The PDF, short for portable document format, is a file format created by Adobe that lets people easily create documents.

Government loves PDFs. They’re used for meeting agendas and minutes, newsletters, staff reports and, well, everything imaginable.

When not created properly – and often they aren’t – they are inaccessible. But there are broader public service problems PDFs cause, particularly in the machine-readable direction we’re heading. They are cumbersome and research shows that people just don’t like them.

In this episode, I speak with Department of Civic Things CEO Rebecca Woodbury. Rebecca works with governments on content strategy and implementation. This includes PDF audits and best practices. Rebecca and I talk about why PDFs are a digital experience pain point, and how government can move beyond them.

• PDF: Still Unfit for Human Consumption, 20 Years Later
• Why governments should get rid of PDF documents
• The elephant in the new accessibility law: PDFs

Rebecca is the founder of Department of Civic Things. She worked in local government for 12 years and was the City of San Rafael’s first director of Digital Service & Open Government. Government Technology named her one of the Top 25 Doers, Dreamers and Drivers. She has a masters in Public Policy from Mills College in Oakland, California.

In December of 2019, a small, ad hoc team assembled for a 90-day experimental project. Called California Alpha, its goal was to help the state rethink government digital service delivery. Its members – picked from government and private sector – had never collectively worked together. Their mission was to create – in three months – a culture and product that embodied a new way of delivering services to Californians – one that focused on designing for user needs and challenged the status quo of digital delivery in state government.

This is the story of California Alpha, why it was stood up, how it worked, and the resulting impact it had on the government digital ecosystem, inside the state and beyond.

This is a series on California Alpha, where I speak with Angie Quirarte, who played a key role in its creation and then led the project’s work.

In this episode, Angie and I discuss setting the California Alpha foundation.

• California domain name policy
• California open data policy
• CalData
• California web standards policy
• Digital Services Network
• California 2019 Budget- Creation of ODI
• How civic hackers helped California’s DMV get digital momentum
• Francis Maude 2013 Letter on Open Government and Digital Strategy in UK

Angie Quirarte most recently served as Senior Advisor in the White House Office of Management and Budget where she led efforts to fix federal hiring and talent policy. She is a 2025 Federal 100 awardee. Angie has built digital service teams including leading Alpha, helped transform the California DMV, led the COVID-19 digital response team, matched hundreds of technologists in the public sector, and implemented policies and programs around open data, open source, web standards, and web accessibility.

Steve “Spike” Spiker talks with The GovFresh Podcast about his work in civic hacking, including co-founding OpenOakland, which served as the Code for America Brigade in Oakland, Calif. He shares his thoughts on why civic hacking is important in a healthy digital democracy and how hackers and government can show up and effectively work together. Spike shares a thoughtful retrospective on his time pioneering and actively civic hacking, organizing hackers and how grassroots technologists can continue to leverage their passion and skills to impact civil society.

Steve “Spike” Spiker is a data inspired collaborator and leader with a passion for racial justice, government transparency and public policy. Spike is currently the Chief of Programs & Technology at One Degree, where he leads product, design, community engagement and marketing. He joined One Degree as Chief Data Officer to build their data practice, from data governance, business intelligence to data science. Spike was the co-founder and Executive Director of OpenOakland, a civic innovation nonprofit. He was recognized by the Obama White House as a Champion of Change. Former nonprofit roles include Data Evangelist for Measures for Justice, and Director of Research & Technology with Urban Strategies Council in Oakland.

With police violence in the news, and public scrutiny on the rise, law enforcement is turning to mindfulness to help officers deal with the stress that comes with the work. They are introducing new tools and techniques to help officers better engage with the communities they have sworn an oath to protect.

Policing is an incredibly stressful occupation – physically and psychologically. First responders and law enforcement are faced with traumatic events daily, and many don’t have the coping mechanisms to deal with the build-up of trauma, anger, sadness and stress officers carry with them on and off-duty.

Police Lt. Richard Goerling is a pioneer and champion of mindful based stress reduction practices for law enforcement officers. He is the founder of Mindful Badge, a consultancy that works with first responders on mental resilience.

Richard talks with The Government We Need about how law enforcement officers can be more mindful so that they can serve and protect, not just their communities, but also themselves.

For those in need of social services – unemployment, housing, healthcare, food – the safety net isn’t easy to navigate or access.

And the COVID crisis has exacerbated this reality. There has been a dramatic spike in benefits claims, especially in communities of color and those that were already teetering on the edge. This pandemic has spotlighted the extreme inequities of the haves and have-nots, and the very broken social safety net meant to provide benefits and assistance to people in need, particularly when disaster strikes.

In this episode, we talk with Code for America Executive Director Amanda Renteria. Code for America’s mission is to build “a 21st century government that effectively and equitably serves all Americans.” As part of its Social Safety Net Portfolio, CfA has produced a ‘Blueprint for a Human-Centered Safety Net’ aimed at “transforming the delivery of public benefits in the digital age.” It also manages digital social service tools like GetCalFresh, ClearMyRecord, ClientComm and GetYourRefund.

As Code for America says of its Integrated Benefits Initiative, “In the United States, the social safety net is composed of more than 80 services that together aim to lift almost 50 million Americans above the poverty line each year. Today, tens of millions of those people are still falling through the cracks.”

Amanda talks with The Government We Need about how government can build a more responsive and dignified social safety net to support those who need it most.

Participatory budgeting is a process that empowers community members to help decide how to spend part of a public budget. PB started in Brazil in 1989, and has since spread to more than 7,000 cities around the world. It has been used to decide budgets from states, counties, cities, housing authorities, schools, and other institutions. The New York Times calls PB “revolutionary civics in action.”

In this episode, we talk with Participatory Budgeting Project Executive Director Shari Davis. PBP is a nonprofit organization advancing participatory budgeting across the United States and Canada. It has helped more than 400,000 people directly decide how to spend $300 million in public funds in 29 cities.

Shari joined PBP after nearly 15 years of service and leadership in local government, including serving as Director of Youth Engagement and Employment for the City of Boston, where she launched Youth Lead the Change, the first youth PB process in the United States, which won the United States Conference of Mayors City Livability Award.

Shari talks with of The Government We Need about how government can make public budgeting more participatory and, as PBP says, give people real power over real money.

Sustainability is a top priority for environmentally-conscious global leaders, and it’s an issue that we’re all faced with on a daily basis, but what role should local government play in mitigating the climate crisis?

In this episode, we talk with environmentalist and local government leader Rick Cole. Rick served as city manager of Santa Monica from 2015 to 2020, where he spearheaded ambitious initiatives on climate, homelessness, mobility, and the wellbeing of all residents. Prior to Santa Monica, Rick served as deputy mayor for Budget and Innovation for the City of Los Angeles, where he was responsible for a budget of $8.6 billion and oversaw five city departments. Rick also spent 15 years as city manager of two Southern California cities: Ventura and Azusa. He has been recognized as one of “America’s Public Officials of the Year” by Governing Magazine and one of the “Top 25 Doers, Dreamers and Drivers” by Government Technology Magazine.

Rick talks with the Government We Need about creating a climate-conscious city – from policy to business and organizational collaboration – and how local governments can foster a more sustainable planet.