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PUBLICATIONS
David publishes regularly in The Mark and The Globe and Mail. (Those links will take you to a list of his pieces for each publication.) Chapters, Articles and White Papers Using the Tools of the 21st Century: Open Data and Wikis, Approaching Public Administration: Core Debates and Emerging Issues, (ed. Roberto P. Leone & FrankABOUT DAVID
A public policy entrepreneur, open government activist and negotiation expert, David is a Lecturer of Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. At HKS, he teaches on digital transformation, service delivery, open government and open data. David is also a co-founder of ReCollect Systems, a company that provides software services to hundreds ofPUBLIC SPEAKING
Public Speaking. Photo by James Duncan Davidson. I am regularly invited to give keynotes, speeches and presentations on Open Strategies, Negotiating, Collaboration, Conflict Management, Technology, Open Government and Open Data. To date I’ve given talks across Europe, and North America, as well as in Brazil, China, andSouth Africa.
EDUCATION | EAVES.CA Earlier this month the Vancouver School Board (VSB) released an iPhone app that – helpfully – will use push notifications to inform parents about school holidays, parent interviews, and scheduling disruptions such as snow days. The app is okay, it’s a little clunky to use, and a lot of the data – such as professional days – while helpful in an app, would be even more helpful as an CANADA’S THREE TIERED HEALTHCARE SYSTEM This is the reality of healthcare in Canada. Yes, we have universal healthcare. But it is within a three-tiered system and the wealthy – like Danny Williams – opted out a long, long time ago. 2. (Mis)perceptions of Canadian (Mis)perceptions. Of course, manyCanadians know that
WIKI'S AND OPEN SOURCE: COLLABORATIVE OR Mike Beltzner February 12, 2007 at 12:24 am. There’s a subtle tools problem here, and in many cases I think that people do work collaboratively whenever possible, but end up partitioning and co-operating when tools fail them.In the realm of Open Source Software Development, for example, I often bear witness to two or more people working together to solve a problem on IRC. WHY THE INTERNET WILL SHAPE SOCIAL VALUES (AND NOT THE The biggest problem in predicting the future isn't envisaging what technologies will emerge - it is forecasting how individuals and communities will respond to these technologies. In other words I often find people treat technology as a variable, but social values as a constant. Consequently, as they peer into tomorrow, technology isexamined only in
YOUTUBE INTERVIEWS: STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES 7 thoughts on “ YouTube Interviews: Strengths and Weaknesses ” Daniel Haran March 17, 2010 at 5:52 pm. There’s something doubly odd about Google doing this. They lobby the Canadian government on matters of policy – and here they are giving away a gift of free exposure toone party.
THE AUDACITY OF SHAW: HOW CANADA'S INTERNET JUST GOT WORSE It is really, really, really hard to believe. But as bad as internet access is in Canada, it just got worse. Yesterday, Shaw Communications, a Canadian telecommunications company and internet service provider (ISP) that works mostly in Western Canada announced they are launching Movie Club, a new service to compete with Netflix.On the surface
EAVES.CA | IF WRITING IS A MUSCLE, THIS IS MY GYMABOUT DAVIDPUBLIC SPEAKINGPUBLICATIONSIN THE MEDIAGET IN TOUCHCOMMENTARY Covid-19: Lessons from and for Government Digital Service Groups. This article was written by David Eaves, lecturer at the Harvard Kennedy School, Tom Loosemore, Partner at Public Digital, with Tommaso Cariati and Blanka Soulava, students at the Harvard Kennedy School. It first appeared in Apolitical. Government digital services have provenPUBLICATIONS
David publishes regularly in The Mark and The Globe and Mail. (Those links will take you to a list of his pieces for each publication.) Chapters, Articles and White Papers Using the Tools of the 21st Century: Open Data and Wikis, Approaching Public Administration: Core Debates and Emerging Issues, (ed. Roberto P. Leone & FrankABOUT DAVID
A public policy entrepreneur, open government activist and negotiation expert, David is a Lecturer of Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. At HKS, he teaches on digital transformation, service delivery, open government and open data. David is also a co-founder of ReCollect Systems, a company that provides software services to hundreds ofPUBLIC SPEAKING
Public Speaking. Photo by James Duncan Davidson. I am regularly invited to give keynotes, speeches and presentations on Open Strategies, Negotiating, Collaboration, Conflict Management, Technology, Open Government and Open Data. To date I’ve given talks across Europe, and North America, as well as in Brazil, China, andSouth Africa.
EDUCATION | EAVES.CA Earlier this month the Vancouver School Board (VSB) released an iPhone app that – helpfully – will use push notifications to inform parents about school holidays, parent interviews, and scheduling disruptions such as snow days. The app is okay, it’s a little clunky to use, and a lot of the data – such as professional days – while helpful in an app, would be even more helpful as an CANADA’S THREE TIERED HEALTHCARE SYSTEM This is the reality of healthcare in Canada. Yes, we have universal healthcare. But it is within a three-tiered system and the wealthy – like Danny Williams – opted out a long, long time ago. 2. (Mis)perceptions of Canadian (Mis)perceptions. Of course, manyCanadians know that
WIKI'S AND OPEN SOURCE: COLLABORATIVE OR Mike Beltzner February 12, 2007 at 12:24 am. There’s a subtle tools problem here, and in many cases I think that people do work collaboratively whenever possible, but end up partitioning and co-operating when tools fail them.In the realm of Open Source Software Development, for example, I often bear witness to two or more people working together to solve a problem on IRC. WHY THE INTERNET WILL SHAPE SOCIAL VALUES (AND NOT THE The biggest problem in predicting the future isn't envisaging what technologies will emerge - it is forecasting how individuals and communities will respond to these technologies. In other words I often find people treat technology as a variable, but social values as a constant. Consequently, as they peer into tomorrow, technology isexamined only in
YOUTUBE INTERVIEWS: STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES 7 thoughts on “ YouTube Interviews: Strengths and Weaknesses ” Daniel Haran March 17, 2010 at 5:52 pm. There’s something doubly odd about Google doing this. They lobby the Canadian government on matters of policy – and here they are giving away a gift of free exposure toone party.
THE AUDACITY OF SHAW: HOW CANADA'S INTERNET JUST GOT WORSE It is really, really, really hard to believe. But as bad as internet access is in Canada, it just got worse. Yesterday, Shaw Communications, a Canadian telecommunications company and internet service provider (ISP) that works mostly in Western Canada announced they are launching Movie Club, a new service to compete with Netflix.On the surface
EAVES.CA | IF WRITING IS A MUSCLE, THIS IS MY GYM Covid-19: Lessons from and for Government Digital Service Groups. This article was written by David Eaves, lecturer at the Harvard Kennedy School, Tom Loosemore, Partner at Public Digital, with Tommaso Cariati and Blanka Soulava, students at the Harvard Kennedy School. It first appeared in Apolitical. Government digital services have provenPUBLICATIONS
David publishes regularly in The Mark and The Globe and Mail. (Those links will take you to a list of his pieces for each publication.) Chapters, Articles and White Papers Using the Tools of the 21st Century: Open Data and Wikis, Approaching Public Administration: Core Debates and Emerging Issues, (ed. Roberto P. Leone & FrankIN THE MEDIA
In the Media. I’ve just started to flesh this out but here are some links to mentions, quotes and recent interviews I’ve done in the press and so forth: Evan Soloman’s Power & Politics – I’m a fairly regular guest pundit on politics and technology, ongoing. Analysts and stakeholders weigh in on legislation – Toronto StarPUBLIC SPEAKING
Photo by James Duncan Davidson I am regularly invited to give keynotes, speeches and presentations on Open Strategies, Negotiating, Collaboration, Conflict Management, Technology, Open Government and Open Data. To date I've given talks across Europe, and North America, as well as in Brazil, China, and South Africa. In addition, I'm also frequently asked to giveTRAVEL | EAVES.CA
For those who fly too much (and I fly WAY too much) you may find this little utility handy. Flying Fish is a free program that calculates the air miles one will accrue on any flight. For such a small piece of software (500K!) it is jam packed with features, however, its basic functionality remains wonderfully simple: just type in the airport codes (e.g YVR=Vancouver) for a trip involving THE END OF THE BEGINNING OF DIGITAL SERVICE UNITS The exciting part about being at the end of the beginning is that the model of digital service units has been sufficiently validated that more and more governments will likely experiment with them over the coming 5 years. In addition, these new groups will benefit from a clearer roadmap and lessons learned from those who came before. THE THREE LAWS OF OPEN GOVERNMENT DATA Yesterday, at the Right To Know Week panel discussion - Conference for Parliamentarians: Transparency in the Digital Era - organized by the Office of the Information Commissioner I shared three laws for Open Government Data that I'd devised on the flight from Vancouver. The Three Laws of Open Government Data: If it can’t be spidered IT'S THE ICING, NOT THE CAKE: KEY LESSON ON OPEN DATA FOR 12 thoughts on “ It's the icing, not the cake: key lesson on open data for governments ” Nicholas Charney July 12, 2011 at 12:52 pm. David – great point at the end there. My sense given the inevitable belt tightening is that departments and agencies are going to have to work hard at establishing the proper governance and policy frameworks around their data because they simply won’t be THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK: HOW THE DEATH OF GDS PUTS ALL 2 thoughts on “ The Empire Strikes Back: How the death of GDS puts all government innovators at risk ” GDS developer August 12, 2016 at 8:38 am. Yeah I know you are trying to help, but let’s cut the hyperbole. Sure, GDS had a sudden change of boss, but the power to enforce the GDS design principles, power and mandate are still there, the one HMRC project aside. LYING WITH MAPS: HOW ENBRIDGE IS MISLEADING THE PUBLIC IN Lying with Maps: How Enbridge is Misleading the Public in its Ads. The Ottawa Citizen has a great story today about an advert by Enbridge (the company proposing to build a oil pipeline across British Columbia) that includes a “broadly representational” map that shows prospective supertankers steaming up an unobstructed DouglasChannel
EAVES.CA | IF WRITING IS A MUSCLE, THIS IS MY GYMABOUT DAVIDPUBLIC SPEAKINGPUBLICATIONSIN THE MEDIAGET IN TOUCHCOMMENTARY Covid-19: Lessons from and for Government Digital Service Groups. This article was written by David Eaves, lecturer at the Harvard Kennedy School, Tom Loosemore, Partner at Public Digital, with Tommaso Cariati and Blanka Soulava, students at the Harvard Kennedy School. It first appeared in Apolitical. Government digital services have provenPUBLICATIONS
David publishes regularly in The Mark and The Globe and Mail. (Those links will take you to a list of his pieces for each publication.) Chapters, Articles and White Papers Using the Tools of the 21st Century: Open Data and Wikis, Approaching Public Administration: Core Debates and Emerging Issues, (ed. Roberto P. Leone & FrankIN THE MEDIA
In the Media. I’ve just started to flesh this out but here are some links to mentions, quotes and recent interviews I’ve done in the press and so forth: Evan Soloman’s Power & Politics – I’m a fairly regular guest pundit on politics and technology, ongoing. Analysts and stakeholders weigh in on legislation – Toronto StarABOUT DAVID
A public policy entrepreneur, open government activist and negotiation expert, David is a Lecturer of Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. At HKS, he teaches on digital transformation, service delivery, open government and open data. David is also a co-founder of ReCollect Systems, a company that provides software services to hundreds of EDUCATION | EAVES.CA Earlier this month the Vancouver School Board (VSB) released an iPhone app that – helpfully – will use push notifications to inform parents about school holidays, parent interviews, and scheduling disruptions such as snow days. The app is okay, it’s a little clunky to use, and a lot of the data – such as professional days – while helpful in an app, would be even more helpful as an WIKI'S AND OPEN SOURCE: COLLABORATIVE OR Mike Beltzner February 12, 2007 at 12:24 am. There’s a subtle tools problem here, and in many cases I think that people do work collaboratively whenever possible, but end up partitioning and co-operating when tools fail them.In the realm of Open Source Software Development, for example, I often bear witness to two or more people working together to solve a problem on IRC. CANADA’S THREE TIERED HEALTHCARE SYSTEM This is the reality of healthcare in Canada. Yes, we have universal healthcare. But it is within a three-tiered system and the wealthy – like Danny Williams – opted out a long, long time ago. 2. (Mis)perceptions of Canadian (Mis)perceptions. Of course, manyCanadians know that
WHY THE INTERNET WILL SHAPE SOCIAL VALUES (AND NOT THE The biggest problem in predicting the future isn't envisaging what technologies will emerge - it is forecasting how individuals and communities will respond to these technologies. In other words I often find people treat technology as a variable, but social values as a constant. Consequently, as they peer into tomorrow, technology isexamined only in
SHARED IT SERVICES ACROSS THE CANADIAN GOVERNMENT 15 thoughts on “ Shared IT Services across the Canadian Government – three opportunities ” deadsquid August 5, 2011 at 12:55 pm. They tried this once before with GTIS. It was an abysmal failure, and I can see the consolidation of existing IT into a central service being evenworse.
