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Power to the Public: The Promise of Public Interest Technology
“Worth a read for anyone who cares about making change happen.”―Barack Obama
A powerful new blueprint for how governments and nonprofits can harness the power of digital technology to help solve the most serious problems of the twenty-first century
As the speed and complexity of the world increases, governments and nonprofit organizations need new ways to effectively tackle the critical challenges of our time―from pandemics and global warming to social media warfare. In Power to the Public , Tara Dawson McGuinness and Hana Schank describe a revolutionary new approach―public interest technology―that has the potential to transform the way governments and nonprofits around the world solve problems. Through inspiring stories about successful projects ranging from a texting service for teenagers in crisis to a streamlined foster care system, the authors show how public interest technology can make the delivery of services to the public more effective and efficient.
At its heart, public interest technology means putting users at the center of the policymaking process, using data and metrics in a smart way, and running small experiments and pilot programs before scaling up. And while this approach may well involve the innovative use of digital technology, technology alone is no panacea―and some of the best solutions may even be decidedly low-tech.
Clear-eyed yet profoundly optimistic, Power to the Public presents a powerful blueprint for how government and nonprofits can help solve society’s most serious problems.
A powerful new blueprint for how governments and nonprofits can harness the power of digital technology to help solve the most serious problems of the twenty-first century
As the speed and complexity of the world increases, governments and nonprofit organizations need new ways to effectively tackle the critical challenges of our time―from pandemics and global warming to social media warfare. In Power to the Public , Tara Dawson McGuinness and Hana Schank describe a revolutionary new approach―public interest technology―that has the potential to transform the way governments and nonprofits around the world solve problems. Through inspiring stories about successful projects ranging from a texting service for teenagers in crisis to a streamlined foster care system, the authors show how public interest technology can make the delivery of services to the public more effective and efficient.
At its heart, public interest technology means putting users at the center of the policymaking process, using data and metrics in a smart way, and running small experiments and pilot programs before scaling up. And while this approach may well involve the innovative use of digital technology, technology alone is no panacea―and some of the best solutions may even be decidedly low-tech.
Clear-eyed yet profoundly optimistic, Power to the Public presents a powerful blueprint for how government and nonprofits can help solve society’s most serious problems.
208 pages, Hardcover
First published April 13, 2021
56 people are currently reading
1,128 people want to read
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May 22, 2021
I picked up this book because it was recommended by Obama (can’t remember where) for any technologist interested in the public sphere.
It definitely is very current, had interesting case studies on technology implementations in the government, and touched on the importance of design thinking when looking at policy & process changes within the government.
But, as someone who already was familiar with design-thinking principles (like starting with understanding the users), the main points of the book (focusing on user research first, the importance of data) felt elementary. If you don’t have as much familiarity with these concepts, though, this book would be a great introduction in the context of modernizing government processes.
Despite this, the anecdotes shared such as how Rockford, IL eliminated homelessness or how the foster care approval process was sped up in Vermont (perhaps not permanently, though) provided accurate illustrations of what it is like developing process interventions in the government and the roadblocks that might come in ones way.
One aspect of public interest technology work that I wish the book further elaborated on are the factors that are keeping top technical/design/etc. talent from working in the government and what can realistically be done about them. The book mentions lagging govt salaries and changes in university system goals as reasons for this, but the only solution they present is essentially that “you should do it to have an impact”, which seems to be the status quo.
It’s a quick, easy read but would definitely only recommend it if this topic is specifically something you’re just starting to delve into.
It definitely is very current, had interesting case studies on technology implementations in the government, and touched on the importance of design thinking when looking at policy & process changes within the government.
But, as someone who already was familiar with design-thinking principles (like starting with understanding the users), the main points of the book (focusing on user research first, the importance of data) felt elementary. If you don’t have as much familiarity with these concepts, though, this book would be a great introduction in the context of modernizing government processes.
Despite this, the anecdotes shared such as how Rockford, IL eliminated homelessness or how the foster care approval process was sped up in Vermont (perhaps not permanently, though) provided accurate illustrations of what it is like developing process interventions in the government and the roadblocks that might come in ones way.
One aspect of public interest technology work that I wish the book further elaborated on are the factors that are keeping top technical/design/etc. talent from working in the government and what can realistically be done about them. The book mentions lagging govt salaries and changes in university system goals as reasons for this, but the only solution they present is essentially that “you should do it to have an impact”, which seems to be the status quo.
It’s a quick, easy read but would definitely only recommend it if this topic is specifically something you’re just starting to delve into.
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April 29, 2022This book is about building technology to provide government services in a way that focuses on the actual needs of the actual users of those services. It's mostly a collection of success stories and failures.
If you're considering a career in public interest technology and policy implementation, this book is for you.
If you're considering a career in public interest technology and policy implementation, this book is for you.
April 29, 2021
“Power To The Public” is a deeply thought provoking, delightfully implementable and definitely an indispensable read for every policy wonk and maven, keen on exploiting and harnessing the potential of Public Interest Technology (PIT for short). This is a field that has, putting it mildly, remained muted for far too long. As the authors illustrate with resounding clarity, adherence to the tenets and principles of PIT may well be the way forward in resolving some of the most seemingly intractable socio economic problems ailing the world at present. So what exactly is PIT? As Tara Dawson McGuinness and Hana Schank explain, PIT reduced to its simplest definition means, “the application of design, data, and delivery to advance the public interest and promote the public good in the digital age.” In an era where policies in general and Governmental policies in particular are characterised by a dichotomy where the policy maker is two steps (or more) removed from the end recipient of such a policy, PIT attempts to remove this dilemma by placing the user front and centre. This enables both the Government/public sector and the beneficiary to extract the most out of any benevolent scheme. Lubricating the wheels of PIT are three quintessential elements: “design informed by real human needs, the use of real-time data to guide problem solving, and a focus on delivery in order to continuously learn and improve.”
