 Welcome, everyone. I'm Ann Marie Slaughter, the CEO of New America, and I'm very excited about this book. When I was Dean in the aughts at the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs, I wanted to create a joint degree between public policy and engineering. We'd actually had such a degree in the 1960s and I thought it would be great if we could do it again with a particular focus on technology and public policy. Well, I worked hard at it and I succeeded only in hiring one computer professor, computer science professor, that was Ed Felton, who went on to be deputy CTO, so it was a pretty good pick. But we did not succeed in getting a joint degree and I think it is still true that public policy students graduate knowing as little about technology and the internet as if they didn't know what a supply or a demand curve was in economics. I hope this book will help change that and to make clear just how important it is. I think the best thing I can do is just read you a passage from the afterward to the book, which Darren Walker, president and CEO of the Ford Foundation co authored with me. We said that we hope that professors in all universities and colleges will assign the problems, power to the public as the first book on the syllabus for any course exploring how technology can be used in the public interest. We hope that college and university presidents will choose it as a first year read. We hope that nonprofit organizations from think tanks to community advocacy and service providers will recommend it as a must read for their staff. We hope that aspiring politicians at every level from the school board to the cabinet will read it and reimagine what government can do, and how it must do it. We hope it will be a requirement for anyone hoping to take the civil service or foreign service exams for both federal and state government. People throughout the United States and around the world need hope and belief in our collective capacity to solve problems. Indeed, in many countries, certainly including the United States, we need to forge a new social contract with our governments to provide health, justice, liberty, equality, safety and prosperity through new and far more equitable systems. We seek to engage in this work. Power to the public is both a manual and a manifesto. So with that, I want to introduce our authors and our moderator and we're going to have a fabulous discussion. Hannah shank is a strategy is the strategy director for the public interest technology program at New America. There she works to develop the field of public interest technology through research and storytelling and hands on project work. She founded and ran a user experience and research consultancy in the private sector for over a decade, and then became a public sector convert when she joined the US digital service during the Obama administration, where she worked with the Department of Homeland Security. Tara McGuinness, the other co author of Power to the Public is the founder of the new practice lab at New America. That is New America's program dedicated to people centered experimental data enabled public problem solving with a particular focus on family economic security. She knows quite a bit about social policy and delivery because she was part of the health care dot gov team in the Obama administration, maybe I should say she knows quite a bit about what not to do. Because she was part of that team and had to help fix that the initial debacle. She's back working at New America now after a seven month leave where she ran the domestic policy team for the Biden transition. She's also the former director of the Center for American Center for American progress action fund. Clarence Wardell, our moderator is senior advisor for delivery with the US digital service focused on domestic policy. But let me make absolutely clear, although he is now in government he is with us in his only in his private capacity. We know him well at New America because he was in our first class of public interest technology fellows. Clarence, I can't imagine really a better moderator, he's had enormous experience in the Biden administration working on the police data initiative as a presidential innovation fellow under President Obama. And also, he was vice president for solutions at results for America. I'm not going to go any further to describe the public interest technology program in the new practice lab you'll hear plenty about this. I really want to get to the conversation and then your questions so Clarence over to you. Great. Great memory for such a kind introduction. I am super excited to be here. I have had the opportunity to call both Hannah and our colleagues in some form or fashion throughout my work in the public interest tech space as well as theirs. It's always like a an idealistic computer engineering undergraduate student who in the early odds, I think as Anne Marie said, was curious about a way to forge a career that was closer to public policy and that brought my skill set at the time and into a meaningful place but not really seen any pathways for that at the time. I'm really excited about this text. And in this moment that we're in and the work that New America has done and you know having had an opportunity to be a part of a little bit of part of that in the past, just start to create and shape that field that I think will pay huge dividends. I think over time both in terms of the work that can be done and quite frankly by naming and creating the field in the space. I think it will do wonders for diversity of the types of folks that show up to solve our problems in the public sphere. Kind of with that maybe I'll just stay there for a little bit. I just said, we'd encourage we're going to we're going to do a bit of a Q amp a here but if folks have questions, please share those and chat and I don't know if there are other mechanisms as well. We will have ample time for those. But I'll just say with that and the excitement and what I think will be a text that will be used in the future education, hopefully for four years to come. I'd be remiss to noting that there are quite a few books kind of in this space