San Francisco Chief Digital Services Officer Carrie Bishop published an excellent commentary piece that touches on several issues we in the digital government industry don’t talk much about, or at all.
How civic hackers helped California’s DMV get digital momentum
CivicDMV and the Code for America Brigades helped inspire DMV to “unlock” California’s DMV Web Services.
Find the truth. Tell the truth.
“Find the truth. Tell the truth.” is a core value of the U.S. Digital Service, and Ben Damman uses the mantra to share his sentiments on how it applies to California technology projects, particularly related to the nascent Office of Digital Innovation.
California levels up on digital, seeks director for new innovation office
California is officially for looking for its first director of the newly-established Office of Digital Innovation.
Golden State dot-gov
California is on the cusp of ushering in a new era of government digital services, one that our elected leaders can finally align, prioritize and execute on, and prove to the people of the Golden State that our representatives are ready to innovate just as other industries here have done.
Part 2: Re-imagining the California DMV website
It’s been a week since I published my thoughts on re-imagining the California Department of Motor Vehicles website. During that time, the issues I had with not receiving my REAL ID were resolved and the process inspired me to think and prototype a little more on the first iteration.
Re-imagining the California DMV website
I recently visited my local California Department of Motor Vehicles field office to renew my driver license and, because I scheduled an appointment ahead of time, my experience wasn’t the nightmare it’s traditionally made out to be. However, the designer in me couldn’t help but think about how the entire DMV process could be re-imagined, offline and online.
We want you: Recruiting and hiring for government digital services
If government truly wants to transform digital services and effectively serve the public at scale, it must start with how it attracts and retains top technology talent.
Newsom proposes new California Office of Digital Innovation for 2019-20 budget
California Governor Gavin Newsom has proposed a new Office of Digital Innovation as part of the state’s 2019-20 budget with initial start-up costs of $36.2 million and 50 positions. The proposal also includes an innovation academy and $20 million innovation fund.
California releases state government website standards
The California Department of Technology has published unified design standards and accompanying resources for official state government websites.
California issues open source, code reuse policy
The California Department of Technology has set a new standard for state government technology offices, releasing an open source and code reuse policy “to better support cost efficiency, effectiveness, and the public’s experience with government programs.”
Serving California: Angie Quirarte
Angie Quirarte is a behind-the-scenes hero for the state of California, leading on issues such as public sector workforce recruitment and retention, public data, creating a user-friendly government, improving internal government processes and more.
San Luis Obispo Mayor Heidi Harmon on dresses, roses and personal empowerment
San Luis Obispo Mayor Heidi Harmon has an inspiring interview with the The California Report on her personal style, what it re-enforces and the sense of empowerment it gives her.
San Francisco seeks CIO
San Francisco is looking for a chief information officer.
Bringing California open data to life
Okay, I admit it: Even as a champion of open data, I find that it’s often mundane to view data on a portal. Simple lists of datasets — and even the maps and charts you can create — don’t truly show the intrinsic value of data that’s been freed to benefit communities.
Bay Area cities team with startups to solve civic problems, scale government innovation
Bay Area cities San Francisco, Oakland, West Sacramento and San Leandro teamed with startups this year as part of the Startup in Residence program to “explore ways to use technology to make government more accountable, efficient and responsive.”
San Francisco seeks chief digital services officer to lead online strategy, execution
San Francisco announced the creation of a new internal digital agency and is looking for a chief digital services officer to lead its efforts.
City enthusiasts, innovators: Register for BRIDGE SF
San Francisco Bay Area city enthusiasts and innovators can now register for BRIDGE SF, “a collaboration of public, private, non-profit, and academic institutions coming together to challenge assumptions, develop skills, share best practices, and build partnerships that drive innovation for a better tomorrow.”
Superpublic wants to supercharge municipal government innovation
The 5,000 sq. ft. lab Superpublic unites under the same roof for the first time innovation teams from the private industry, federal, state and city government agencies and from universities.
California seeks chief data officer
The state of California is looking for a chief data officer to “promote the availability and use of data in state government.”
California seeks CIOs
Of significant importance is the state CIO opening, and its convergence with evolving talk of establishing a government digital service team, much like what has been done in the United Kingdom and here in the United States with the U.S. Digital Service and 18F.
California commission wants the state to design a better government
A California bipartisan oversight committee, the Little Hoover Commission, has issued recommendations on how the state can bring a more customer-centric government to residents and visitors.
‘No ugly, old IT.’
“No ugly, old IT” jumped out at me when I first reviewed DataSF’s strategic plan, “Data in San Francisco: Meeting supply, spurring demand,” and it still sticks, mostly because someone inside government was so bold as to make this a priority and openly communicate it and also because this should be a mantra for everyone building civic technology.
Oakland seeks chief information officer
Oakland is looking for its next chief information officer to help position the city “at the forefront of American cities in its use of technology.”
California launches innovation contests to improve government operations
The state of California has launched a $25K Find a New Way innovation contest that gives residents a chance “to identify areas of improvement within the state government and share their untapped expertise to create solutions.”