Even though concise in terms of number of pages, the book is replete with powerful illustrations demonstrating the power of PIT. Unlike the private sector where even a continuous churn of birth and death of corporations might lead to ‘repairable’ dislocations, Governments and the public sector cannot just afford to fail. Such a failure would lead to tumultuous consequences for thousands and millions of people who are dependent on the Government for their very sustenance. The authors illustrate this principle with a fascinating example. Form DHS-1171, in its original avatar represented the longest form for social assistance in the United States. DHS-1171 unfortunately, was also the primary stumbling block for almost two million people in Michigan seeking access to emergency assistance. “Anyone in Michigan in dire need of healthcare, food assistance, emergency cash, or childcare first needed to work their way through more than 1,200 questions.” Such an exasperating exercise could drive people to their wits end and many flummoxed applicants even gave up filling the form thereby sacrificing what otherwise would have constituted invaluable assistance. Michael Brennan the former CEO of the United Way of Southeastern Michigan decided to do something about the gargantuan form. With the assistance of Adam and Lana Selzer, the husband-wife duo, and founders of Civilla, a non-profit design studio dedicated to changing the way public-serving institutions function, Brennan put the principles of PIT to work. Securing an appointment with Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS) director Nick Lyon; Tim Becker, chief deputy director of MDHHS; Terry Beurer, senior deputy director of the Economic Stability Administration; and Rich Baird, a top aide to Governor Rick Snyder, Brennan and his team made the administrators fill out the nightmarish form along with a whole horde of actual applicants struggling with their own forms. Amidst such a cacophonous setting, the administrators obtained a perfect flavour of the predicament which unwitting form fillers go through.
“Several of the officials had never seen the form up close. While that may be hard to imagine, this type of distance is commonplace across government. The farther up the hierarchy a person gets, the more distance they have from both the people they serve and the caseworkers who serve them.” Thus began the DHS-1171 form redesign project. With the actual people in need of benefits being placed front and centre, the form was repurposed with only the essential questions framed in collaboration with legislators. A team of legal and technology experts thus reduced the time taken for filling a most vital and crucial emergency assistance from almost a whole day to just under thirty minutes. “The focus on understanding both beneficiaries and frontline state workers grounded the team’s efforts. Hearing how the process wasn’t working for anyone helped make the case for change.”
Similarly, by placing the homeless people front and centre, Rockford was able to successfully obliterate the scourge of homelessness. In the year 2015 Rockford ended veterans’ homelessness. In 2017 they went one step further by putting an end to chronic homelessness, and are well on their way to totally ending homelessness. The Built to Zero team tasked with eliminating the blight of homelessness initiated what at that time seemed an ambitious endeavour by making a list of every single veteran in Rockford who was homeless, so they could understand the totality of Rockford’s homeless population and their needs. “But the list creation process also did something else. It changed the problem being solved from a series of disconnected inputs—number of beds filled, number of people fed, number of patients served—to a concrete and shared goal that centered on human lives. Ultimately, the list changed the focus from numbers of beds and meals and services to one single number: people who remain homeless.”
The book also discusses the perils of not understanding the basic wants of the needy and the unfortunate. When the Corona virus pandemic unleashed its fury on an unprepared United States, a commendably bipartisan promulgation resulted in a massive allocation of almost a trillion dollars in aid for the affected, under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, also known as the CARES Act, a massive, 880-page12 economic stimulus package. However a complete absence of a grassroots level planning ensured that the benefits under CARES was to a great extent disproportionate to the needs of the targeted. Thus while behemoths such as Boeing and the Distilled Spirits Council got quite a fat stimulus package, “the Payroll Protection Program (PPP), a part of the bill aimed at helping small businesses, ran out of money twelve days after it launched, necessitating the creation of a second bill to help fill the meteor-sized holes in the first one. Numerous reports surfaced of businesses that couldn’t even remotely qualify as a small business receiving money through CARES, among them fast-food chain Shake Shack, high-end restaurant chain Ruth’s Chris Steak House, and even the Los Angeles Lakers, a $4.4 billion franchise. But for true small businesses, the help was very uneven. At the same time, many of the people suffering the most found the requirements in the bill meant that they didn’t qualify for help.”
All of these examples, argue McGuinness and Schank, are emblematic of four uncompromising essentials: First, government is an inevitable and uncompromising necessity to tide over the most crucial problems besetting the world today. Second, the stumbling block lies within the systems, incentives and structures encompassing the Government ecosystem and not the Government itself or its workers. Third, while technology definitely has an invaluable role to play in problem solving, it can never be a solution in itself. Algorithms can never displace empathy. can play a critical role, but it is never the solution alone. Fourth, the role of Government is to aid and assist without discrimination or bias. No segment of the population must be isolated or kept out from the parenthesis of prosperity and a basic acceptable quality of life.
At a time when the world is teetering helplessly while being ravaged by an insidious pandemic, the role of PIT in instituting indelible reforms cannot be stressed or emphasizes enough. Messrs. McGuinness and Schank bring their enviable experience in this domain to bear by paving the way.
“Power to the Public” – a defining read in desperate times.
Even though concise in terms of number of pages, the book is replete with powerful illustrations demonstrating the power of PIT. Unlike the private sector where even a continuous churn of birth and death of corporations might lead to ‘repairable’ dislocations, Governments and the public sector cannot just afford to fail. Such a failure would lead to tumultuous consequences for thousands and millions of people who are dependent on the Government for their very sustenance. The authors illustrate this principle with a fascinating example. Form DHS-1171, in its original avatar represented the longest form for social assistance in the United States. DHS-1171 unfortunately, was also the primary stumbling block for almost two million people in Michigan seeking access to emergency assistance. “Anyone in Michigan in dire need of healthcare, food assistance, emergency cash, or childcare first needed to work their way through more than 1,200 questions.” Such an exasperating exercise could drive people to their wits end and many flummoxed applicants even gave up filling the form thereby sacrificing what otherwise would have constituted invaluable assistance. Michael Brennan the former CEO of the United Way of Southeastern Michigan decided to do something about the gargantuan form. With the assistance of Adam and Lana Selzer, the husband-wife duo, and founders of Civilla, a non-profit design studio dedicated to changing the way public-serving institutions function, Brennan put the principles of PIT to work. Securing an appointment with Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS) director Nick Lyon; Tim Becker, chief deputy director of MDHHS; Terry Beurer, senior deputy director of the Economic Stability Administration; and Rich Baird, a top aide to Governor Rick Snyder, Brennan and his team made the administrators fill out the nightmarish form along with a whole horde of actual applicants struggling with their own forms. Amidst such a cacophonous setting, the administrators obtained a perfect flavour of the predicament which unwitting form fillers go through.