over the last year or so and I know of a couple others that are in the process. I'll just say a little bit about from your perspectives like why this book, why now and what, what is it about this moment where we're seeing so many folks who are writing about this area and excited about the possibility that it holds. Thanks Clarence and in Ray and Hannah and everyone who's joining us this is super fun. You know why write a book right now I think there's probably hasn't been a year on record like 2020 or 2021 where the need for government to help and nonprofits that work couldn't be crystal clear, whether that's to make sure we know that we do have to wear masks or get vaccines in your arm or when you lose your job like 29 million Americans did at one point this year to be able to have unemployment insurance and so I think we have for a while worked with a number of leaders and folks who saw the importance not just of great ideas, but the ability for governments and nonprofits and institutions in a digital age to really bring these policies to market to reach people where they are to get checks in people's pockets and shots in their arms and so we saw a few number of organizations and teams really doing things differently a new approach will talk more about them from Code to America to USDS and ATNAF or community solutions working on homelessness, but we really at our core wrote this book now to expand the people who are doing this type of problem solving work. And I'll just add that as as we were writing this we were also kind of living so for a long time at New America in the PIT program we have been saying there needs to be more tech expertise and government and things are going to something really bad's going to happen and I think something really bad's going to happen it's going to be bad. And then as we were writing it we were like, Oh, here it is here's the moment all these unemployment databases are crashing. All of these, you know, people as Tara said people really need government. And we were kind of watching this unfold as we were writing this. So it's something that I think we've been saying for a long time needs attention and then the world, the world paid attention. In the book you begin and it's kind of, you know, foundational you talk about these three cornerstones if you will, public problem solving and public interest technology design data and delivery. I think we will certainly touch on all of those throughout this conversation. The one I want to start with a little bit is maybe the one that's least familiar with our folks and certainly maybe folks kind of outside of this kind of community or a media ecosystem. I've certainly gotten looks myself when you know I talk about, you know, delivery and government services and you know folks would think well you know the Postal Service does that or you know Amazon gets my packages there is that the type of delivery you're talking about. Maybe Tara, you know, say a little bit about what what do you mean by delivery. And how does that show up and what is why, why was that one of the, the places you chose to focus the work in content of this book. Sure. And how to jump in I think delivery and data we really think about reaching people where they are. And on the delivery side that's about thinking from the beginning to the end on the design side. It's really about understanding who you're serving and so, you know, who are the people you're reaching with your program and how would they know it exists. And how does it reach them. We tell a story in the book that this is while this science of design has really been refined by the private sector and doing everything from selling, you know, things via Amazon to, to really perfecting the size of a font in an email that we get about a spring dress that this is an old practice, you know, President Lincoln used to open the gates of the White House literally made his advisors, bananas and like, once a week he just have people come in and explain what their issues were and how the government could help and it was sort of the first user researcher listener organizer in chief and we're making the case in the book that we need to do, build this muscle of designing government programs for people in a stronger way. Well, an amazing story about in your home state clearance of Michigan, a design team, a small nonprofit team led by a former nonprofit leader in the state who worked on poverty for years that became obsessed with a form, you know, that the quintessential image of government bureaucracy is forms. And the form was 1200 questions long 18,000 words, it was the form for emergency assistance, if you lost your house, you needed emergency cash, you know, you needed low cost healthcare, and you were in trouble. And the thing that sat between you and these services with this form that was really maybe not designed for humans and the venture of Sevilla in trying to tackle this form, the cut by 80% and reduce the time by half and really need benefits that were kind of a maze accessible is an example of the modern tools of what I think President Lincoln was doing, which was just having big ears and listening to the people we serve and we're making the case that, building out this form of institution on listening and design. Well, while it could be something you learned at the Stanford D school is also relatively intuitive that 1200 questions might be, you know, 1160 too many. So this, this is what we really mean when we're talking about design and I think, you know, Hannah maybe I could get to you a little bit on the delivery side, but we see these three pieces is fitting together. I just maybe want to ask in and Hannah just building on that and one piece related to that that you, you all talked about it with related to the delivery work is like in order to, I think this notion of like in order to solve big problems you need to start small. And so maybe you could also just say a little bit about that and how that showed up in the Sevilla story, or, or, or some of the other work that you will highlight in the book. One of the stories that we tell about started to illustrate the point of starting small is