Seventeen years ago, I started writing about the idea of California. I was young and earnest and obsessed with the way this place has always lived inside its own mythology. I wrote about the idea of California as Camelot, as Eden, as Atlantis. A place that existed on the far edge of imagination and also inside very real families and very real dreams.

Recently a few folks reached out about that book. With the upcoming governors race and really the need for creative, off grid imaginative energy that California at its best has in spades, it felt timely to come back to a few of those ideas and boldly explore what the future of California -- and beyond -- might look like today.

I'm queuing up a few thoughts though first wanted to share a set of principles for excellent public technology development. Those were written in collaboration with a group of civic minded techies and proactive public servants with an eye on the start of Governor Newsom's administration back in 2018.

Citizenville's about digitizing government were -- and if anything in a post-DOGE world is even more -- on the mind. These words still ring true: "From the world's largest port to the nation's first freeways to pioneering aqueducts, California's history has been defined by visionary public works."[1]

California government very much is a mess with a tangled patchwork quilt of overlapping jurisdictions and a wide spectrum of digital adoption. Perhaps though that challenge may not be a problem so much as opportunity to "burn the wagons" so to speak and build something with the courage and conviction of our ancestors. See below and enjoy!

“You need to have a public sector commensurate with the vitality and creativity of private life here. Look at the universities, the hospitals, our doctors! Look at the vitality of our literary culture, our painters!” – Kevin Starr, Former State Librarian of California

From the world’s largest port to the nation’s first freeways to pioneering aqueducts, California’s history has been defined by visionary public works. The digital revolution has transformed countless industries, yet by and large a time traveler from the 50’s would find the operational practices of California government strangely familiar.

Nothing equal to the development over a century ago of professional water utilities or universal public schooling — institutions that implemented nearly ubiquitous access to clean water and essentially eradicated illiteracy in America — has been developed for the digital era. California can and should lead the world in building the great public works of our era – public technology that tackles our big challenges as a state.

This stems from a belief that California’s open, inclusive values are more important than ever in today’s tribalistic, nationalist times and that California is ideally poised to pioneer digitally native government operations. The following principles are intended to serve as a set of aspirational goals that articulate the promise of public technology and help accelerate the modernization of how California government operates.

1. California should aim to lead the world in ensuring the transformative potential of the digital revolution benefits everyone and that its government reflects the state’s “pioneering spirit.”

2. Public data created by Californians should be stewarded by skilled public technologists and align with the open, inclusive values of this state that welcomes people from around the world to pursue their dreams.

3. California’s education system should reflect the ubiquity of information and realities of our new economy that highlight the need for lifelong learning. Every California student should have the opportunity for a real world apprenticeship in their profession or area of interest while in public schools.

4. Every Californian should have access to high speed internet to learn skills and succeed in the rapidly evolving job market. The state should support digital literacy training for all Californians of all ages and continue to improve the connection between online offerings and in person ongoing education programs at Community Colleges.

1. Californians should have the opportunity to provide official public comment on government business virtually, at a time and place of their convenience, and upvote other comments.

2. Californians should encounter a seamless user experience when interacting with their government commensurate with the expectation of a modern consumer web application. Digital resources and information should be inclusive, accessible, and useable by the general public.

3. Californians may only be required once to submit and/or update their name, address or other basic information to any California state agency or local government. This already exists in countries like Estonia, and California should strive to lead in this area.

4. Access to sensitive public data should be streamlined for academic research and shared using industry best practices in ethical and secure computational social science. Metadata detailing how and what public data is collected should be made widely available.

5. All University of California, California State and Community College research should strive to make their work reproducible and lead the world in open scientific practices.

1. All of California’s state and local government programs should clearly articulate the intended goals of their public services and use data to measure results achieved.

2. Every state agency and local government in California should by default make their public data open and machine readable unless there is a compelling reason otherwise. That should include the dollars spent on legacy information technology systems (at the level of detail of StackShare.io unless there is a compelling reason otherwise) and data detailing all public procurement.

3. California should prioritize standardizing datasets critical to basic public services – such as Consolidated Annual Financial Reports (“CAFRs”) and parcel level zoning information – across government agencies to enable collaboration and interoperability across California and around the world.

4. This effort to modernize California government should focus on a future its people deserve and have the courage to consolidate obsolete institutions that frustrate progress (for example California’s two duplicative state water agencies).

In implementing these principles, California’s public sector should to strive to embody the “pioneering spirit” that has made this state great. The following strategies aim to provide a creative, comprehensive approach to improve how government operates in California and beyond:

1. California should launch a Civic Technology Corps in the spirit of the Community Conservation Corps (CCC) and California Conservation Corps. The Corps can be built around existing fellowships such as CfA community fellows, TfA Fellows, Fuse Corps Fellows, Civic Spark Fellows, Americorps Fellows, Coro Fellows, Gen 2 Gen Fellows and others. The Governors office could convene a California Civic Technology summit inviting these fellows and support coordinating actions so fellows can be internal civic champions for great public technology.

2. The California Department of Technology should open a new digital office in Oakland to make modern design and information technology practices the new normal in California government. This strategy was more fully articulated in a letter from Code for America Founder Jennifer Palkha to the next Governor. That effort should build from the UK Digital Service, US Digital Service, 18F and numerous other units at cities and countries around the globe.

3. California should formalize a nonprofit Applied Research arm of the California Government Operations agency to serve as an independent utility stewarding public data across local municipalities and accelerate the implementation of these principles. That effort should build from leading global examples like the UK’s Administrative Data Research Network, the New Zealand Integrated Data Services, and the numerous Data Collaboratives catalogued by NYU Gov Lab. See here for the latest to map data collaboratives across California.

4. All California state and local governments should open their doors to new talent with skills in agile software development, data science and other important digital skills. That should include support for training public servants on these new tools and California government managers should actually be able to terminate non-performing personnel.

If you have thoughts on improving these principles, they're a living document! Submit a PR on GitHub:

Pioneering a brighter future in California and beyond v 1.3

From the world's largest port to the nation's first freeways to pioneering aqueducts, California's history has been defined by visionary public works

https://argo-marketplace.github.io

[1] The great public works of digital age still largely have yet to be built. India has done some amazing things with digital public infrastructure and Aadhar. So has Estonia with Xroads, the UK with its digital services and countless more examples. Yet if you imagine looking back from 2161, the year Star Fleet theoretically will be founded, it's pretty clear that we're in the thick of the interregnum between old and new institutional orders insofar as digital transformation of government operations goes. Still early days!