Only 13% of large government IT projects succeed*

Implementing custom software projects can be extraordinarily costly and risky in a government setting. Waterfall software development remains standard at all levels of government. Outdated budgeting and oversight processes have been designed around these very waterfall processes. Moving toward a user-centered, agile approach to this work will save millions of dollars in spending on bad software.

Another fantastic online resource from the team at 18F.

The late 1960s saw progressive ideas emanate from the countercultural underground and revolutionise society. Challenging oppressive, outdated norms and expectations, a small number of individuals brought about far-reaching changes as they sought to attain a better world. Their idealism and actions helped mobilise a movement which continues to inspire modern activists and shape how we live today.

Stewart Brand was involved in a number of the key revolutionary events of the late 1960s: he co-founded the Trips Festival of 1966, one of the first large-scale hippy gatherings; founded and edited the Whole Earth Catalog, widely considered the pre-cursor to the internet for its user-generated content and knowledge-sharing; and he filmed the “Mother of All Demos” in 1968, where Douglas Englebart presented the first word processing, computer mouse, hyperlinks and video conferencing. Since then, Brand has co-founded the world’s first open virtual community, the WELL, in 1984 and the Long Now Foundation in 1996, which aims to encourage long-term thinking to prompt more responsible human action.

The current generation of technologists could learn quite a bit from Stewart Brand and the historic context surrounding the early days of the tech scene…

(via Stewart Brand talks about the LSD trip that inspired his Whole Earth Catalog on BoingBoing)

About 400,000 service members move every year, and let’s just say the technology to support them in this time of stress has been less than adequate. For example, the Defense Personnel [sic] Property System (DPS), run by the U.S. Transportation Command, was reliable only 16 percent of the time, was not mobile friendly and would crash, making it difficult to schedule moves.

Starting last year and continuing into this summer, the U.S. Digital Service is beginning to relieve some of the stress that comes with moving.

I’ve worked on aspects of the Defense Personal Property System (DPS) since joining USDS last year. While most of the article focuses on the work my teammates continue pursuing, the article does make mention of our big relaunch of Move.mil.

Another piece to the project was simplifying the website Move.mil, which [designer and project manager Lauryn] Fantano described as a Wikipedia tool of how to move in the military. USDS worked with the command to remove government speak and answer the questions that families most care about when it comes to moving. USDS relaunched Move.mil in December.

It’s nice to see folks taking note of the important work we’re doing. If you’d like to help improve government services through better technology, head on over to usds.gov/join.

💪🏼 🖥 🇺🇸