“Several of the officials had never seen the form up close. While that may be hard to imagine, this type of distance is commonplace across government. The farther up the hierarchy a person gets, the more distance they have from both the people they serve and the caseworkers who serve them.” Thus began the DHS-1171 form redesign project. With the actual people in need of benefits being placed front and centre, the form was repurposed with only the essential questions framed in collaboration with legislators. A team of legal and technology experts thus reduced the time taken for filling a most vital and crucial emergency assistance from almost a whole day to just under thirty minutes. “The focus on understanding both beneficiaries and frontline state workers grounded the team’s efforts. Hearing how the process wasn’t working for anyone helped make the case for change.”
Similarly, by placing the homeless people front and centre, Rockford was able to successfully obliterate the scourge of homelessness. In the year 2015 Rockford ended veterans’ homelessness. In 2017 they went one step further by putting an end to chronic homelessness, and are well on their way to totally ending homelessness. The Built to Zero team tasked with eliminating the blight of homelessness initiated what at that time seemed an ambitious endeavour by making a list of every single veteran in Rockford who was homeless, so they could understand the totality of Rockford’s homeless population and their needs. “But the list creation process also did something else. It changed the problem being solved from a series of disconnected inputs—number of beds filled, number of people fed, number of patients served—to a concrete and shared goal that centered on human lives. Ultimately, the list changed the focus from numbers of beds and meals and services to one single number: people who remain homeless.”
The book also discusses the perils of not understanding the basic wants of the needy and the unfortunate. When the Corona virus pandemic unleashed its fury on an unprepared United States, a commendably bipartisan promulgation resulted in a massive allocation of almost a trillion dollars in aid for the affected, under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, also known as the CARES Act, a massive, 880-page12 economic stimulus package. However a complete absence of a grassroots level planning ensured that the benefits under CARES was to a great extent disproportionate to the needs of the targeted. Thus while behemoths such as Boeing and the Distilled Spirits Council got quite a fat stimulus package, “the Payroll Protection Program (PPP), a part of the bill aimed at helping small businesses, ran out of money twelve days after it launched, necessitating the creation of a second bill to help fill the meteor-sized holes in the first one. Numerous reports surfaced of businesses that couldn’t even remotely qualify as a small business receiving money through CARES, among them fast-food chain Shake Shack, high-end restaurant chain Ruth’s Chris Steak House, and even the Los Angeles Lakers, a $4.4 billion franchise. But for true small businesses, the help was very uneven. At the same time, many of the people suffering the most found the requirements in the bill meant that they didn’t qualify for help.”
All of these examples, argue McGuinness and Schank, are emblematic of four uncompromising essentials: First, government is an inevitable and uncompromising necessity to tide over the most crucial problems besetting the world today. Second, the stumbling block lies within the systems, incentives and structures encompassing the Government ecosystem and not the Government itself or its workers. Third, while technology definitely has an invaluable role to play in problem solving, it can never be a solution in itself. Algorithms can never displace empathy. can play a critical role, but it is never the solution alone. Fourth, the role of Government is to aid and assist without discrimination or bias. No segment of the population must be isolated or kept out from the parenthesis of prosperity and a basic acceptable quality of life.
At a time when the world is teetering helplessly while being ravaged by an insidious pandemic, the role of PIT in instituting indelible reforms cannot be stressed or emphasizes enough. Messrs. McGuinness and Schank bring their enviable experience in this domain to bear by paving the way.
“Power to the Public” – a defining read in desperate times.
September 14, 2023
This book is arguing that governments need to change their processes for managing technology projects. The old way: multi-year projects planned up front with budgets in the millions or billions, executed over multiple years using waterfall methodology, rolled out all at once in a “big bang” deployment at the end. What the authors want: something more akin to the “agile” processes popular in the private sector. They organize their approach around the three elements of “design”, “data”, and “delivery”.
Design: Make sure you know what users actually need. Do user interviews, watch users use the existing system, make sure you and your designers and developers get experience actually using the existing system yourselves, etc. Remember that “users” includes both the beneficiaries of government services and the staff of the government agencies involved.
Data: Have concrete, measurable goals for your project and a way to get data to tell you whether you’re meeting those goals. Remember that technology is a means, not an end, and the decision to even use technology should not be made until you’ve established why it’s the best way to achieve your actual goal.
Delivery: Scope your project so that you can deliver something useful relatively quickly and cheaply. Do pilot projects / experiments that improve a single workflow for one group of users; don’t try to scale up to more users or solve additional use cases until your pilot project has proven successful in the real world.
There are some inspiring success stories:
- An organization called Civilla focused on streamlining the process of applying for benefits in Michigan, which originally involved filling out a 42-page form. They did lots of interviews with applicants; got buy-in from lawmakers by setting up a demonstration where a group of officials tried going through the painful application process themselves; built a prototype and iterated on it, ultimately cutting the form length by 80% and the time demanded of applicants by over 50%.[1]
- Crisis Text Line is brought up to illustrate the power of extensive data collection. Because people interact with them by text messages, they have much more data available to analyze than you could easily get from phone calls/etc. This helps them draw conclusions about who is at risk and how to help people effectively. One observation I found interesting:
- Careful investigation of why Rhode Island had so few licensed foster families revealed that the problem was not a lack of interested families, but rather a slow and confusing licensure process. After some nontechnical process changes, an intensive “two-day event designed to clear the extensive backlog”[3] resulted in doubling the number of licensed families.