THE AUDACITY OF SHAW: HOW CANADA'S INTERNET JUST GOT WORSE It is really, really, really hard to believe. But as bad as internet access is in Canada, it just got worse. Yesterday, Shaw Communications, a Canadian telecommunications company and internet service provider (ISP) that works mostly in Western Canada announced they are launching Movie Club, a new service to compete with Netflix.On the surface
EAVES.CA | IF WRITING IS A MUSCLE, THIS IS MY GYMABOUT DAVIDPUBLIC SPEAKINGPUBLICATIONSIN THE MEDIAGET IN TOUCHCOMMENTARY Covid-19: Lessons from and for Government Digital Service Groups. This article was written by David Eaves, lecturer at the Harvard Kennedy School, Tom Loosemore, Partner at Public Digital, with Tommaso Cariati and Blanka Soulava, students at the Harvard Kennedy School. It first appeared in Apolitical. Government digital services have provenPUBLICATIONS
David publishes regularly in The Mark and The Globe and Mail. (Those links will take you to a list of his pieces for each publication.) Chapters, Articles and White Papers Using the Tools of the 21st Century: Open Data and Wikis, Approaching Public Administration: Core Debates and Emerging Issues, (ed. Roberto P. Leone & FrankIN THE MEDIA
In the Media. I’ve just started to flesh this out but here are some links to mentions, quotes and recent interviews I’ve done in the press and so forth: Evan Soloman’s Power & Politics – I’m a fairly regular guest pundit on politics and technology, ongoing. Analysts and stakeholders weigh in on legislation – Toronto StarABOUT DAVID
A public policy entrepreneur, open government activist and negotiation expert, David is a Lecturer of Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. At HKS, he teaches on digital transformation, service delivery, open government and open data. David is also a co-founder of ReCollect Systems, a company that provides software services to hundreds of EDUCATION | EAVES.CA Earlier this month the Vancouver School Board (VSB) released an iPhone app that – helpfully – will use push notifications to inform parents about school holidays, parent interviews, and scheduling disruptions such as snow days. The app is okay, it’s a little clunky to use, and a lot of the data – such as professional days – while helpful in an app, would be even more helpful as an WIKI'S AND OPEN SOURCE: COLLABORATIVE OR Mike Beltzner February 12, 2007 at 12:24 am. There’s a subtle tools problem here, and in many cases I think that people do work collaboratively whenever possible, but end up partitioning and co-operating when tools fail them.In the realm of Open Source Software Development, for example, I often bear witness to two or more people working together to solve a problem on IRC. CANADA’S THREE TIERED HEALTHCARE SYSTEM This is the reality of healthcare in Canada. Yes, we have universal healthcare. But it is within a three-tiered system and the wealthy – like Danny Williams – opted out a long, long time ago. 2. (Mis)perceptions of Canadian (Mis)perceptions. Of course, manyCanadians know that
WHY THE INTERNET WILL SHAPE SOCIAL VALUES (AND NOT THE The biggest problem in predicting the future isn't envisaging what technologies will emerge - it is forecasting how individuals and communities will respond to these technologies. In other words I often find people treat technology as a variable, but social values as a constant. Consequently, as they peer into tomorrow, technology isexamined only in
SHARED IT SERVICES ACROSS THE CANADIAN GOVERNMENT 15 thoughts on “ Shared IT Services across the Canadian Government – three opportunities ” deadsquid August 5, 2011 at 12:55 pm. They tried this once before with GTIS. It was an abysmal failure, and I can see the consolidation of existing IT into a central service being evenworse.
THE AUDACITY OF SHAW: HOW CANADA'S INTERNET JUST GOT WORSE It is really, really, really hard to believe. But as bad as internet access is in Canada, it just got worse. Yesterday, Shaw Communications, a Canadian telecommunications company and internet service provider (ISP) that works mostly in Western Canada announced they are launching Movie Club, a new service to compete with Netflix.On the surface
IN THE MEDIA
In the Media. I’ve just started to flesh this out but here are some links to mentions, quotes and recent interviews I’ve done in the press and so forth: Evan Soloman’s Power & Politics – I’m a fairly regular guest pundit on politics and technology, ongoing. Analysts and stakeholders weigh in on legislation – Toronto StarPUBLIC SPEAKING
Public Speaking. Photo by James Duncan Davidson. I am regularly invited to give keynotes, speeches and presentations on Open Strategies, Negotiating, Collaboration, Conflict Management, Technology, Open Government and Open Data. To date I’ve given talks across Europe, and North America, as well as in Brazil, China, andSouth Africa.
EDUCATION | EAVES.CA Earlier this month the Vancouver School Board (VSB) released an iPhone app that – helpfully – will use push notifications to inform parents about school holidays, parent interviews, and scheduling disruptions such as snow days. The app is okay, it’s a little clunky to use, and a lot of the data – such as professional days – while helpful in an app, would be even more helpful as anTRAVEL | EAVES.CA
For those who fly too much (and I fly WAY too much) you may find this little utility handy. Flying Fish is a free program that calculates the air miles one will accrue on any flight. For such a small piece of software (500K!) it is jam packed with features, however, its basic functionality remains wonderfully simple: just type in the airport codes (e.g YVR=Vancouver) for a trip involving THE END OF THE BEGINNING OF DIGITAL SERVICE UNITS The exciting part about being at the end of the beginning is that the model of digital service units has been sufficiently validated that more and more governments will likely experiment with them over the coming 5 years. In addition, these new groups will benefit from a clearer roadmap and lessons learned from those who came before. WHAT WEREWOLF TEACHES US ABOUT TRUST & SECURITY After sharing the idea behind this post with Bruce Schneier, I’ve been encouraged to think a little more about what Werewolf can teach us about trust, security and rational choices in communities that are, or are at risk of, being infiltrated by a threat. I’m not a security expert, but I do spend a lot of time thinking about negotiation, collaboration and trust, and so thought I’d pen YOUTUBE INTERVIEWS: STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES 7 thoughts on “ YouTube Interviews: Strengths and Weaknesses ” Daniel Haran March 17, 2010 at 5:52 pm. There’s something doubly odd about Google doing this. They lobby the Canadian government on matters of policy – and here they are giving away a gift of free exposure toone party.