the integrated benefits initiative, which was a project that the state of Vermont undertook. And they, well, and so before I get into the story, let me say we talk in the book about the importance of starting small, a lot of the time. I think that we see all the time that there's a there's a modernization project and it's enormous and it takes months to gather the requirements and then by the time you've gathered the requirements they're actually out of date and are they actually doing the thing you want, I don't know. So the, the counter, the counter version of building an enormous thing is starting a small place, find a small thing that is meaningful bite bite off a small chunk and really get that piece to function really well so we tell the story in the book about this project that the state of Vermont undertook to improve how people apply for for benefits in the state of Vermont. And this was a project that the, the nonprofit company, Nova took on. And what they, when they went in the current state of things was that people had to bring their paperwork directly to the benefits office in order to apply and what would happen is, they would bring their paperwork. They would do the right thing they'd have to make another trip. If you've ever been to Vermont, it's not easy to get there from one from one point to another. And we also saw that and they, the team also saw that people were constrained by the office hours you can only bring in your paperwork when the office is open. So they had this theory that if that piece, if they started with that piece and put that piece online by creating a small document uploader that that would significantly significantly improve the speed with which people were able to process to get process for benefits when they began the process. It was nine days from putting absolutely everything in bringing all of your paperwork in to get a determination as to whether you were going to get the benefit. So they started with a built a small uploader document uploader that could work online, and they tested it with 50 people. And that was it. That was the project they tested with 50 people. What they found was that during and while they were piloting this, they found that during the pilot 55, 55% of the people in the pilot received a determined nation. Apologies, a determination within 24 hours compared to nine days. They also found that 40% of the people who in the pilot 40% use the uploader outside of office hours. So that confirmed their, their guests that actually these office hours and these trips back and forth to this government office were slowing down the process. So they were able ultimately to roll the uploader out to the entire state. And we love that story as a great example of like, here's a massive problem. Start with a small thing. That's great. It's super helpful example there and maybe just building off that a little bit and, you know, really, your book is quite relevant for the moment we're in now. And even just, you know, putting a finer point on it. American rescue plan has passed recently, close to $2 trillion heading out the door. And a lot of that is at the state and local level where those governments will be charged with delivering critical services on very short timelines in a moment where folks are still looking for a life rope if you will, to stay in their home to feed their kids, etc. So what lessons would you all do you think are most salient for folks who are charged with implementing these programs at the moment, and what kind of one or two things would you lift up as part of that and, and, and maybe another piece of this is what looks different, you know, a little bit on timelines in your book some of the examples you talk about there was a pretty long. Talk about this a lot of this work is not, you know, hey, we're just going to fix this overnight it is it's really moving boulders up mountains type work. It takes folks who are really dedicated to it and sometimes it's a year, two years plus until you see that breakthrough and then it can go from there. We're in a crisis moment right now. We're becoming folks have to make quick decisions stand up programs quickly. What lessons principles can they take from your text, as they think about the work that sits in front of them. As a memory mentioned, a lot of my thinking about this I really cut my teeth on the Affordable Care Act but it's not the only example you could look back to the cares act which passed in the spring. Under COVID-19 and the payroll protection provisions that put dollars out to the small businesses, or the unemployment insurance sites that the importance of legislation is critically important the American Rescue Plan that passed as the potential to change the impact of our country and how we support especially families with young children. If the policies are implemented well. It could be a child poverty and half and it would be the single largest investment in childcare since World War two, the families are remarkably high, but they all depend on delivery and so Clarence to your question of what lessons from the past. I think one prioritizing the things that are the most impactful, getting the child tax credit out the door in real time to families. So focused, not on that, not just on the what the amount of dollars but the how, how will this, you know, reach families that are unbanked. We saw in a really deep learnings of the frustrations but also the possible. I think for the past couple of months that there's still 10 million people who that the probably poorest 10 million Americans who are stimulus check eligible, never received their first or second stimulus check they don't file taxes it's not easy to know how to send them a check so looking into the details of how you reach people in particular how you reach the most vulnerable. I do want to say it's not impossible. When Hannah and I were writing about the cares act. We interviewed and we talked to the book to the Deputy Finance Minister of Germany. What are I that while the websites for crashing all across the country here that there was an article that was described the German gig worker relief, as I think symbol