{"id":3156,"date":"2018-01-18T22:26:20","date_gmt":"2018-01-18T22:26:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/52.10.1.109\/?p=3156"},"modified":"2018-01-31T15:58:31","modified_gmt":"2018-01-31T22:58:31","slug":"innovating-a-city-government","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thecoloradostatesman.com\/?p=3156","title":{"rendered":"Innovating a city government"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Peter Jones<\/strong><\/p>\n

For anyone who has waited in line for a permit or suffered hours of a city council meeting, there is something decidedly nongovernmental about Centennial\u2019s Innovation Team.<\/p>\n

The shorthand \u201ci-team,\u201d in intentional lower case, might suggest a garage of high-tech creatives more than an office with traffic engineering on its mind. To even use the term \u201cinnovation\u201d in a government setting is inventive itself in this world of tax-supported bureaucracy.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe pitch ourselves as a government startup,\u201d said Daniel Hutton, the i-team\u2019s 31-year-old manager, who says his office is distinct in some ways from more traditional functions of city government. \u201cTaxpayers aren\u2019t at risk for us coming up with these wacky ideas. It\u2019s a key component of the program. It gives us a little more leeway to think outside the box.\u201d<\/p>\n

To encourage more of that, Centennial was one of 12 U.S. cities selected in 2014 to participate in the latest round of a $45 million local-government program of Bloomberg Philanthropies, the foundation of former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.<\/p>\n

\u201cMore and more cities are becoming engines of policy innovation, searching for bold new solutions to tough problems that Washington has failed to address,\u201d the billionaire philanthropist wrote in a column for CNN\u2019s website. \u201cComing up with innovative new ideas requires creative thinking based on rigorous data analysis. And then, once the best ideas are selected, the hard work begins\u2014implementing them.\u201d<\/p>\n

The resulting \u201ci-teams\u201d\u2014dotting everywhere from Los Angeles to Jerusalem\u2014aim to advance the ability of city governments to effectively design and implement data-driven approaches to improving citizens\u2019 lives through what Bloomberg calls \u201copen innovation\u201d and strong project and performance management.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Centennial\u2019s Innovation team, or i-team, was created two years ago through a grant from Bloomberg Philanthropies. From left, Daniel Hutton, Melanie Morgan and Bailey Little. The team meets regularly around its yellow \u201cidea door.\u201d Photo by Peter Jones<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Millennials ask why<\/h3>\n

Back in Centennial, the three-year $1.5 million i-team is applying that model to the broad subject of mobility in the smallest city and only suburb to make the Bloomberg grade. Citizen surveys have consistently rated traffic jams as the No. 1 problem in a city that was never built with ease of transportation\u2014especially for seniors\u2014in mind.<\/p>\n

\u201cTraffic congestion is always a topic of conversation and a never-ending challenge, especially with the Denver metro area so attractive to millennials,\u201d Mayor Cathy Noon said in her State of Our City address last month. \u201c\u2026 [The i-team] is working with our regional partners and coming up with innovative ways to help all of us get from Point A to Point B easier.\u201d<\/p>\n

As a 21st<\/sup>-century-born city founded on principles of limited government and a \u201cvirtual\u201d model, Centennial could be seen as the near-perfect laboratory for this sort of progressive government experimentation. What other city has outsourced public works and law enforcement while effectively bringing a consulting firm in house?<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve always been different,\u201d spokeswoman Allison Wittern said. \u201cOther cities are doing this, but I think they\u2019re doing it differently. No day is typical in any department, so that\u2019s why the i-team fits in with what already existed. Every department has some piece of innovation to it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although Centennial is a mere 15 years old, most of its i-team was not much older than that when the city was founded from a swath of unincorporated Arapahoe County in 2001\u2014and it is not hard to understand how the millennial generation\u2019s \u201cWhy?\u201d would be well suited for cities wishing to break through the stasis of group think.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat tends to happen is engineers and planners have their own set of jargon that regular users may not understand,\u201d Hutton said. \u201cWhy don\u2019t we just ask the users in the first place? Let\u2019s see what makes it simple for them.\u201d<\/p>\n

