TRANSCRIPTION FOR “CITIZENVILLE” PODCAST · Transcription for Bedrosian Book Club’s...

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TRANSCRIPTION FOR

“CITIZENVILLE” PODCAST

Bedrosian Book Club

August 8, 2014

Transcription for Bedrosian Book Club’s Citizenville Podcast USC Bedrosian Center August, 8, 2014 Disclaimer Please note that the text below may contain transcription errors. Welcome to the USC Bedrosian Book Club Podcast. Today's podcast Citizenville by Gavin Newsom. Featuring USC's professors, Raphael Bostic, David Sloane, and Sherry Bebitch Jeffe.

<<Raphael Bostic>> Hello everyone. I'd like to welcome you to the latest installation of the Bedrosian Book Club. My name's Raphael Bostic. I'm a professor here in School of Policy... in Price School of Public Policy. And I run the Bedrosian Center and I'm pleased to have two colleagues here who are going to help me have a conversation about Gavin Newsom's book, "Citizenville". This is the book that he penned not long ago, well, he was Lieutenant Governor and the subtitle is "How to Take the Townsquare Digital and Reinvent Government." I think we're gonna have a great conversation here with two of my favorite people on our faculty. And so, why don't you guys introduce yourselves.

<<David Sloane>> Hi, I'm David Sloane. I'm a professor, urban planning and urban history at the Price School of Public Policy.

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> Hi, I'm Sherry Bebitch Jeffe and I am a professor of the Practice of Public Policy Communication here at Price.

<<Raphael Bostic>> So, thank you guys for agreeing to be part of our book club and reading the book.

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> Our pleasure. Now, that wasn't my pleasure but the book club is.

<<Raphael Bostic>> We'll get into that in not too long. I guess the first thing to start with is maybe just an overview conversation about what this book is about, and what Newsom is trying to say.

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> You want to start or shall I?

<<David Sloane>> I think I better.

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> Oh yes, Dave.

<<David Sloane>> I think you're gonna tough for... I mean, I didn't... There's real problems here. But the book is an effort to imagine how you could use the digital media as a way to improve the transparency of government, and to improve the efficiency of government, and improve the effectiveness of government. He has very committed to technology and to digital technology,

Transcription for Bedrosian Book Club’s Citizenville Podcast

USC Bedrosian Center 1

particularly. The things I like best about the book, I think are really what the book is about and that is this idea that government could be more transparent, and that one of the things that I heard from several people over the years is he has this whole section on how government needs to be less fearful of failure. And I think that that is a powerful thing. Because our government, particularly in this time of extraordinary popularization, is very afraid of sort of fearful of failure around any kind of experimental policies that would make it better.

<<Raphael Bostic>> So, I want to get back to that because that's an important theme that recurs through the book, but I wanted to give Sherry an opportunity to... Is there anything you'd add to...

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> Yeah, you asked what this book is about.

<<Raphael Bostic>> Uh huh.

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> This book is about positioning Gavin Newsom for his next campaign. In the grand tradition of politicians who've got time on their hands and a look at the future, he and his coauthor put together this book. It's this much about inventing Gavin Newsom, as it is about reinventing government.

<<Raphael Bostic>> So, I want to get to that, too.

<<David Sloane>> I mean, that is clearly true.

<<Raphael Bostic>> But you know, sometimes you can advance your personal goals with sort of the bigger practice call. So, I want to make sure that we...

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> Optimist.

<<Raphael Bostic>> We unpack that a bit. So, let's start with the aspirations of the book, right. Which is to, I would say, inspire people to believe that there's a better tomorrow and that we should be able to use digital media to improve government. Did you find his arguments compelling? I mean, where do you guys come down on that?

<<David Sloane>> I think... I mean, it makes an interesting set of points as you go through the book about how technology can help government and can improve government. I mean, technology has made more efficient so it's not surprising you would do it for government just like you would do it for everyone else for education, for journalism, for anything. The problem of it all the way through is there is no cost.

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> Bingo. Exactly.

<<David Sloane>> There is no cost to these improvements, there's no social cost, there's no economic cost. There's no disruption. So, on the one side, it's actually a fairly persuasive, you know, you've got a whole set of technologies that could be helpful to us. We should incorporate



startups into the way we think about the government. All that stuff makes pretty good sense. But when you get to the point where you argue that there aren't the technological industry know underneath a Goliath, because all those David’s are out there and then he gives us as his prime example, the largest company in the world and you got a problem! There's a... that contradictions really... pretty...