and refreshing. The payments went out in 14 days and reached the type of workers that we have a hard time reaching in the country and so I want to suggest that reaching people with emergency services when they need them is not putting a man on the moon or one on the moon. It has been done and will be done, but it does take a level of attention and care to where people are and how they live. That I think, you know that the Biden administration has demonstrated already, but there are plenty of great role models around about what good looks like. And I'll just add to that that that we talk in the book about having a focus on delivery, and that a lot of that delivery does not mean pizza. I think that one of the pieces with the American rescue plan and also that we, we talked about the cares act and in the book is this relentless focus on delivery, and you the the white has been defined but then how does that actually get to people piloting that even if you're in a time crunch, there is still the capability to follow, you know, sort of unpeel the onion of how how is actually how is this actually going to happen we said this is going to have this is the thing to do. We know that this is going to be the right intervention. But how does that actually happen and part of the issue is that the way that that happens for the world has changed dramatically in the last five to 10 years. You know, it used to be the way things were delivered where you stood online or you went to a place or you fat some text something. And all of those pipelines have changed significantly just how we function as a society, and government has lagged behind so it's that said, it's also, you know, Tara was talking about Lincoln opening his doors that that used to be you know and then, and taking information delivery used to be in some ways a lot easier because they were only there were you had limited choices. There, it's now become really kind of the thing in recent years, as we all live in these live in this world where delivery has been really streamlined in the private sector. And what we need to make happen is have that happen in the public sector as well. Thank you. I want to turn a little bit to one of your other pillars data and talk a little bit both about the opportunities there and why it is a critical piece to the to the public problem solving apparatus. So, and maybe even more importantly spend a little bit of time on the harms of not kind of considering, you know, where you're getting your feedback and intake from and really interrogating. What is this data telling me about this program about the people who the program is intending to serve and about how we've developed or designed it and I'll just offer a, you know, an example and you know, Tara when you and I met and friend Denise Ross who was on your team who was a partner of mine working on the police data initiative during the Obama administration. You know, we would often in just a word for folks, you know, it was an effort by the administration to work with police departments across the country to help them open up and share data around police citizen interactions. And we would often get these questions of Oh, that's, that's, that's great, but how quickly, shouldn't we be taking this data and using it for things like predictive policing and the like. And, you know, that was like the last thing at that moment that we wanted anybody to do or to think that was the goal of that work. Just because that data was was really poor. And it had never in many ways seen the light of day. And there was not a lot of standardization and so, you know, that was one, you know, just just reflected on my own experience and kind of like when you say data like people kind of immediately jump to the. Okay, what does it tell us and then like let's build a solution from there. I think there's some cautions in the book. There's an example I particularly love from New York about the former chief, chief analytics officer a man raw, my Cherokee and rats in New York City maybe can talk about that one a little bit. Sure, this is one of our is a great story. I, and I actually had met and right at a randomly at an event and he told this story and I net like and this was a few years ago and I never forgot it because it was, it was such an impactful story on what you really get with data. I think I will just preface this by saying, we're, we're in a, we're in a pit moment but we're also in a data moment. We have a lot of data, everyone has a lot of data. And I think that we are just starting to, we're just starting to understand the good and the bad. When it comes to data, I actually have a friend who says that his company is not data driven their data hysterical. And I think that that's a good way to, to think about like, are we actually using this data in the right way so, and so, I'm in my Russia, I'm in my Cherokee, who was with the in the in New York, the Office of data analytics. The, the New York City had decided to tackle the rat problem. And which I have to imagine is a thing that comes up all the time. And what the first thing they did was they mapped the 311 data on rat complaints to the neighborhoods. And so when I'm in raw, received the data the first thing that he did was look do that he did the natural and say, Oh, let me look at my neighborhood and see how the rat situation is in my neighborhood. And he lived in a part of Brooklyn near where he'd grown up in the projects. And there were no rat complaints or very few rat complaints in his neighborhood and he and also particularly in the from the projects and he knew, because he still lived in the neighborhood, he saw the rats, he knew there were so he called a friend of his but he didn't see them reflect see that reflected in the data so he called a friend of his who he'd grown up with who still lived in public housing and said, What's, what's the story with the rats there you don't know more rats, and his friends said, Well, no, of course there are rats and I'm in Ross said, Well, why don't you ever call, why don't you call 311 and his friends said, What's 311. So I think this is something that most people working with data today