- Common Ground helped reduce homelessness near Times Square by 87 percent..[4] Rockford, Illinois managed to get its number of chronically homeless people down to two—yes, just two people—at one point.[5] In both cases the key was having a list of homeless people and making a focused effort to figure out how to get each individual off the list.
In the examples I found most impressive—the ones regarding foster families and homelessness—it’s not clear to me whether the differentiator was really an emphasis on the authors’ principles of “design, data, delivery”. What stands out to me, rather, is that these involved teams of highly motivated and empowered people putting special focus on the task.
That the authors’ methodology is not a panacea is apparent from the first chapter. They tell the story of the US Citizenship and Immigration Services’s attempt to go digital, the ELIS project, whose first iteration was a spectacular failure. The book then describes how ELIS 2 did better user research and used (to some extent?) “agile” processes; yet:
…which just sounds like another spectacular failure to me. I might speculate that part of the lesson here is: it’s really hard to actually implement the ideals of being user- and data-driven and doing rapid iteration, as opposed to just paying lip-service to them. Actually accepting these ideals means accepting some unpleasant things: that you can’t accurately estimate the cost or timeline of a whole large project up-front, and also that you will inevitably put time and money into some projects which turn out to be bad ideas and need to be thrown out. I think I and other software engineers tend to be cynical about so-called “agile” processes because the organizations implementing those processes are often unwilling to accept the tradeoffs. Rather, the organizations believe that implementing the right set of weekly meetings, project management workflows, etc will allow them to get the benefits of being agile while avoiding the tradeoffs. That’s a hopeless quest which generates lots of useless, time-wasting processes.
But the ideals are good, and I’m glad there are people trying to promote them in the public sector. Doing so sounds exhausting; the book indicates that, in government, even projects operating in the comparatively agile way they advocate for tend to take years. It also emphasizes that you need buy-in from a “person at the very top—the mayor, the governor, an agency head”[7] as well as “from the people on the ground”[8]. Given the amount of patience and politicking required for someone to effect substantial improvements in public services, it seems especially important for society to provide adequate incentives for people to try, but of course that’s difficult too:
[1] Tara Dawson McGuinness and Hana Schank, Power to the Public: The Promise of Public Interest Technology (S.l.: Princeton Uniiversity Press, 2021), 27.
[2] Ibid., 36.
[3] Ibid., 65.
[4] Ibid., 89.
[5] Ibid., 94.
[6] Ibid., 10.
[7] Ibid., 117.
[8] Ibid., 119.
[9] Ibid., 17.
(crosspost)
Design: Make sure you know what users actually need. Do user interviews, watch users use the existing system, make sure you and your designers and developers get experience actually using the existing system yourselves, etc. Remember that “users” includes both the beneficiaries of government services and the staff of the government agencies involved.
Data: Have concrete, measurable goals for your project and a way to get data to tell you whether you’re meeting those goals. Remember that technology is a means, not an end, and the decision to even use technology should not be made until you’ve established why it’s the best way to achieve your actual goal.
Delivery: Scope your project so that you can deliver something useful relatively quickly and cheaply. Do pilot projects / experiments that improve a single workflow for one group of users; don’t try to scale up to more users or solve additional use cases until your pilot project has proven successful in the real world.
There are some inspiring success stories:
- An organization called Civilla focused on streamlining the process of applying for benefits in Michigan, which originally involved filling out a 42-page form. They did lots of interviews with applicants; got buy-in from lawmakers by setting up a demonstration where a group of officials tried going through the painful application process themselves; built a prototype and iterated on it, ultimately cutting the form length by 80% and the time demanded of applicants by over 50%.[1]
- Crisis Text Line is brought up to illustrate the power of extensive data collection. Because people interact with them by text messages, they have much more data available to analyze than you could easily get from phone calls/etc. This helps them draw conclusions about who is at risk and how to help people effectively. One observation I found interesting:
Bob Filbin, Crisis Text Line’s cofounder and chief data scientist, points out that the CDC and NIH surveys are written by scientists, which by default means that scientists are the ones drawing the boundaries of what qualifies as a crisis.
“Our data starts from the opposite direction, allowing the users to define what crisis looks like to them….”[2]
- Careful investigation of why Rhode Island had so few licensed foster families revealed that the problem was not a lack of interested families, but rather a slow and confusing licensure process. After some nontechnical process changes, an intensive “two-day event designed to clear the extensive backlog”[3] resulted in doubling the number of licensed families.
- Common Ground helped reduce homelessness near Times Square by 87 percent..[4] Rockford, Illinois managed to get its number of chronically homeless people down to two—yes, just two people—at one point.[5] In both cases the key was having a list of homeless people and making a focused effort to figure out how to get each individual off the list.
In the examples I found most impressive—the ones regarding foster families and homelessness—it’s not clear to me whether the differentiator was really an emphasis on the authors’ principles of “design, data, delivery”. What stands out to me, rather, is that these involved teams of highly motivated and empowered people putting special focus on the task.
