The Opportunity for Civic Startups (Long - Web 2.0 Expo)

THE LAST BIG UNDISRUPTED MARKET:

The Opportunity for Civic Startups
civiccommons.org | -openplans.org | | @nickgrossman
Web 2.0 Expo 2011 Nick Grossman @nickgrossman
Saturday, October 29, 11

Today we’re going to talk about how your startups can save the world!

me, me, me

civiccommons.org | openplans.org | @nickgrossman

First, a bit about me: I work with several organizations working in the civic technology space:
http://openplans.org, http://civiccommons.org, http://codeforamerica.org, and http://
civic.mit.edu

you?


Are you working on what you’d call a “civic startup”?
Is it disruptive?
What is it?

Today


Today

1.Civic


Today

1.Civic
2.Disruption


Today

1.Civic
2.Disruption
3.Trends


Today

1.Civic
2.Disruption
3.Trends
4.Opportunities


What we mean by Civic


of or relating to a citizen, a city,
citizenship, or community affairs


of or relating to a citizen, a city,
citizenship, or community affairs

This is pretty broad


But it’s kind of like porn -- you know it when you see it


There are a bunch of startups that are clearly “civic” in nature -- addressing the connection
between citizens and government.


But there are also a lot of companies and products that produce civic value without being
explicitly civic in nature.


The line between what’s “civic” and what’s “social” is pretty blurry. Is Foursquare a civic
product? In some ways, it is -- it does build a stronger connection between me and the front
lines of my city: merchants.


Twitter is one of the best examples of web-based communication tools being used for civic
purposes.


So, the stage is set for civic startups -- the “hard” boundaries (political, geographical) and
“soft” ones (cultural) are getting blurrier by the moment.

Ethan Zuckerman from the Center for Civic Media at MIT describes “civic media” as the
intersection of participatory media and civic life, which feels appropriately broad while still
providing focus.

civic
media



providing focus.

participatory civic
media media



providing focus.

participatory civic
civic life
media media

— Ethan Zuckerman
Director, MIT Center for Civic Media



providing focus.

What we mean by
Disruption


(obligatory hackjob on disruptive technologies)
see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disruptive_technology


Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christensen popularized the term “disruptive” in
his book The Innovator’s Dilemma. In a nutshell, a disruptive technology is one that
transforms a market, often beginning by serving the low-end, or by serving a previously
unserved segment, then moving up-market and unseating incumbents. Disruptive
technologies are often dismissed as “toys” at the outset.

Software is eating the world
— Marc Andreessen
WSJ, 8/20/2011


Great article by Netscape founder Marc Andreesen in the WSJ, pointing out that software and
the internet are technologies that are disrupting nearly every industry, transforming business
models, collapsing incumbents, and providing big opportunities for startups.

craigslist | classifieds
apple | music, phones, cameras
amazon | books, retail
linkedin | recruiting
airbnb | hotels
google | direct marketing
netflix | videos
skype | phones
twitter | news

The tools now exist to transform any institution


Pick an industry, and you’ll find an internet or software company that’s transforming it right
now.

Andreesen notes that we now have the tools to transform nearly any industry -- he points to
healthcare and education as prime targets.

employees: 32

With a staff of only 32, Craiglist has radically disrupted the newspaper / classiﬁed ads
industry.

airbnb


AirBnB turns empty apartments into short-term rentals, disrupting the hotel industry.

What is ripe for disruption in
the civic space?



Pick your “civic” issue, and there is likely a technology or company attempting to transform it.
What’s missing? What do you think is next?

Politics - national, local
Community
Transportation
Borrowing sugar
Clearing grafﬁti
Protests
[…]


Pick your “civic” issue, and there is likely a technology or company attempting to transform it.
What’s missing? What do you think is next?

4 trends that are
setting the stage
for civic startups


So, we’ll talk about 4 trends that are making it more possible than ever for civic startups to
get going. Then, we’ll talk about 4 models for approaching the citizen / government
technology space speciﬁcally.

