Ryan Koch (00:02.978)
Before we get really into it, Rebecca from our prep conversation, I recall your origin story for Civic Tech is one folks out there might relate to. would you mind telling us about that as you introduce yourself?

Rebecca Woodbury (00:19.458)
Sure. So I think I fell into civic tech by accident. I entered government as an intern while I was getting my master's in public policy. So I worked on policy and what I'd call kind of organizational effectiveness at City Hall. But I was also the young person at City Hall. So a lot of tech or like tech adjacent

things were often assigned to me to kind of figure out. so as I and then as I kind of made my way into more senior roles, I ended up with some projects like overhauling the city website where I met Luke actually and implementing a CRM. So I ended up with these kind of tech projects.

that had to do with organizational effectiveness in a lot of ways. and these projects kind of I somehow ended up at a Code for America summit without really knowing what I was getting into. And I had only ever been to government management conferences before. So I was pretty blown away by how all these civic tech people were talking about fixing government

I felt like I had found my people. And, you know, people weren't shy about talking about government's shortcomings, but also with such a strong sense of purpose and public service. so anyway, I started to kind of understand how tech could help government serve people better. And I started getting more obsessed with how to improve people's experience of government.

you know, from just like the small micro interactions to the bigger policy debates. So that kind of started to inform my career. and that led me to actually starting a new department at the city where I worked for, which is a department of digital service, and becoming the first director. I remember like, you know, before all that, I remember a friend called me one day and

Rebecca Woodbury (02:43.425)
Because she had she lived where I worked, and she had reported that a stop sign in front of her house had fallen down. And she called Public Works and told them about it. Or sorry, she reported it on the website. And someone from Public Works called her with less than a minute of her reporting that issue. and the CRM that I had implemented had enabled that responsiveness. that that level of responsiveness was now possible because of

that new technology. And so I think that kind of story I remember it just kind of got me addicted to finding ways to make government more responsive, effective, fair, more human in a lot of ways. so that's kind of how I fell into civic tech from the policy side of things.

Ryan Koch (03:37.098)
And Luke, how do you relate to that story as and as you introduce yourself, could you share a bit of your origin story as well?

Luke Fretwell (03:44.815)
Yeah, I mean, so for me, right, like I'm, you know, in many ways, in many, many ways, the opposite of Rebecca. I never actually have worked for government. and, you know, sort of my journey into where I am today, you know, started. I grew up near DC. I went to school near DC in Virginia and study government and politics and international relations.

And I was on the newspaper at the school and I was the editor-in-chief and thought I wanted to do journalism and then realized that journalists don't get paid anything. so I did write for a while inside of DC, but what I learned, especially as the internet back in the day in the 90s, started to, you know, be accessible to people. I started to be curious about how it was made.

And started teaching myself how to code. and what I realized that it wasn't so much the writing and journalism as much as it was the designing and building. And so I started to teach myself to code and really interested in sort of the UI components and experience of of the web. And just kind of got frustrated with the culture of DC, which we see today. then it was kind of Monica Lewinsky.

scandal and contract for america or with america and you know just felt like i needed to get out and so moved to san francisco berkeley actually and worked in startups and i timed it perfectly during the startup bust luckily i got a job and kept it during that time but you know started really

understanding technology from a startup perspective and a lot of folks you know it's agile there's you know modern deployment development tools and things like that so it just started to immerse myself into that and less so civics and government and although there was you know a government customer involved in the startup that I was working on

Luke Fretwell (06:07.898)
it was, you know, secondary or tertiary. when the Obama administration came to power, the first thing that Obama did was release the open government directive. And you know, what that called for was open data, open source, and generally just an open culture. and that really resonated with me as someone who had been working, you know, I think developers in general have an open ethos.

and just the work that I was doing was around open without calling it open. and then just started writing about sort of what I knew from being in DC and studying government, and what I knew from working and living in the San Francisco Bay Area and the tech culture. and very few people at that time were talking about digital, the intersection of digital and government. so I was able to meet a lot of people virtually.

and then just started writing more about it and then building projects and then support open source projects. and then working with entrepreneurs and starting a few government technology startups that supported local governments. so that's sort of my, you know, path to civics. And again, you know, I've never worked in government.

But certainly have worked for a lot of folks in government working alongside them.

Ryan Koch (07:44.609)
Longtime listeners know there's a a why question coming. The book y'all wrote that we're gonna talk about today even has a whole chapter that's all about remembering why one serves. So let's get the personal version of that early on in this conversation. For for each of you, what is your personal why? That thing that drives you to get out of bed each morning and do what you do.

Rebecca Woodbury (08:09.899)
So

I get so much satisfaction from seemingly small changes that I know add up to making government work better for the people it serves and for the people delivering the service. So I find I get a lot of joy out of the small things that add up and helping governments see what those are and

and make those changes. something my dad said about life when I was young has always followed me. He said it's hassle, hassle, hassle, die. And I so I'm I I see myself as just trying to get rid of of a little bit of hassle every day for people in government.

Luke Fretwell (09:10.572)
I can't top that, Rebecca. for me, you know, it's really I don't it's just, you know, it's it's it feels in as it sounds silly, it just feels inherent to me to be kind of civic or community minded. I think if you kind of deduce it down, it's really just this idea of people, you know, getting along and working together to have kind of a functional society that

and we talk about this in the book, but you know, that has a sense of togetherness and joy to it. so, you know, it's I mean, it's kind of as simple as that for me. It's you know, it's just creating harmony within, you know, communities.

Ryan Koch (10:03.214)
So in asking that question, I alluded to a have been collaborating with a whole bunch of folks to get this thing written over I believe it's four years to get to where the iteration you're on now is is complete. Wha why did y'all take this sort of project on?

Rebecca Woodbury (10:22.975)
Well, I my boring answer is that I just say yes whenever Luke asks me to do a collaboration. but really, I mean I I get inspired by Luke. He makes me think differently about things, he pushes me, he makes me better. you know, so when he said let's do a book, I said okay and I d like I really didn't think about it very deeply. So I Luke

Ryan Koch (10:29.901)
Ha ha.

Rebecca Woodbury (10:52.745)
wanted to do this and when Luke wants to do something, I hop on board.

Ryan Koch (10:57.646)
Rebecca, that's a very say yes to life kinda attitude. That's that's it that's a nice vibe.

Rebecca Woodbury (11:00.593)
Yeah. My naivete has taken me very far.

Luke Fretwell (11:01.486)
Mm-hmm.

Luke Fretwell (11:05.644)
I mean, I, you know, a hundred percent. Like I think you're, you know, Rebecca, like your willingness to say yes has definitely taken you taken you far. So for me, right, like I felt like there was a disconnect between the conversations that were happening with technologists and, you know, bureaucrats, right? Or public servants or people who work inside of government. and I knew that.

you know they're a lot of times they were talking past each other or over each other and felt like there was an opportunity to create a book that was just accessible to as many people as possible but still could broach these topics whether it was technical or you know technical ish or culture related to digital that would be what would serve

you know, government better to adopt. so it didn't get, I mean, I was trying thinking about writing a book, did an outline to this. It didn't happen. So I reached out to Rebecca and said, Rebecca, you know, do you want to write this book with me? Thinking you know, if we wrote it together, it would happen. and then it didn't happen. I mean, we were making some progress, but it didn't really happen.

