We’re so back! (To blogging, we mean — we’ve been here working hard the whole time.)
Hello, internet friends — it’s been a while since SF Digital and Data Services maintained an active blog, but I’m here to share that we’re back! After a year and a half of staffing up, finding our post-quarantine footing, and getting to know each other as a team, we’re ready to share about some of our projects and practices.
If you don’t know me, I’m Cyd Harrell and it’s my honor to lead the Digital and Data Services team at the City and County of San Francisco. I took this position in May 2022, in a team that had spent the past 2 years developing testing and vaccine services and beginning a comprehensive San Francisco website. I’d just come from 4 years working in the California court system and 2 years at the federal government’s 18F before that. I’d been in civic technology for even longer, and had published a book on the subject in 2020. And I’ve lived in San Francisco since 1994 and raised my daughter here. I care deeply about the City and the opportunity to meld that care with my practice of designing beautiful, accountable government technology drew me here.
Since my arrival, the team has continued efforts to unify San Francisco’s web presence and services on SF.gov, moving and improving nearly 100 previously existing sites. We’ve merged with DataSF, implemented the first round of SF’s Digital Accessibility and Inclusion Standard, staffed up from 29 to our budgeted 48, and built a number of permitting and housing-related services as well as timely builds like flood recovery grant applications, and the release of core datasets like 911 response times.
We’ve helped develop guidelines for City staff using generative AI, created SF’s first gift-card compensation policy for user research, and lent our expertise to tech forums across the City. In short, we build things that make it easier for San Francisco to deliver public services and information that respect people’s time, abilities, and means, and to meet its transparency goals. And much more’s to come as we build the platform capabilities to take on more complex City information and services.
You won’t be hearing a ton from me on this blog — our brilliant and committed team has a lot to share and this will be a place for them to talk openly about the work, the decisions we’re making, the challenges and joys. We will share case studies and document learnings from various projects — how we partner with city agencies in complex policy domains like permitting, housing, emergency response, etc. It feels a little bit 2000s to be blogging again, and we’re all pretty excited about that. More soon!