1
Spending more and
getting less


source: Code for America


Governments spend crazy sums of money on IT. This is 17x the size of the video game
market.


And much of that money is poorly spent.

‘Bloomberg has called the project
a “disaster”… [its] cost has
exceeded $600 million, nearly ten
times over budget’


And much of that money is poorly spent.

‘has soared in cost from $260mm
to as much as $1.9bn’


topek


Clearly, this is not sustainable, as governments are, at the same time, scrambling to save
dollars. So, something has to change.

2

Changing of the guard


At the same time, there are big demographic changes in progress.

graphic: Code for America


graphic: Code for America


Over the next 4 years, local governments will lose a majority of their employees due to
attrition.

BOSTON CHICAGO CODE for AMERICA
Nigel Jacobs John Tolva Jen Pahlka

SAN FRANCISCO NEW YORK WHITE HOUSE
Jay Nath Rachel Sterne Vivek Kundra

+ many more

At the same time, a new generation of tech-enabled leaders are coming up.

3

The rise of the Civic Hacker


There is a growing group of “civic hackers” who represent the “just do it” attitude of the
internet. They don’t play by the old rules of advocacy and politics, they just make shit.


In Chicago, a guy named Harper Reed reverse-engineered Chicago’s bus tracker website, and
built a public API so that developers could use the data in their applications.


Along with Dan O’Neill, they hooked this data, along with real-time service alerts, into an
unofficial Twitter bot. Harper is now the CTO of the Obama Campaign!


In 2005, Adrian Holovaty started taking crime reports from the City of Chicago and mapping
them. In the process of doing this, he hacked google maps so that the reports showed up on
a map -- this was before the official google maps API existed, and was part of what lead
google to create an official maps API.


Chicago Crime grew up and was folded into Everyblock.com, which won a Knight News
Challenge grant in 2007.

Dan O’Neill of Everyblock pioneered the ﬁeld of open civic data, working with civic
institutions across the country to connect streaming data into Everyblock.

Everyblock was acquired by MSNBC in 2009.


Exit Strategy NYC tells you where to stand on the NYC Subway, in order to be closest to your
exit or transfer. This dataset has lived in the minds of New Yorkers for decades, and is now
available to tourists too! This small app has turned out to be very proﬁtable.

osm haiti


This video shows the worldwide civic hacker community’s response to the Haiti earthquake in
2010. People used Ushahidi, Twitter and OpenStreetMap to build an up-to-date map that
assisted on-the-ground relief efforts.

save a life

In San Ramon, CA, the ﬁre department created an app that lets citizens with CPR training elect to receive alerts of nearby cardiac
emergencies.

cfa fellows


Now, new programs like Code for America are working to bring this “civic hacker” ethic
directly into the government software development process.

And of course, cities and governments around the world are working to capitalize on this interest, through app contests and
other structured developer engagement programs.

4

Government as a Platform
— Tim O’Reilly


The 4th major trend paving the way for civic startups is the notion of “government as a
platform” (platform in the tech platform sense).


People tend to think of government as a vending machine - put in your tax dollars and
receive direct services back. If you don’t like the taste of the candy bar, shake the machine.

Governments are starting to think
less like app developers
and more like platform providers


But now, a new model is emerging, where governments are thinking about being a platform
for further development -- the same way that Apple turned the iPhone into a platform for
building apps.


This is all about data -- civic apps need data, and step one in building a platform is providing
direct data access. Washington DC was one of the ﬁrst big cities to really embrace this
notion.

source: Wired Magazine


Once you have access to this data, you can start to do really interesting things with it -- and
can learn how the city is working (or not working). This is a visualization of NYC 311 data.