And then it just dawned on me, well, why don't we treat this like an open source project? and that we can, you know, get other people to collaborate with us. And maybe that will, you know, get us to the finish line. so that's like really kind of how how it all got started. I just felt it was important to have a book that was accessible, and you know, as a product just

have like a sense of design and that felt accessible, but the content behind it as well. And of course, you know, I my the first person I thought of was to reach out to Rebecca. not because I think or no she's gonna say yes, but because, you know, she is truly the best person to work with on a project like this. And she was.

Ryan Koch (13:23.48)
I I hear from you there, Luke, that from the start kind of and and the carry line through, as you sought more help from like folks like Rebecca and others, was this this thing like the book had to happen. There was this like central desire. where did the inspiration for like book being the the end goal come from?

Luke Fretwell (13:31.81)
Yeah.

Luke Fretwell (13:36.782)
Yeah.

Luke Fretwell (13:44.015)
I I mean I think like, you know, there's there's you know, having a a point of reference or reference material, I think, for any sort of industry or you know, craft is important, right? And we do have in our industry, we do have those, right? Like Recoding America, Jen's book is really great. you know, there are other books that have been written. but I felt like

If we could zoom out a little bit and make it this sort of timeless product that was simple and accessible, then it would be the entree to things that are a little bit more technical, nerdy, digital policy. I just felt like it was important to ha to create something like that. And you know, the idea of doing that just was really intriguing to me.

And also like helping me think about how do how do these concepts that I communicate to government folks, like how can this process help me do a better job of doing that? Because, you know, often I was not, you know, and that's what it did. So I think it's just, you know, the practice of going through something like that and doing something, it's not always right. It's like the journey is the destination and

Ryan Koch (14:41.835)
Okay, yeah.

Luke Fretwell (15:07.286)
It wasn't so much it was, because there were many times when I said to Rebecca, we need to finish this book. but really like the process you know I don't know if it was early or midway, but at some point, I realized like this is a learning process and we just need to sit in it and and appreciate that. And it really that's what it really became. I mean, I'm glad that the book is done and we have an end product.

But I'm also grateful for, you know, just being able to be present enough to sit in and engage with folks deeper and build relationships and learn more than than I than I imagined.

Ryan Koch (15:54.34)
That connection and kind of bridge building firming I'm hearing from you, I think is gonna be a through line through our conversation as we keep going. And I'm actually realizing we've just said the book a whole bunch of times. We haven't said the name of the book yet. the book's name is Proudly Serving, that Rebecca and Luke both worked on together with others. which leads me to the next question, which is who is this book for?

Luke Fretwell (16:01.698)
Yeah, definitely.

Luke Fretwell (16:08.556)
Yeah.

Rebecca Woodbury (16:22.705)
It it's not really for people that are probably listening to this podcast right now. in that I mean it's it's not we didn't write it for the civic tech community. Many people in the civic tech community can write this book themselves. for me, it was really for people who are working in and adjacent to government, for community members who want to help make government better.

In my opinion, you know, coming from my background and my experience, to me, it's what every city manager and department director needs to know so they can be effective in the age we're living in. Cause, you know, we're not even in the digital age anymore. We're like past that. And so I I don't think it's any it's no longer an option to kind of throw your hands up and say, Well, I'm not a computer person and not take the responsibility to understand some

Luke Fretwell (17:14.764)
Yeah.

Rebecca Woodbury (17:18.601)
Of the basics that have to do with the age that we're living in. So as a leader in government, I think you need to know some of the basics of privacy and security. You need to know what proprietary vendor lock-in means. Like we no longer can not understand some of these concepts. So for me, you know, the lens that I took in kind of ushering this book through,

was I was always looking at it from that audience, like does this help a city manager understand this topic more? not that they have to become deep, deep experts in any of these things, but they need to know enough about these things so that they can lead in the age that we're living in.

Luke Fretwell (18:03.958)
Yeah. Yeah, I think also like you know, and Rebecca mentioned this, but it's the community mentor members, you know, also, right? It's like the the people inside of the, you know, the government building, but also, you know, giving you know, it's sort of a book for si for for folks studying civics, right? Like this could book could be easily something required reading for, you know.

college students and helping them understand, you know, how communities or people can engage, right? Like, so, you know, how can I dial into government? And then how can I share this with government so that they can, you know, adopt these principles too, and then we can work together. Right. So I think it's a it is to Rebecca's point, right? Like many people in the civic tech community could probably flip through this.

and then throw it on, you know, their books book pile, throw it on the book pile, the red book pile, you know, within, you know, a few minutes or an hour or whatever, but really, you know, focusing on folks who need an entree into sort of thinking about civics in a different way. And that's the the spectrum of sort of the community member and the people that are getting paid by tax dollars to serve those that community.

So if they both had a book club, proudly serving book club, then they would all we would have better government.

Ryan Koch (19:42.094)
And Luke, something that stuck out to me as we were getting ready for this, and actually I believe you also pointed to as you were talking about kind of your your why and your origin and that sort of thing, is that you talked about or sorry, why for the book is you talked about wanting to build it like an open source project. Can you walk us through a bit about what you mean by that when you say to write a book like an open source project?

Luke Fretwell (20:06.838)
Yeah, I mean I think like you know, so an open source project typically is you know, generally right, like it's accessible by anybody. The code can be downloaded and reused if people want to contribute to code that r that I'm building and Ryan wants to, you know, Ryan has an issue and says, this, you know, this color is not accessible.

and I can sub you can submit an issue and telling me and I can fix it and let you know and you can check it again and say it looks good now and then I can close your issue. Right. So it's like this collaboration that can happen, or you could just take the whole code, you could fix the issue and then send it back to me and say, Hey, I fixed it, and then I can say thank you and bring that code back into the original code base, and then it's a better product, right? So I think like fundamentally,

open source is is is very democratic. It's fundamentally democratic. I mean we can peel the the onion a little more on that and there are like places where it isn't or isn't as as democratic as it could be. But generally, right, the idea of like open source communities is a very democratic process that allows for people to build and engage with with the communities

in different ways from I just I notice an issue, I'm gonna submit a report, like Rebecca was saying, a 311 issue. Or I'm gonna go, you know, there's a pothole, and I don't I'm not encouraging anybody to do this, but there's a pothole, it's not getting fixed. I'm gonna go put some rocks in it and fix it myself, and then you know, it'll be a patch for when the city does it. But I think it's this idea of like, it just dawned on me that.

You know, a book is just is data and code is data. So like why don't we just build this out in the open? and then it allows us to scale the process and in in many ways share like what we're building and how we're building it and get people interested in a in a different way than sort of like posting to social media or emailing, you know, our friends and family, please.

