FWD50

New blog post! 🐘 “Twitter is dead. Let’s start live-tweeting conferences on Mastodon instead.”

If you’re at @fwd50 this year either in person or virtually, I’d love to see you on Mastodon! https://sboots.ca/2023/10/27/twitter-is-dead-lets-start-live-tweeting-conferences-on-mastodon-instead/ #fwd50 #GCdigital #mastodon

“Public services aren't complicated, they're complex. In a complex system, it is literally impossible to predict an outcome from the inputs. … Most complex systems are not knowable upfront, and our toolset is wrong.” @tomski #fwd50

Fantastic talk by @sboots on what ails government tech in Canada — and elsewhere — and what could be done to fix it, without a shoutout to @Marthalanefox’ paper in 2010 https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/directgov-2010-and-beyond-revolution-not-evolution-a-report-by-martha-lane-fox & @govuk & @GDSTeam since. Humble, smart, inspiring. #fwd50

New blog post! “Revolution, not evolution, for federal public service delivery”

Big thanks to @acroll and the whole @fwd50 for the chance to be part of this week’s conference! https://sboots.ca/2023/11/06/revolution-not-evolution-for-federal-public-service-delivery/ #fwd50

@sboots thank you for bringing your flamethrower to #FWD50

@sboots on why even public servants at the top of the hierarchy can’t change things:

Diffused responsibility.
Consensus over action.
Process over outcomes.
Vaporware instead of structural change.

#FWD50

"Every deputy minister should have their chief of staff, but also their chief of technology. Same for political leaders. To help choose and solve the right problems." Hillary Hartley in conversation with Angelica Quirarte @quepol @fwd50 #fwd50

"At the end of the day, empowering our teams is really just about confronting and dismantling the structural things that disempower them." @honeygolightly #fwd50 @fwd50

“SSHRC just got their first application in Cree, and at first they didn't know what to do. They asked, uh, can you just re-send this in English or French? And the applicant said, nope! That would change its meaning. And they got funded!

Knowledge and language goes hand-in-hand, this could be a real strength of the whole country if we could embrace it.” Brad Greyeyes-Brant #fwd50 @fwd50

"You're always navigating the tightrope of, respecting the institution that you're trying to subvert." The brilliant @honeygolightly at #fwd50 @fwd50

@jenn I sort of passionately believe we also need backup for the legislators. We need someone that has our backs if we say “No!” to doing unethical things. The exodus of #Twitter developers that weren’t held in bondage by H1B visas is an amazing precedent there. #fwd50 /cc @acroll https://medium.com/fwd50/everything-is-broken-8627a848dcac

If you'd like to catch up on #fwd50 Mastodon posts from the past few days, check out https://fedidevs.com/fwd50 ! You can filter by date and account as well. Thanks to everyone posting here! 🎉 @fwd50

"I'm still bullish on the need for central digital teams in government, because they pave the way for teams elsewhere to have the space to do things differently. To have a leader that will take the heat to go do that. To be able to say, this team did it too, let's go do it." @quepol #fwd50

“Test the thing that matters.” @tomski #FWD50 Could be a policy, a process, a small idea. Use this feedback loop for everything, but don’t wait for a big bang.

"When we take our teams' experience for granted, we set up subconscious expectations to accept substandard public service." @honeygolightly #fwd50

Good morning from Whitehorse ✈️ #fwd50

"There is a direct correlation between the quality of service delivery and people's trust in government." Minister Anita Anand #fwd50

Invest in digital teams and level up leaders. Great list of accountabilities from Ebony Sager (from ODS). #FWD50

My takeaway today so far at #fwd50 : Risk aversion is the enemy of innovation within the public service (in Canada, at least. The Estonian public service seems to be #goals )

Gardening is a recurring metaphor for digital transformation work at #fwd50

Ursula Franklin’s metaphor of earthworming for social change—preparing the soil, a generational task—really resonates: https://lucascherkewski.com/study/earthworming/