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> And it's not the only one!

<<David Sloane>> No, no, no.

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> Yeah, yeah.

<<Raphael Bostic>> So let me put it back on that just a little bit because I think there are multiple levels here, right. So, because I didn't read this to... well, maybe I should've read this way. Maybe I just counted that holes align an argument but I read this as more about changing how democracy works by giving people a different channel to participate.

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> Which people? I think that's critical...

<<Raphael Bostic>> Well, I know. So, we're gonna get to that because I do...

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> Okay. Promise me.

<<Raphael Bostic>> I do think there's this idea that, you know, everybody who's writing an app, everyone gets to sort of tap into these things. And we need to explore that and I think there are real questions there. But there is, I think, something to the notion that some of the old ways that we try to do outreach, some of the old ways that we solicit input are old. And that technology gives us an opportunity to re imagine those things. I didn't think that was so crazy.

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> But it's not new, either. Raphael, that's what really blew my mind. We've been talking about this since Gabler and Osbourne’s reinventing government. That's almost a quarter of a century ago. Using technology to improve government, quite frankly, is an old topic for debate and what I really don't like about this is that he says, he sort of says, "Let's put on a show!" That's what he's saying But he's not telling you how, why, or as David indicated, what the price is? What the impact is gonna be? Who gets to participate? Who writes the rules? Where do we go? I mean, really.

<<Raphael Bostic>> So, I don't even know. I think I may have an issue with some of that and to the extent...

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> *inaudible*

<<Raphael Bostic>> To the extent that....

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> I've got the pistols right out there.



<<Raphael Bostic>> You know, David's first point was that there's a lot of fear in government. And that simple things don't get done that could because of that...

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> You can say that about any...

<<Raphael Bostic>> About anything....

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> Well, that's true.

<<Raphael Bostic>> But, so...

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> Even academia.

<<Raphael Bostic>> Well, yes, certainly true there. But what about the idea that sometimes the way that you get those changes to happen internally, is it have there be an external stimulus. You know, a lot of times we have these consulting firms who go into companies, they used to... the company spends , dollars to tell the companies...

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> That would...

<<Raphael Bostic>> What they already knew, right. But because it comes from someone outside, that gives them license to actually act on it and change things. So, this app thing, you know, you do a competition, give me the most creative app to improve things, if you... That might cause people to say, "Oh, that's actually good." And lead the folks who impose the accountability to take a different stand on these things. Why is that...

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> What do you mean?

<<Raphael Bostic>> Why is that... So, suppose you're in Seattle, right. And some citizens come together and they say, or in... and we'll even make this up in the context of a competition and say, "We are fed up with sitting out here in the rain waiting for a bus. So, we're going to figure out an app that allows us to do this and we're gonna put it in play." It happens.

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> Yeah.

<<Raphael Bostic>> The world is... The city of Seattle rejoices, right. Then, manager X in housing department says, "I want it now. I've had this problem for a long time, that a lot of rental units that my people might want to use go unknown because I can't get them listed. So, let me go now and see if I can get an app passed." Because the first thing has happened, the second thing can be more possible. What's wrong with...

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> Maybe, maybe not. Who knows? I mean...

<<David Sloane>> All those things...



<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> Yeah, that's fine, but that's really not government.

<<David Sloane>> I used the next trip, which is the one in *inaudible*

<<Raphael Bostic>> Right, right. I understand.

<<David Sloane>> I mean, and those things are great.

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> And that's government.

<<David Sloane>> And it is government. Because almost all of the fundamental data that goes into those apps is the public data set. So in that sense, this idea of the transparency... I mean, I think many people would agree, perhaps not in this room, that one of the disappointment, one of the disappointment with you behind the administration was that the first thing they said was that they are gonna make government more transparent...

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> More transparent, exactly.

<<David Sloane>> It's been unclear how that agenda item has gone.

<<Raphael Bostic>> Well I know how it's gone 'cause I was there and I'm pretty, pretty rough because...

