Civic Tech & Civic Leaders: What NOT to build & how to sustain ourselves
In June, the Open Gov Hub hosted two events that circle around civic action — both in terms of civic technology at the grassroots level, and civic leadership across global partnerships. Here are the full videos a key takeaways from those two events, highlighting some valuable insights:
MIT GOV/LAB BBL with Luke Jordan: Key Takeaways
Don't always build it! There need to be a clear problem for tech to solve. So before building any new civic tech tool (including data tools), first ask if people are already trying to do the thing that the tech should help them do. If not, don't expect tech to solve the problem on its own (for example, you might want to design a tool to help people participate in public planning meetings, but if they are not already trying to do that then the tool might not help). Its very important to be sure you understand the nature of the problem, before starting to build the tech to help address it.
Some lessons learned about how to operationalize a successful civic tech project are around how you get the right talent: don't hire full-time tech staff too quickly (hire who you can afford over time) and do think about the skills at CTO really needs to be successful; outsourcing is a great tactic but a terrible strategy; and make sure to set your budget that will give you a quick start, but enable you to iterate over time
The presented guide is for teams or managers involved in considering or building “civic technology”, i.e., technology that helps people engage government more effectively. It is a practical distillation of Luke Jordan’s four years spent building Grassroot, a civic tech platform in South Africa. He offers much advice, including build lean and fast, and get close and stay close to your users as soon as possible and for long as possible. More here.
A global conversation with civic leaders: KEY TAKEAWAYS
For us: Remind ourselves of our personal motivation and make sure we take care of ourselves and keep going. It’s a fundamental need to sustain ourselves before we can sustain our teams and partnerships.
For our teams: Remind them that they belong somewhere, as a part of a community, and give them benefits during such a difficult time (you can be very creative about professional development, team building activities, and so on).
For our partnerships: Communicate openly and frequently with partners, especially during unprecedented times, so that we can anticipate and avoid any challenges by being by being proactive with open communication. And again, just to be flexible with each other and remember the humans behind the work.