IT'S THE ICING, NOT THE CAKE: KEY LESSON ON OPEN DATA FOR 12 thoughts on “ It's the icing, not the cake: key lesson on open data for governments ” Nicholas Charney July 12, 2011 at 12:52 pm. David – great point at the end there. My sense given the inevitable belt tightening is that departments and agencies are going to have to work hard at establishing the proper governance and policy frameworks around their data because they simply won’t be WHY BANNING ANONYMOUS COMMENTS IS BAD FOR POSTMEDIA AND 20 thoughts on “ Why Banning Anonymous Comments is Bad for Postmedia and Bad for Society ” BlissfullyAnonymous September 12, 2012 at 10:19 am. Wow, I cannot believe the explosion in the amount of websites that demand you use Facebook to comment, enter contests etc. LYING WITH MAPS: HOW ENBRIDGE IS MISLEADING THE PUBLIC IN Lying with Maps: How Enbridge is Misleading the Public in its Ads. The Ottawa Citizen has a great story today about an advert by Enbridge (the company proposing to build a oil pipeline across British Columbia) that includes a “broadly representational” map that shows prospective supertankers steaming up an unobstructed DouglasChannel
EAVES.CA | IF WRITING IS A MUSCLE, THIS IS MY GYMABOUT DAVIDPUBLIC SPEAKINGPUBLICATIONSIN THE MEDIAGET IN TOUCHCOMMENTARY Covid-19: Lessons from and for Government Digital Service Groups. This article was written by David Eaves, lecturer at the Harvard Kennedy School, Tom Loosemore, Partner at Public Digital, with Tommaso Cariati and Blanka Soulava, students at the Harvard Kennedy School. It first appeared in Apolitical. Government digital services have provenPUBLICATIONS
David publishes regularly in The Mark and The Globe and Mail. (Those links will take you to a list of his pieces for each publication.) Chapters, Articles and White Papers Using the Tools of the 21st Century: Open Data and Wikis, Approaching Public Administration: Core Debates and Emerging Issues, (ed. Roberto P. Leone & FrankTEACHING | EAVES.CA
Teaching in an empty room is hard. Teaching to a zoom call with nothing but grey phone icons feels just as hard. We get so much feedback from people’s faces, expressions and posture, I wanted my solution to maximize this feedback. Facilitate multitasking between students, slides and comments.ABOUT DAVID
A public policy entrepreneur, open government activist and negotiation expert, David is a Lecturer of Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. At HKS, he teaches on digital transformation, service delivery, open government and open data. David is also a co-founder of ReCollect Systems, a company that provides software services to hundreds ofPUBLIC SPEAKING
Public Speaking. Photo by James Duncan Davidson. I am regularly invited to give keynotes, speeches and presentations on Open Strategies, Negotiating, Collaboration, Conflict Management, Technology, Open Government and Open Data. To date I’ve given talks across Europe, and North America, as well as in Brazil, China, andSouth Africa.
EDUCATION | EAVES.CA Earlier this month the Vancouver School Board (VSB) released an iPhone app that – helpfully – will use push notifications to inform parents about school holidays, parent interviews, and scheduling disruptions such as snow days. The app is okay, it’s a little clunky to use, and a lot of the data – such as professional days – while helpful in an app, would be even more helpful as an WIKI'S AND OPEN SOURCE: COLLABORATIVE OR Mike Beltzner February 12, 2007 at 12:24 am. There’s a subtle tools problem here, and in many cases I think that people do work collaboratively whenever possible, but end up partitioning and co-operating when tools fail them.In the realm of Open Source Software Development, for example, I often bear witness to two or more people working together to solve a problem on IRC. WHY THE INTERNET WILL SHAPE SOCIAL VALUES (AND NOT THE The biggest problem in predicting the future isn't envisaging what technologies will emerge - it is forecasting how individuals and communities will respond to these technologies. In other words I often find people treat technology as a variable, but social values as a constant. Consequently, as they peer into tomorrow, technology isexamined only in
SOME THOUGHTS ON THE OPEN GOVERNMENT PARTNERSHIP 5 thoughts on “ Some thoughts on the Open Government Partnership ” Tracey P. Lauriault April 19, 2012 at 4:05 pm. Thanks for this context David. Watching online from Canada I could see the vast difference between civil society groups and also the focus on different issues, and transparency being a very big one for many and I loved seeing the creative ways people visualized information and THE AUDACITY OF SHAW: HOW CANADA'S INTERNET JUST GOT WORSE It is really, really, really hard to believe. But as bad as internet access is in Canada, it just got worse. Yesterday, Shaw Communications, a Canadian telecommunications company and internet service provider (ISP) that works mostly in Western Canada announced they are launching Movie Club, a new service to compete with Netflix.On the surface
EAVES.CA | IF WRITING IS A MUSCLE, THIS IS MY GYMABOUT DAVIDPUBLIC SPEAKINGPUBLICATIONSIN THE MEDIAGET IN TOUCHCOMMENTARY Covid-19: Lessons from and for Government Digital Service Groups. This article was written by David Eaves, lecturer at the Harvard Kennedy School, Tom Loosemore, Partner at Public Digital, with Tommaso Cariati and Blanka Soulava, students at the Harvard Kennedy School. It first appeared in Apolitical. Government digital services have provenPUBLICATIONS
David publishes regularly in The Mark and The Globe and Mail. (Those links will take you to a list of his pieces for each publication.) Chapters, Articles and White Papers Using the Tools of the 21st Century: Open Data and Wikis, Approaching Public Administration: Core Debates and Emerging Issues, (ed. Roberto P. Leone & FrankTEACHING | EAVES.CA
Teaching in an empty room is hard. Teaching to a zoom call with nothing but grey phone icons feels just as hard. We get so much feedback from people’s faces, expressions and posture, I wanted my solution to maximize this feedback. Facilitate multitasking between students, slides and comments.ABOUT DAVID
A public policy entrepreneur, open government activist and negotiation expert, David is a Lecturer of Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. At HKS, he teaches on digital transformation, service delivery, open government and open data. David is also a co-founder of ReCollect Systems, a company that provides software services to hundreds ofPUBLIC SPEAKING
Public Speaking. Photo by James Duncan Davidson. I am regularly invited to give keynotes, speeches and presentations on Open Strategies, Negotiating, Collaboration, Conflict Management, Technology, Open Government and Open Data. To date I’ve given talks across Europe, and North America, as well as in Brazil, China, andSouth Africa.
EDUCATION | EAVES.CA Earlier this month the Vancouver School Board (VSB) released an iPhone app that – helpfully – will use push notifications to inform parents about school holidays, parent interviews, and scheduling disruptions such as snow days. The app is okay, it’s a little clunky to use, and a lot of the data – such as professional days – while helpful in an app, would be even more helpful as an WIKI'S AND OPEN SOURCE: COLLABORATIVE OR Mike Beltzner February 12, 2007 at 12:24 am. There’s a subtle tools problem here, and in many cases I think that people do work collaboratively whenever possible, but end up partitioning and co-operating when tools fail them.In the realm of Open Source Software Development, for example, I often bear witness to two or more people working together to solve a problem on IRC. WHY THE INTERNET WILL SHAPE SOCIAL VALUES (AND NOT THE The biggest problem in predicting the future isn't envisaging what technologies will emerge - it is forecasting how individuals and communities will respond to these technologies. In other words I often find people treat technology as a variable, but social values as a constant. Consequently, as they peer into tomorrow, technology isexamined only in
SOME THOUGHTS ON THE OPEN GOVERNMENT PARTNERSHIP 5 thoughts on “ Some thoughts on the Open Government Partnership ” Tracey P. Lauriault April 19, 2012 at 4:05 pm. Thanks for this context David. Watching online from Canada I could see the vast difference between civil society groups and also the focus on different issues, and transparency being a very big one for many and I loved seeing the creative ways people visualized information and THE AUDACITY OF SHAW: HOW CANADA'S INTERNET JUST GOT WORSE It is really, really, really hard to believe. But as bad as internet access is in Canada, it just got worse. Yesterday, Shaw Communications, a Canadian telecommunications company and internet service provider (ISP) that works mostly in Western Canada announced they are launching Movie Club, a new service to compete with Netflix.On the surface
IN THE MEDIA
In the Media. I’ve just started to flesh this out but here are some links to mentions, quotes and recent interviews I’ve done in the press and so forth: Evan Soloman’s Power & Politics – I’m a fairly regular guest pundit on politics and technology, ongoing. Analysts and stakeholders weigh in on legislation – Toronto StarTRAVEL | EAVES.CA
For those who fly too much (and I fly WAY too much) you may find this little utility handy. Flying Fish is a free program that calculates the air miles one will accrue on any flight. For such a small piece of software (500K!) it is jam packed with features, however, its basic functionality remains wonderfully simple: just type in the airport codes (e.g YVR=Vancouver) for a trip involvingMODEL POWER
Building on this perspective, we propose that Canada become a Model Power—a country whose influence is linked to its ability to innovate, experiment, and partner; a country that, by presenting itself as a model, invites the world to assess, challenge, borrow from, and contribute to, its efforts. In pursuit of our vision ofCanada as a Model
THE END OF THE BEGINNING OF DIGITAL SERVICE UNITS The exciting part about being at the end of the beginning is that the model of digital service units has been sufficiently validated that more and more governments will likely experiment with them over the coming 5 years. In addition, these new groups will benefit from a clearer roadmap and lessons learned from those who came before. THE THREE LAWS OF OPEN GOVERNMENT DATA Yesterday, at the Right To Know Week panel discussion - Conference for Parliamentarians: Transparency in the Digital Era - organized by the Office of the Information Commissioner I shared three laws for Open Government Data that I'd devised on the flight from Vancouver. The Three Laws of Open Government Data: If it can’t be spidered CULTURAL THEORIES OF RISK AND THE RISE OF EMERGENCE 8 thoughts on “ Cultural theories of risk and the rise of emergence systems ” Robert Kaiser November 24, 2008 at 8:28 am. I don't think the Egalitarians are something new, actually many religious sects (at least those not going the strictly hierarchical way) fall very muchinto that category.
