For 12 weeks, Brandon Greene was a weekly contributor for Govloop.com. The weekly posts were used to discuss the work and challenges of innovation. Those posts will now be reposted here.

For the last several weeks, I have been using these blog posts to interrogate exactly what we mean when we discuss government innovation. What does the actual work of changing how government operates look like in practice? What are the necessary elements for success? What are the risks, and, in some cases, what are the costs to the individuals attempting to make the change?

In this final blog post, I would like to dig a bit deeper into what makes someone fit for the work and what that means in the context of having a job where you are necessarily tasked with disruption. …

For 12 weeks, Brandon Greene was a weekly contributor for Govloop.com. The weekly posts were used to discuss the work and challenges of innovation. Those posts will now be reposted here.

For the week’s blog, I would like to focus on some of the interesting insights that we have gleaned as we have embarked on our current project with the Department of Transportation. Initially, the stated purpose of the project was to develop a more progressive approach to parking fines — progressive being the opposite of regressive taxation. …

For 12 weeks, Brandon Greene was a weekly contributor for Govloop.com. The weekly posts were used to discuss the work and challenges of innovation. Those posts will now be reposted here.

In a couple of my posts, I wrote about the importance of bright line rules, Fostering Rebel Talent and Radical Ambition. In this post, I would like to discuss the potential impact of those things — mainly, burnout.

While scrolling through my LinkedIn feed the other day, I saw a New York Times article titled “How to Avoid Burnout When You Have Little Ones.” In this article, the author discussed how burnout driven by or caused by parenting is distinct from work driven burnout. …

For 12 weeks, Brandon Greene was a weekly contributor for Govloop.com. The weekly posts were used to discuss the work and challenges of innovation. Those posts will now be reposted here.

Recently, I was at happy hour with a good friend who was telling me about these inspiring conversations she had been having with a local artist named Binta Ayofemi. She told me how this artist was putting together some visionary plans for community-centered businesses in Oakland. My friend assured me that I would soon be hearing about this artist’s work.

Sure enough, a couple of days later, I saw the article What if a black artist re-imagined urban development with Oakland’s black community in mind? circulating through my social media timelines. Some of the excerpts from the article are…

For 12 weeks, Brandon Greene was a weekly contributor for Govloop.com. The weekly posts were used to discuss the work and challenges of innovation. Those posts will now be reposted here.

In the last couple of weeks I have been exploring topics directly related to my role as manager of the Oakland Civic Design Lab. Past topics have included vulnerability, leadership, trusting the process, failing safely, using data in decisions, how to discover untapped expertise on your team, and radical ambition.

Collectively, these blog posts have been my attempts to, in real time, process how to navigate, survive, thrive and ultimately change the bureaucratic ecosystem. Recently, I read some articles and listened to a podcast that give insight into the difficulties of innovating. This made me question what ingredients need to be present for innovation to happen and for innovators (rebel talent) to have enough staying power to actually see change come to fruition. …

For 12 weeks, Brandon Greene was a weekly contributor for Govloop.com. The weekly posts were used to discuss the work and challenges of innovation. Those posts will now be reposted here.

This week, the New York Times released “The 1619 Project,” a multidimensional media project to commemorate the 400thanniversary of the arrival of the first enslaved people in America. Like all innovative projects, this one started with a pitch “to dedicate an issue of the Sunday magazine to examining the ways the legacy of slavery continues to shape our country.”

Among the many things that are notable about this project is the audacity and risk-taking involved, knowing and understanding that, “It’s very powerful, and it’s very fraught at the same time,” as Nicole Hannah-Jones, the visionary behind the project, noted. …

For 12 weeks, Brandon Greene was a weekly contributor for Govloop.com. The weekly posts were used to discuss the work and challenges of innovation. Those posts will now be reposted here.

Recently, we completed a project laying out the process for setting up “community cabins” in the city of Oakland. These “community cabins” are temporary shelters for unhoused persons.

While laying out the process was interesting in and of itself, as it required interviewing staff from various different departments, the most interesting insight was one that should have been obvious but was not — because the Public Works Department spends so much time on the streets interacting with unhoused individuals, they have relationships that essentially lead to them playing an informal outreach role. …

For 12 weeks, Brandon Greene was a weekly contributor for Govloop.com. The weekly posts were used to discuss the work and challenges of innovation. Those posts will now be reposted here.

I have often struggled in my work to fight against the notion that we need quantitative data as a precursor to believing the lived experiences of impacted people. I understand the impulse and the desire to ensure that we are making data-driven decisions.

At the same time, since I came into this government work as a civil rights attorney, I also understand the limitations of quantitative data. The data doesn’t always tell the full story. …