Luke Fretwell (22:30.722)
help us write this book. but the idea of working in the open and working as an open source project was just kind of, you know, anybody who knows me, I just kind of default to opening up a starting a GitHub repo and getting to work. And as soon as, you know, well, I mean early on I I felt like that was important to do. But I think you know, fundamentally open source and open communities is really, you know, sort of the

at the forefront of kind of how government should be working.

Ryan Koch (23:07.023)
And y'all ended up managing to bring together almost thirty people to become contributors to this thing. And I recall in our starting conversation that y'all described it as like conning people into writing chapters. how how did that start up?

Luke Fretwell (23:20.898)
Hundred percent.

Rebecca Woodbury (23:24.353)
Well, I I mean it started with it started with a table of contents when Luke and I were thinking about writing this together. We kind of started with this table of contents. And then as we started to realize like we could bring more expertise, more perspectives, more diversity of thought into the process, you know, we started to go through that table of contents and think through like who do we know or who do we know of that are

you know, in these topic areas that would be a good fit. So there was that initial just like reaching out kind of within the network and the extended network, but we also kept the process open that people could suggest another chapter topic. Like you weren't confined to the one we think you should write or the one in the table of contents. You could also suggest something that isn't in there at all. And then as we kind of got a few chapters in

we started to promote the opportunity to contribute more broadly through social channels and things like that. And then also like asking people to think about their networks to so just kind of like expanding things out. And so we ended up having a a lot of chapter writers came found the project either, you know, on social media or through someone else. And so we met a lot of the contributors

through the process of the book, which is really cool. And, you know, I I I still like now that we're on the other side of it, kind of it's done. And I I I look at all the list of contributors and I look at the list of chapters, and I'm kind of like blown away that we got such great people, half of who I didn't know before this project, or more than half.

Luke Fretwell (25:10.414)
Yeah.

Rebecca Woodbury (25:19.233)
And it's just really cool to see the level of expertise that we brought, all the levels of expertise that we brought into the the effort, and to see the the chapters that are covered throughout the the book are just it it's really cool. It's it was it's a very different experience when you're in the middle of it. And then now that we're on the other side looking back, it's it's really cool to see them all together.

Ryan Koch (25:49.017)
A strong go ahead.

Luke Fretwell (25:49.293)
Yeah.

Yeah, I mean I'm looking at the list now and it really is. Like half of the people I hadn't, you know, never met before. But to Rebecca's, you know, echo what Rebecca said, right? Like it's initially it was kind of people we knew, and then, you know, it was us and then people we knew.

and then, you know, some folks started coming out, or we identified folks to who had written a blog post and we thought there was an angle for them to contribute, you know, something related to that to, you know, this book. some people we reached out to in the beginning and didn't want, you know, they were busy or whatever. And then they came through in the end. so and then even, you know, working on the design, right? Like I didn't even know Adam.

And ultimately we really got in the weeds on sort of design, book design, print design, ePub design especially. don't advise it. But you know, we really like and I thought that I was, you know, sort of being annoying to him. and he was really excited and working on it. We both sort of wanted to be perfect, at perfect ish. and I, you know, we had never

worked together before. We we I don't we've never even met each other in real life. but, you know, it was fun to just like have that connection with them. And I think just sort of, you know, it's kind of back to what you're saying with Rebecca saying yes, you know, being open to the possibilities really created you know, this book and the chapters and the design that it is, you know, that it came to be.

Ryan Koch (27:35.3)
And I I think that relates to a strong message you have in the book where you say that it kind of communicates this idea of trying to pull more folks into the process, to expand outward from one's own bubble. did you find you were able to recruit folks that fit into that who this is formed we talked about earlier? And we talked about folks in like those program policy layers, those folks that need to at least know the basics in order to know like what to buy, like, you know, psych security standards, those sorts of things.

is that something that you were able to cut were they able to come into the bubble?

Rebecca Woodbury (28:09.845)
Yeah, I mean we got we got folks from the city management world, participatory budgeting world, comms world. We we definitely got some really interesting backgrounds and perspectives and into the book, which was really cool. and you know, and as we were working with contributors on their chapters, we also really pushed them to make sure what they wrote was for a non-civic tech audience. We wanted to make sure that

Luke Fretwell (28:13.87)
Mm-hmm.

Rebecca Woodbury (28:39.381)
you know, their expertise was, you know, approachable to someone who doesn't know anything about the topic. so I think we're able to kind of strike that that balance of like bringing in deep expertise but making it accessible and approachable.

Luke Fretwell (28:59.032)
Yeah.

Ryan Koch (29:03.693)
Rebecca, as we prepared for this episode, I recall you talking about it being important to create something that could be replicated. What what why was that a key thing that you wanted to reach for?

Rebecca Woodbury (29:16.801)
I mean, I think that a lot of that goes back to what Luke was saying about open source in a lot of ways, that fundamental connection between government and open source. I think one of the special qualities of public service is the idea of replicating, sharing, iterating good solutions, scaling. it's why proprietary vendor lock in is just so wrong. like

We wanted to model running a project in the open, as Luke was saying. so you know, hence putting everything on GitHub. I think a lot of distrust in government stems from people feeling like things are done behind closed doors. It's a perception. It it can be perception, it can be real. and a lot of folks in government don't get

that distrust because they're having the public meetings and they're posting the draft reports online. But that's not the same as working in the open and working in a way that can be replicated. And so I think that part of doing this the way that we did it was to show what working in the open can look like and maybe inspire folks to think about working in the open in the government context and what that

look like. So I think that that kind of was on my mind. And I also think like there were just elements to how we got the project done that like you know we had a chapter template. And so that made each like ta working with every contributor a replicable pro replicable process. and so there were just like also elements of the project that made it

easily easy to work through and and the checklists that we had, kind of the operations that we set up to get things done. and I just fundamentally believe similarly, I think to Luke with open source is like what you do in the civic space should be shareable, copyable. I mean, the book is Creative Commons for a reason.

Ryan Koch (31:40.677)
The the mention you made about public meetings is what is an interesting one. It it immediately took my brain back to not to go on a random anecdote, but there's like a fun thing when I when I lived in Chicago, I met some folks that worked with City Bureau, which is like a local journalist nonprofit there, and what they discovered is like, yeah, there's public meetings, but even we, full people who spend maybe full time trying to figure out where they are so we can cover them, have a hard time figuring it out.

so then they then spun up this like volunteer project to build web scrapers to then find the meetings in these like buried websites to bring them together. you know, as an open source project kind of thing. and

Luke Fretwell (32:13.666)
Yeah.

Rebecca Woodbury (32:21.185)
And public meeting often represents like the end of something. It's not the process of how you got there. And that's why I think like there's often there's this breakdown where people think, we're having this public meeting about something, but for many of the folks coming from the public, it can feel like decisions are already made. It it there can sometimes it can feel like a charade at times.

Ryan Koch (32:26.734)
Right.