THE AUDACITY OF SHAW: HOW CANADA'S INTERNET JUST GOT WORSE It is really, really, really hard to believe. But as bad as internet access is in Canada, it just got worse. Yesterday, Shaw Communications, a Canadian telecommunications company and internet service provider (ISP) that works mostly in Western Canada announced they are launching Movie Club, a new service to compete with Netflix.On the surface
SOME THOUGHTS ON THE OPEN GOVERNMENT PARTNERSHIP 5 thoughts on “ Some thoughts on the Open Government Partnership ” Tracey P. Lauriault April 19, 2012 at 4:05 pm. Thanks for this context David. Watching online from Canada I could see the vast difference between civil society groups and also the focus on different issues, and transparency being a very big one for many and I loved seeing the creative ways people visualized information and THE END OF CANADA POST AND THE COMING WAR FOR YOUR MAILBOX 5 thoughts on “ The End of Canada Post and the Coming War for Your Mailbox ” clarkbw December 12, 2013 at 5:45 am. Looking around I’ve found a number of bylaws about distributing handbills and flyers in commercial settings or on the streets. VANCOUVER ENTERS THE AGE OF THE OPEN CITY A few hours ago, Vancouver's city government posted the agenda to a council meeting next week in which this motion will be read: MOTION ON NOTICE Open Data, Open Standards and Open Source MOVER: Councillor Andrea Reimer SECONDER: Councillor WHEREAS the City of Vancouver is committed to bringing the community into City Hall by engaging EAVES.CA | IF WRITING IS A MUSCLE, THIS IS MY GYMABOUT DAVIDPUBLIC SPEAKINGPUBLICATIONSIN THE MEDIAGET IN TOUCHCOMMENTARY Covid-19: Lessons from and for Government Digital Service Groups. This article was written by David Eaves, lecturer at the Harvard Kennedy School, Tom Loosemore, Partner at Public Digital, with Tommaso Cariati and Blanka Soulava, students at the Harvard Kennedy School. It first appeared in Apolitical. Government digital services have provenPUBLICATIONS
David publishes regularly in The Mark and The Globe and Mail. (Those links will take you to a list of his pieces for each publication.) Chapters, Articles and White Papers Using the Tools of the 21st Century: Open Data and Wikis, Approaching Public Administration: Core Debates and Emerging Issues, (ed. Roberto P. Leone & FrankTEACHING | EAVES.CA
Teaching in an empty room is hard. Teaching to a zoom call with nothing but grey phone icons feels just as hard. We get so much feedback from people’s faces, expressions and posture, I wanted my solution to maximize this feedback. Facilitate multitasking between students, slides and comments.ABOUT DAVID
A public policy entrepreneur, open government activist and negotiation expert, David is a Lecturer of Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. At HKS, he teaches on digital transformation, service delivery, open government and open data. David is also a co-founder of ReCollect Systems, a company that provides software services to hundreds ofPUBLIC SPEAKING
Public Speaking. Photo by James Duncan Davidson. I am regularly invited to give keynotes, speeches and presentations on Open Strategies, Negotiating, Collaboration, Conflict Management, Technology, Open Government and Open Data. To date I’ve given talks across Europe, and North America, as well as in Brazil, China, andSouth Africa.
EDUCATION | EAVES.CA Earlier this month the Vancouver School Board (VSB) released an iPhone app that – helpfully – will use push notifications to inform parents about school holidays, parent interviews, and scheduling disruptions such as snow days. The app is okay, it’s a little clunky to use, and a lot of the data – such as professional days – while helpful in an app, would be even more helpful as an WIKI'S AND OPEN SOURCE: COLLABORATIVE OR Mike Beltzner February 12, 2007 at 12:24 am. There’s a subtle tools problem here, and in many cases I think that people do work collaboratively whenever possible, but end up partitioning and co-operating when tools fail them.In the realm of Open Source Software Development, for example, I often bear witness to two or more people working together to solve a problem on IRC. WHY THE INTERNET WILL SHAPE SOCIAL VALUES (AND NOT THE The biggest problem in predicting the future isn't envisaging what technologies will emerge - it is forecasting how individuals and communities will respond to these technologies. In other words I often find people treat technology as a variable, but social values as a constant. Consequently, as they peer into tomorrow, technology isexamined only in
SOME THOUGHTS ON THE OPEN GOVERNMENT PARTNERSHIP 5 thoughts on “ Some thoughts on the Open Government Partnership ” Tracey P. Lauriault April 19, 2012 at 4:05 pm. Thanks for this context David. Watching online from Canada I could see the vast difference between civil society groups and also the focus on different issues, and transparency being a very big one for many and I loved seeing the creative ways people visualized information and THE AUDACITY OF SHAW: HOW CANADA'S INTERNET JUST GOT WORSE It is really, really, really hard to believe. But as bad as internet access is in Canada, it just got worse. Yesterday, Shaw Communications, a Canadian telecommunications company and internet service provider (ISP) that works mostly in Western Canada announced they are launching Movie Club, a new service to compete with Netflix.On the surface
EAVES.CA | IF WRITING IS A MUSCLE, THIS IS MY GYMABOUT DAVIDPUBLIC SPEAKINGPUBLICATIONSIN THE MEDIAGET IN TOUCHCOMMENTARY Covid-19: Lessons from and for Government Digital Service Groups. This article was written by David Eaves, lecturer at the Harvard Kennedy School, Tom Loosemore, Partner at Public Digital, with Tommaso Cariati and Blanka Soulava, students at the Harvard Kennedy School. It first appeared in Apolitical. Government digital services have provenPUBLICATIONS
David publishes regularly in The Mark and The Globe and Mail. (Those links will take you to a list of his pieces for each publication.) Chapters, Articles and White Papers Using the Tools of the 21st Century: Open Data and Wikis, Approaching Public Administration: Core Debates and Emerging Issues, (ed. Roberto P. Leone & FrankTEACHING | EAVES.CA
Teaching in an empty room is hard. Teaching to a zoom call with nothing but grey phone icons feels just as hard. We get so much feedback from people’s faces, expressions and posture, I wanted my solution to maximize this feedback. Facilitate multitasking between students, slides and comments.ABOUT DAVID
A public policy entrepreneur, open government activist and negotiation expert, David is a Lecturer of Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. At HKS, he teaches on digital transformation, service delivery, open government and open data. David is also a co-founder of ReCollect Systems, a company that provides software services to hundreds ofPUBLIC SPEAKING
Public Speaking. Photo by James Duncan Davidson. I am regularly invited to give keynotes, speeches and presentations on Open Strategies, Negotiating, Collaboration, Conflict Management, Technology, Open Government and Open Data. To date I’ve given talks across Europe, and North America, as well as in Brazil, China, andSouth Africa.
EDUCATION | EAVES.CA Earlier this month the Vancouver School Board (VSB) released an iPhone app that – helpfully – will use push notifications to inform parents about school holidays, parent interviews, and scheduling disruptions such as snow days. The app is okay, it’s a little clunky to use, and a lot of the data – such as professional days – while helpful in an app, would be even more helpful as an WIKI'S AND OPEN SOURCE: COLLABORATIVE OR Mike Beltzner February 12, 2007 at 12:24 am. There’s a subtle tools problem here, and in many cases I think that people do work collaboratively whenever possible, but end up partitioning and co-operating when tools fail them.In the realm of Open Source Software Development, for example, I often bear witness to two or more people working together to solve a problem on IRC. WHY THE INTERNET WILL SHAPE SOCIAL VALUES (AND NOT THE The biggest problem in predicting the future isn't envisaging what technologies will emerge - it is forecasting how individuals and communities will respond to these technologies. In other words I often find people treat technology as a variable, but social values as a constant. Consequently, as they peer into tomorrow, technology isexamined only in
SOME THOUGHTS ON THE OPEN GOVERNMENT PARTNERSHIP 5 thoughts on “ Some thoughts on the Open Government Partnership ” Tracey P. Lauriault April 19, 2012 at 4:05 pm. Thanks for this context David. Watching online from Canada I could see the vast difference between civil society groups and also the focus on different issues, and transparency being a very big one for many and I loved seeing the creative ways people visualized information and THE AUDACITY OF SHAW: HOW CANADA'S INTERNET JUST GOT WORSE It is really, really, really hard to believe. But as bad as internet access is in Canada, it just got worse. Yesterday, Shaw Communications, a Canadian telecommunications company and internet service provider (ISP) that works mostly in Western Canada announced they are launching Movie Club, a new service to compete with Netflix.On the surface
IN THE MEDIA
In the Media. I’ve just started to flesh this out but here are some links to mentions, quotes and recent interviews I’ve done in the press and so forth: Evan Soloman’s Power & Politics – I’m a fairly regular guest pundit on politics and technology, ongoing. Analysts and stakeholders weigh in on legislation – Toronto StarTRAVEL | EAVES.CA
For those who fly too much (and I fly WAY too much) you may find this little utility handy. Flying Fish is a free program that calculates the air miles one will accrue on any flight. For such a small piece of software (500K!) it is jam packed with features, however, its basic functionality remains wonderfully simple: just type in the airport codes (e.g YVR=Vancouver) for a trip involvingMODEL POWER
Building on this perspective, we propose that Canada become a Model Power—a country whose influence is linked to its ability to innovate, experiment, and partner; a country that, by presenting itself as a model, invites the world to assess, challenge, borrow from, and contribute to, its efforts. In pursuit of our vision ofCanada as a Model
THE END OF THE BEGINNING OF DIGITAL SERVICE UNITS The exciting part about being at the end of the beginning is that the model of digital service units has been sufficiently validated that more and more governments will likely experiment with them over the coming 5 years. In addition, these new groups will benefit from a clearer roadmap and lessons learned from those who came before. THE THREE LAWS OF OPEN GOVERNMENT DATA Yesterday, at the Right To Know Week panel discussion - Conference for Parliamentarians: Transparency in the Digital Era - organized by the Office of the Information Commissioner I shared three laws for Open Government Data that I'd devised on the flight from Vancouver. The Three Laws of Open Government Data: If it can’t be spidered CULTURAL THEORIES OF RISK AND THE RISE OF EMERGENCE 8 thoughts on “ Cultural theories of risk and the rise of emergence systems ” Robert Kaiser November 24, 2008 at 8:28 am. I don't think the Egalitarians are something new, actually many religious sects (at least those not going the strictly hierarchical way) fall very muchinto that category.
