Ep. 25 - Engaging Civic Tech Communities - GovEx Data Points

Engaging residents and communities is a key piece of work for city employees. However, many cities struggle to engage one specific community: civic tech enthusiasts. Civic techies often want to help cities use more data, improve technology, and generally make their cities better places to live. But engaging civic tech enthusiasts requires a different mode of engagement than cities typically employ. In this episode, we talk with guest Mark Headd about his recent book that focused on how to best engage volunteer communities around data and technology in cities. Based on his own experience in government as the first Chief Data Officer of Philadelphia (among other places) and interviews with city leaders from across the US, his book provides a playbook for city government officials who want to better engage civic tech communities. We talked with him about a variety of topics, including ways to encourage civic tech communities and what to avoid when working with volunteer tech groups. To get more information, you can find Mark's book at https://www.civichacking.guide/ or get in touch with him on Twitter. Like Data? Listen and Get in Touch You can find updates to the podcast in several ways. * Look for us on iTunes as GovEx Data Points * Find up-to-date episodes on our website at http://govex.jhu.edu/podcast Get in touch with us and let us know what you want to hear, suggest potential episodes, and give us feedback on how the podcast is going. You can contact us on Twitter at Gov_Ex or reach out via our website at govex.jhu.edu/contact.