Following the money
Twelve months after the cuts, civic tech lives in the contract layer.
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The Capacity to Absorb the Damage
Thoughts about whether the ability to absorb the capacity about to be left behind, thanks to our agentic future.
Destruction As A Service
Reflecting 25 years later on a thesis about atomization before we called it that.
Robotaxis should be licensed like drivers
Autonomous vehicles are coming to Portland. They should follow the rules of the road before being allowed to drive on them.
What Estonia Knows That We Don't
In an October interview with Bruce McCabe, Ott Velsberg, Estonia's Government Chief Data Officer, described the next phase of his country's digital state as proactive rather than reactive — services that arrive at the citizen instead of waiting to be requested. The example he uses is early
Abundance Has a Last-Mile Problem
The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program serves about 41 million people. Roughly five million more are eligible for it and don't receive it. Most of them are eligible last year, eligible this year, eligible next year — they qualify the way the building inspector qualifies for a paycheck, because the
What Comes After Product Management
I've been thinking a lot the past year about the decision layer of the AI race. You can both be excited for the potential of what's to come, while also asking hard questions about what we're doing and who gets to make the decisions.
Who Holds the Pen? Why AI Agents Need a Manager, Not Just a Manual
Today, in our rush to kill backlogs and modernize services, we are liquidating the human loop. We see a win when New Jersey uses AI to sign up 100,000 kids for summer benefits, or when an agency uses a chatbot to deflect thousands of calls. These are genuinely good
What people get wrong about teambuilding
Culture builds teams, leadership with foresight manage organizations that support strong teams. Teams don't build themselves.
The risks of living in a snowglobe casino
Prediction markets let people place bets on real-world events, including geopolitical ones, often using knowledge most of us will never see.