NOEL: Hello and welcome to Episode 67 of the Tech Done Right, Table XI's podcast about building better software, careers, companies, and communities. I'm Noel Rappin. 

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This week, we have Alex Pedersen of Polco and Abhi Nemani of EthosLabs. They're both involved in various uses of technology to increase civic engagement. We'll talk about how technology can improve the public sector and why technology should be interested in public sector work. Alex, would you like to introduce yourself?

ALEX: Yeah. My name is Alex and I'm Co-founder of Polco. We're a civic engagement and online survey tool that’s used by cities to get input and feedback from verified residents of their communities. 

NOEL:  And we also have Abhi Nemani. Abhi, would you like to introduce yourself?

ABHI: Hey, I'm Abhi. Nice to meet you guys and nice to hang out. I've run a company called Code for America in the past which helps cities work better with technology, ran the city of Los Angeles' technology, city of Sacramento's technology. And now, I run a company called EthosLabs that helps lots of different cities work with different companies to work better. 

NOEL: The topic for this week is, we're talking about technology, and I guess for lack of a better term, civics or civic engagement. You both work in this. What drew you to this part of the technology world? Where do you feel like technology has to offer our civic and political engagement?

ABHI: I'll say two things about that. One, I think there's like a yearning for technologists to do something that matters, to do something that really helps people and really changes the way their lives work. And that’s what I think drives a lot of the interest in this space. 

ALEX: I think Abhi is definitely right and I think there's kind of a commensurate sense on the other side of the market among cities and other government and civic organizations. It's just a very underserved part of our society when it comes to technological solutions. I think it certainly gets a rap for not being innovative and that’s probably a fair assessment in most cases. But I think in a lot of ways, when there's no innovative tools, it's hard to transform from a non-innovative to a hyper-innovative part of society. 

NOEL: What do the tools you work on do and what do they bring to cities and organizations? What do they enable organizations to do more effectively than they were doing before? 

ALEX: Almost every city in the country, and by city I mean counties and even organizations of school districts and things like that. But almost everyone in some way is trying to get input and feedback from their residents and from their broader community and that takes the form of inputs and meetings traditionally. More recently, from Facebook, even traditional surveys. Some cities have a very good strong social media presence but it's super rare, if they do. As a result of this scrambling, we're trying to figure out what people think and want, and to do so in a way that civilized and useful. There's a lot ways to get a lot of noise through software and through the internet. And so, the real question is how do you at scale get input and feedback in a way that’s actually universally useful? And so, we built Polco as a tool to do that. It serves as a web-based platform for cities to post questions and upcoming polls for decisions and for people to weigh in and give their voice and their thoughts in a way that they know would count and that would actually be used to inform and drive those decisions. 

ABHI: The way my friend describes this often is that, in the past, you'd go to the bank and stand in line, go see a teller to go deposit a check or to pull money out. I've not gone to a bank in the last…well, ever. [Laughs] Things have changed dramatically in our general lives, even in finance which is you would think as regulated as government is by government. But we don’t have to go to the bank anymore. And so, when you think about the opportunity for technology in government, it's that same thing is you shouldn’t have to wait in line to deposit a check. You shouldn’t have to wait in line to do whatever you want to do with government. 

NOEL: That reminds me of things like the Pothole Reporting System that some cities use. Is that sort of aligned to the kind of thing you're talking about?

ABHI: Oh, it's way more than that. Yes and no. I mean, yeah. Lots of cities and more and more should automate the way in which people report graffiti and potholes and everything else they see in the city. That’s what's called 311. But there's way, way more than that that needs to happen. People need to be able to do basically anything they transact with government which is generally on paper online. 

NOEL: Is there a risk there? Government is fundamentally slightly different than even the largest companies in that we have a mandate. We have to deal with government, I guess, or government has to deal with us. Do you worry about making government more technological and making it then less responsive to citizens who are either less technologically savvy or don’t have access? This is a generational thing, but my father doesn’t use an ATM machine and never has. He goes in to banks. Do you worry about that kind of thing about serving some people at the expense of others? 

ALEX: Yes. It's a great question. I think that equity and engagement, by making it universally easy, whatever that means for a person to either be part of the decision making process or access government services. It's certainly something that’s at the forefront of our minds, and from our experiences, it's definitely on the lines of cities around the country, too. And I think you have this probably interim period where you do have to offer both. You have to do things online and you have to do things in person that are maybe for folks that are less comfortable or not as tech savvy. But having said that, we've been shocked sometimes. I had an 85-year old man come up to me and say, "Hey, I love using your app." And I said, "I can't believe you use the app." He said, "Well, my legs aren’t good anymore and I can't get to council meetings and so this is now how I provide input to the county." Which I thought was awesome. 

