Innovation and Government in the New Normal

Session 3 of Princeton School of Public and International Affair’s The Future of Work in the New Normal conference kicked off with a table-setting question from moderator and Princeton Professor Eduardo Bhatia: What are the next challenges for innovation?

Several themes emerged among panelists who represented innovation units from three municipal governments, as well as a national think tank: Dan Hymowitz (Director of the Mayor’s Office of Performance and Innovation in the City of Baltimore); Silvana Rodriguez (Digital Impact and Governance Initiative Fellow at New America); Grace Simrall (Chief of Civic Innovation and Technology from Louisville Metro Government); and Terrance Smith (Director of the Mayor’s Innovation Team in the City of Mobile). 

Collectively, their experiences highlighted the importance of securing community trust, adopting an agile mindset, and cultivating a public sector culture that supports change. A few of their insights are summarized below. 

Innovation is not just technology.

Although typically associated with cutting-edge tools, most day-to-day innovation, at the municipal level, is a far cry from the standard ‘move fast and break things’ Silicon Valley narrative. Many of the core services that a municipality provides (such as filling potholes, collecting trash, or maintaining a clean water supply) don’t require flashy tools - only better systems and processes. 

For example, Dan Hymowitz says the pandemic highlighted existing challenges in Baltimore that had been less of a focus before the pandemic (such as access to broadband). This resulted in new ways of delivering services that are as centered around human and process-oriented solutions as technology. Setting up hotel rooms and mass testing facilities, hosting city council hearings online, or investing in more laptops are examples of low-tech solutions that were ‘innovative’ responses to the moment. They did not require fancy technology, but still went a long way toward mitigating long-standing issues (such as the digital divide or homelessness). 

Effective and sustainable innovation boils down to trust.

Terrance Smith phrased it well: “Policies and practices are good but you have to bring people with you along the way to co-create”. Ultimately, effective policies are dependent on a community’s access to resources and motivation to change. Instead of asking what should be changed for change’s sake, a better question might be: What should we remove or add from our current process to deliver services better? Sometimes this will involve the use of relatively simple tools that are right in front of us, such as social media. 

For example, Terrance and his team used Instagram to take inventory of blighted structures in the city of Mobile, to help document the locations they were examining. This not only improved accountability, it also brought people along in the process and increased awareness of the city’s efforts to solve the problem. Combined with legislation that helped clear titles more efficiently, blight in the city decreased by 53 percent over the course of three years. 

Innovation moves faster than policy-making, so the public sector needs agile policies in order to keep up with the pace of change.

While governments should adopt technology at a manageable pace, going too slow risks falling into inertia. Engaging early in complicated discussions about emerging technology can ensure that the public sector has a role in stewarding its responsible development.

New America Digital Impact and Governance Fellow Silvana Rodriguez referenced President Biden’s recent Executive Order on Digital Assets as an example of how governments can normalize discussions on technology - even if they haven’t yet developed an official policy position. Adopting an agile mindset encourages discussion and creates an environment of information sharing, public-private cooperation, and learning. This is particularly important in an emerging space (such as cryptocurrency) that will continue to develop, with or without the government’s involvement.

People have different concerns and reactions to change and innovation.

At the top of the income ladder, people are concerned about what they will lose. At the bottom of the ladder, people are concerned about being left behind. In many cases cities have long-standing traditions and deep history and residents are not always fans of change, so concepts like innovation can have a negative stigma attached to it. Being aware of people’s varying capacities for change, and meeting them where they are, can help socialize the idea of change in a more manageable way. 

Grace Simrall who leads innovation for the City of Louisville, Kentucky shared a framework, at left, that breaks down the work of an innovation unit into three layers of a pyramid.

The first layer mostly comprises of daily work (reacting to tasks). A layer above that is continuous improvement (often incremental), and the top layer is breakthrough innovation (implementing a solution that has never been done before). This final layer can be the most challenging because it involves bringing the community along to co-create policy change. 

As an example, Grace brought up an initiative from the City of Louisville that proposed to send drones to the sites of gunshot incidents, in order to reduce response time. But there was community pushback at the idea of drones being sent into neighborhoods. The answer here wasn’t as simple as inviting community participation into policy co-creation.

When the government invited community proposals, communities were not always comfortable co-creating policy; instead, they wanted the government to come to the community with its own proposal to react to. This real-life example offered a lesson in finding the right balance between gaining the trust of the community to co-create policy, while maintaining government autonomy for its own policy proposals.

Internally, the public sector should aim to cultivate a culture of innovation that supports change.

Failure is inevitable when it comes to innovation, and cultural norms both inside an office team and among stakeholders can be inhibiting. However, having a culture that makes space for psychological safety, risk tolerance, and making mistakes can encourage new ideas and experimentation.

For example, a panelist mentioned an instance where their team on a blight project accidentally knocked down the wrong house. Being able to quickly acknowledge the mistake and pivot improved their team’s process, as well as their ability to prevent those mistakes from happening again. Another way to cultivate innovation is to de-risk funds by partnering with private philanthropic partners. Furthermore, these cross-sector partnerships contribute to ecosystem building. Additional suggestions from panelists include measuring what isn’t going well, finding constant sources of inspiration, and experimenting with new tools and processes to cultivate a culture with a bent toward positive, equity-oriented change. 

Instead of asking what should be changed for change’s sake, a better question might be: What should we remove or add from our current process to deliver services better?

The conversation ended with a lively exchange about the potential applications of blockchain and cryptocurrency in the public sector. Use cases include: digital fingerprinting, supply chain tracking, and more equitable ownership models for various assets. These have short and long-term implications for the U.S. economy and national security.

While there are no straightforward policy frameworks, Silvana from New America said that policymakers don’t need to have all the answers yet, and encourages governments to openly engage with the technology. In a world with many burning fires demanding immediate attention, it is crucial for policymakers to find a balance between dealing with those urgent issues and staying at the forefront of innovation -- lest policy gets left behind.

This session summary was written by Lynne Guey, Research Assistant for Steven Strauss, John L. Weinberg/Goldman Sachs Visiting Professor at the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs (SPIA).  It is a summary of one of the sessions of SPIA's Conference on the Future of Work in the New Normal, held March 24th-25th at Princeton University.