Many of Oakland's tech challenges could benefit from public-private leadership. This is a rough draft presentation of the text at http://oaklandwiki.org/Technology_Commission_Proposal

1. Proposal:
Technology
Commission
for the City of Oakland
Phil Wolff
November 2013
OaklandWiki.org
http://bit.ly/18LH8Zl

2. Let’s have an Oakland…
Where every home
has blazing fast
Internet.

3. Let’s have an Oakland…
Where City departments don't work
with paper.

4. Where the
City's web
sites are
easy, fast,
and useful.

5. Let’s have an Oakland…

6. Let’s have an Oakland…
Where the City wins awards for
innovation, for technology leadership that
make Oakland a better place to raise kids
and find well paying work

7. An Oakland Technology
Commission can help us
• Slash our backlog of tech projects
• Apply our telecom permitting power
• Attract tech talent and business
• Narrow our digital divide
• Boost our buying power
• Increase Oaklander privacy & control over
personal data.

8. Let’s start a
Tech Commission!
Many of our challenges have causes and solutions
rooted in technology

9. Oakland’s Facing…
Technical Debt
Missed IT
opportunities,
risks, & costs
Wasted Permitting Power
Oakland Not In Silicon Valley
Fortress Behavior
Tech Law Overwhelm
Offline Oaklanders

10. Growing Technical Debt
Oakland has
a huge, growing
“technical debt”
A long list of work deferred,
bugs to fix, systems to upgrade
or retire, risks to be secured,
paper to be digitized, workflows
to be automated, apps to be
built, staff to be trained.

11. Growing Technical Debt
Failure to work
off tech debt
means broken
systems, stalled
innovation,
more liability,
less service

12. Growing Technical Debt
• We don’t know whether this is
hugely bad or apocalyptically bad.
The scope of these problems, and the
costs for digging out, are still
incompletely measured or prioritized.
• No plan to pay down this debt.

13. Wasted Permitting Power.
We have power.
We don’t use it.

14. Wasted Permitting Power.
Our power comes through permitting
for hardware installation and
maintenance.
The City gives Telephone companies,
Internet service providers, and Cable
companies permission to operate.

15. Wasted Permitting Power.
We negotiate with Comcast and AT&T
on our own once ever four to six
years
They have professional teams who
do these deals daily all over the
country, leaving us at a disadvantage.

16. Wasted Permitting Power.
Why Don’t We Use Our Power?
Public interests have not been turned
into policy, an agenda.
Our negotiators have not been
directed to seek agenda goals

17. Wasted Permitting Power.
A generation ago we negotiated for
public access channels and studios
from cable companies in exchange
for exclusive contracts.

18. Wasted Permitting Power.
What should we ask for in 2013?
in 2015?

19. Our tech commission could…
Lobby carriers to lay live fiber every
time the streets are opened, every time
a home is connected, to improve our
economy.

20. Our tech commission could…
Negotiate increased bandwidth in
public libraries to improve education.

21. Our tech commission could…
Get cheap smart phones to support
our community services.

22. Our tech commission could…
Demand more transparency in the
areas of personal privacy and
personal control over consumer data.

23. Our tech commission could…
Contract reports to assure every
neighborhood of our community has the
communication capacity to assure
economic development.

24. Our tech commission could…
Ensure carriers can
operate during and
after earthquakes
and other disasters,
saving lives and
speeding recovery.

25. Barely a Tech Town
in Silicon Valley
Oakland can be a
more attractive
place for big and
small tech
companies to
operate.
The City
government does
a weak job at
selling Oakland to
tech
communities.

26. Oakland Acts Like An Island
We don't pool our technology
purchases, coordinate our contract
negotiations, or cooperate in our
tech advocacy with other Bay Area
governments and agencies.

27. Technology Law is
Overwhelming
• Sacramento and D.C. make complex
new laws and new regulations
affecting the City, and the companies
and employees working here.
• The City isn't addressing this in its
lobbying, in its public advocacy, or in
its policy positions.