It makes sense that the three-member i-team\u2014a fourth position in the special forces is in the process of being filled\u2014is based at Centennial\u2019s Innovation Pavilion, a self-described ecosystem for entrepreneurs. Other partners in the nontraditional shared workspace include an animation studio, \u201cangel investors\u201d and at least three firms with the word \u201ccloud\u201d in their title.<\/p>\n

The i-team is the only public-sector tenant in the building, but one would never know the team\u2019s municipal origins by the cubicle-free, stand-sit desks and the large yellow door on legs that functions as the \u201cidea\u201d table.<\/p>\n

This is where the magic happens<\/h3>\n

\u201cFor me, good ideas come and go and the ideas feed off each other,\u201d explained Bailey Little, 29, an i-team coordinator with a public-education background.<\/p>\n

Melanie Morgan, 25, the team\u2019s data analyst, holds a master\u2019s degree in city planning with a focus on transportation. She says research and thinking are key.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve always been a very creative person,\u201d she said. \u201cI like trying to solve problems and I think I\u2019m pretty good at being able to think through\u2014if we do this, what are the outcomes of that?\u201d<\/p>\n

On the highway to that flowchart for better mobility, the i-team has thrown a range of ideas at the proverbial wall to see what sticks with themselves and the\u00a0baby-boom-plus City Council. Many of the team\u2019s brain children never make it out of the think tank.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere were some that were absurd that we had to throw out,\u201d said Hutton, who formerly nurtured ideas at his own high-tech startup. \u201cA monorail down Arapahoe Road. That\u2019s going to cost probably $200 million and we don\u2019t own Arapahoe Road.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Seniors on board<\/h3>\n

Ideas still germinating include a \u201cvirtual transportation-management authority\u201d and a soon to be implemented \u201cmobility ambassadors program\u201d that involves education and outreach to Centennial\u2019s growing senior population.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you have a smartphone or a computer, you can access all this in one place,\u201d Hutton said.<\/p>\n

The i-team manager says his group has already introduced the Centennial Senior Commission to millennially popular ride-sharing programs.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey loved it,\u201d he said, \u201cand now the senior commissioners are talking about how they want to work for Lyft. Before that, some of them were pretty scared about even trying it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The only required ingredient at the i-team\u2019s idea factory is data, preferably as disseminated through nonpolitical and institutional sources.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of it is transparency,\u201d Morgan said. \u201cHere\u2019s the data we used and here\u2019s where it came from\u2014and being open that there\u2019s always something new, and things could always change.\u201d<\/p>\n

None of this should imply that the i-team\u2019s ideas are milked unmercifully. There is no quota system to encourage verbosity or pitchmanship.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think we ever go home from work stressed that we didn\u2019t come up with a good idea that day,\u201d Little said.<\/p>\n

As the i-team transitions from mobility to civic parts unknown, hopes are to make it a permanent fixture well after the Bloomberg grant runs out.\u00a0 <\/span>Sitting at the yellow door, one can feel the seeping of unofficial information not ready for public announcement as the busy team readies to go public with its next work.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re heading towards implementation\u201d is all Hutton would offer.<\/p>\n

The mayor was no more revealing\u2014but equally roused\u2014in her State of Our City.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe i-team has much more coming so watch for exciting announcements soon,\u201d Noon said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Peter Jones For anyone who has waited in line for a permit or suffered hours of a city council meeting, there is something decidedly nongovernmental about Centennial\u2019s Innovation Team. The shorthand \u201ci-team,\u201d in intentional lower case, might suggest a garage of high-tech creatives more than an office with traffic engineering on its mind. To …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3809,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50],"tags":[76],"class_list":["post-3156","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-transportation","tag-centennials-innovation-team"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecoloradostatesman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3156","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecoloradostatesman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecoloradostatesman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloradostatesman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloradostatesman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3156"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloradostatesman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3156\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloradostatesman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3809"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecoloradostatesman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloradostatesman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloradostatesman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}