Welcome to Civic Insighter! 👋

This blog will cover a range of topics related to the “public sphere”—particularly government and policy, but also cities, design, education, languages, travel, and more.

You can expect to see a mix of commentary, stories, hot takes, proposals, observations, and interviews, among other things. I hope you will find it insightful and thought-provoking, and encourage you to participate in the comments!

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About me

I currently work as an independent consultant, consulting for Nava.

Most recently I worked at Code for America, where I was leading efforts to support public servants with resources and training on the organization’s principles and practices for how government can and should serve the public in the digital age.

Past work has included a range of both strategic and technical roles at Results for America and the Sunlight Foundation as part of the What Works Cities initiative, which helps local governments improve people’s lives by using data and evidence to tackle pressing challenges. Prior work supported governments and community organizations in Rhode Island.

I have also been involved in the volunteer civic-technology scene, including spending several years running Code for DC, now known as Civic Tech DC.

See my LinkedIn profile

In my free time—besides writing this blog—I am passionate about language learning (currently focused on Arabic, Russian, and French, and already speak Spanish and Portuguese) and traveling to obscure countries.

Other writing

Below is a selection of past writing of mine, mostly from my professional life:

Code for America

• Why Government Websites Often Struggle to Meet People’s Needs

• Fixing ‘Clunky’ Approaches to Government Software Development

GovLoop

In 2023 I was selected as a Featured Contributor for GovLoop, writing a series of 12 posts providing tips on how public servants can incorporate human-centered design and related principles into their work. Some highlights:

• Use ‘Journey Maps’ to Understand and Improve People’s Interactions with Public Services

• To Help the Public, Give Your Own Staff Better Digital Tools

• ‘One-Stop Shops’ Can Improve Access to Public Services

• Combined Applications Can Help Bring a Human-Centered Approach to Public Services

• When the ‘Wrong’ Words Can Help People Find the Right Services

• Testing Different Versions of Language can Improve Your Communications

• Help People by Doing Their Paperwork Automatically

Sunlight / What Works Cities

See all 17 posts here. Some highlights:

• Learn how to incorporate user testing into open data projects

• Critical questions on ‘smart city’ tech: Continuing a conversation from Code for America 2019

• Our new Roadmap to Informed Communities offers tools for community-centered open data

• Introducing a new one-stop shop for writing open data policy

• You don’t have to be tech-savvy to benefit from open data

Old personal blog

• National parks, forests, wildlife refuges, and other lands: What’s the difference?

• National monuments, explained

• What does ‘urban’ mean?

• How frequently does transit need to run? It depends on distance

• The problem with GTFS transit mode categories

Name, logo, and images

The “Insighter” part of “Civic Insighter” was partially inspired by Daniel Herszberg’s Travel Insighter. Check it out!

The logo was generated by Substack’s AI. I gave it a bunch of words related to the theme and then this was one of the options it created.

You are welcome to share and reuse the graphics that I create—without needing to ask me for permission—as long you include the part of the image that has my logo, name, and URL! For photos that I took, please ask me for permission and then credit me. For images from other sources, check the individual image rights and ask their creators if necessary.