Rebecca Woodbury (32:50.119)
And I think that that's something that's a bit kind of broken about the process, that it it can just it can feel like, yes, we're having a public meeting, but you've already made up your mind.

Ryan Koch (33:04.752)
That's a that's a really good point. And actually, as I think about y'all's process, you kind of had your own like steps in that there were but in the open, right? Like, yeah, there's the po the issue at the end that maybe has the link to the chapter you've already worked with the person on and it's there and there's been comments, but there's those steps that maybe I just like spoke through in between where, you know, folks could interact with it. They could see it, they could before it turns into a thing that becomes a resolved issue and

Luke Fretwell (33:13.324)
Mm-hmm.

Ryan Koch (33:33.048)
and into the book. So it sounds like you're kind of saying, like, much like how we did that, you would like to see public services show each like showing your work from math class to make myself seem old.

Rebecca Woodbury (33:40.474)
It's a lot of it is showing your work. Yeah, absolutely. The checklists, this is how we're doing it, this is, you know, this is the process. Looking underneath the hood, I think is a big part of building trust. And I think if people understood what is underneath the hood, they might have a better time trusting it.

Ryan Koch (34:10.562)
And it actually maybe indicative of even our our own call here today, time zones. We're all over the place, even now. I imagine your contributors also had that going on. People all over the country, maybe even all over the world. and also like different occupational focuses as we talked about, different perspectives on what the work means, a lot of different to to kind of facilitate. And to and you all did it remotely and asynchronously.

What did you see as things that worked well as you sought to take on that challenge? And what were things that didn't work so well?

Rebecca Woodbury (34:49.259)
think like our capacity ebbed and flowed. This project took like four years. And so that was, you know, there were times where our personal lives or work lives made it so that we couldn't spend a lot of time on this project. So that kind of ebbed and flowed and we just had to go with that and realize that. I think there were moments of frustration because I think we wanted to get it done sooner and faster. But

I think Luke alluded that to that earlier. At some point we just had to like go with the flow of the project and say it will be done when it is done. and I think that part of what worked really well was that we tag teamed really well throughout the process. We played to each other's strengths. when one person was busier than the other person, you know, we took on different things. and so I think that that.

the nature of working to not just the two of us, but the other folks that came on board to help with editing, to help with promotion, to help with design. I mean, just everyone worked asynchronously really well. I think us getting over the finish line, I I purely credit to Luke's ability to operationalize anything. and also to make decisions and project manage. So I I mean if it was like if I was in charge, we'd be, you know,

in the backyard making daisy chains and like chasing butterflies or something. Luke Luke knows how to get things done. and so that that helped put structure around things, create checklists, get things, you know, into the done column. but I think just the async tooling that we used to communicate with folks and to share

docs and everything. It just we just got set up well from the start.

Luke Fretwell (36:48.864)
Yeah. I mean, I think, you know, the tooling, right? Like, I mean, this is, you know, standard for a lot of people, but at least in civic tech, but like you know, using Slack to communicate asynchronously. I mean, Rebecca's in Sweden, I'm in California, you know, people were everywhere. So like you chat in whenever you have the chance. but also being transparent with the process and what was happening, so you know.

tying in workflows into Slack. So if I published something to the website, it would give a notice in Slack so people would know that I did it and I didn't have to like say anything. but even on GitHub, we had our project board and you know, GitHub is essentially a way to project manage a building of a product. so we followed, you know, we had a project board, you know, all of our tasks were templated. So we knew

what steps for each part, you know, sort of onboarding an author, editing the chapter, communicating that we wanted feedback from the public on the chapter, finalizing the chapter, publishing that it's now available, and then, you know, closing it out. so like everybody knew what the steps were, the authors knew the rules of engagement, and we're honest about, you know, we

you know, we want to get this done in a time frame. you know, if you have issues or, you know, sometimes we push the authors to do, you know, get a little bit deeper, and, you know, on a chapter and making sure that it was the way that we thought it should be. So it went without beyond the timeframe. But really just being honest with each other, right? Like,

Are you able to, you know, I'm gonna jump in, understanding that like if somebody wasn't getting to something within the expected time period, that it was license for other people to jump in, let them know that they are going to jump in and keep the ball rolling. Right. It's not an insult to your character. it's we are being intentional about how we work and this is how we're gonna do it. So

Luke Fretwell (39:11.404)
Recognizing everybody's busy, but also recognizing that we have a project that we need to finish at some point. so creating that culture of being accessible to everybody, as you mentioned, Ryan, async and distributed and creating the tool, having the tools to enable that exponentially, but also having a culture of, you know, if you can't get to it, then either A, let us know, ASAP.

You don't need to apologize, just you know, let us know. or we'll let you know if we can't, because as Rebecca said, there were times when, you know, everybody had to s people had to step away for various reasons. But also just working with each other, me and Rebecca, or us and the the co authors or the collaborators, you know, just telling them this is how this works, and you know, we're gonna keep moving forward.

so it was really just sort of like creating that creating the tools that enabled it, but also the culture.

Ryan Koch (40:16.343)
And I think I hear there's like some natural gates in there at different steps of the process. when you when say a chapter or part of the book hits one of those gates, how do how does it go through? Can you talk me through like what's the what's kind of like the contract between contributor and project for getting through a check like that?

Luke Fretwell (40:40.439)
do you mean with with r with like we have a chapter idea and an author comes in and we tell them, you know, the process or walk them through the process what

Ryan Koch (40:53.347)
I mean so they they're they've on they're on board, they're like going through your process. So your process kind of has some like review steps along the way. There's comment periods, there's in each of those like you have to pass, right, for your chapter to go on to the next and eventually end up in the book. So at some point, someone has to make the call, like the chapter keeps going or we tell you to go back and try again.

Luke Fretwell (40:56.682)
Okay. Uh-huh.

Rebecca Woodbury (40:58.134)
Mm.

Luke Fretwell (41:06.658)
Yeah. Yep.

Luke Fretwell (41:12.994)
Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Rebecca Woodbury (41:15.519)
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we kind of worked our worked through that with each chapter author. But yeah, we definitely had a workflow for the chapter, started with a kickoff meeting, a discussion of the topic. We gave them a timeline for the first draft. We took we did a first pass at review. and then if it passed to your, you know, if it passed that gate, then they could make changes according to our review.

and then it would go on to public review and we would promote it that way. So it kind of went through went through that process. so I think there were times where we were reviewing chapters and it ended up not feeling like the right fit for the book. Not that it was a bad chapter, it just wasn't gonna fit with the rest of the chapters. and so there were a couple chapters that we had to make decisions on.

Luke Fretwell (42:03.086)
Mm-hmm.