know that 311 tends to pull from a certain sector of the population. And so the true story of the rats was not reflected by purely looking at the three on one data. One of the things that we love about this story is that it shows why you have to understand who, when you're looking at a data set, who's in the data and who's not in that who's not represented in that data. And that this is a really a key question is to ask, Okay, well who's not here that maybe it should be or if they're not, let's dig into why they're not. Also, that it's really important to that the people who are pricing the data and you are looking at it, have a different background, have different backgrounds so that they are able because of course we all bring our own background and our own lived experience to whatever it is that we're looking at. And when you're looking at a city's rat data, the people looking at that should probably look like the same people in the subway car, right? You want people from all over the city to be represented on these teams. So it's really critical that anyone who works with data sets consider the limits of what those numbers tell us about the lived experience of the people that are represented in the data. Right. Thank you. Kind of relate relate it to that. You know, I think they're in. There is a, I'm going to submit there's kind of a fourth pillar here that would be a strong foundation for our house. And that is not that you all talk about actually, and you mentioned it throughout the book and I think there's a really good quote from or an interview with DJ Patel, the former chief data scientist for the US. In the book that talks about this notion of empathy, compassion storytelling that really braids the three design data and delivery together. And I think just even the case studies, the book, there's always this moment of needing to persuade someone needing to convince and really the actors in that story are bringing all three of those pieces together to do that work. Right. And that's often the moment that it's kind of unlocks to the work that there's still more work after that, like that's usually on the front end, but that creates the space for the work. And so I submitted this kind of, you know, storytelling and persuasion piece is a critical tool of the, the, in the public interest technologist toolbox. Can you all say a little bit more about that. And where and how you see that show up in some of the work that you've identified. Jump in. I think in part as the driver of why we wrote the book, you know, this is about making a type of work that isn't about the what it's about the how visible. And if you, you know, I think we should be really clear that these three elements, it's not a choose your own salad, you need to do all three. In part, I think the rat story tells you about the dangers of data without really checking in with the humans. And all of the stories we feature are about organizations and leaders who are using data and creative ways to see whether they're making progress but who are not relying on big data alone to understand the problem. We feature built for zero and community solutions and nonprofit that's working in 75 communities across the country and really clearance to your question about storytelling. It was a storytelling effort that got them out of how they did their work in the first place. They ran a big national campaign, where they got, you know, local groups to the project, it was called the 100,000 homes campaign. And if you ask them, they will tell you it was a swimming success people loved it, and it failed. They got 100,000 people in their homes in a period where the rate of homelessness went up. But it was a success because they engage community leaders and members to go out and actually engage and get the true stories of unhoused individuals. Find out what motivated them where they got stuck, how they love the Chicago Red Sox and it was this deep engagement with not a statistic. But the people in seeing the problem and so the ability to build empathy, not for how are we doing on a graph or chart, but how are we doing in serving. Tara McGinnis who is here for this reason was really critical but it is, I think the power is in these three, and, and the, and the story of what is the real problem and what is the barrier that you get from some of the deep engagement and asking people in human center design, and it really helps make the case for difficult shifts. But it's, it's really mission critical and if you look at many of our stories. The team in Michigan made a made for senior state leaders. Walked through the shoes of what it was like to fill out that application. It motivated them not to see a not to read a memo or a briefing deck, but the civilian team, basically enacted the experience that any one of the 2.5 mischievous has walking into a government office and seeking help. They didn't have enough chairs, there were not enough pens, nor was there not, was there enough time to fill out the form and after those officials felt what it felt like, and walked in the shoes of the people they serve. They just stood on the spot. They cut the form down. And so that it is the power, as you raised of the stories, which are not bespoke, which are the stories of millions of Americans and millions folks around the world so I think you really touched on something that we try to animate. Which is really deeply engaging the human story, but with how that plays out, you know in a scaled way. And if you, and thanks to our, I just even want to pull out a little thread there from one of the organizations that you mentioned be remiss and saying, you know, you featured them built for zero and the community solutions team just one the other foundations, 100 and change award, which is a award. I think the first time they've done this $100 million to one organization one proposal that has the opportunity in our lifetimes to to meaningfully change the outcome of a of what is perceived to be an intractable kind of societal issue. And it's just a little bit about what, you know, what type of validation that is for these approaches, and, you know, what $100 million, a lot of