Closed Model Platform Model

Mobile, web & other apps
API

Real-time Server


Platform thinking often mean re-architecting IT infrastructure. In this project, MTA (New
York City Transit) is building its real-time bus data system as a platform -- opening up the
data, and providing it to developers via an Application Programming Interface (API). This
stand in contrast to the ‘closed’ model, where a single end-to-end solution stores, processes
and serves all of the data.

govt


We can visualize government as a platform like this. We’ll walk through this in the next
section, identifying opportunities for civic startups along the way.

direct vendors

govt



platform apps

direct vendors

govt



outside apps

platform apps

direct vendors

govt



4 Models for
Civic Startups


So, what does that mean for startups? Here is one frame -- there are a handful of ways that
startups can engage with the civic space, and with government in particular. I’ll break it
down into four models:

1
Be the platform builder


outside apps

platform apps

vendors

govt


Governments and their direct contractors / vendors build the internal IT systems that power
everything else.

+ lots, lots more


This tends to be the domain of big, established companies, who have built up relationships
and can weather the long sales cycles and difficult contracting environment that direct
government work entails.


BUT there are a few notable exceptions -- smaller companies who have made it as
government contractors. One example is Phase 2 Technologies, who has done lots of Drupal
work at the federal level.


Another is the CKAN platform -- an open source project for managing data catalogs.
Produced my the Open Knowledge Foundation in the UI, CKAN powers a large number of
open data sites, including data.gov.uk.


Socrata is another startup with a successful business powering government data. Socrata
offers a SaaS product that powers data.gov in the US and many state- and city-level data
portals.

transpo


OpenPlans works with the largest transit agencies in the US supporting open source software
that powers real-time vehicle locations and multi-modal trip routing.


To support this ecosystem of government vendors, Civic Commons is in the process of
building a “marketplace” that networks governments with each other and with vendors.
Coming soon.


At the same time, government entities are making direct efforts to support doing business
with smaller companies. This is a goal of the US CIO’s 25 point plan, and is the focus of
NYC’s forthcoming SPARK program.

1
Disruptive Opportunities


1
Open Source


1
Open Source
Cloud / SaaS / IaaS


1
Open Source
Cloud / SaaS / IaaS
Design


1
Disruptive Opportunities Challenges
Open Source
Cloud / SaaS / IaaS
Design


1
Open Source Procurement
Cloud / SaaS / IaaS
Design


1
Cloud / SaaS / IaaS
Design
Long sales cycles


1
Cloud / SaaS / IaaS
Design
Long sales cycles
Product vs. services


2
Build on the Platform


outside apps

platform apps

vendors

govt


The next opportunity is to build *on* the government platform, but not necessarily as a direct
vendor. This eliminates many of the procurement hurdles for small businesses, while still
providing an opportunity to serve citizens and governments.


Within the “building on the platform” space, there is ample opportunity to make a difference
using design and analytics. The Open311 Dashboard, produced by Code for America, works
with any Open311-compliant city to visualize activity in the 311 (issue reporting, service
request, and information inquiry) system.


BetterMetroNorth.com provides a nicer user interface to Metro North (NYC Commuter
Railroad) train service.

apps for america


Lots of nonproﬁts and governments have sponsored app contests, like Apps for America from
the Sunlight foundation. In many cases, these have been the catalyst for new startups.


Out of Apps for America 2 came the GovPulse project, which created a better user interface
for the Federal Register. Noticing this, the OFR ultimately worked with GovPulse to develop
Federal Register 2.0.

The idea for the re-design originated from Sunlight
Labs’ Apps for America 2 contest. Developers Andrew
Carpenter, Bob Burbach and Dave Augustine from
WestEd Interactive built GovPulse.us, “The Federal
Register at your ﬁngertips” and won second place.
They caught the attention of OFR, who contacted
them to help with the ofﬁcial re-design.

Out of Apps for America 2 came the GovPulse project, which created a better user interface
for the Federal Register. Noticing this, the OFR ultimately worked with GovPulse to develop
Federal Register 2.0.


NYC’s app contest is called NYC BigApps

mycityway

MyCityWay

A 2010 winner, MyCityWay, went on to secure a large venture round.