Rebecca Woodbury (42:12.693)
during that process with the with the writers where it didn't get end up end up getting published in the the final book. but overall you know everyone was great to work with. And so it was it was pretty easy to work through issues as they arised. I think the thing that was interesting was some chapters

went through the process, like flew through the process. And then others took longer and we had to kind of extend deadlines and rework things. And some things we even reworked way after the fact because like I said, this book took like four years. So there were times where like we would look at a chapter that was written like two years ago. We'd be like, do we need to look at this again? You know, and so there were times where we kind of had to come back to chapters

and and rework some things with some of the authors as well. So it was very iterative in that nature. so even things that we thought were done, we looked at again. And then when everything was done done, we still did a whole read through because then we had to look at the book in its entirety, right? And the early chapters that we had written, we had to look at the newer chapters and make sure that everything still fit and

Luke Fretwell (43:15.158)
Yeah.

Rebecca Woodbury (43:33.758)
And flowed.

Ryan Koch (43:37.017)
I I heard you mention like the temporal nature of our work, right? Things change. So that's like one reason to revisit something. but you also mentioned, you know, there's a difference between some make it through easily, some require more back and forth. Were there any patterns between kind of those two outcomes that you recall?

Luke Fretwell (43:37.326)
Yeah.

Rebecca Woodbury (43:56.098)
I mean, it's the c like different topics had different levels of complexity. I think one of the things that we learned kind of partway through the book was the importance of that initial meeting and honing in on the topic really clearly with the writer. so we started to get really good at having those initial conversations to make sure that the topic that they wanted to write about.

was gonna be achievable in our kind of in the context of this book and in the template that we provided. you know, our our chapters are short. And so you have to bite off the right topic in the right way. And so that's where I think sometimes there were a couple chapters where we were struggling because I think the writer wanted to kind of say thing say more than they could.

in this that the chapter template would really allow for in some ways. And so we had to like kind of rescope and say, well, let's talk about it this way. Cause we wanted the we wanted the book to be an easy read. and we didn't want it to be so high level that you don't learn anything. so we wanted the chapters to feel really tangible and tactical in a lot of ways. And so I think those early conversations around what

is this chapter really gonna be about and what can you really achieve? I think that was really the that was a really critical conversation that we got better at having as we got through chapters with people.

Luke Fretwell (45:38.189)
Yeah, and I think like the, you know, in thinking about it, and I've never really like actually thought about a pattern. So thank you, Ryan, for helping us do that. for the next book it'll be easier. It won't be it'll be three years instead of four years. I think like, you know, in thinking about it, right, like

Whenever there were two whenever there's co-authors, it definitely provided a little bit more friction. because you know, people have different takes. You know, it's like Rebecca said, somebody wants to write a lot, we're limiting them to five hundred words and two hundred words or whatever for each section because it's a standardized section. So two people want to say, you know, have things to say. and then you have kind of the different you know, approaches to writing, right? So how do people

So there was that, even though you know there may have been two people that were like really good, you know, like experts, perfect people to write the chapter on their own, because there were two of them now, they just kind of have a different perspective. But in cases where people had been working together, you know, side by side, it was less of an issue. So for like Joe and Dustin writing the innovation chapter, you know, they just knocked it out.

Because they work together and they talk about this stuff all the time. And there were other chapters where people were kind of doing things, doing that chapter topic in different ways or different context, and also just probably different writing styles. And for us too, the element in some of them was we we want to like we have elements of it that we think are important. For example, the civic hacking chapter, right? Carlos.

And Lori, you know, they come from different contexts, but they're both sort of leaders in civic, you know, hacking. and then you have me who is gonna be a pain in the ass because I have a perspective too. And I'm, you know, so that was a little bit more challenging because, you know, I was mostly because I was a pain in the ass, but because, you know, we just had different perspectives on it. not perspectives, but just we're they were word boxed.

Luke Fretwell (47:53.255)
And there were three different concepts that, you know, three different people had concepts that wanted to do it. But you know, there were chapters that and then there were chapters like if you were really if you were really dialed into what you did, and we said this is what we're looking for, you know, it was done. Like Joy, right? Joy Bonagoro. We I talked with her about data and data rights and and she was probably like sitting at her dinner table, you know, and she just

knocked it out and it was perfect. and then there were chapters where it was just the individual, but it was a concept that was newish for them, for the community. and we're all kind of learning, you know, as we go. So I think if you were gonna like do a book in a year, right? Or, you know, in in shorter time, you know, and you didn't want to sort of live the sort of thrill of being a pain in the ass to everybody and causing, you know, time delays, you would say,

All right, have y'all been working together on this topic? Okay, you can write this chapter. You know, are you an expert in this? And we're gonna and like as Rebecca said, we're gonna be very specific on what we want. You write this chapter. but you know, that was like the fun part about it. Was I mean, I don't know, Lori and Car Carlos probably think different, but you know, it was just like through that process, I think the at the end, everybody was real it seemed, at least they said they acted like it, that everybody was really.

happy with how the chapters came out. So if it took a long time, it was frustrating. But ultimately I think everybody was, you know, whether it was like easy to do or difficult, you know, that process was everybody was proud of their their end product.

Rebecca Woodbury (49:41.26)
Cause I think like many of these chapters could be their own book. I mean, if you think about Myling's chapter on design for everyone, I mean, I think the challenge of that chapter was that she could write a whole book on that. and she should, My Ling. so I think like that that was also some of them lent the the topics lent themselves to the format really easily. And then some was like a struggle to, like I said, scope it down and say, like, what can you say?

Luke Fretwell (49:49.793)
Yeah.

Rebecca Woodbury (50:10.795)
you know, about this topic in this context and then what do you have to edit out? There was a lot of editing. So that probably was the thing that was took the most time was figuring out what's the most important thing to say.

Luke Fretwell (50:24.524)
Yeah, and even like I mean

Ryan Koch (50:24.931)
Well, I'm gonna have to keep an eye out for those spin off books to invite them on the show. And Luke, I I think you were you had a response there too.

Rebecca Woodbury (50:28.493)
Right?

Luke Fretwell (50:33.506)
Yeah, I mean, even I mean, I think like one of the chapters that was painful to get out was mine and the last it was the last chapter. and it was, you know, it was it was the feed machine feed the machine chapter. And it was just like me being a pain in my ass to myself to like think it through, you know, because I wanted it to be perfect. And Rebecca, you know, I think Rebecca had a lot of patience with me. And then I finally did it. And I know.

Rebecca Woodbury (50:59.007)
What is going on, Luke? Like, why are you not done with this chapter? Like, it's like it seemed like you could write it in your sleep and you just took forever. You were being the a pain in your own ass. Wow. Huh. Interesting.

Luke Fretwell (51:03.532)
I know it's all quiet. Yeah.

Luke Fretwell (51:12.184)
Yeah, yeah. I inside I was. And I was it was like both. It was like get this perfect, ha ha. but also get it done.

Rebecca Woodbury (51:23.861)
What a painful existence you lead.

Luke Fretwell (51:26.734)
I know.

Ryan Koch (51:27.407)
That that that there's a lot of tension in those two statements being in the same in the same room. R look, I'm picturing yourself kind of living that like you are your own worst critic to the maximum in that moment.

Rebecca Woodbury (51:31.019)
Right.