THE AUDACITY OF SHAW: HOW CANADA'S INTERNET JUST GOT WORSE It is really, really, really hard to believe. But as bad as internet access is in Canada, it just got worse. Yesterday, Shaw Communications, a Canadian telecommunications company and internet service provider (ISP) that works mostly in Western Canada announced they are launching Movie Club, a new service to compete with Netflix.On the surface
SOME THOUGHTS ON THE OPEN GOVERNMENT PARTNERSHIP 5 thoughts on “ Some thoughts on the Open Government Partnership ” Tracey P. Lauriault April 19, 2012 at 4:05 pm. Thanks for this context David. Watching online from Canada I could see the vast difference between civil society groups and also the focus on different issues, and transparency being a very big one for many and I loved seeing the creative ways people visualized information and THE END OF CANADA POST AND THE COMING WAR FOR YOUR MAILBOX 5 thoughts on “ The End of Canada Post and the Coming War for Your Mailbox ” clarkbw December 12, 2013 at 5:45 am. Looking around I’ve found a number of bylaws about distributing handbills and flyers in commercial settings or on the streets. VANCOUVER ENTERS THE AGE OF THE OPEN CITY A few hours ago, Vancouver's city government posted the agenda to a council meeting next week in which this motion will be read: MOTION ON NOTICE Open Data, Open Standards and Open Source MOVER: Councillor Andrea Reimer SECONDER: Councillor WHEREAS the City of Vancouver is committed to bringing the community into City Hall by engagingEAVES.CA
IF WRITING IS A MUSCLE, THIS IS MY GYM Menu Skip to content* Home
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LECTURING AND TEACHING REMOTELY — MY SETUP AND APPROACH2 Replies
I just ran a workshop/facilitate this morning for a number of the Chief Digital Officers from several European capital cities to help them share best practices and shared challenges in their respond to COVID19. I very much enjoyed the session and my set up has me excited about how remote teaching can approximate the intimacy and interaction of in person teaching. This, combined with some wise words from Ron Heifetz - who shared in an online lecture yesterday how leadership is often just doing what needs to be done - has me writing this post. My present job is to teach, provide students some stability and help prepare them for a rapidly evolving and uncertain world. So… this is me both trying to exercise leadership and, to be truthful, engage in some writing therapy, trying to share something small but hopefully useful for my colleagues and extended community. CONTEXT - WE’RE ALL REMOTE TEACHERS NOW Last week Harvard announced that all classes for the rest of the semester would be taught remotely, and that includes me. I miss our students already, and they have so much uncertainty to deal with. And, this is the right move. Students and faculty should absolutely be practicing social distancing. So suddenly, many of us need to teach remotely. I’ve strong preference about my teaching environment so I can express myself effectively, maintain energy and ensure the type of engagement with students I think is necessary to enable learning. Here I’ll share what my guiding criteria were and then how I cobbled together some equipment I (or my partner) had around the house to set up my teaching environment. Hoping others may find this helpful. Oh, and sidebar, I’d also encourage you to take a look at Teddy Svoronos website which is filled with great tips around tech and teaching, I’m a huge fan of Teddyand Dan Levy
who are the kings of pedagogy here at the Harvard Kennedy School. MY CRITERIA FOR A GOOD ENVIRONMENT I’ve been running meetings via zoom with up to 35 people for a couple of years now now. Teaching is different but there is a lot of overlap. In addition, I’ve been lucky to experience a fair amount of remote teaching. This includes courses for mayors and chiefs of staff in the Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative using the HBX Live Platform . That was a huge luxury as HBX is ridiculous. It’s effectively a studio with multiple cameras and a cameraperson following you around as you teach to 60+ people each on three foot high screens (see photo below). Not replicable at home, but it opened my eyes to how being mobile - even remotely - matters. HBX Live Studio - it’s amazing, but doesn’t scale to my guestroom
I’ve also taught over zoom from my office such as this mornings session mentioned above, or a month or two ago, teaching my Aadhaarcase study
to a group of journalists in Africa. That experience highlighted why getting the audio right, and being able to flip from slides to discussion quickly is important. So my main criteria in setting up my environment included: _Spend little or no money_ Listen, as amazing as HBX Live is, we’re not going to be recreating it in our homes. And who knows how long this will go on for. I’m sure most faculty aren’t keen to spend a lot of money for something they may only need for 2–6 months. _See the whites of my students eyes_ Teaching in an empty room is hard. Teaching to a zoom call with nothing but grey phone icons feels just as hard. We get so much feedback from people’s faces, expressions and posture, I wanted my solution to maximize this feedback. _Facilitate multitasking between students, slides and comments_ Obviously one needs to see and be able to advance slides, but this is secondary to seeing and engaging with students (I already know the content of my slides). Critically, I don’t want my own screen dominated by slides and limit to showing a handful of students (say, no more than just 4–5 which is what zoom will default to when you are sharing a presentation). _Be more than a floating head on a screen_ When I teach I like to roam the room and am fairly expressive with my body language. Teaching an hour and 15 minute class while sitting down doesn’t enable me to engage or maintain the level of energy I’ve come to expect of myself. I also think students benefit form seeing more than just a talking head. _Have great sound quality_ And that means… not letting my kids yelling in the room next door interfere with the class. I’m obviously expecting a full on BBC talking head kid intervention will occur at some point this semester, but I want to keep out the sound from the rest of thehouse.
So here is my set up: Thank you to some of my students helping me calibrate my set upTHE SETUP
The key was figuring out I could hijack our virtually unused television. I list more details on the equipment below, but here ishow it works.
I log into zoom on my iPhone which I attach to the top of my TV. My iPhone is used to capture video of me and to share any slides I might have (I’ve moved to Google Slides). I can easily advance slides by swiping, I can also switch to chat to see any student comments fairlyeasily.
I then log in again on my laptop. I mute the laptop speakers, mic and video. I move the zoom app to the TV where I display all the participants (and effectively hide the slides by shrinking them to be as small as possible). This semester I’m teaching a required course - API-501 Policy Design and Delivery- which has about 60 students, and I can see almost 50 of them at on this screen, and they are decently sized so I can see the whites of their eyes. One could just use the audio from the phone or the laptop, but I happen to have a plantronics wireless headset (this is the one investment I’d probably encourage you to make as they don’t pick up ANY sound from more than a few inches from your mouth - it is incredible). This ensures that no sounds from outside or elsewhere in the house interfere with the class. It connects via bluetooth to either my phone or computer depending whichone I want to use.
This arrangement allows students to see anywhere from 1/3rd to my whole body depending on where I stand. This allows me to pace and use body language more effectively. It also means I’m pretty much compelled to stand (which I like - I find it keeps the energy level up). I could bring in a high chair from another room, butwon’t for now.
THE NORMS
I’ve a handful of simple norms I use as well. These include: * Everyone must use video. A classroom is a community. That community functions a lot better if people can see one another. * Ask all participants to fill out their name in zoom, and then set zoom to always display names. At HKS we have name placards students bring to every class - this strikes me as a virtual version. * Faculty and/or course assistants should log in 5–10 minutes early to ensure the room is ready when people show up. * Use the raise hand feature in zoom. It is much harder to read the queues about when to jump in and interrupt a lecture. When someone does raise a hand - I try to get to the questions ASAP, ideally within 15–30 seconds if not immediately, to encourage people to raise hands and engage. * Everyone stays on mute unless they are talking THE EQUIPMENT & SOFTWARE * Zoom . I won’t go into this since basically everyone is getting a crash course in using it right now. In my case, the university provides this. * Whatsapp (or Slack ). I use this to backchannel with the course assistants. Mostly for them to yell at me if I missed something or someone. My course assistants and I have been coordinating on Whatsapp before all these changes.* JOBY GorillaPod
,
basically a crazy tripod that you can use to afix or stabilize your phone to anything. My partner had one I was able to snag. * Plantronics wireless headset,
I’ve already sung the praises of these. They really are crazy good for phone calls as they block out background noise in an amazing way. * Mobile Phone, you’ve probably got one. * Laptop, you could use a desktop computer as well. * Big Screen TV, I happen to have underused one (I haven’t had cable in almost a decade, so… these just don’t get used). * Not shown - but I occasionally have a music stand in front of me with an iPad on it which I use to monitor the in class chat. * Rockband drum set, this is not actually part of the setup, but I suspect some of you noticed it. We found this old used one, and I’ve been thinking of setting up to the kids and I can play… Hope this is helpful. Mostly nice to just write something. Hope you are all self-isolating, staying safe and reaching out to loved ones. 42.373616 -71.109733 This entry was posted in Teachingand tagged harvard
, remote work
, Teaching
on March 21, 2020
by David Eaves .
“THEY’LL JUST MAKE IT ILLEGAL”7 Replies
CRYPTOCURRENCIES, PUBLIC GOODS & THE STATE Late last year, I and a colleague from HKS were meeting with a VC I’d gotten to know in San Francisco. As an opening salvo in the conversation, the VC asked us “aren’t you worried about a cryptocurrency making the US dollar obsolete?” I replied that if that such a threat became likely, the federal government might simply make cryptocurrencies illegal. So no, I wasn’t that worried. The entrepreneur was incredulous — how could the government possibly stand in the way of something so broad and valuable? And, logistically, how could they actually stop anyone? My colleague, who has a few years on me and has served in senior government roles, chuckled. HE REMARKED THAT THE PRIVATE OWNERSHIP OF GOLD BULLION HADBEEN ILLEGAL
_IN
HIS LIFETIME_.