money. What, what, how should they be thinking about, you know, how would you think about, you know, the scale, again, you know, back to Anna's earlier point of like, you know, starting small to go big now we're going really really big. Right. And so what is that, what does that look like in this case. I'm happy to jump in or Han have you would like to I mean, first we were, we studied, built for zero and their work, which is, is what they, you know, they started with 100,000 homes campaign and they said, housing 100,000 people is not enough. We need to go for zero, their mission, which they've achieved in over a dozen locations is zero homelessness, not a little less, not a, hey, what's a, what would be an acceptable rate of homelessness for us to have. And I think this, this ambition that they had that this is a solvable problem was the first part of their work. Second, we, we've been interviewing their civil servant partners in Rockford, Illinois, former mayors, their staffers, their zeal dedication and constant culture of learning is remarkable. And if the 100,000 and change effort helps other organizations to take their methods, that would be an even, you know, bigger success. Hey, does it sound like a lot of money. Yeah, you know what, you know who spends 100,000 and change every year on a data system for homelessness, every person on this call. That is about the average amount that the federal government pays to a handful of federal contractors who help cities assess their data on homelessness. It's mostly, it doesn't help built for zero built a lightweight couple hundred thousand dollar version of that, and that really helped people understand the inflow and absolute data. It's a good example of how you can spend millions of dollars on data systems by very important technology companies, but not be solving the problem. And so we could not be more excited. I think you can probably hear from Hannah and I that every, every story we learned about we became we felt we fell in love with built for zero we fell in love with Sevilla. We were so passionate learning from these kind of tremendous leaders at the state and local and federal level that we really just wanted everyone to hear their stories and so we're delighted and hope that 100 million and change will help more people hear their story to And I'll just add to that something that we've sort of, I think as we mentioned but haven't fully articulated which is that this work really requires buy in from the top, but it also requires buy in from the frontline workers who are going to be doing things differently with their job. So on a daily basis, and for the stories that we profile in the book they had that like there, there was a lot of work put into cultivating those relationships, designed with not for making sure that people who are the frontline staff or were bought in and really excited and thinking that this was a great idea and that the person at the very top. It can't happen without somebody at the very without a champion at the very top saying, this is how it's going to be it's going to this is what we're going to do. And saying that repeatedly and repeatedly and, and, you know, I think that the, the empathy building. And what I've mentioned is with the Michigan form was critical and we saw instances instances of that in every project in every story that we tell in the book. Great. Thank you both. We're going to turn to some audience questions now and in doing this a little bit differently than we would have in the before times. And so also encourage folks you know if you have questions continue to drop them in the chat. One question that it looks like we've gotten a little from a few different folks and a few different flavors but it's basically kind of, I think the same question. And I will note that I think you dedicate effectively a whole chapter to this in your book. And just this notion of like what does this, what, what distinguishes this, this, this field, or this practice, quote unquote a public interest technology, you know and I will say is like, again, kind of a bit on my background, you know, I the up until the last few years like this was a, you know, a new term to me. It's more of kind of in the civic tech, you know, this is all kind of an extension of civic tech. But you talk about this in your book you talk about, you know, and you, you honor in many ways you know the folks in the fields and the ideas that have come before this moment you talk about how this is different though from civic tech from gov tech different than just like digitizing government so to speak. So let's say a little bit more about, you know, why this term public interest technology and what does that, what does that actually mean and say a little bit about why it's not really about the technology. You talk about your book. Okay. So, yes. Okay, well so first of all, when we, we do, I don't want to get too much in the weeds given the time and I mean we could talk all day about this but we go into the book. We go into the wide public interest technology versus civic tech versus gov tech. I think the main thing that we want to get across about public interest technology is that it is an approach to problem solving in the digital age to public problem solving. So where the other terms don't fully encompass, you know, they might sort of encompass a loose configuration of or conglomeration of people but we felt that public interest technology is really a term that that can be used for the field but also for a methodology. And it is tricky. Where does technology fit technologies in the title. And yet, if you read the book, there's an entire chapter called it's not about the technology, which is confusing, especially we talk about when we talk about our training the next generation of tech of public servants and we talk about the people who are studying to be public servants should have some tech fluency and people who have a tech background should know that public service is an option for them. So I think that is to differentiate between the commonly accepted narrative about government and technology which is that if you can just get more white male