Luke Fretwell (51:31.297)
Yeah.

Rebecca Woodbury (51:38.047)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Luke Fretwell (51:38.23)
Yep. Totally. Yeah.

Ryan Koch (51:42.596)
And you know, I something I'm I'm I think I'm hearing from y'all in these anecdotes, is that, you know, often there were differ different views and different visions for how a section might go. But at the same time, Rebecca, you and Luke are trying to like maintain this like consistent kind of voice so that at the end, like you can read a coherent book. And naturally that does lead to some disagreement, which I'm kind of hearing as a thread in these stories.

Luke Fretwell (52:04.163)
Mm-hmm.

Ryan Koch (52:11.779)
How did you all ac actually kind of like go through the act of navigating that? Like let's say you had an author or two and they just wanted to do something different, but you're trying to negotiate and find 'cause you still want a chapter and you want to work together, but at some point you have to find some some way to move forward together.

Rebecca Woodbury (52:30.475)
think there was anything that was that difficult to work through. I think most stuff like I d I can't remember if there was anything that like somebody just felt like so strong about I that it was a problem. I I think most everything was just like here's my perspective, here's my perspective, you know, and this is, you know, I don't think there was anything that difficult. I think what I will say about, you know

creating a consistent voice was there were like rounds and rounds of editing. And thank you, Eka. Thank you, Morgan, for both helping with the rounds of of editing. So we really relied on plain language. we forced brevity through the word counts and the chapter template.

and then we used kind of style and formatting to make sure that the book has this kind of easy to read feel that you can kind of scan through these chapters. and and so that, you know, there were but there were many rounds of of edits that things went through to get to get it to be that way. And I think also that chapter template that we designed early on and kind of

you know, iterated on a bit to get it right. But I think that really helped a great deal as well. And it helped even with like wrestling with the chapters of like where things should go, having that template template really helped. you know, we developed it kind of early on and then once we had a few chapters, we kind of decided we needed word counts. We added, you know, sections for mantras and questions to ask. So we created this kind of

template that I think made it easier to work with contributors on their chapters. I think it also made it easy for contributors to jump into the chapter because it they had a starting point. and then that's really what I think helped I mean it was so easy to pull the book together as a cohesive body of work because each chapter was had a, you know, symmetry. and I also love the template that we ended up developing.

Rebecca Woodbury (54:52.019)
If I were a city manager, I would I would adapt that template to my staff reports. I mean, I think it like it has a really great flow. and so I I I think that template is a is something that is definitely replicable, reusable for folks.

Luke Fretwell (55:10.444)
Yeah, I mean the the you know, part of it was inspired by the digital service playbook, right? Like with sort of the questions ask and the the checklist. and then just thinking about sort of culture, and you know, explaining to folks concepts, right? in a simple way, right? Like problem solution context. so and borrowing from like the digital service playbook and another context is the questions to ask, because some people don't, you know, you to explain something to them like.

Ryan Koch (55:10.625)
And Rebecca

Rebecca Woodbury (55:15.081)
Mm-hmm.

Luke Fretwell (55:40.471)
I still don't know what to do, you know. And what we wanted to do was both provide context enough, enough context and give access to resources that could sort of bring them on a path if they were interested in that particular topic or needed support on that particular topic, but also give them action items to get going and not be like, okay, cool. I just read this chapter, this thought piece, but now what? And

really, you know, creating the template, the chapter templates to be problem solution, context, mantras, checklist, questions to ask, really like helped the authors, you know, box them into just being very specific about the information that they were going to provide for those, and helped us kind of work with them easier as opposed to like

Just go write some sort of novel, you know, and bring it back to us and we'll edit it and figure out how to make it tie in. So the templates definitely helped. but also I think just going into with we want to give people enough understanding and make it accessible on a topic that may be they may be confused or afraid of, and then also give them enough to get started, have the confidence to get started.

Rebecca Woodbury (56:43.745)
Mm-hmm.

Luke Fretwell (57:05.118)
Or ask the right questions, and that was really important to us.

Ryan Koch (57:12.495)
Rebecca, you mentioned plain language as part of your your process, which also great connection that that there's content in the book about that. And that's something I can hear kind of like some passion for that in in your answer. And that's something in in my, you know, day job kind of work trying to do this stuff. I also have found that. And I've also found that it's often one of those things where it's like easy to be like, yeah, plain language is good, but then sometimes kind of hard to like actually make sure that people do it or that it ends up in your product or

That at the end, you know, the pen writes the simple thing that's easy to read. what's been kind of your lived experience trying to make that happen?

Rebecca Woodbury (57:51.922)
It's so hard. and like we could spend the rest of this podcast talking about it. so one so one, I think that people feel like it's not professional. And they f so therefore they feel like they're not allowed to use it in a professional context. So a lot of people feel like they're supposed to use certain words.

Ryan Koch (57:58.716)
maybe another book.

Luke Fretwell (57:59.993)
Mm-hmm.

Rebecca Woodbury (58:19.185)
in professional settings. Like they have to say utilize. They can't say just use. They have to say utilize. I mean, there's these words that are just like ingrained into the like professional setting. And I think few people feel like that's the professional way to say stuff. And so you have to kind of break through that and like give people permission and show why those are problematic to do, especially when you string them all together. And I think there's also this myth

That plain language dumbs things down. It doesn't. It makes things clear. And sometimes that's really hard to do. It sometimes it's really hard to make things clear. but it's very, very, very worth it. I I will tell you this when people understand the rules, they are more likely to comply with them.

Luke Fretwell (59:01.998)
Yeah.

Rebecca Woodbury (59:14.751)
And they are less likely to submit an incomplete application that takes longer to process. Right? There are these efficiencies that come from this. so we talk about now it's what are what's the new phrase? The time tax, or you know, wasting people's time. And we waste people's time when we make things confusing. and I think often.

when things are hard to understand, it also reflects an underlying process problem. You can't write your way out of something that is poorly designed, right? And I often find this in with the work that I do with website content, which is that sometimes I can't fix it with words. This is a broken process. So it's really an interesting way to then, you know, look at your service design through the lens of plain language. And then kind of

The the other thing that I will say, most of the time obfusc obfuscation is unintentional.

But sometimes it's not.

And I do think that sometimes it is intentional that there is this, you know, to different degrees, but I think that sometimes we use words to protect. And, you know, as they say, knowledge is power and power corrupts. I I don't know, but I I think that plain language is such a critical piece to unlocking

Rebecca Woodbury (01:00:59.329)
Trust, unlocking efficiencies. It's just such a critical component to government. When I teach plain language, I use lots and lots of examples because I find that when you show rather than just tell, it that's when people can have those aha moments, like when you can show. Like it doesn't this read a lot better when you say use instead of utilize?

You know, and when you show these examples, I think it really unlocks things for for folks. So that's a really important part of plain language work is showing examples and giving people the permission and maybe going a step further than permission and also making it a directive. I've been really encouraged because I've actually gotten a lot more requests from people these days that want to make plain language training mandatory for their employees.