My colleague’s point highlights a blind spot for the larger cryptocurrency (and possibly, the broader blockchain) community. In the excitement surrounding the rapid rise of cryptocurrencies and other blockchain technologies, the focus on decentralization, disintermediation and private benefit has come at the expense of a conversation about the enormous “public goods ” the present financial system offers and the power of the state — on behalf of citizens — to protect the provision of said goods. IF CRYPTOCURRENCIES ARE GOING TO BECOME IMPORTANT, THE COMMUNITY BACKING THEM NEEDS TO SPEND TIME THINKING ABOUT WHAT SYSTEMS NEED EMERGE AROUND THE TECHNOLOGY THAT WILL PROVIDE AT LEAST SOME OF THE CRITICAL PUBLIC GOODS CREATED BY THE STATUS QUO. This is not a defense of the current financial and banking system. The status quo comes at great cost — high rents paid to financial intermediary institutions along with other various and protected oligarchies. However, it also provides benefits in the form of public goods. It generates and sustains core functions of the broader state and economy such as tools to capture tax revenues, prevent money laundering and terrorism financing, capacity to control the money supply, protect consumers and investors, and ensure market integrity and even (a degree of) financial stability. In a world of cryptocurrencies, who will provide these public goods? This question arose in a conversation with Gary Gensler,
the former Chair of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission in the Obama administration and current Senior Lecturer at MIT during a talk he gave at digital HKS here at the Harvard Kennedy School. Gensler identified some of the key features, challenges, and potential priorities for blockchain governance, and in one part of the discussion, he zoomed in on issue areas where public policy makers have urgent questions for cryptocurrency’s role: * complying with the tax code; * preventing money laundering; * providing stability and market integrity; * protecting consumers and investors. There’s another way to read this list — as a catalogue of those public goods which, through hundreds of years of government, business, and democratic processes, we’ve agreed are priorities and values our finance and currency systems should reflect. But it is not clear if the current iterations of cryptocurrencies can provide the kind of integrity, laundering prevention, and tax compliance we’ve come to expect. Indeed, many of cryptocurrencies’ biggest advocates celebrate the fact that they will not. When I talk to cryptocurrency and blockchain advocates, they usually tell me that the decentralized ledger will prevent excessive intrusion by government by making transactions anonymous and prevent excessive rents from going to financial institutions by dis-intermediating transactions. My counter is that people might like the concept of anonymity, and they may even hate their bank, but they like a functioning society and (relatively) stable financial markets a lot more. In fact, we’re usually willing to sacrifice some anonymity, or create governance systems (warrants) that impinge on them in exchange for public goods like law and order. Anonymity may be a concern for high net-worth individuals and money launderers, but I’ve yet to see evidence that the vast majority of the world’s citizens feel that absolute anonymity is an urgent issue to address. It’s true that the current financial system involves high rents paid to intermediary institutions — but one big reason is that society benefits from the market integrity, protection against laundering, and tax compliance that system provides. As consumers and citizens, at least some part of the rents we’re paying to the financial sector (and the decision to regulate that sector) reflect how much we value those public goods. I agree that the current system is imperfect (and the rents possibly too high), but if you dismantle the system to remove those costs, you are also dismantle the benefits. When I talk to cryptocurrency advocates, they typically argue about _private_benefits but I want to hear more about the _public _benefits, either being created or sacrificed. That’s the conversation we need to focus on — because if we don’t, and cryptocurrencies take off, there is a real risk that national governments will respond in a way that’s both aggressive and counterproductive for all parties. So far, governments have been relatively hands-off, and there aren’t signs of major legislative action on cryptocurrencies in the next few years. But part of that complacency has been tied to cryptocurrencies not yet threatening the status quo, and the growth trajectory we’re on could change that soon. If we can’t figure out how to ensure that cryptocurrencies create the public goods we expect of a financial and currency system, there’s a very real chance that governments won’t wait around; they’ll move to prohibition. Let me be very clear — I think this would be a terrible outcome for everyone involved. When government proscribes things that people like and find useful, it distorts behavior, can serve as an excuse to violate democratic norms in other areas, and wastes resources — and we’ve learned this through Prohibition and the War on Drugs. But unfettered financial markets without any consumer safety, investor protection, or integrity aren’t pretty either — and we should be very concerned about the equity implications of a new free-for-all. I’m not calling for a cryptocurrency ban or suggesting it’s guaranteed to happen. Cryptocurrencies have incredible potential to transform not only the financial sector, but vast regions of life and public policy. But the blockchain community’s trumpeting of features they love without attention to the public goods that citizens actually value is dangerous for the future of this technology. We need to think critically about how to protect consumers in case these technologies become mainstream, so that we don’t have the same kinds of crises that have happened for taxi drivers that invested in medallions. We need to think about how cryptocurrencies will support the public funding and spending that benefits all of us, so that we aren’t just using collective dislike of the banking system to dismantle a system that provides us with important goods. Today, Gary Gensler is arguingthat
many cryptocurrencies are noncompliant securities and will be taken off the market, suggesting that the slumbering beast of government is finally awakening to police this space. We need to work hard to ensure that the beast focuses its work in the right direction: to use the advantages and efficiencies of blockchain technology to strengthen and protect the public goods that matter to all of us. _This piece was written by __DAVID EAVES_ _, Lecturer in Public Policy at HKS and __BEN MCGUIRE_ _, an HKSstudent._
This entry was posted in Uncategorizedon June 22, 2018
by David
Eaves .
THE END OF THE BEGINNING OF DIGITAL SERVICE UNITSLeave a reply
BALANCING USERS, PLATFORMS, AND BUY-IN STRATEGIES FOR NATIONALDIGITAL TEAMS
_This week, __digital HKS_ _ is partnering with __Public Digital_ _ to convene digital services units from around the world. We will talk about what is and, more importantly, what is not working, with their work. Our intention is to make this an annual gathering where digital service groups can exchange learnings, explore shared challenges, converge around common language and frameworks and identify research questions._ > Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. > But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning. We are at an interesting time for digital service units. One the one hand, the novelty and newness of these teams has worn off; on the other hand, there is growing acceptance by many governments that these teams are useful tool in driving new practices, particularly agile development processes and user centric design. Less clear, but still a possibility, is the key question of whether these units can enable the deeper digital transformation that will prompt a fundamental rethink in how technology could re-shape governments for the 21st century. At the project level we’ve seen some very promising successes. While at the enterprise level — trying to answer the key question about deeper digital transformation— there are few dramatic results. So, on the whole, no unqualified successes, but given the magnitude of the task and the size of the governments this is a tall ask. And, to counter, few failures and lots of tactical wins. Equally important, a lot has been learned. So much so that we now stand at the end of the beginning for digital services units. The end of the beginning, because a rough consensus around a “north star” and general tactics has emerged. And not _the_ end, as we are both far from the end of the journey and have earned ample license to carryon.
SOME BACKGROUND
Since the founding of the UK Government Digital Service in 2011, the number of digital service groups — teams of digital experts, often drawn from the commercial tech industry and combined with in house government talent, and tasked with “digitizing” government — has exploded. Today Peru, Argentina, United States, Mexico, Canada, Italy and Australia are just a few of the countries with such units, joining the ranks of long-evolving government technology programs in pioneers like Estonia,
Israel and Singapore.
In addition, a growing number of sub-national actors, such California, Ontario and Georgia also boast these teams. In the US, the United States Digital Service (USDS) has led projects across federal bureaucracies and produced public resources like the Digital Services Playbook , College Scorecard , and TechFAR Handbook . It is now training a new generation of digitally oriented procurement officers on technology procurement practices.
WHERE WE ARE TODAY
In short, as a form of both organizations and a theory of driving change, digital service groups are a relatively mature. Maybe not a mature practice, but certainly a mature experiment by this time. We’re no longer in a development phase when digital services has to prove its need to exist in the first place; in most jurisdictions _political_ awareness of the need to improve the delivery of online services is real. And in some (but hardly all) jurisdictions, _public servants_ see the value in improved technology infrastructure and access. The model of digital service units has, for both good and ill, earned enough political capital to be given some runway and to continue the work that they do. Equally important, two key pieces of the puzzle seem to have become clear. The first is a “North Star” to guide digital service teams on their journey. Specifically, whether they can build them today or not, CREATING OR ACQUIRING A CORE GOVERNMENT PLATFORM (e.g., single sign on, payments, identity) is the end game most digital teams know they need to get to. Some digital service groups are able to work on these already. Others are too busy with specific projects, putting out fires, and or building credibility or capacity to engage in this work. However, creating common platforms to power governments services is key to digital transformation over the long term. If groups cannot work on it today, there is an emerging consensus that they should create the political capital and conditions, to enable them to steer towards this outcome. The second piece of the puzzle has been validation that USING AN AGILE PROCESS TO START WITH, AND FOCUS ON, USERS IS THE AMONG THE MOST EFFECTIVE TACTICS FOR ACHIEVING SHORT TERM SUCCESS. Whether it is rolling out a new digital application for health care at VeteransAffairs
or
making it easier to assign power of attorneyin the UK,
user-centered projects yield real and tangible benefits for users and huge political value for elected officials. Focusing on users also serves as a way to cleave through bureaucracy and force divergent interests to adhere to a common goal. This emerging consensus — steer towards building common platforms tools while using the focus on user needs to power you through projects on the way there — is helpful. It gives people a shared roadmap and common language and frameworks that transcendjurisdictions.
CHALLENGES
While confirming that such a consensus exists will be one helpful goal of the convening, so to will be understanding shared challenges. Interestingly, these two trends mentioned above can be in competition. Focusing on the user’s satisfaction against all other goals can turn digital services groups into web design shops that roll out functional and pretty websites — but accomplish little in the way of deeper transformation, particularly in underlying legacy systems. On the opposite end of the spectrum, focusing exclusively on building platform services can be hard to pull off without real needs and users to validate against. More importantly, not working on complete services cause units to not demonstrate short-term tangible benefits to citizens (and therefore their elected officials). _Plotting digital services on this matrix could help identify shared theories of change and approaches_ The other common challenge among many digital units we talk to is in how they negotiate for buy-in within their own bureaucratic context. Some have been granted (or grabbed) as much power and authority as possible to control digital projects across government. In some cases, this paid off. It can enforce standards and practices and prevent large, poorly designed projects that confuse and frustrate users, and prevent digital services from getting off the ground in the first place. It also often creates major political challenges. Those whose projects are killed or whose practices must adapt can become competitors and even opponents within the government. Other teams focus on gently cajoling government partners and organizations to go along; they upsell the potential savings of a website redesign, trumpet the happiness of core users when they interact with new tools, and home in on how shared services allow more differentiated value. Building consensus can be great, but it can also take time, and without enforcement mechanisms may ultimately prove to weak to prompt an enterprise wide shift. And of course, while digital service groups may be mature experiments, surviving transitions in government is always a critical challenge. Ensuring there is multi-party support and that there is continuity even as administrations change — like the work of most public servants — is essential. IF THIS IS THE END OF THE BEGINNING, WHAT’S NEXT? The exciting part about being at the end of the beginning is that the model of digital service units has been sufficiently validated that more and more governments will likely experiment with them over the coming 5 years. In addition, these new groups will benefit from a clearer roadmap and lessons learned from those who came before. In addition, I suspect that expectations have been more appropriately calibrated. For better or for worse, political masters now expect incremental wins on a project by project basis — not enterprisetransformation.