That the authors’ methodology is not a panacea is apparent from the first chapter. They tell the story of the US Citizenship and Immigration Services’s attempt to go digital, the ELIS project, whose first iteration was a spectacular failure. The book then describes how ELIS 2 did better user research and used (to some extent?) “agile” processes; yet:
…even with all the improvements made by both the USCIS team and USDS, ELIS 2 dragged along in a semi-usable state for years. By 2016, after the system had been rolled out for additional forms, immigration officers were using ELIS grudgingly and with a fair amount of seething hatred. One field office made a video of themselves kicking a computer with “ELIS” taped to it on paper.[6]
…which just sounds like another spectacular failure to me. I might speculate that part of the lesson here is: it’s really hard to actually implement the ideals of being user- and data-driven and doing rapid iteration, as opposed to just paying lip-service to them. Actually accepting these ideals means accepting some unpleasant things: that you can’t accurately estimate the cost or timeline of a whole large project up-front, and also that you will inevitably put time and money into some projects which turn out to be bad ideas and need to be thrown out. I think I and other software engineers tend to be cynical about so-called “agile” processes because the organizations implementing those processes are often unwilling to accept the tradeoffs. Rather, the organizations believe that implementing the right set of weekly meetings, project management workflows, etc will allow them to get the benefits of being agile while avoiding the tradeoffs. That’s a hopeless quest which generates lots of useless, time-wasting processes.
But the ideals are good, and I’m glad there are people trying to promote them in the public sector. Doing so sounds exhausting; the book indicates that, in government, even projects operating in the comparatively agile way they advocate for tend to take years. It also emphasizes that you need buy-in from a “person at the very top—the mayor, the governor, an agency head”[7] as well as “from the people on the ground”[8]. Given the amount of patience and politicking required for someone to effect substantial improvements in public services, it seems especially important for society to provide adequate incentives for people to try, but of course that’s difficult too:
If the government wants to adapt its hiring practices to include higher salaries or modern benefits, it requires an act of Congress. This is true across developed democracies the world over. This feature alone makes keeping up with the speed of transformation a true challenge.[9]
[1] Tara Dawson McGuinness and Hana Schank, Power to the Public: The Promise of Public Interest Technology (S.l.: Princeton Uniiversity Press, 2021), 27.
[2] Ibid., 36.
[3] Ibid., 65.
[4] Ibid., 89.
[5] Ibid., 94.
[6] Ibid., 10.
[7] Ibid., 117.
[8] Ibid., 119.
[9] Ibid., 17.
(crosspost)
September 10, 2021
I thought this was a very powerful read.
I got a lot out of reading it - particularly around how problems are identified, solutions are sourced, and how they affect the big picture.
I felt the case studies were an excellent look at some of the wins of public interest technology. Some of the case studies were a little pigeonholed and niche, but still got a lot out of them.
An excellent read for those in government or nonprofits.
Would recommend!
3.9/5
I got a lot out of reading it - particularly around how problems are identified, solutions are sourced, and how they affect the big picture.
I felt the case studies were an excellent look at some of the wins of public interest technology. Some of the case studies were a little pigeonholed and niche, but still got a lot out of them.
An excellent read for those in government or nonprofits.
Would recommend!
3.9/5
June 24, 2023
Loved the level of detail of the case studies!
February 28, 2025
Really great read. Spot on with my interest in the public sector, which I now know to refer to as “public interest technology” instead of “gov tech.” Books like this and current events with DOGE, etc. make me feel like we’re at a turning point with bringing better technological solutions to the public sector. Feels like there is tremendous opportunity to make an impact on the lives of so many. Maybe this is just recency bias. Who knows?
Notes:
Distance between the public and law makers has grown. Lincoln used to hold open office hours at the White House everyday after breakfast. We need to bring private sector feedback and deep user research to the public sector that delivers essential services. This is all informed by data.
Teams in the public sector should think in the MVP/lean framework as much as possible.
Technology itself doesn’t solve problems; technology needs to be very specifically designed to address certain issues.
Need to have a Technology Translator at a senior level to keep tabs on mission critical technical projects within an agency. I.e. someone who can think strategically about launching products related to policy.
Need to consider these three aspects of public interest technology: (1) design, (2) data, and (3) delivery.
- “Stanford d School” (school of design) sounds really cool. MS in design. Recommend to Ayla.
Build WITH, not FOR, even with technology. This was also a main point in We The Possibility.
A large soft launch is not a pilot.
To get approval, let approvers TRY the new process instead of explaining it to them. IMPRESS them.
The goal should be to leverage technology to solve a root issue, not to build the technology itself. Not everything has to involve cutting edge technology, and technology cannot replace good policy design.
Just as there’s a lawyer and an economist in the room when every policy is decided on, there should also be a public interest technology person there that knows what technology can and can’t do.
In terms of terminology accuracy, public interest technology > gov tech > civic tech for my specific interests.
A leader that focuses on the details of delivery is essential in public interest technology.
What deters people the most from trying new things, according to Nigel Jacob, is not the nasty call from the person at the top afterwards. I was at a USDOT event at the Volpe Center where Nigel Jacob was a panelist. I wish I had read about his work back then; I could’ve had a great 1on1 talk with him. He started the Boston department of New Urban Mechanics. Really cool.
Public sector lies behind private sector in recruiting, retention, employee resources and salaries, etc. This needs to be heavily invested in more.
Public interest law was started thanks to the funding by the Ford Foundation.
Notes:
Distance between the public and law makers has grown. Lincoln used to hold open office hours at the White House everyday after breakfast. We need to bring private sector feedback and deep user research to the public sector that delivers essential services. This is all informed by data.
Teams in the public sector should think in the MVP/lean framework as much as possible.
Technology itself doesn’t solve problems; technology needs to be very specifically designed to address certain issues.
Need to have a Technology Translator at a senior level to keep tabs on mission critical technical projects within an agency. I.e. someone who can think strategically about launching products related to policy.
Need to consider these three aspects of public interest technology: (1) design, (2) data, and (3) delivery.
- “Stanford d School” (school of design) sounds really cool. MS in design. Recommend to Ayla.
Build WITH, not FOR, even with technology. This was also a main point in We The Possibility.
A large soft launch is not a pilot.
To get approval, let approvers TRY the new process instead of explaining it to them. IMPRESS them.
The goal should be to leverage technology to solve a root issue, not to build the technology itself. Not everything has to involve cutting edge technology, and technology cannot replace good policy design.
Just as there’s a lawyer and an economist in the room when every policy is decided on, there should also be a public interest technology person there that knows what technology can and can’t do.
