Derek #DayNotes (02) for March 7, 2019
Ok attempt 2 #DayNotes. To learn more about the concept, check out this blog.
Though it should go without saying and to be be 100% clear, these are not official communications from the Government of Canada but rather just my own personal notes about what I am doing.
Apologies in advance for my bad grammar, these notes are meant to be quick and dirty.
Nothing to report on this front today
Digital Government Research Project:
Had a chance to grab coffee with Kent Aitken today and learn more about what he is doing with the Canadian School of Public Service. We see opportunities for us to share both in terms of mapping the digital government space and the deeper research on digital government. We are going to share notes. I also introduced him to Heather Laird’s IMP project, so hopefully his work can feed into that also.
I did some planning on how to best undertake my research. I developed a spreadsheet HERE to help focus and track my research though I might move it over the Mendeley to align with Kent’s research. I am also going to move my open brainstorm to Fridays to align with my research #weeknotes starting next week. Contact me if you want to be part of any of these open brainstorms.
Municipal Innovation Pilot Project (MIPP):
Had a call today with the MIPP crew to focus on the business plan. We chunked it out into sections and divided it amongst the group. We will also be holding weekly meetings until we get this thing across the finish line.
We also had a call with Norman Mendoza, Daniel Chenier and Jared Rewarts from the City of Edmonton who have agreed to help work on the MIPP and in particular contribute some dev time. Super exciting.
On this call Jared shared with us a cool project that came out of the CivicTech community there. It’s a platform called “YouCanBenefit” and is designed to help people quickly and easily find what benefits they are eligible for. There was a lot of interest among people who were on the call in this platform!
Team:
Had a chance to chat with my Director General Owen Teo about the move (our team just moved to a new location this week), the team (for the first time our team is all in the same location) and what I am working on. Thank you Owen for making time at the end of a long day! These touch points are so important in building trust, sharing information and building alignment. Next step, organizing more team socials and maybe even a team retreat.
Other:
I finally did a follow up email to Nitika Agarwal from Apolitical about exploring with them how to better map and connect the digital government space. We are trying to do the same thing, so let’s explore how to do it together. Nitika and I met at last week’s Policy Community Conference.
I wrapped up my by doing an interview with Jen Chen, a Masters Student at the Harvard Kennedy School who is doing a research project looking at the digital tools governments use to help their public servants collaborate. I gave her some background on what we are doing in the Government of Canada with a particular focus on the GCTools. I am excited to learn more about her research and be connected to the others she is talking with. Special thanks to Richard Pope for making the connection.
Few… this might be harder to keep on top of then I thought…
