# A Civic Technologist's Practice Guide - Cyd Harrell Published: 2020-09-03 by ![[Attachments/f8961f6151d4d842ca064440606c9eac_MD5.jpg]] ## Chapter 1 ### Scale Expanding on the problems of scale in civic tech (vs, say, the industry): > [!ai]+ Claude > Here is an expanded summary of the section in the chapter discussing questions of scale and impact in civic tech: > - A central challenge in civic tech is figuring out how to deliver improvements at a scale that will maximize impact and make the best use of efforts. - There is often tension between the scale of a project and how directly outcomes can be seen or measured. - For example, in addressing issues like access to public food assistance, practitioners could work at the federal level on data and reporting systems, the state level on eligibility systems, the county level on direct client interfaces, or the NGO level on advocacy and training. - The federal level offers the widest potential scale and impact across states, but the work is more removed from direct public outcomes. - States administer federal programs and oversee counties, offering a mix of direct interfaces and broader systems. - Local county and city efforts can demonstrate direct, visible outcomes quickly through new interfaces and tools. But they are limited in scale. - NGOs have knowledge and advocacy opportunities across levels of government. - So practitioners need to weigh whether their goal is nationwide impact and reuse of tools, fast demonstration of outcomes, or influence on decision makers. - The level that offers the right mix of potential impact, ability to measure outcomes, and availability of partners depends on the specific project context. - But understanding the landscape and ecosystem is key to identifying the best opportunities. - Questions of scale need to be considered early when planning civic tech efforts to maximize the use of available resources and potential impact. ### Key point summary > [!ai]+ Claude > Here is an even more detailed summary of the key points in the chapter: > - Civic technology is a movement that emerged in the 2000s with the goal of using technology to improve government services, increase responsiveness and efficiency, promote justice, and enable greater collaboration between government and citizens. - The civic tech movement brings approaches and people from the private tech sector to public institutions, seeking to make government digital services as good as commercial ones. - However, early civic tech efforts lacked diversity and often privileged certain voices, like tech entrepreneurs. The field still needs more inclusion of new perspectives and focus on equity. - There are four main levels of government in the United States: federal, state, county, and municipal. Each level has executive, legislative, and judicial branches with different responsibilities. - Understanding this complex landscape of thousands of overlapping jurisdictions helps determine where civic tech efforts can be most impactful and partners are available. - Three key factors enabled the emergence of civic tech: the open government data movement, open source software, and customer-service focused private sector internet companies setting new expectations for digital services. - Public servants, whether elected officials, political appointees, or career civil servants, are critical partners and stakeholders in civic tech work through their institutional knowledge and stewardship. - To drive meaningful change, civic tech practitioners should take time to understand the policy landscape and ecosystem of players around an issue. - They should identify opportunities for mutually beneficial partnerships with specific government stakeholders, and find openings to apply technology in ways that serve democratically determined public goals. - Questions of scale and direct impact are a central challenge. Locally focused efforts can demonstrate direct outcomes but have limited scale, while wider state/federal efforts offer potential for reuse and wider impact but less visible change. - Civic tech has international roots, with government digital service efforts in the UK and elsewhere predating similar US initiatives. The field emerged from global open government trends. - Overall the chapter provides important context on the civic tech landscape, stakeholders, challenges and opportunities that practitioners should understand before embarking on projects. ### ZK - [[ZK - 2023-09-05 - There is value in starting solving problems from the bottom up (without considering the entire system), because that is the actual problem needing to be solved]] ## Chapter 2 ### Key point summary > [!ai]+ Claude > Here is a detailed bullet point summary of the key ideas in this chapter: - Civic tech suffers from the same structural inequities as government and the broader tech industry. As a new field, it has a chance to address these issues head-on. - Early civic tech efforts reflected the demographics of people with time/means for unpaid work - skewing white, male, and affluent. This is a problem for a field aiming to serve everyone. - Civic tech spaces should be inclusive as well as diverse. Inclusion recognizes and supports people from different backgrounds. - Technologists often get automatic credibility in government settings, which can drown out other voices. This "tech savior complex" is a form of privilege. - Avoid erasing the work of underrepresented groups already addressing an issue by assuming your group is the first to engage. - Diverse teams are critical for serving diverse communities. Homogenous teams often design for themselves by default. - Consider your own privileges related to gender, race, language, dis/ability in your work. Use privileges to support others. - Government better reflects local communities than tech, but still tends to be less diverse at senior levels. - Design civic tech to serve everyone, not just groups with tech access/literacy. Accessibility is a requirement, not an edge case. - If you have privilege, use it to elevate underrepresented colleagues. Make sure credit and speaking time is equitable. - Become aware of your privileges to understand how they affect your relationships. Earn trust from underrepresented communities.