San Francisco publishes year two plan, continues to lead on open data
San Francisco’s DataSF team continues to quietly and effectively demonstrate what an efficient, holistic and personable approach to open data looks like with the announcement of its year two plan and retrospective of the past year.
How and why Los Angeles deployed open source and agile
Last week at DrupalCon, representatives from the city of Los Angeles, CivicActions and Acquia shared their development and project management process to begin migrating and consolidating websites across 40 agencies to a single instance using Acquia Cloud Site Factory.
Inside Palo Alto’s new Civic Technology Center
Last week, I met with Palo Alto Chief Information Officer Jonathan Reichental to get a tour of the city’s new Civic Technology Center, an open space that centralizes the city’s information technology staff, call and data centers into one working area.
City icons and Vocativ’s livability index
Vocativ published its 2014 Livability Index of the 35 best cities for people 35 and under, and the best part of it is the montage of city icons they created for the piece.
What if mayors ruled the world?
Freakonomics Radio has a great episode on the dynamics of mayors and their ability (compared to governors and presidents) to directly and immediately impact the lives of citizens, primarily because they deal with tactical issues with relatively less political obstacles.
Defaulting to open: A foundation for data-driven decisions
San Francisco Chief Data Officer Joy Bonaguro shares her vision for the city’s open data future at the 2014 Code for America Summit.
These 7 local governments will Code for America in 2015
Code for America today announced the next class of municipalities for its 2015 Fellowship Program that partners civic technologists with local governments for one year to “explore answers to local challenges by engaging with the community, building applications, and testing the results.”
Got natural disasters? There’s an open source emergency preparedness toolkit for that
If you live in the San Francisco Bay Area and woke up at to a 6.1 earthquake at 3:30 a.m. this morning, now would be a good time for citizens and local governments everywhere to take a look at City72 Toolkit.
Two SF civic innovation programs now accepting fellowship applications
The San Francisco Mayor’s Office of Civic Innovation and Fuse Corps are now accepting fellowship applications for a total of five fellowship opportunities.
San Diego seeks chief data officer
If you like open data and great weather, the city of San Diego is looking for a performance and analytics chief data officer.
Oakland vendor API requirement a big step for municipal open government
To get an idea of how badly Oakland needs to upgrade its digital infrastructure, you just need to read this one line from Tuesday’s city council staff report.
SF reboots open data efforts
It took a while for San Francisco to get a serious open data effort off the ground, but now that new chief data officer Joy Bonaguro has had some time to take lay of the land, she’s ready to roll.
GitChat with Gavin Newsom
California Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom is our next GitChat guest.
SF names Joy Bonaguro as city’s first chief data officer
In a Twitter exchange between San Francisco Chief Information Officer Marc Touitou and myself, Touitou confirmed that the city has appointed Joy Bonaguro as its first chief data officer.
Inside the new BART.gov
Bay Area Rapid Transit Web Services Manager Timothy Moore discusses the recent upgrade of its flagship website, BART.gov, including a Drupal migration, embracing agile development, encouraging third-party developers to build off its open data and APIs, and plans for the future.
Continuing San Francisco’s national leadership on open data
Today, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors will take its final vote to approve my update to our city’s groundbreaking open data law. My open data ordinance, in its simplest terms, standardizes and sets timelines for the release of appropriate city government data.
OpenOakland 1.5: A year and a half in review
As we close out the year, I wanted to reflect on a few things to put our work in perspective and also to lay out the vision for where we want to go in the new year.
Is California forcing state agencies under one private cloud?
According to a document obtained by GovFresh, the California Department of General Services is issuing a list of stipulations to cloud computing vendors that forces them into an agreement to not sell their services to state agencies.
NYC chief urban designer to speak at CivicMeet Oakland Nov. 7
NYC Chief Urban Designer Alex Washburn will share his insights at CivicMeet Oakland on November 7, 5:00 to 7:00 p.m., SoMar.
San Francisco: Driving the boundaries of open data
During last week’s 2013 Code for America summit at the Yerba Buena Center, officials from cities including Louisville, New York City, South Bend and New Orleans spoke about how open data had changed the complexion of their communities in public safety, citizen services and blight mapping.
FreshWrap: CfA Summit, procurement, healthcare.gov and more
A wrap-up of this week’s civic technology and open government news.
New SF effort will embed startup DNA into government
Spearheaded by SF’s Office of Innovation and led by Mayor Ed Lee Senior Advisor Rahul Mewawalla, the program will embed “world-class entrepreneurial teams” into the inner workings of government to help inspire the next big civic thing and a new spin on the initial public offering.
Civic leaders, technologists set to convene for 2013 Code for America Summit
Registration is still open for the 2013 Code for America Summit set for October 15 to 17 in San Francisco.
Oakland moves closer to adopting open data policy
The policy calls for the city “to make every reasonable effort to publish its data in machine readable formats using prevailing open standards” and directs the city administrator to lead the effort under a specific timeline.
San Francisco seeks chief data officer
After nearly a year since it first announced proposed open data legislation that included the creation of a city chief data officer, San Francisco has officially posted the position.