So what’s next? In the short term the north star and tactics outlined above answer that question. Continue to deliver value on projects, drive agile methodologies and user focused approaches while nudging towards platform services. The key is to maintain or build political capital —or what my colleague Mark Moore refers to as capacity for authority — to prepare for the next phase. Because, as hard as it is to believe, today is likely the easiest part of the journey. Behind us is the hard part of starting up. Today is about building capital and capacity. What’s next in the mid term…? Along slow battle over what the structure and shape of government will look like. And making progress on that I fear will be infinitely more difficult and painful than improving services on a project by projectbasis.
_This piece was written by __DAVID EAVES_ _, Lecturer in Public Policy at HKS and __BEN MCGUIRE_ _, an HKSstudent._
This entry was posted in Uncategorizedon June 12, 2018
by David Eaves .
TEACHING POLICY PEOPLE TO CODE AT THE HARVARD KENNEDY SCHOOLLeave a reply
PART 1: HYPOTHESIS & GOALSCONTEXT
This summer, digital HKS is excited to launch an experimental pilot that will help MPP and MPA students at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government (HKS) learn Python. Over the next two to three months, we’ll share more details about this experiment: why we are running it, how we are going about doing it, what we hope will happen, what actually did happen. We’ll also share how this effort dovetails with some of our thoughts about the future of technology and technologists in the public sector. In this first post we will talk about why we’ve chosen to provide resources to teaching students to code, and why we think tackling this challenge over the summer is the right approach. MEASURING AND SATISFYING DEMAND One thing which hasn’t been clear to many faculty at HKS is the appetite among students to learn how to code. Most assumed that a small minority cared: we suspected the number was significant. Our first step was to simply create a Google Form to solicit interest to see if the experiment was even worth considering. This form was our Minimum Viable Product. If after
sharing it with students, no one filled it out, we could pack everything up and move on to the next thing. However, after emailing all incoming and a large minority of returning students, about 245 HKS students expressed an interest in participating (representing about 27 percent of all policy and administration students next year — we did not offer the course to mid-career students as they are pre-occupied with an existing summer program). To be clear, we don’t expect every one of these students to participate or complete the course (although we are hoping to get as many as possible), but this outcome still stands as a significant signal of interest. FOCUSING IN ON DATA FUNDAMENTALS: _A Huge Opportunity for Data and the Public Interest_ The power of data in public policy analysis and development has always been at the core of how the HKS enables its students to engage in transformative public-sector management. This isn’t the only value proposition of the school; there’s a constant and healthy tension between those who focus in quantitative methods and those who believe in the power of narrative, adaptive leadership, and negotiation to drive policy. Yet today more than ever before, data exists within the public sector and on the internet that, if unlocked, could create significant public goods and help solve public problems. When HKS was founded, datasets tended to be limited in number and scope. They were expensive to produce, relatively high quality, and created for statistical analysis by agencies and economists. Today, almost the reverse is true. Public servants live in a world awash in data–but it’s messy, unstructured, and it takes a special set of skills to find value within it. The fundamental skillsets and ways of thinking necessary to successfully leverage this new world of data are different from the skillsets demanded in the past. Equipping policy students for today’s data rich, but messy world, is part of the goalof this experiment.
_Teaching A Large, Popular, and Growing Language popular with DataScientists_
One question we occasionally get is ‘Why Python?’ For us, Python occupies a sweet spot. The narrow goal of the summer camp is to enable HKS students to take CS109 — the introduction to data science. However, beyond that, dedicated graduates of this summer camp could to skill “up” into software development more generally or data science more specifically. At the same time, participants could also easily skill “down” and learn R for data analysis and statistics. An additional reason is there is a lot of demand for Python skills in the labor market. In 2017, labor market analytics firm Burning Glass Technologies found that across industries, demand for Python-related skills grew by 182%in
the last two years–and average advertised salary for jobs that required Python knowledge was $101,903. Increasingly, this includes jobs in the public or non-profit sector. Simply visiting Code for America’s job board gives a sample of some jobs for which coding in python is important. MAKING USE OF THE SUMMER: _High Opportunity Cost for Fall and Spring Introductory ComputerScience_
I actively discourage MPP or MPA students from taking basic coding courses _while at Harvard_ and believe the Kennedy School’s decision to let students register for them was, and is, _a_ _terrible idea. _The opportunity cost of taking such a course is enormous. There are many free or low-cost courses for learning to code; why would you pay a Harvard tuition to do what is essentially free??? Worse, time spent in a coding class is time students won’t spend taking courses that are truly unique, with incredible faculty students can only find here. Marshall Ganzis respected and
beloved the world over for his scholarship and practice of building self-reliant and strong communities–students can spend a semester getting his advice and training on a real-life organizing project within their own communities. Former UN Ambassador Samantha Powerhas fought for
human rights and democracy in some of the toughest diplomatic environments on earth — and she’s here on campus to share that experience. Khalil Muhammadis one of the
nation’s leading scholars on race and inequality; his courses push our students to understand the critical role of history and institutions in today’s policies, and how to move forward. These courses are, for many, once in a lifetime opportunities. We know that students want to add coding or data science skills to their resume, and taking this summer pilot course is not a way to avoid taking computer science courses. Rather, it’s our goal to make sure students can take value-add courses in machine learning and advanced topics, while still making time for the incredible professors we have here in the building. KEEPING YOU UP TO DATE All of us at digital HKS look forward to seeing how the students build their skills during the summer, and the kinds of academic and professional doors that opens for them in the coming year. Keep an eye out for future posts from us — and as always, don’t hesitate to reach out to us with questions. _This piece was written by __DAVID EAVES_ _, Lecturer in Public Policy at HKS and __BEN MCGUIRE_ _, an HKS student who is, by chance, participating in the Python Pilot._ This entry was posted in Uncategorizedon June 5, 2018
by David Eaves .
TEACHING DIGITAL AT THE KENNEDY SCHOOL OF GOVERNMENT: PART 6: BRINGING IT TOGETHERLeave a reply
Okay, so to recap, here at the Kennedy School of Government I’m interested in the SOCIAL, ECONOMIC AND POLICY CHANGES BROUGHT ABOUT BY THE WAY DIGITAL TECHNOLOGIES EXPAND OR THREATEN HOW WE CAN SOLVE PROBLEMS, RELATE TO ONE ANOTHER, AND REIMAGINE INSTITUTIONS AND THEWORLD.
We have a range of students who fall into three broad camps: To whom we are focused on teaching a culture of learning as well as a number of key foundational topics and skills: Core foundational topics for understanding digital To help them grasp a wide range of concepts, processes and tools made possible by digital technology: An illustrative list of possible concepts to teach at a Policy Schoolaround digital
I combine those to provide a more general framework for how I think about teaching digital at a policy school that looks like this. Starting to put it all together here. One element I like about this chart is that it identifies some shared learning areas of which students should have a solid understanding. This enables one to concentrate resources in one or more core courses that provide students with basic building blocks of knowledge that can be used to learn and be critical about a range of concepts and ideas. It also allows us to create a set of courses that each dive deeper into each of the foundational topics and related concepts secure in the knowledge that such courses will be useful to a broad range of students. Examples of these courses include Bruce Schneier’sclass on
security
, Jim
Waldo’s
class on
privacy
and Dana
Chisnell’s
class
on design thinking
.
This approach also allows for flexibility. As I mentioned in an earlier post, depending on their career paths students may invest more heavily in some foundational topics. A regulator may be more concerned with privacy, design and data while a cyber security expert may be more interested in security and data. Thus students can opt to dive deeper into areas they think will be critical to their career. Nonetheless, my sense is that regardless of role, a basic understanding of each of the above foundational topics (as well as the underlying culture and norms of iteration and learning) will serve them well in any role and so getting an overview of each is critical. With more students having been exposed to a range of the foundational topics I also feel more comfortable offering courses that focus on some of the concepts. Again it is worth noting that the “concepts” part of the chart encapsulates thousands of possible issues. Not only are there far more than can be taught, but they are in constant flux. Some fall out of favor or become obsolete while new ones are constantly emerging. That said, some are likely essential to everyone (for example, I teach all my students about the concept of a platform) and others are likely to be important to specific roles, indeed part of the function of a school and a teacher is to figure out which of these concepts — for a given role — are essential versus merely good to know versus unnecessary. A great example of this type of course includes Nicco Mele’scourse
on technology and the media and his course on technology and politicalcampaigns.
I’ll talk more about how we map out classes in a subsequent post.THE BIG QUESTIONS
Part of the goal for a policy school is to educate and train students, equipping them with the skills and knowledge they need to be successful in creating public value and engage public organizations in digital transformation. But as a school of public policy and, frankly one that has a global reach, we have a responsibility to also ask bigger questions. One hope I have is to push the school to understand how some of the questions that are asked in the “digital” sphere are in reality Big Questions that affect society at large, the fabric of democracy and governance, the nature of human rights, etc… and need the engagement of the school at large focused on them. This is not to say that these questions are the _only_ questions that matter. Climate change, massive inequality, and managing the US-China relationship probably represent the great challenges, if not in some cases, the existential threats of our time, and deserve much attention. But there are questions created by issues in the digital sphere that are similar innature.
These include:
* Have we become a surveillance society? With both the state and companies tracking our every move, what does this mean for freedom? For dissent? For citizenship? * If the 20th century was about harnessing the power of the state to reshape the distribution of wealth under capitalism from a power law into a bell curve, how will we do the same in the internet age? * What does an API-driven government look like? What will be the checks and balances around power, surveillance, and privacy in such aninstitution?
* Will artificial intelligence and the second machine age leave (almost) everyone unemployed? And if they do, what then? I see these and other questions like them as core to the role and purpose of a policy school. They may not be the questions that all, or even most of our students are required to ask day to day in the jobs they take up, but they are the questions that we all, as citizens, need to start wrestling with as we think about what we want the future of our world to look like. Okay, I’ll stop there. More to come soon. _This is the sixth in a series of pieces about how I’m wrestling with how to teach about digital technologies at policy schools. If you’re interested you can read:_ * _part one: Why Digital Matters_
* _part two: Defining Digital_
* _part three: Our Users and What They Need_
* ___part four: The Trap — Teaching Tech and Concepts_ * ___part five: Foundational Topics_ * _part six: Bringing it Together (this post)_ This entry was posted in Uncategorizedon August 14, 2017
by David Eaves .
