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“What good governance and the good society look like is now inextricably linked to an understanding of the digital.” - @steiny
These words, from 2012, are worth revisiting as the nascent Biden administration makes plans to #buildbackbetter.
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These words, from 2012, are worth revisiting as the nascent Biden administration makes plans to #buildbackbetter.
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This doesn’t mean that tech should run the country. It mean recognizing that, especially in the age of Covid, government services are digital services, speed matters (like in testing and contact tracing), and human centered design is not a nice-to-have.
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It means that digital is a core competency for government. Blame the legacy tech or vendors all you want, but leaders have to deal with the consequences of services that don’t reach the people who need them and policies that fail to account for the realities of today’s world. 3/x
There are often tragic human consequences; there are also political, economic, and societal consequences. And when they happen, it doesn’t matter that the last X administrations left you with this mess. You have to make it work. 4/x
When @steiny wrote those words, digital was a lane. So many have learned so much since then. Now we know we can organize government as cross-disciplinary teams working together towards common goals, grounded in an evolving understanding of the needs of the American people. 5/x
Our leaders must take ownership of that framework and put their weight behind it. But first they must understand it. Which is why now is a good time to keep the core values of civic tech visible in the national conversation. #BuildBackBetter needs digital competence. 6/x
. @steiny also said: “You [can] no longer run a country properly if the elites don’t understand technology in the same way they grasp economics or ideology or propaganda.” 7/x
It’s wonderful to see so many talented, dedicated, and values-driven technologists on the agency landing teams. Now let’s start to see this ethos land in the new administration. /end