ABHI: It's not an either/or. And that’s, I think, the biggest thing that people need to understand. When we're talking about using new technology in government, it's not that we're going to delete everything else that’s existed in the past. It's that we're adding something on top of it to make it easier for other people. So, it's not either/or. It's both and. 

NOEL: So Alex, let me, I can talk through an example of this. My suburb recently had a town meeting to discuss whether they're going to repave and move some flood mitigation things on a street that I lived that was going to affect a bunch of houses. Is that the kind of thing that, like we all went to a big meeting and we got a big presentation and some people came and some people didn’t and they solicited comments from some people and some people didn’t comment. Is that the kind of thing that kind of feedback loop that Polco is designed to improve? And if so, how would that go? How would that kind of engagement go in Polco?

ALEX: I say it's deinfitely a slice of what we do. The way that we think about it and the use cases that we see are -- when we think about engagement in public input and initially they're starting out as sort of a very high level baseline level of performance and satisfaction. So maybe the city has sort of a standing annual question that says, "Hey, how are we doing on roads?" And over time, they can track that and see that this this year we're a little bit lower, or this year we're a little bit better. And then they have the ability to follow up and say, "Well, we're doing a little bit worse this year than it were last year on roads, so we'll see what's going on." Maybe they ask for input or do a short survey on specifically the areas in the city where residents are having problems, maybe they have some additional snowfall and the roads got torn up or whatever it is. And eventually, you kind of narrow it down and then you end up asking maybe a smaller group of people where the problem areas are, what should be prioritized. And then maybe you get on a specific street, maybe it's a painting, maybe it's a pothole filling, whatever it is. But then the great part is at the end of that whole process, next year, they’ll be able to go back and look at those trend lines and say, "Hey, did all those efforts pay off? Are we back to where we should be in terms of general resident satisfaction with the quality of roads?

NOEL: I think that that feedback piece is definitely missing from current kind of engagement, at least in the kinds of things that I sort of experience on a regular basis. How do you balance the idea that everybody gets a voice with the idea that you want to prevent the loudest or most extreme voices from dominating that kind of conversation? What sort of things do you do or Abhi, do you say can be done to manage that balance?

ALEX: From our perspective, the key is really to have a quantitative component of the input. There are certainly situations when a Facebook thread can have value or an email chain or whatever it is, but it's very hard in those cases to really let all voices kind of be heard in a way that’s informative and civil. And so, what we’ve done is really tried to structure everything in a way that allows for qualitative input and comment and discussions but to always sort of provide that quantitative feedback as well. And in doing so, I think you sort of naturally have everyone in the same playing field because you're choosing from a suite of options where you're ranking preferences or you're allocating a budget or whatever it is, and it's not the case that one person can answer louder than someone else. 

NOEL: Abhi, is there anything in the work that you do that touches on that tension or some way that you see of dealing with that?

ABHI: Not so much in the technology but in the government side. I would just say at the end of the day, all of these input mechanisms however we get feedback, they end up coming to a human and that’s the main thing is a human has to decide, does this make sense or does it not make sense? I mean, I'm a huge fan of AI and data analytics. I, in fact, teach it, but it only goes so far. And you need to have some person looking at this stuff saying, "Well, this person is just crazy, Noel, is just honestly, not someone I want to trust."

NOEL: Yeah, that’s a good plan. 

ABHI: [Laughs]

NOEL: I certainly imagine that small governments around the United States and in the world have a fair amount of practice in dealing…

ABHI: Hey man, I'm sorry. Small governments. It was Los Angeles. Which is four million people. So, not small. 

NOEL: [Chuckles] I get it. That’s fine. Governments around the world already have mechanisms, I suppose, for dealing with people who write a lot of letters to the editor, so to speak. What is different in building and designing software that’s going to be used in a governmental context than one that’s going to be used in a commercial context?

ABHI: That’s a great question. And Alex, you should answer that first and I have lots of thoughts on that. 

ALEX: The way we think about it is there's two main components. One is that you need it to be accessible to people that probably wouldn’t otherwise be super forward-leaning with technology. It doesn’t mean it has to be overly simple. The stress on the UI and the UX is just that much greater. The second thing is there's not a ton of tolerance for an MVP model product. In some very innovative cities that are willing to be the data testers that you certainly could get away with an MVP and those cities are great because they're the reason that good products exist in the market. But by and large, the threshold to bring a product to market I think is generally just higher than it is in the private sector. And that’s to say nothing of the data and the privacy constraints that I think it might even be higher in the public sector. 

ABHI: Again, when you sort of say Los Angeles, I was told by the Chief Security Officer the port of Los Angeles got four million DDOS attacks a day, just the port. 

NOEL: That seems like a lot. 

ABHI: It is a lot. 

NOEL: I'm not an expert, yeah. You're saying some of these things are targeted in a way that our private sector thing might not be?