In terms of terminology accuracy, public interest technology > gov tech > civic tech for my specific interests.
A leader that focuses on the details of delivery is essential in public interest technology.
What deters people the most from trying new things, according to Nigel Jacob, is not the nasty call from the person at the top afterwards. I was at a USDOT event at the Volpe Center where Nigel Jacob was a panelist. I wish I had read about his work back then; I could’ve had a great 1on1 talk with him. He started the Boston department of New Urban Mechanics. Really cool.
Public sector lies behind private sector in recruiting, retention, employee resources and salaries, etc. This needs to be heavily invested in more.
Public interest law was started thanks to the funding by the Ford Foundation.
October 20, 2022
I was not impressed by this book, although the authors gave it a sense of self-importance. They focus a lot on the idea of improving government without really stating the benefit of doing so. The benefit might seem self-obvious but it isn't or it would actually be better today. They tow the line between political advocacy and technocracy that doesn't really do either very well.
The book cites relatively few case studies with relatively little impact. Being able to scale up is not easy and that's why bespoke tools give way to behemoth bureaucracies. COVID definitely messed up some of their plans, making their case less persuasive.
Technology is not the key point, they argue, but becoming engaged with the actual consumers of their technologies. I agree that's important, but they then do not spend much time considering how technology can play a role in improving cities and states in a creative light. Rather, they're focused on simplifying forms and making small policy changes. Those are useful, but doesn't excite the reader about the future.
Overall, this book could be more compelling if written in a few years. With stronger case studies the authors could've made a better case. Right now, those cases seem to not be very successful including the Vermont program due to a lack of time. Thus, they rely more on conjecture too often.
The book cites relatively few case studies with relatively little impact. Being able to scale up is not easy and that's why bespoke tools give way to behemoth bureaucracies. COVID definitely messed up some of their plans, making their case less persuasive.
Technology is not the key point, they argue, but becoming engaged with the actual consumers of their technologies. I agree that's important, but they then do not spend much time considering how technology can play a role in improving cities and states in a creative light. Rather, they're focused on simplifying forms and making small policy changes. Those are useful, but doesn't excite the reader about the future.
Overall, this book could be more compelling if written in a few years. With stronger case studies the authors could've made a better case. Right now, those cases seem to not be very successful including the Vermont program due to a lack of time. Thus, they rely more on conjecture too often.
May 1, 2021
This is an excellent book that I predict I will read more than once and will share with others. however, I would point out one unfortunate missed opportunity. in the discussion of improving the Vermont assistance forms, it is stated that the team knew that elderly, blind, and disabled people in Vermont would have no electronic method for completing the forms. in fact, blind and disabled individuals interact with digital information quite frequently through the use of assistive technology such as screen readers, refreshable braille displays, and the like. The real obstacles for these populations arise when Technologies are not designed from the ground up so that they can interact with the assistive technology. regulations and standards exist to guide this design, and, when followed from the very beginning rather than approached as an afterthought, can be quite reasonable and cost-effective to implement. such implementation remove obstacles for people who are otherwise qualified for a job or a service. this is addressed in federal and state procurement laws, and it should be acknowledged in this exciting discussion of public interest technology.
April 19, 2023
An interesting story with many insights and learned experiences of implementing world best practices developed (mainly) by individual entrepreneurs or big businesses into government.
If you are a seasonal Software Engineer chances are slim that you will find any of the useful tech in the book. Why would I recommend reading the book and kept myself bothered reading? To see what it is like on that spectrum.
Overall, the well-written story is more about government than about IT baked by examples from real-world projects. Authors tried to systemize their approach in delivering projects mainly with 3 steps - Design, Data, and Delivery stages (which in turn are not limited to Software only); emphasized the need for change since institutions feel outdated and rightly so since most of them were created in 20 century and are not fit for nowadays issues, structures and reality - like bringing in new team members and structures into a government, e.g., data scientists, IT people.
In conclusion, they recognize that the field has changed the way we structure and think about ways of managing our societies although a satisfactory level is not yet achieved.
If you are a seasonal Software Engineer chances are slim that you will find any of the useful tech in the book. Why would I recommend reading the book and kept myself bothered reading? To see what it is like on that spectrum.
Overall, the well-written story is more about government than about IT baked by examples from real-world projects. Authors tried to systemize their approach in delivering projects mainly with 3 steps - Design, Data, and Delivery stages (which in turn are not limited to Software only); emphasized the need for change since institutions feel outdated and rightly so since most of them were created in 20 century and are not fit for nowadays issues, structures and reality - like bringing in new team members and structures into a government, e.g., data scientists, IT people.
In conclusion, they recognize that the field has changed the way we structure and think about ways of managing our societies although a satisfactory level is not yet achieved.
June 3, 2024
The first 100 pages of this are GREAT. Was reading thinking how can I get everyone at my work and my local council to get a copy.
I think there are a lot of missteps in the last portions though. The most glaring of which being an afterword that’s basically 2 people pitching what they would write in their own similar book and then praising the book so effusively that it becomes absurd, especially considering pre afterword it’s only about 140 pages.
I thought the examples were great but there probably could have been more depth in each. In the last couple of chapters especially there are also shoehorned in opinions that don’t really add anything beyond saying ‘the authors have X politics’. This feels more for the sake of their want to appear suitably progressive rather than to actually achieve anything which I found frustrating as a reader.
Those criticisms also draw attention the very large elephant in the room that all of the examples are from democratic states or at least left leaning states. It would have been useful to understand examples from other states either in bad practice or in how this can be achieved with governance that isn’t as aligned with the authors values
I think there are a lot of missteps in the last portions though. The most glaring of which being an afterword that’s basically 2 people pitching what they would write in their own similar book and then praising the book so effusively that it becomes absurd, especially considering pre afterword it’s only about 140 pages.