TEACHING DIGITAL AT THE KENNEDY SCHOOL OF GOVERNMENT: PART 5: FOUNDATIONAL TOPICSLeave a reply
One challenge I’ve observed about how digital technologies are taught at most schools of policy or government is it takes a relatively ad hoc approach. It is a mix of courses that emerge due to either student demand or faculty interest. To be fair, this is often better than nothing, but it offers little in terms of methodology or structure for thinking about digital. Students are left to themselves to draw connections between subjects, or the underlying principles and challenges that span across them. My goal is to educate students around the social, economic and policy changes brought about by the way digital technologies expand or threaten how we can solve problems, relate to one another, and reimagine institutions and the world. Achieving this requires a structured approach, to bring clarity to the core issues and ensure students leave with a solid foundation ofknowledge.
The intent is to enable students to understand how digital challenges rules, norms and structures — for good and ill. It is also about getting them to manage _learning_ organizations that can absorb and leverage the fast feedback digital systems create.PREREQUISITES
As a brief aside, in my classroom I assume students come to me with some basic knowledge. At the Harvard Kennedy School, students in the MPP program have a set of “core” classes required in the first year. This include some economics, stats, and most importantly, ethics. So I assume many of my students come into my class with some background in these subjects.FOUNDATIONAL TOPICS
My bias in all this is around how digital will impact the provision of public services (I’m happy to own this bias and recognize it, meaning I make choices others might not) but I have attempted to design a structure for my students I believe works across a broad range of policy and governance challenges. Here at HKS I’ve tried to lay out six foundational topics of which a basic understanding is essential. It is not that other skills or domains of knowledge don’t matter, (such as economics or leadership — these should be taught as well, but are likely already covered in a leading schools) but it is that these are most likely _not_ to be taught, particularly in the context of digital. The first starts with some culture shock. Getting students to understand how technology is challenging the speed and way public goods could be built and delivered. A part of this is teaching agile , not just as a project management skill but also as form of organizational culture. It is about having students understand how digital technologies alter how quickly organizations can learn. To be clear, the point is not to worship at the alter of agile, but to think critically about where agile can work to increase speed and learning in policy development and the delivery of public services, as well as where it makes less sense as an approach. Should 100% of government work adopt an agile approach? Definitely not. But more than 0% should. And this is particularly true when it comes adopting digital approaches to organizing work within government and delivering services. Enabling students to see a universe beyond multi year inflexible plans and to provide them with language and frameworks for an adaptive and agile approach is an essential foundation for both thinking about digital in government and frankly, for a great deal of other work that has little to do with digital. Once this foundation is laid, students then look at the topics of User Needs, Design Thinking*, Data, Privacy and Security**. These five topics are a useful way to talk about the politics, tradeoffs and challenges in digital sphere. A basic analytical framework in each of the above areas provides students with a foundation for asking critical and important questions when confronting a new policy question or mobilizing assets to deliver services digitally. Each of these foundational topics are packed with both practical operational questions as well as significant political and ethical questions: * Who are our users? (this is a deeply political and practical question that should be answered at multiple levels). * Are we capable of designing for our end users _and_ the administrators who must serve them _and _the broader public interest? * What data do we collect? Are we using it to learn? Is collecting it necessary? How might this data be mis-used? * Does this service, process, or product protect users’ privacy? Should it? What is the benefit? What is the cost? * What threats should we protect governments systems from? Economic systems? Broader democratic and social systems? Who is responsible forthis protection?
These issues are also listed in priority. While all are critical, each one must be understood and informs one’s understanding of the next one. And while all are essential, they may be weighted based on the learning and career objective of a student. A student interested in service delivery will need to know more about user needs, design and data than, say, an information cybersecurity expert who will have a stronger focus on security and data. I use this framework in two ways. First, in my DPI-662 DigitalGovernment
course, I seek to transform students into foxes, by giving them some basic introduction to each of these concepts. My assumption is that, when confronted with a online service to regulate, a vendor trying to sell the government software or trying to deploy an government service online, asking a question on any of the above 6 topics will probably serve them well. Thus, learning to think critically about each of them will provide a crucial foundation for learning about any new technology or concept. The second way I use this framework at the Harvard Kennedy School is as an organizing structure for other classes. The intent is to give students the opportunity to become “hedgehogs” and receive further instruction on each of these foundational topics. As a result we offer multiple deeper courses on each of these topics so that depending on the career a student will have — either as a politico, administrator or regulator — they can do a deeper dive in a manner that will serve their interests. More on how we do this in asubsequent post.
* Note: Some readers may wonder why User Needs and Design Thinking are listed separately. It is true that these would traditionally be merged. I’ve separated them for two reasons. First, there are a set of questions about _who_ the users are that are deeply political that should be answered separately from the issue of how we would design for services, policies and regulations to serve them. The second is, I’ve found governments are frequently not great at a) identifying and understanding users and b) engaging in design thinking, so separating them out is another way to emphasize the need to invest in these these capacities. ** Note: Security and Privacy are also deeply related topics. I’ve purposely listed them separately. Security and privacy interests can clash, particularly when discussing the interests of an organization versus those of an individual. My experience, in the government context, is that when privacy and security are lumped together, privacy has a funny way of taking a back seat in the discussion. This risk is particularly real in schools of policy and government, where organizational interests — usually those of the government — are front and center. Separating them out hopefully ensures they remain on a equal footing. _This is the fifth in a series of pieces about how I’m wrestling with how to teach about digital technologies at policy schools. If you’re interested you can read:_ * _part one: Why Digital Matters_
* _part two: Defining Digital_
* _part three: Our Users and What They Need_
* ___part four: The Trap — Teaching Tech and Concepts_ * ___part five: Foundational Topics (this post)_ _here at Digital@HKS or __on my blog__._
This entry was posted in Uncategorizedon August 14, 2017
by David Eaves .
TEACHING DIGITAL AT THE KENNEDY SCHOOL OF GOVERNMENT: PART 4: THE TRAP — TEACHING TECH AND CONCEPTSLeave a reply
Before talking about the framework for thinking about digital at the Harvard Kennedy School, I want to discuss what we aren’t doing. I do this because I frequently get asked by students and others to respond to needs that I think are poorly articulated. I believe we should listen to users (students) but that doesn’t always mean they know how to articulate what they want perfectly. Sample of Technologies and Concepts One risk is that a policy school ends up focusing on either what is easy or sexy (or both). This is compounded by the fact that professional degree students (as well as exec-ed students) who feel real pressure to skill up for the job market may gravitate to courses that focus on tactics or tools. This includes subjects like how to use a technology of the day, such as Twitter, Slack, or Bitcoins, or perhaps a specific skill, such as learning to code in rails or python. Courses on these topics appeal for many reasons. They are practical: one learns how to “use” a technology or leaves with a greater awareness of it. They are bounded: by focusing on a specific technology or application, they are narrow in scope. This creates nice boundaries for the student, and it also makes teaching them easier (but not necessarily effective). The more tactical the course, the cheaper they are likely to run: finding people willing to teach a course on how to program or how to use social media in a campaign is probably easy and cost-effective. But even when the course is around a broader concept rather than a narrow tool, there are still drawbacks. There are so many important issues that are shared across technology, like issues of privacy or security, that students risk re-learning core concepts over and over again as they go from course to course about each new concept or technology. This is not to say policy schools should teach no courses that meet the above criteria. It is just the wrong place to _start_. Why? First, technologies evolve and change over time — sometimes quickly — so learning how to use a specific technology may simply set a student up to become rapidly deskilled. Second, learning how to use tools, _while at a policy school, _has a huge opportunity cost. Third, policy schools (and universities in general) are ill equipped to teach these skills cheaply and quickly. Here at the Harvard Kennedy School students have access to Lynda.com which teaches many of these technologies quickly and cheaply. But finally and most importantly, this work is generally tactical. For a policy school a set of technologies cannot make up an organizing principle around which a curriculum can be structured. This isn’t to say that a specific technology isn’t sometimes important, but it is not the point of departure. I’m not interested in teaching specific technologies. I’m interested in how all digital technologies may impact systems, organizations and the delivery of public goods. Insofar as is possible, I’m much more interested in policy schools providing students tools to assess _all_ digital technologies than a specific one. I mean, each of these are really interesting and you could (and maybe even should) legitimately do a course on each one. Any serious policy school should focus on how these digital technologies are changing governance, the provision of public services, social norms and/or the economy. This requires that students have some shared sense of critical questions they should be asking about _any_ digital technology and how it may or may not benefit government or society. As for “tool learning” this should — where possible — be a byproduct of assignments, but it should not be the lesson in of itself. As a result I encourage my colleagues here at HKS to build assignments that involve tools: for example I make all students submit all assignments via blogs, so that they learn how blogging tools work, but learning _how_ to blog is never the assignment in of itself. _Sidebar: The second point from above is why I advise students not to take the popular CS50 course. If students want to learn to code, they shouldn’t do it while at school of policy. It is possibly the singularly most expensive way I could imagine to learn to code. Encourage students to do it via __Code Academy_ _ or some other resource the summer before students arrive. They’ll learn more than they would in CS50, it will cost a fraction of the amount, they’ll be able to apply what they learned in classes immediately and, it will free up time to take courses they they’ll never be able to take outside of the policy school environment._ Next up, let’s talk about what foundational knowledge students _should_ learn at a policy school that will make it both easier to learn the tools and concepts outlined above as well as position students to be more critical and thoughtful while engaged in thatlearning.
_This is the fourth in a series of pieces about how I’m wrestling with how to teach about digital technologies at policy schools. If you’re interested you can read:_ * ___part one: Why Digital Matters_
* _part two: Defining Digital_
* _part three: Our Users and What They Need_
* ___part four: The Trap — Teaching Tech and Concepts (thispost)_
__
This entry was posted in Uncategorizedon August 14, 2017
by David Eaves .
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