<commit_before>---
title: Process vs. Product: Civic innovation beyond open data and civic apps
date: '2018-05-10T20:02:42.000+00:00'
categories:
  - Blog
excerpt: 'We talk a lot about private sector innovation and entrepreneurship, but far less often do we talk about innovation in the context of the more fundamental institution that affects all of us who live in coastal Georgia: Our local government. '
---

We talk a lot about private sector innovation and entrepreneurship in Savannah, but far less often do we talk about innovation in the context of the more fundamental institution that affects all of us who live in coastal Georgia: Our local government.

It’s easy to blame distrust in our government on bitter partisan divides and what seems at times unresponsive elected officials. But the erosion of civic trust in our governing institutions is about more than politics.

It’s about the larger machinery of government, and a system of rigid and outdated processes that attempt to apply 20th-century thinking to the governance of a 21st-century society. In turn, we’re often left with top-down policies that fail to reflect the needs of users and public services that are inefficient, slow, and costly.

We have to find a more innovative way for our local government to live up to the ideal of “government for the people, by the people, of the people.” We must find a better way.

Two weeks ago, myself and two other volunteer members of Open Savannah – in addition to Saja Aures of the city of Savannah and Coco Papy of The Creative Coast – were invited to attend Code for America’s annual summit in Oakland, Calif., to represent the growing citizen-driven movement for public-sector innovation that Open Savannah has spent the last year slowly but steadily fostering and cultivating.<commit_msg>Update ,process-vs-product.md<commit_after>
---
title: Process vs. Product: Civic innovation beyond open data and civic apps
date: '2018-05-10T20:02:42.000+00:00'
excerpt: We talk a lot about private sector innovation and entrepreneurship, but far less often do we talk about innovation in the context of the more fundamental institution that affects all of us who live in coastal Georgia: Our local government. '
---

We talk a lot about private sector innovation and entrepreneurship in Savannah, but far less often do we talk about innovation in the context of the more fundamental institution that affects all of us who live in coastal Georgia: Our local government.

It’s easy to blame distrust in our government on bitter partisan divides and what seems at times unresponsive elected officials. But the erosion of civic trust in our governing institutions is about more than politics.

It’s about the larger machinery of government, and a system of rigid and outdated processes that attempt to apply 20th-century thinking to the governance of a 21st-century society. In turn, we’re often left with top-down policies that fail to reflect the needs of users and public services that are inefficient, slow, and costly.

We have to find a more innovative way for our local government to live up to the ideal of “government for the people, by the people, of the people.” We must find a better way.

Two weeks ago, myself and two other volunteer members of Open Savannah – in addition to Saja Aures of the city of Savannah and Coco Papy of The Creative Coast – were invited to attend Code for America’s annual summit in Oakland, Calif., to represent the growing citizen-driven movement for public-sector innovation that Open Savannah has spent the last year slowly but steadily fostering and cultivating.
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