I thought the examples were great but there probably could have been more depth in each. In the last couple of chapters especially there are also shoehorned in opinions that don’t really add anything beyond saying ‘the authors have X politics’. This feels more for the sake of their want to appear suitably progressive rather than to actually achieve anything which I found frustrating as a reader.
Those criticisms also draw attention the very large elephant in the room that all of the examples are from democratic states or at least left leaning states. It would have been useful to understand examples from other states either in bad practice or in how this can be achieved with governance that isn’t as aligned with the authors values
January 14, 2025
It's pretty good, but not great. It is, however, short and concise, which I think actually works in its favor. The length of the book does come at the expense of any deep insights or research though, so do be aware that it's pretty much at the foundational level.
If you've ever worked in tech, government, government contracting, or public policy nothing in this book should be tremendously shocking. Nevertheless the stories of using technology to responsibly advance the well-being of Americans are nice, and a solid reminder of the good government can provide.
I also give props to the authors for understanding the spirit of what public interest technology is - a means to a solved problem, and not "the future" just for the sake of modernity. Too few of my colleagues in the government contracting world think about technology in the utilitarian way. Many of them think tech should be complex and expensive because that's the promise of the latest and greatest stuff. The authors of this book remind us all that staying on mission may not lead to interesting or complicated technological solutions, but may still yield real benefits to the way people live.
If you've ever worked in tech, government, government contracting, or public policy nothing in this book should be tremendously shocking. Nevertheless the stories of using technology to responsibly advance the well-being of Americans are nice, and a solid reminder of the good government can provide.
I also give props to the authors for understanding the spirit of what public interest technology is - a means to a solved problem, and not "the future" just for the sake of modernity. Too few of my colleagues in the government contracting world think about technology in the utilitarian way. Many of them think tech should be complex and expensive because that's the promise of the latest and greatest stuff. The authors of this book remind us all that staying on mission may not lead to interesting or complicated technological solutions, but may still yield real benefits to the way people live.
August 20, 2022
This book is full of brilliant examples of small teams of dedicated people working to solve hard public problems like homelessness. It also shows how the government's approach to technology and digitalization can often end in tragic failure such as the ELIS immigration system, which took a whopping 11 years and one billion dollars to digitalize just two of the 94 different types of immigration forms.
This is clear example that digitalization for the sake of digitalization is not always better. Close proximity, understanding, research and constant program testing with the people you are trying to serve is essential to getting public policy and public programs right in the digital age. But while understanding the people you are serving makes sense, it is not a practice that is central to how many of our institutions are built. The goal of this book is to provide understanding of what public interest technology is and why it is now an indispensable piece of any public problem solver's tool kit.
This is clear example that digitalization for the sake of digitalization is not always better. Close proximity, understanding, research and constant program testing with the people you are trying to serve is essential to getting public policy and public programs right in the digital age. But while understanding the people you are serving makes sense, it is not a practice that is central to how many of our institutions are built. The goal of this book is to provide understanding of what public interest technology is and why it is now an indispensable piece of any public problem solver's tool kit.
November 23, 2023
Less a review and more just a short anecdote: The book report I just wrote for this was less than 600 words, therefore making it mostly unnecessary to read the entire thing. I could've easily skimmed it and the report would've been of a very similar quality. However, I've been on an integrity kick lately, and I just found no integrity in writing this book report without actually reading the book. And think of all the knowledge I have the potential to collect that I would just be missing out on. So, I read the whole thing. And here's what I thought:
Public interest technology is somewhat interesting, but not interesting enough to read a 150 page book about it. Maybe a 50 page book. Maybe even a 75 page book. 150 pages is giving the topic too much credit. There were some cool example stories but still some that weren't interesting enough just for the purpose of restating the point made with the previous two stories. Also, on any given page you could probably find the word "policy" at least 6 or 7 times.
Public interest technology is somewhat interesting, but not interesting enough to read a 150 page book about it. Maybe a 50 page book. Maybe even a 75 page book. 150 pages is giving the topic too much credit. There were some cool example stories but still some that weren't interesting enough just for the purpose of restating the point made with the previous two stories. Also, on any given page you could probably find the word "policy" at least 6 or 7 times.
April 6, 2022
McGuinness and Schank do an impeccable job at what I believe this book's role is--offering a quick, easily digestible, and actionable text for busy, overburdened public servants. I thought the writing was approachable, the case studies well presented with leads for those interested to do additional research. It certainly made me think more about the touchpoints government agencies have with the public.
The crux of Public Interest Technology (PIT) centers around the three Ds: Design, Data, and Delivery. Designed with end-users in mind (both the public and those processing the forms and other matters), using Data to measure progress and outcomes, and delivered in an agile (small) format. McGuinness and Schank do not pretend these processes are easy, and point out that many of these outcomes took years to come about, thanks to the presence of an enthusiastic champion. However, this book offers an amazing primer on the methods we might use to improve government.
The crux of Public Interest Technology (PIT) centers around the three Ds: Design, Data, and Delivery. Designed with end-users in mind (both the public and those processing the forms and other matters), using Data to measure progress and outcomes, and delivered in an agile (small) format. McGuinness and Schank do not pretend these processes are easy, and point out that many of these outcomes took years to come about, thanks to the presence of an enthusiastic champion. However, this book offers an amazing primer on the methods we might use to improve government.
June 4, 2021
Tara Dawson McGuinness and Hana Schank’s new book Power to the Public—The Promise of Public Interest Technology is a conundrum. Its title suggests that it’s about how a new kind of technology, public interest technology, is empowering the public. But the bulk of the book is about something else, a tad less sexy but certainly still of great importance: how a new culture and practice of public problem-solving is being developed, refined, taught, implemented and spread through the various layers of government. If you are interested in how a new generation of problem-solvers are improving how government does things like manage big programs like immigration, welfare or veterans’ health care, then McGuinness and Schank are essential guides.
