These applications and initiatives are important, and they have been
built transparently and in the open. The manner in which this work gets
done is also encouraging: agile, perhaps even lean. I don’t see
year+-long projects comprising large teams and costing millions of
dollars. They appear to be greenfield, relatively small applications
that will likely not require considerable resources to maintain over
time.
Importantly, we know about all of this because 18Fers are vocal about their work and successes, rightly so. They blog frequently
and tweet, a lot. They market and promote their work, and they do so
consistently. Considering the government’s general risk aversion,
message obsession, and concern about “optics,” 18F’s prolificness in
writing about their work is, again, impressive.
I do not know first-hand what it’s like to work at 18F. But it sure does seem like a good place to spend part of a career in technology.
That, right there, is in my estimation the most important thing that 18F has done: 18F has made working in government seem like an attractive option for talented people.
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