michal migurski- keynote at citycamp oakland

I.T.: Baby or Bathwater?

Michal Migurski, CfA CityCamp Oakland 2013

@michalmigurski

Information technology used

to mean paper.

Oxford Filing Co. Speed Index:

http://teczno.com/s/yq5

Paper is easy to mock.

Brazil, 1985

Daily Show, 2013

But! Communities of Practice.

http://teczno.com/s/yq5

With the web, the “webmaster”

did everything.

•“Please describe the details of the accident. You may not use any of the characters <, >, %, *, (, ), ^, <, |, ~, / or = in your responses.”

With the web, I.T. became difficult and procurement was born.

Pace of technological change

90’s

~2010Pace of technological change

Civic technology: 90’s that never ended

Two steps to help rebalance…

Let’s fast-forward civic tech to 2010.

Programming got easier, servers got easier, data got easier, and web design got easier.

90’s

~2010Pace of technological change

90’s

~2010hipster code

Pace of technological change

Let’s get the good stuff back in-house.

The communities, the learning, the deep local knowledge of places and their histories.

http://teczno.com/s/88wv

OpenOakland and Code for America: 3 years of progress

1) Adopt-a-Hydrant“What if you felt about your government

the way you felt about your iPhone?”

Fixing potholes and paying attention to basics got civic hackers to the table.

2) Oakland AnswersWrite-a-thons! Social events for non-coders!

Repeating things that worked elsewhere!

“If animals don’t want to be eaten they should

learn to code”—Paul Ford, @ftrain

3) RecordTracGetting closer to the actual core functions of local government.

Recap: Choose 2010,

In-house the good stuff.

Three bonus outcomes…

Be good at information again.

http://teczno.com/s/yq5

Fix procurement along the way.

http://teczno.com/s/7bz

Refocus on helping solve people’s needs.

Thank You.Michal Migurski

mike@codeforamerica.org @michalmigurski