See https://theconnector.substack.com/p/a... for my full review
See https://theconnector.substack.com/p/a... for my full review
June 5, 2021
I picked up this audiobook because President Obama recommended it, which makes sense now that I know the author worked on the rollout of the Affordable Care Act. Her experience has taught McGuinness why technology is not always the best way to overcome every challenge, which ends up being the driving principle behind this very analytical study. The book takes the form of several long essays about public-interest projects that succeeded or failed based on how leadership employed technology in solving problems or addressing issues. On many occasions, old-fashioned methods and basic human interaction were much more effective than the latest software or mobile app. In the end, the overriding takeaway reminds me of the axiom we often used about applying technology to procedures in the library field: just because you can doesn't mean you should.
October 30, 2023
McGuinness provides a concise and poignant overview of the world of civic technology (or public interest technology if you prefer) and outlines a very useful theoretical framework for approaching problems with civic technology. In my own professional experience, I found this theoretical framework related well to much of my daily work. In particular, I don't think projects spend enough time in the design phase of work to ensure a smooth delivery process. McGuinness does a good job of rooting her insights into concrete examples, and the book focuses a lot on learning directly from experience to see the potential obstacles to civic technology projects. Would definitely recommend to folks in both policy and technology as a useful framework to bridge the gap between mechanists and intellectuals.
February 9, 2022
This book gave me hope for the future of the U.S. and the world. I loved the stories; the definition clarity of gov tech vs. civic tech vs. the newly coined "public interest tech"; and the breakdown of the key elements of PIT (data, design, and delivery). I didn't know so many companies were out there doing PIT work and succeeding, which left me feeling inspired. I looked up some of the companies, e.g. Nava, and they shot to the time of my dream companies list. I highly recommend this book to anyone who is in a leadership role (or aspiring to be in one) in any of the above mentioned fields (gov, civic, or public interest tech). It will amp you up about the work you're doing, and it will give you stories to amp your teammates and friends up about it, too.
July 26, 2022
This book does a nice job of explaining what goes into technological implementations in large government projects and how important those can be to improving lives, but I was expecting more of a focus on upcoming technologies and how they can be used to improve lives. It’s also really bullish about the idea of agile management and running experiments and small scale pilots before rolling out some behemoth waterfall-planned system like healthcare.gov to disastrous results due to lack of feedback early on. I think it’s interesting and could help the terribly slow and unresponsive and clumsy reputation the U.S. federal government has, but that’s more about project management than technology or ethics.
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August 10, 2022A better subtitle would be "The Promise of Public Interest Human-Centered Innovation", but maybe that was too clunky or not "techie" enough. Design, data, iterative & measured delivery can do a better job of providing public good change than educated (albeit well intentioned) guesses and friction-full delivery cycles that take years to implement and understand the impact of? Yes please.
OK, so I already came to this book with that conviction - I AM the choir being preached to. But it's an inspirational, useful primer for anyone with an interest in "better policy design & implementation", or any public or non-profit service.
OK, so I already came to this book with that conviction - I AM the choir being preached to. But it's an inspirational, useful primer for anyone with an interest in "better policy design & implementation", or any public or non-profit service.
November 21, 2023
As a public sector tech worker, I'm in love. If you were bummed out by the bleakness of Automating Inequality: How High-Tech Tools Profile, Police, and Punish the Poor like I was, this is the positive follow-up to show you how things can change. (No shade on Virginia Eubanks, Automating Inequality lives with me day in and day out.) I appreciated the understanding that government isn't broken - capitalism and other structures that influence the funding of government are.
November 23, 2022
It's a great one. One of my favorite messages is the importance of user-centricity, which is quite rare in the public sector these days. The "public interest technology" itself is also a future-proof philosophy, which is not equal to "IT". Unfortunately, the public sector is heavily IT-focused, which causes many troubles. The book shows the 21. way - the public interest technology - to move through with public interest technology based on three pillars: design, data, and delivery. I agree with this premise that these are the missing drivers today.
May 3, 2021
I cannot wait to start getting this book for colleagues and friends. This is a great summary of the civic tech, gov tech, innovation world in government and gives it a new name to bring all those efforts under the same umbrella, Public Interest Technology. Tara and Hana bring practical examples and guiding principles to ideas that can seem abstract if you haven’t been exposed to them. Definitely a must read and should be added to all public administration syllabuses.
May 30, 2021
This book didn't go deep enough for my tastes, but I wouldn't hesitate to strongly recommend it to anyone working (or thinking about working) on public interest technology, or anyone who could use the advice to "build with".
This book mostly covers digitizing existing government services, putting forms online, and other areas where the relevant technology is well established but missing from a long-existing system. It has a number of case studies and examples to back up its claims.
This book mostly covers digitizing existing government services, putting forms online, and other areas where the relevant technology is well established but missing from a long-existing system. It has a number of case studies and examples to back up its claims.
August 15, 2021
Great book arhat covers the basics and a bit more about what technology (but mostly innovation) can mean in solving problems that our government should be tackling much better than they are today. No magic answers and lots of realistic portrayal of the real world stumbling blocks. Not too much exploration of the much harder problem of the real policy and legislative changes that need to happen to really open this door. But that’s a different book maybe.
January 15, 2023
I have learned a lot about how tech can be actually implemented to improve policy processes. The book has a good level of detail and realistic case studies that demonstrate it’s not just building an app but really understanding causes and then seeing if technology could help solve things (maybe it’s not at all necessary!).
Want to read
March 18, 2023
October 9, 2023
"Power to the Public" is a compelling call to harness technology for societal good. Tara Dawson McGuinness lucidly explores public interest technology's potential to improve government services, transparency, and equity. Her accessible writing and real-world examples make this a must-read for those passionate about tech-driven governance and social progress.
April 24, 2021
I read this primarily for research for my MBA module in Digital Systems. Provided some good thought points about systems in public and to make sure they are solving a problem rather than just replacing a long winded multi-stop procedure that doesn’t help the public with their problems.
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