2


Building “on the platform” frees you from many of the challenges of contracting directly with
governments. However, it does introduce “platform risk” -- i.e., you become dependent (to
varying degrees, depending) on the good will / reliability of the platform provider. Since the
“government platform” is nascent and distributed, this does introduce some risk.

2



2
Design



2
Design
Simplicity



2
Design
Simplicity
Analytics



2
Design Platform risk
Simplicity
Analytics



3
Play outside the lines


A third option is to work entirely outside of government. As we’ve discussed, the nature of
“civic” is certainly not limited to government, and the lines are blurring by the day.

outside apps

platform apps

vendors

govt


There are many many examples of civic startups that exist outside the official purview of
government, but still operate in near proximity.

blockboard


Blockboard is a neighborhood networking app out of SF.

commonplace


OurCommonPlace is a startup out of Harvard, piloting in Falls Church, VA.

localocracy


Localocracy allows registered voters to debate local issues. They were acquired by AOL in
September 2011.

3


3
Agility


3
Agility
Design


3
Agility
Design
User-centered approach


3
Agility
Design


3
Agility Finding a business model
Design


4
The Enterprise End-Run
— Me!
bit.ly/enterprise-end-run


The last model we’ll cover today is a variant of #3 (playing outside the lines) -- in the
Enterprise End Run, companies leverage an enterprise contract (i.e., with government) by ﬁrst
engaging end-users.

outside apps

platform apps

vendors

govt


So you start way outside, then go in the back door.


One startup that is doing this is Socrative (http://socrative.com). Socrative offers a mobile
tool that any teacher can use in his/her classroom -- if & when it takes off, the teachers
become the inside salesforce driving for broader adoption and sales.


SeeClickFix is another app that takes this approach -- citizens use the service on their own,
and when there is critical mass, governments are incentivized to buy a premium package.

4


One tension with the Enterprise End-Run is which audience to focus on: are you an enterprise
provider, appealing to enterprise buyers, or are you a consumer platform, appealing directly
to end users. Since the end users are not making the ultimate buying decision, this can
cause tensions.

4


cause tensions.

4
Employ users as sales force


cause tensions.

4
Employ users as sales force Tension between user-focus


cause tensions.

4
Employ users as sales force Tension between user-focus
and enterprise-focus


cause tensions.

Recap


Recap
4 Trends:


Recap
4 Trends:
1 Spending more & getting less


Recap
4 Trends:
2 Changing of the guard


Recap
4 Trends:
3 The rise of the Civic Hacker


Recap
4 Trends:
4 Gov’t as a Platform


Recap
4 Trends: 4 Models:


Recap
4 Trends: 4 Models:
1 Spending more & getting less 1 Be the platform builder


Recap
4 Trends: 4 Models:
2 Changing of the guard 2 Build on the platform


Recap
4 Trends: 4 Models:
3 The rise of the Civic Hacker 3 Play outside the lines


Recap
4 Trends: 4 Models:
3 The rise of the Civic Hacker 3 Play outside the lines
4 Gov’t as a Platform 4 The Enterprise End-Run


nyc people


A parting thought: People are re-thinking how cities work in lots of ways! Take Park(ing)
Day for example: for a day each fall, people “rent” parking spaces (by paying the meter), and
turn them into temporary public parks. Pretty awesome.

Thanks!
@nickgrossman
nickgrossman.info


The Opportunity for Civic Startups (Long - Web 2.0 Expo)

The Opportunity for Civic Startups (Long - Web 2.0 Expo)

Recommended

More Related Content

What's hot

What's hot(20)

Viewers also liked

Viewers also liked(20)

Similar to The Opportunity for Civic Startups (Long - Web 2.0 Expo)

Similar to The Opportunity for Civic Startups (Long - Web 2.0 Expo)(20)

More from Nick Grossman

More from Nick Grossman(10)

Recently uploaded

Recently uploaded(20)

The Opportunity for Civic Startups (Long - Web 2.0 Expo)

Editor's Notes