Google engineers and stuff them into the White House, your problems will be solved. And the really we are trying to bring home the message that it's it's not, it's not actually about the technology it's about the humans it's about unpeeling the onion to get to the root of problems. It's about understanding what the what the correct intervention is and then technology is a tool that can be used, it can be a really good effective tool it might be the tool you want to use it might not be the tool you want to use in our book one of the stories. It's a spoiler because I love the story but I know we both love it but it's one of the stories this the intervention that was needed was a staple. Yeah, staple so I think we really the main point being it's it's not about the technology it's not about the coolest technology it's not about the latest technology doesn't matter how good your technology is. You are still there, there are still humans at the center of the problem solving of the of the problem you're trying to solve. Alright, yes. I mean I think we can under we think technology is important in our institutions they want to serve people need to keep up with a digital age, but make no mistake we really make kind of clear that an app did not end homelessness with built for zero. And that if, and quite frankly if you digitize a broken process, you have a digitized broken process it might even move faster and work worse for people on a details in the first chapter. Big multi year digitization digitization of a broken process but but actually sometimes what people write in the margins of a process might be really important. The digitization doesn't capture it and especially, I think we this the staple story is about understanding root problems. And what is causing friction and so this practice and the definition we established which in some ways is very broad, you know, data, the application of data design and delivery to advance the public good, but is also quite narrow we felt really confident that if we have picked a technology today that this book will be a relevant shortly that what technology is to us changes all the time, but that that we can focus it on the public good is what we're really pressing people to do. We have another questionnaire I think you may have touched on this a little bit, but just, you know, maybe reiterating that, you know, your book highlights several successful case studies. You know you also talk about you know some places where the thing was promising on the front end and then you know it may have not had the champion to continue to carry it forward and which speaks to you know how much of this work and we talked a little bit about the storytelling side, how much is his work is dependent on, you know, convincing the right person or right person as part of this and so just the one question here is just around. I think that still in some ways kind of the minority of folks that that like really kind of get it on on on first hearing. And so the question is just how do you continue to break through the cynicism, you know, especially for further folks who, who see maybe too much data as an issue right or who think that like, hey well, I was hired here because I know this issue. We have some of the best minds in the world trying to tackle this issue in our department. So why do we need to spend time out in the field that is going to slow us down etc etc how do you break through some of that cynicism as part of this work to the field with you. I think is the short is the short answer. Yes, people are people at every rate to be cynical. We've been so much bad technology thrown into government, or and you know we're kind of bombarded every day with technology that hasn't really fully been thought through, or people trying to solve a problem with technology. Don't get me started on the Excelsior pass which is the vaccine passport that they just rolled out in here in New York. For example, if anyone who's working on that is wants to give me a call happy talk about it. I think that the, you know, the story that Tara told earlier about the civility and the team in Michigan who brought the top people to made them go through the process to experience what it's like to be a human on the other end. I've also heard that some people have had a lot of one thing that's been really effective is bring people with you on your research show them and the research doesn't have to be this is one thing that I learned actually in my work at the US digital service we did a lot of gorilla research. It still serves me well to this day and I think it's an underutilized tool. So, bringing people with you to like, look, here are the people you're trying to serve here there's listen to their story. Watch them try to fill out this form. See what this is really like. I think that that is a great way to break through the cynicism is, let's go talk to some people. We're both super hopeful about this that it has been done proves that it can be done. I want to underestimate that change doing big things is hard. Some of some of these efforts happened really quickly we are our team at the new practice lab. Worked with the incredible Department of Labor in the state of New Jersey on a paid leave project. New Jersey is one of the handful of states that provides families paid family and medical leave. It was taking a long time to cut the checks and upon closer inspection it wasn't that they needed more check cutters or adjudicators. A lot of people got hung up on a couple of questions and when you when you have 100,000 people or a million people. And so really just sitting, this isn't complicated the amazing civil servants in New Jersey, sat with a few tired moms and dads who are trying to apply or caregivers who are trying to apply for this, and saw how frequently it's not like, this is a week or two of research, how frequently people get stuck on question X. And could we just let's try this version is that less confusing. No, let's try this conversion. Let's try this picture with a chart about the number of months. And they've changed their forms they've changed their materials. The team leaders in the Department of