28. Offline Constituents
Many Oaklanders still have very
limited access to the Internet at
home, at work, or in their mobiles.
This hurts the City's ability to
automate without cutting off those
who need services the most.

29. A Technology Commission
could address these issues.

30. The TC’s Year Zero Agenda
1. Listen
2. Plan
3. Document/Cut Technical Debt
4. Tap Talent

31. Listen.
The TC would listen to local tech
leaders, advocates, and community
members to form a tech agenda that
supports Oakland.

32. Listen.
• Year One Goal: Tech policy agenda.
• Year One Goal: Tested a process for
turning tech community ideas into
an actionable policy agenda.

33. Listen.
Cooperation. The TC would promote
coordination with other public sector
groups and NGOs to improve our
negotiation, advocacy, and buying
power.

34. Listen.
Year One Goal: Quarterly meeting
with counterparts from ABAG and
other agency neighbors.

35. Plan.
The TC would be the agent of our City's
broad interests regarding permitting for
mobile and wireless phone and Internet
providers and for cable companies.
The TC would advise, review, and sign off
on Planning Department and Planning
Commission activity in this area.

36. Plan.
Year One Goal:
Compile the calendar of contract
renewals, with discussion points and
proposed partnerships for each.

37. Technical Debt.
The TC would review and report on
the City's state of technical debt and
annual progress.

38. Technical Debt.
Year One Goal: Work with City staff to
compile the first annual report.

39. Technical Debt.
Tech City. The TC would advise the
Mayor and City Council on economic
development related to high tech.

40. Technical Debt.
Year One Goal: Add a Tech City
component to the City's business
recruiting activity.

41. Tapping Talent.
The TC would recruit IT professionals
from big Oakland companies and
startups to advise and support City IT
staff.

42. Tapping Talent.
Year One Goal: A pool of tech
volunteers connected with their City
counterparts on named projects, and
a system for coordinating this
activity.

43. What's next?
Open questions?

44. Q. How does the City create
a new commission?
• What's the workflow and checklist?
• Who signs off?

45. Q. Charter?
• Assuming it needs a charter, how
would we draft a charter that's
useful? What's missing from this
proposal?

46. Q. Duplication of Effort?
• How can we verify these challenges
aren't being well-addressed
elsewhere?

47. Q. Buy-in?
• Which City stakeholders' buy-in
would help the TC's creation and
chances of success?
• Whose support in Oakland's tech
community would help this
succeed?

48. Q. Team composition?
• What blend of experience, attitudes,
talents, and affiliations could make
an effective TC?

49. Q. Candidates?
• Who would you nominate to the
commission?

50. Q. Operations?
• How would the TC operate,
assuming commissioners work no
more than an hour or two weekly?
• Dedicated staff? Staff seconded
from other City departments?
Volunteers?

51. Q. Scope?
• What limits or constraints would be
reasonable to apply to the TC?
• What risks or threats to the TC's success
might we plan for and mitigate?
• What City, county, and California laws,
rules, and regulations apply to the conduct
of a city commission?

52. Q. Money?
• What would a first-year TC budget
look like?
• How could we fund the TC?
• Does every City commission come
with some overhead charges?

53. Discussion
• Love it or hate it? Doable or pipe
dream?

54. Action
• Contribute to the proposal’s OaklandWiki
page…
http://oaklandwiki.org/Technology_Commission_Proposal
• Join the Open Oakland brigade of Code for
America (meets Tuesday nights at City
Hall)
http://www.meetup.com/OpenOakland/
http://twitter.com/openoakland
• Talk with Phil Wolff…

55. Phil Wolff
http://OpenOakland.org
http://bit.ly/oaktcproposaldraft
http://bit.ly/oaktcproposaldeck02
http://about.me/evanwolf
http://linkedin.com/in/philwolff
http://LetMyDataGo.org
pwolff@gmail.com
+1.510.444.8234
@evanwolf
skype:evanwolf

56. Thanks!
Credits
•
Photo: Welcome to Oakland cc-by-nc
http://www.photoree.com/photos/permalink/
7202695-51035555243@N01
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