other
Oakland
ci?zens,
including
Code
for
America
founder
Jen
Pahlka,

Brigade
Director
Catherine
Bracy,
(who
worked
with
me
on
this
slide
deck),
and
who
authored
the
answer
shown
here.

By
taking
our
small
acts
and
s?tching
them
together
with
the
thousands
of
other
small
acts
of
par?cipa?on
we’re
enabling
through
civic
hacking
we
think
we
can
re-‐energize
ci?zenship
and

restore
trust
in
our
governments.

“Interfaces to government can be simple,
beautiful, and easy to use.”
Scott Silverman, 2011 Fellow


There’s
another
key
idea
that
drives
our
work:
INTERFACES
to
government
can
be
simple,
beau=ful
and
easy
to
use.
These
interfaces
will
emerge
because
we
the
people
oﬀered
input
into
the
design
and
the
result
is
something
relevant.


Our work in Boston in 2011, our ﬁrst year, was unexpectedly driven in a new direction by a piece of investigative reporting by the Boston Globe about
the nightmarish school choice system in Boston.

27

Parents
were
struggling
with
a
28
page
brochure,
well
meaning
and
full
of
informa=on,
but
that,
in
the
end,
didn’t
tell
them
which
schools
their
children
were
eligible

for.

BOSTON

Discover
Oct 2013

Nov

Public Schools
Dec

Jan 2014

Feb

Mar

Apr

May

Jun

Jul

Aug

Sep

Registration
Today

English

umn
sion

Account
11

2
1

9
3
4
8

7

6
5
12

Elizabeth

GRADE

3

Choice order

+ Add a child
Getting there

School hours

Surround Care

Your Fit

School Start Time
7:30 am
8:30 am

1

Eliot K-8

3.2 mi

7:30– 2:30

2

Margarita Muñiz
Academy

5.6 mi

8:30– 3:30

Before school

3

Edwards Middle
School

5.6 mi

9:30– 4:30

Before school

Before school
After school

9:30 am

Surround Care
Before School
After School

Grades
Early Learning
Center


10

28

K-5
K-8

7:30– 2:30
6-8
1.6 mi
In
two
months,
one
of
the
Code
for
America
Fellows
built
a
simple,
modern
web
app
that
lets
parents
explore
the
school
system,

4 Mission Hill K-8
6-12
including
such
factors
as
the
reputa=on
of
each
school,
the
distance
from
your
home,
and
the
likelihood
of
your
children
geSng
in.
7-12 (Exam Schools)

Before school
After school

9-12

Rogers Middle
The
City
of
Boston
told
us
that
if
they
were
to
go
through
tradi=onal
channel
to
procure
such
a
site
it
would
have
taken
the
city
more
than
school probably
two,
and
approximately
two
million
dollars.

a
year,

9:30– 4:30
10.6 mi
After
5
School
Enrollment
That’s
obviously
a
huge
win.
Small
Medium
Large

6

Ohrenberger School

6 mi

9:30– 4:30

7

Perry K-8

8.2 mi

7:30– 2:30

Uniform Policy
Yes

Before school

Before school
After school

“DiscoverBPS changed the way
we relate to parents.”
Superintendent Carol Johnson

29

But
the
real
win
is
described
in
this
quote
from
Boston
School
Superintendent
Carol
Johnson
That’s
ul?mately
what
we
want
to
hear,
that
as
a
result
of
our
work,
we’ve
changed
the
rela?onship
between
government
and
ci?zens.

30

But
the
impact
of
what
we
do
needs
to
go
deeper
and
faster.

I
wrote
a
blog
post
about
this
recently
on
the
Code
for
America
site.

“One
privilege
the
insured
and
well-‐off
have
is

to
excuse
the
terrible
quality
of
services
the

government
rou=nely
delivers
to
the
poor.
Too

ohen,
the
press
ignores
—
or
simply
never

knows
—
the
pain
and
trouble
of
interfacing

with
government
bureaucracies
that
the
poor

struggle
with
daily.”
Ezra
Klein,
Washington
Post
31

It
was
fundamentally
a
reflec?on
on
this
quote
from
Ezra
Klein,
wri?ng
in
the
Washington
Post,
to
the
effect
that
all
the
furor
over
the
failure
of
healthcare.gov
hides
a
far
deeper
problem.

He
wrote:

32

That’s
why
I’m
par=cularly
proud
of
the
work
we
did
with
San
Francisco
this
year
to
build
a
system
that
uses
text
messages
to
remind
social
service
recipients
of
required
repor=ng
and
other
alerts,
to
make
sure
they
don’t
lose

their
services.

One
of
the
things
the
Fellows
learned
in
their
ini=al
month
of
user
research
was
how
ohen

CalFresh
(Food
Stamp)
recipients
didn’t
learn
that
their
beneﬁts
hadn’t
been
renewed
un=l
they
tried
to
check
out
at
the
grocery.

We
built
a
similar
system
in
Louisville
KY
to
remind
people
of
court
dates.

We
also
built
a
system
in
New
York
to
help
the
criminal
jus=ce
system
help
evaluate
candidates
for
alterna=ves
to
incarcera=on.

Sadly, that’s not an uber-like timeframe.
But at least knowing is a big help.
33

And
a
system
called
TextMyBus
in
Detroit
that
lets
schoolkids
in
Detroit
know
when
buses
are
coming.

They
don’t
all
have
smartphones,
and
messaging
lets
anyone
with
an
SMS-‐enabled
phone
get
informa=on
about
when
the
next
bus
is
due.

This
photo
was
taken
in
summer,

but
our
fellows
no=ced
this
as
a
real
problem
last
winter.
Some=mes
kids
were
wai=ng
in
the
dark,
in
freezing
weather,
for
half
an
hour,
to
get
to
school.
Knowing
when
the
bus
is
coming
really
maOers
in
a
situa=on
like
that.

Of
course,
the
fact
that
the
bus
comes
only
every
half
an
hour
may
be
a
problem
of
another
sort.

“The
legi=mate
object
of
government
is
to
do

for
the
people
what
needs
to
be
done,
but

which
they
cannot,
by
individual
eﬀort,
do
at

all,
or
do
so
well,
for
themselves.”
Abraham
Lincoln,
July
1,
1854

34

I
want
to
end
with
this
reminder
from
Abraham
Lincoln.
Government
is
one
of
the
key
plaforms
for
improving
the
quality
of
our
society.
Bringing
modern
technology
and
user
centered
design
to
government,
so
that
it
truly
serves
its
ci?zens,
is
one
of
the

great
opportuni?es
of
the
21st
century.

It
is
key
to
restoring
faith
in
government,
repairing
the
breach
between
government
and
its
ci?zens,
and
delivering
the
services
that
will
make
our
society
more
just,
fair,
and
prosperous.

How
You
Can
Help

• Don’t
stop
believing
that
government
can
work,
and

can
be
a
force
for
good
• 2015
Fellows
Applica=on
Deadline
July
31,
2014
• Get
your
city
involved
-‐
codeforamerica.org/ci=es
• Join
a
Brigade
near
you
-‐
codeforamerica.org/brigade
• Follow
@codeforamerica
for
news
and
progress
• Donate
-‐
codeforamerica.org/donate
35

How
can
you
help?

Technology and Trust: The Challenge of 21st Century Government

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