ABHI: Yeah, that’s just the port. Think about LAX. 

NOEL: Right. And there's been a wave of municipalities across the US that have been hit by ransomware in the last couple of months. 

ABHI: Yeah.

NOEL: So, that’s obviously I would assume a concern.

ABHI: Honestly, what I'll tell you, Noel, is I think that means we need more people that are really talented and know what they're doing going to work for government. That’s the only way to attack this. We can't outsource this entirely. We have to have other people who are working really smartly to solve these problems. 

NOEL: What are some cities or municipalities or whatever that you think are doing a really good job with this right now?

ABHI: I think New York, Boston, Chicago, LA, San Francisco. The thing is you’ve got to find talent. And Alex can say this just as a startup founder. At the end of the day, all that matters is talent. And the same thing goes for government. And government just needs more and more talent. And what's exciting is that a lot of people are now finding government is a great place to go work when in the past they didn’t. And I am hopeful that great talent will keep going to government as it has in the last five to seven years. 

ALEX: I totally agree that it's all about the people, the staff, the electeds that are there. And I can't speak generally to the broader government sector but certainly in the communications and engagement space, we found some fantastic examples in communities that are not the top 10 or 15. Round Rock, Texas, even Bar Harbor, Maine, super small towns. They have people who just get it and they see where the world is going, where communication is going and where government needs to go accordingly. And they're able to steer their communities in the right way. But I agree, I think so much of it comes down to the people. 

NOEL: What advice would you give to somebody listening to this who's a technologist who really wants to get involved in government civic engagement, that kind of thing? Where can they go to get started? Where can they look? Or what should they do? 

ABHI: Can I generalize that question for a second?

NOEL: Sure. 

ABHI: Generally, I would say people who are in the technology space and I am a technologist myself, it's really exciting to work in the public sector. You have an immediate impact on millions of people. Maybe just thousands if you're in a small city or millions if you're in a big city. But you build things that actually affect real people's lives all the time. And that’s amazing. 

Now, if you want to get started in this sector, there's a couple of different ways to do that. One is there's the Presidential Innovation Fellows program which takes about 30 or 40 so people every year. Code for America has a fellowship program that takes about the same number of people a year. But honestly, if you want to do this and you want to do it for your community, just email your mayor and usually, a mayor will say, "This is great. I would love to have you." And that person will hire you and give you the autonomy to do what you want to do. I'll tell you without naming the name of the city, there was a city that I was working with that was like, "Oh, my God," after I explained all of this great stuff that you can do with technology. She's like, "I want to do all of this. I should have a CIO and a whole technology team." She didn’t realize she already did have one. So, there's a huge opportunity. 

NOEL: I also know that at least in some cities there are civic -- you should look for meet ups in a larger city. Chicago, at least, used to have a civic data…

ALEX: Yeah. Abhi, what happened to that? 

ABHI: There is still. If you wanted to connect with other people, the best way to do that is with meet ups. In Chicago, there's the Chi Hack Meet Up which is every, I think, Tuesday night. There's in every city, different kinds of tech meet ups that happen. Or just start your own.      

NOEL: Cool. Is there something else you want to tell us about working in the public sector doing this kind of work?

ALEX: I got to also say one thing, the product in tech side outside the government side is I don’t know that there is a more important challenge to take on for the whole host of reasons that we talked about here from security to having an equitable engagement playing field to informing decisions to creating some form of data-driven governance. I mean, there is any number of reasons to do that. It's important to get good people because it’s hard. I mean, it is really. The problems are very, very hard. You're designing products that's almost by definition need to be usable by everyone. It needs be functional across the board. There's certainly no shortage of problems to solve but I they're fun ones to tackle. 

NOEL: Cool. Where can people reach you if they want to learn more about this or continue this conversation?

ALEX: You can go to info.polco.us or feel free to email me at alex@polco.us.

ABHI: You can email me at abhi.nemani@gmail.com. And then I taught a course this past semester at U Chicago and I put all of my lectures online. So, abhinemani.com/civictechcourse. You can see all of the slides and presentations from the entire course there. 

NOEL: Okay, we'll have link to that in our show notes. Thank you both for being on the show this week. I appreciate your time. 

ALEX: Happy to do it. Great to talk.   

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Tech Done Right is hosted by me, Noel Rappin. Our editor is Mandy Moore. You can find us on Twitter at @NoelRap and @TheRubyRep. 

Tech Done Right is produced by Table XI. Table XI is a custom design and software company in Chicago. We've been named one of Inc. Magazine's Best Workplaces and we're a top-rated custom software development company on clutch.co. You can learn more about working with or working for Table XI at TableXI.com or follow us on Twitter @TableXI. We'll be back in a couple of weeks with the next episode of Tech Done Right.