Labor are leading that work, not our team. And so that wasn't yours. That didn't require a new agency head to take leadership from the top and the bottom and some willingness. Yes, but it, but again like really making things work for people. And is this art of listening testing and trying and I think it can be we feel optimistic that it can be done. That's great. I want to sneak in a few more questions if we can. And I'm going to mash up kind of two of them. There's basically one question on what role can public libraries play in this work as part of continuing to build public interest tech and this notion of public problem solving. And then, you know, maybe the opposite side of this is what role should the private sector be playing here as part of this as well. This one. So the what role could the private sector before this is there's not enough time to go into all of the different pieces of this. I think there is a role for the private sector. What role is not why can't we just have Amazon do this, which is something that we've seen a lot, especially with the with the vaccine roll out. There were there was a lot of and you know I think that this we see this in the field, it comes around again why can't Zappos just do it why can't Apple just do it. There's usually a reason there's usually, there are usually many reasons, but that's not to say that there, there isn't a role I mean right where we are right now. A lot of look the private sector is developing technology and has a methodology for implementing it that works. Government could certainly stand to benefit from that are there shortcuts to loop in the tech the private sector and make that happen. Sure, could be, could be it's it's not trivial and as anyone I think we have a lot of people in the audience who have worked with government or are currently in government. You know, once you start getting into data privacy and privacy issues. It becomes a lot more complex than let's just get Amazon to do it. But is there, is there, is that a good thing to keep in mind and think about as we go forward sure. You know, I think, and I think libraries are especially important it's one of the forms of infrastructure that we really do have everywhere small communities big communities. I think when we contemplate the challenges of the digital divide and access that the role of bricks and mortar libraries and helping us contemplate the equity is really important and there's very few. There are a few things that we have like libraries that are just kind of here and there and everywhere and that could be anchors and open to all. Obviously the pandemic has complicated the bricks and mortar everything and including for libraries but thinking about what we have that is our public infrastructure and we're broadening as a country the way we have this conversation to, to start to think about care infrastructure out there along with roads and libraries but that for me are quite personal but the bricks and mortar doves for a library was a place where all kids could go and get stickers for summer reading. And I think libraries as a place that of equity to bring the libraries into the digital age some amazing efforts in New York and DT and others for really reconceptualize the library as a community home. You know, have real possibility. Great. So I'll just, I'll wrap up on on this last question I know we're about at time. And just, you know, kind of reflecting on and you both start the book with you know you've come at this from kind of different perspectives on as a technologist, you know, and found your, you know, private sector and then found your way to government service. You know, died in the wall, public policy, you know, hands on on everything. But you found each other and you're kind of here now. Right. And, you know, I think you make the argument that it's not that like that kind of how we saw, you know, these big public problems in the future will be a blend of both and that we need to be training the future public as well as not just public policy student but you know, training the future public servant in many ways, you know, to be able to think about both of these ends of the spectrum and really kind of define the solutions that exist in the middle. Just for both of you just any parting words called call to action that you would have for, you know, the future public policy students, engineer professionals who are moving into this space that you'd want to just kind of leave folks with. I'm happy to jump in. You know, I think the differences in our backgrounds, Hannah and I, you know, helped in the building of this book, but we pushed each other from our respective perspectives, but we think we think we need profoundly more voices in the mix on making unsolving public problems. It's at the essence of why we wrote it. And that doesn't mean that data scientists and engineers are going to replace lawyers and economists. It does mean we're going to need economists who understand what big data does and doesn't do. We're going to need engineers who are trained in the ethics of some of the complex questions we've talked about. And both of these groups of people need to profoundly represent who we are in a way that they don't today. Because as you heard from Amon Ra, you know, who sits in these seats who looks at the data and who comes with the questions really changes this. So we hope people will see that doesn't matter if you are in one of these tech roles, that there is a place for you in this work. And if you can't see it now, we're hoping that that a broader set of voices and folks from different communities. And you can grow up as an as Clarence Bordell in, you know, 2021 would see a place to do to tackle police inequity straight out of engineering school, but also that you cannot graduate from public policy school, not having thought about how your policy reaches end users. And so I think we see a place for people with both of the types of skills and additional ones in this work. That was beautiful. Just let us in there. All right, well, thank you both. Congratulations on the launch of the book and excited that it's out there in the world. So, thank you.