And that to me is so encouraging and exciting because you know, when we think about our, you know, most people are communicators in some way in their job. Not everyone, you know, manages website content or writes press releases, but they write emails, they write reports, they they communicate, they write notices, they communicate information in a lot of different ways. And I think if we give people permission to write,

A public notice in plain language, wow. I mean, I think the world would become a little bit better of a place.

Ryan Koch (01:02:32.608)
And Luke, that that framing on like everyone is a communicator in in their work actually connects to a section that you wrote about kind of pertaining to public service, where to me it was a stu it was a chapter that really stuck out. And I believe you said something like, We're all public servants. We all do public service. could you kind of expand upon that? As I think the theme from the communication and how it touches everyone and what you're talking about here maybe kind of connect to each other a bit.

Luke Fretwell (01:02:44.066)
Mm.

Luke Fretwell (01:02:49.096)
Thank you.

Yeah.

Luke Fretwell (01:03:03.086)
yeah, I mean, I think like for especially for me, right? Like, never worked in government, but have done a lot of stuff related to government civics, over the last fifteen, twenty years of my life. I feel like a public servant.

Right. And I think like stepping back and how we designed it, my own experiences, you know, especially like interviewing government folks and people saying, you know, you say like, you know, people will ask, you know, you they will say like, we're doing it for the mission, and you know, some of these things that feel cliche and it's only unique to them because they are

getting directly paid by the taxpayers. So somehow they are the public servants. And then as a you know, as a GovTech entrepreneur or founder of companies, somehow because you are the vendor, you are not a public servant because you are indirectly getting paid by taxpayers. and that's just the, you know, the

The narrative around that is something that I think we need to reframe as I wrote, because, you know, it it forces government. You know, a lot of times you see government treating the vendor like a vendor, or you see the vendor treating the government like the government. and you see government treating the community like, you know, the annoyance. and I think it's it's important for us to realize sort of our.

Collective contributions, how individual contributions, you know, impact the collective. And if we start all labeling ourselves public servants or think of each other as public servants, then we will start working in better ways. And, you know, vendors, maybe not all of them, but we'll start to think about the work that they do in the context of you know the people and not the

Luke Fretwell (01:05:15.874)
the government or the contract that they have. and, you know, I was talking with a vendor about something. and they had made a change. and I said, you know, you didn't make this change for government. You made this change for a million people. you know, with some service that they provide that they, you know, contract with government and government uses. So essentially they're the face. And it's just the con and, you know,

One of them on the call said something like, I never really thought about that, which is kind of shocking to me. But I think this idea of everybody, you know, thinking of each other as a public servant would allow us to sort of work better together and also, you know, treat treat each other better, but also especially like you know, raise expectations for one another, you know.

If a vendor is not acting like a public servant, they can be known, but they still have, you know, they've been given the permission to call themselves a public servant. And if they're not acting like one, then they should be held accountable, just like we would for what we traditionally call a public servant. So I think it was just I don't know when that chapter came about. It wasn't in the beginning, but it was at some point when I realized, like, you know what, I feel like just the vendor and I'm not. So

Don't think of me as just a vendor. and I know that there are other people who feel the same way, but also on the government side, you know, there are really great public servants, but they're also bad public servants. And just because they get directly paid by the taxpayers may not mean that they are a public servant.

Ryan Koch (01:07:02.359)
Rebecca, one of the chapters you contributed to resonated with me as well in the set guiding principles chapter. It talks about the importance of referencing those guiding principles and talking about them. That pushed me to reflect back on the places I've journeyed through in my own kind of career journey. And what I realized is the places I was at where it actually seemed like they behaved like the way their website said they did, like the values stuff.

They're the ones where they actually talked about it somewhere that, you know, they had like a synchronous space where you could like shout out people for doing something cool that related to one of them, or a Slack space where you could say, Hey, this person did a great job. You know, they were very truthful or candorous or whatever the value is in question. what have you seen kind of work well at places with this kind of thing?

Rebecca Woodbury (01:07:54.835)
So when I worked in government, I was part of developing an internal workforce engagement program. and one of the best things we did together was develop guiding principles for our organization. And so we did this as a collaborative effort with employees of all levels, all departments were involved in writing these principles.

So once we had them defined, which was a very iterative process, took us a while to kind of work through things. then we asked employees to help us create the narrative or the legend behind each one. so that each guiding principle had a story behind it, not just words. one of them that I remember, it was a principle about being mindful of taxpayer dollars.

And some staff in the public works department, they made this hilarious video about this groundbreaking that where a consultant had suggested that we buy these golden shovels for a photo op that cost like a thousand dollars each and we needed like ten of them or something, right? And so the

Guys in the maintenance crew, they just went to Home Depot, they bought some regular shovels and a can of gold spray paint. And they told the story of how to be mindful with taxpayer dollars through this hilarious video of being mindful with taxpayer dollars. And it was through these like videos and also just engaging employees at any level of the organization to be a part of making these principles that just

gave them so much power. And so people in the organization, they felt attached to these principles because they had written them, they had built them. And not only had they written them, they were also living the stories that became the lore, living the stories behind them. And so it was this really powerful experience for the folks that were involved in in writing these and then like giving the narrative to them as well.

Rebecca Woodbury (01:10:16.441)
and so yeah, that that would be my my favorite experience relating to to guiding principles for sure.

Ryan Koch (01:10:26.614)
a tension I picked up between a a couple parts is maybe a a natural one that just exists in the work where on the one hand, you know, these are public services, right? So we need to design them so that they're for everyone. You can't you can't like segment the public so easily. But on the other hand, if you're in working in product, you need to have a coherent vision and sometimes you need to say no to stuff in order to ship or to get the thing out.

Who do you think wins when you have that kind of conflict between, say, research findings say you need the thing, but you know, your product vision says maybe you have to say no to some of the stuff?

Rebecca Woodbury (01:11:08.085)
well, I'll I'll start. Maybe Luke can kind of fill in. I think yeah, a good product owner knows how to listen and doesn't lead with hubris. So I think in a lot of ways a a good product owner knows when they need to change the vision. and you know, something that made sense at one point in time may no longer make sense.

later on. so you know, when I coach product owners, I often, you know, work with them on how being empowered to make decisions doesn't mean you operate like a dictator. you still listen, you're still curious, you're still open minded. And I think many projects fail when people keep marching towards a vision that no longer makes sense. So I think it's a balancing act. I don't think one wins. I think you balance.

the need for getting something done and achieved to a certain extent, but also one that reflects real needs and real needs change over time. so I think that a good product owner knows how to not dictate reality, you know, listen to to research and also navigate through paralysis.

and adapt to new information. So I I think that that tension is inevitable and you have to wade through it.

Luke Fretwell (01:12:43.232)
Yeah, I mean I think, you know, vision, right? Like I think vision is is critical. you know, creating a culture where people have, you know, obviously you want to understand what use users are doing and as my wife says, read the room. and the but also like, you know, in order to be innovative, you know.

somebody has to have vision and a plan to implement it. But in order for that to happen, there has to be a culture of accepting that or acknowledging that a person has a vision and trusting them to implement that. so it is a balance

But it also is just sort of this trust. Like I may not know, I may not understand where where Rebecca's going with this, but I have acknowledged that she is, you know, the authority on this or an authority, or has a vision, and I trust her to implement it. And I'm gonna support doing that. because she's helping us think different about this and gonna take us to a place that no one really imagined because of the context that she has.

but it is a balance, right? You have to like read the room, but you also have to create the space to let people do something different. And that's hard for government and civics folks to do the latter.

Ryan Koch (01:14:17.494)
As we've touched on some of the the book content, the chapters kinda give you things you can bring to your work, practices you can do, gives you advice, kind of helps support folks that are actually like out there doing the thing. So that brings me to a a question for each of you, which is what's a chapter you've personally struggled to live up to and why?

Rebecca Woodbury (01:14:44.161)
Well, for me, the the remember why you do this chapter is it's a bit bittersweet. for me personally, during the pandemic, I like many is working in government, we experienced burnout pretty severely. and it led me to quit my 12 year career in government. I was exhausted.

And I had definitely lost my why. And my why before burnout was so strong, but I lost it. I also think I lost my who, what, where, when, how. I like lost it all. but I think a lot of people working in government are exhausted. It can be really exhausting. Most of my customers are exhausted, and I've been in their shoes.

And it's hard to remember your why when you're really, really tired. And you he keep hitting, you know, brick walls. So I got my why back. and I think the silver lining is now my why is kind of like more powerful than ever. I think I'm more effective at what I do. I have a larger impact. I think that.

you know, my why is now my own. It's not my bosses. It's not the councils. It's it's my why now. and so also now part of my why is to support others that are doing the work that I, you know, the shoes that I used to be in. and so I try to inspire them when I think they need it because they inspire me still doing the work. and I think like part of the joy in working on this book

with all these amazing contributors was getting to be inspired by each contributor who came in with their perspectives, their experiences, their wisdom. I think, you know, every chapter we just got to get inspired by them. and so that chapter, while I think I found my why again, I definitely lost it. And I think that that's probably a lot of the experience of a lot of very tired public servants, I think

Rebecca Woodbury (01:17:05.174)
that it is hard to remember the why when you're really, really tired.

Luke Fretwell (01:17:13.452)
Yeah. yeah, I'm looking over the the chapters as Rebecca's talking and it's funny because I think like every time I see this and it's been a minute, cause you know, since I've looked at these chapters just to sort of separate myself. But it's funny because if I was gonna write a book by myself, and get out all of the things that it that I feel like would have been my book, I look at all these chapters and I'm like, this is

This is what I would have written. This is just how I roll. it's kind of weird to see that now. because I think a lot of this I I live, you know, I live my life this way, my professional personal life this way. so it's a tougher question for me, but I think like thinking deeply about it. And I think this is a challenge that.

you know, a lot of us in civic tech have is just like really speaking plainly, right? And we think we're speaking plainly about the digital concepts, or, you know, saying digital things or technical things in a way that feel accessible, but we're still not reading the room and understanding, you know, that the peop the concepts that we're trying to explain are still very technical.

and even for me, like I value plain language. I know the importance of it and incorporate into a lot of the work that I do, but I think still

saying things that, you know, even if I try to explain them, you know, like in the context of what I'm working on these days or advocating for is like everything should be a JSON file, right? And like explaining what a JSON file is and why it's important. And then, you know, getting feeling like getting the understanding around it, being taking the time to explain it. But then people are like, Well I'm sorry, what is a JSON file? Right. And like

Luke Fretwell (01:19:11.564)
Really thinking about it, like don't say JSON because people are gonna, you know, look at you like you're trying to teach them to code. but I think that they're, you know, definitely like s really being, you know, when you think that you're being intentional and plain about communicating technical or digital concepts to people, check yourself and go a little bit more plain on it because odds are you're not. At least I'm not.

Ryan Koch (01:19:40.694)
As we get closer to our end here, what would you say is like the one thing you want folks to keep after they read the book?

Rebecca Woodbury (01:19:52.077)
For me, and I hope this comes through in some of these chapters, especially like reframe public service too. You don't need permission to make public service a little better. Whatever your role is, wherever you're positioned, there's probably something within your control that you can do to make the experience better and easier for somebody on the other side.

So I think gov working within government, sometimes it can feel like you need permission to do anything. And I want to kind of challenge people to think beyond that a bit. and and realize that there are some things in your control that you can make better and improve, even if you feel like there's not. and if you don't have permiss permission, I think you need to challenge that and figure out why and and push.

Push on that.

Luke Fretwell (01:20:55.702)
Yeah, I mean, I think like I'm a broken record on this, but I think like just defaulting to open, right? And being open to possibilities. And like we started this conversation with just saying yes, right? Like default into open, say yes. At the end of the day, like whatever you do when you default to open or say yes to, you will wake up the next morning and realize that that was the choice. They, you know, that was the right choice. And a lot of people in government.

Don't do that, right? It's no or deep default to you know closed. and it creates this constraint. But like if you wake up in the morning and make a decision to default to open or default to yes, you will start to experience a different form of the work that you do for the people. whether you're a public servant or a vendor or whoever, you will feel better about that.

and you will see more flow within the civic system.

Ryan Koch (01:21:59.671)
And in the spirit of saying yes and making right choices, how can folks read the book?

Rebecca Woodbury (01:22:06.826)
It's free, it's on our website. So what's the website? Proudly Serving Book dot com. I think I said it right.

Luke Fretwell (01:22:15.232)
Yes, Rebecca. Yes, you got the domain right. yeah, you can go to priority serving dot com, as Rebecca said, it's create priority serving book dot com. Dang. the

Rebecca Woodbury (01:22:21.568)
No, proudly serving book dot com.

Ryan Koch (01:22:25.87)
Don't worry, I'll put the I'll put the correct one in the show notes. Don't worry.

Luke Fretwell (01:22:29.292)
Yeah, there it's multiple formats. And as Rebecca said, it's Creative Commons. the, you know, it's an EPUB PDF, HTML, you know, it's it's an accessible PDF. Rebecca, plug plug PDF, accessible PDFs. but and there is a print version that's available and it's you know at cost. We sort of figured out like what it would cost to print it and it's print on demand. So

You know, you can get a print version for I think it's fifteen bucks and then and then there's multiple versions that are free.

Ryan Koch (01:23:10.392)
Very cool. Well, folks, you you've heard where you can go get at that book. I I do recommend it's a it's a good read. And Rebecca and Luke, I I appreciate all both coming on the podcast to talk about the book, how you wrote it, and some of the advice in it. I'm sure folks will get a lot out of it.

Rebecca Woodbury (01:23:27.906)
Thanks for having us.

Luke Fretwell (01:23:28.856)
Thank you, Ryan. Appreciate you.