<<David Sloane>> And what... This is one of the thing, this is where we get back to cost. I don't mean economic cost. I mean there's lots of different kinds of costs here when the government gets more transparent with its data and he is Pollyannaish both about how big companies and about that cost and he gives us a really great example. He has this, you know, he's going to do this every week. They're going to put out a data set. And every week some manager gets crucified in the press and they would go and say, "Do we have to do this?" and he's like "Oh yeah, no big deal." And then he gets crucified in the press and he goes, "Well maybe this isn't such a bad idea after all." I mean, come on, and so I just wanted him to recognize that you are absolutely correct in owning and helping the private sector, the startups to do thing in the public's interest is a very important thing. It's happening all over the world, it's happening all over the country but how we do it actually is trickier than he has given us.

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> Look, I'm here to tell you, you cannot budget with a nap. Budgeting takes a whole lot more than playing games, plugging in money, taking out money on a nap and then having your representative take a look at whoever decides to take part in this, what the priorities are. I mean there is unfortunately, one of our problems today is that there isn't any such thing anymore as public good. I mean...

<<Raphael Bostic>> But can't you say that.

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> You didn't let me finish.



<<Raphael Bostic>> Go ahead.

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> Now I've lost my train of thought. No. I mean, what you see basically, I guess it was Hubert Humphrey who said, "There is no better clue to a society's priorities than its budget. You got to talk to people. You got to think. You got to make sure that, I mean, look, we're a representative democracy. I don't see apps as a tool of representative democracy.

<<David Sloane>> I don't agree with that.

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> Oh come on. Who’s going to do it? The greatest little thing... oh yeah well, people like Aubrey this is not your average, you know.

<<David Sloane>> You know, actually I work in underserved marginalized minority communities. And if you can get them into a space where they can be helped to do it.

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> Helped to do it? What does that mean?

<<David Sloane>> Facilitate it.

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> How do you get them into that space? It's so idealistic.

<<David Sloane>> There's a thousand community based organizations in Los Angeles today. And a hundred or two hundred of them are helping to facilitate bike advances, food advances, health care advances. They're talking to people. They are helping them think about how you... People aren't going to send on Twitter but they can send an email. They can actually...

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> I'm not saying that shouldn't be done. I'm saying that's not enough nor should it be enough in a representative democracy.

<<Raphael Bostic>> I don't think any of us has said that. I think that... I'm going to think about this in two ways. One is baby steps, I feel like a lot of this book has its element. This isn't really happy at all. So let's think about what a baby step might look like. Now there's no logistical detail provided. And so,

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> It's happening but very rarely.

<<Raphael Bostic>> Yes, so for most if you were in some midlevel, midsized city, in most instances you are not going to be engaging with apps and technology from government the way you are in San Francisco. That's unlikely to be the case. So from here's perspective, we are all sort of in a zero. So that's one thing. You're asking a bigger question though which is, is Citizenville as conceived a complete characterization of what we need. Or do we need to go, do we need to demand and expect more. I think we do but I also think that... I think the budget app can help improve citizenship, in the sense that it causes people to actually see, not everybody...

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> That's very true and that's a part of the problem.



<<Raphael Bostic>> But it forces some, at least some people. maybe the *inaudible*, maybe the ones who are most likely to just say kick them all out cause this is an obvious answer. To see it, not really so obvious. And if you can get at least some people start on that, particularly the most active are the ones are most likely to participate. That seems to me not be crazy and to be a good thing in the long run.

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> I didn't say it was a bad thing. What I'm saying is we cannot be governed by apps. Period. It's fine to take the temperature. Why do we have elections? Why do we elect our representatives? This is a representative democracy. You want to change the constitution? Fine. But it's a way of taking the pulse of a portion of your constituency, but it's not the beall...

<<David Sloane>> We all hope that it's an extended portion of your constituency. So that's that. I mean, right now there're people participating, right? Jerry Brown is in Mexico City today. He's participating. He's got...

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> Well, God forbid if he didn't. That's what he does.

<<David Sloane>> He's got a milliondollar corporation.

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> That's been the case forever, with or without technology.

<<David Sloane>> Well, but if you could use technology to extend it, it's good.

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> We will find out what... You're going to pay, you're going to have the taxpayer to say, oh sure, let's get *inaudible* on in every citizens and we'll pay the plane fare and we'll pay the hotel room.

<<David Sloane>> I think that'd be great.

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> Well, but it isn't going to happen.

<<Raphael Bostic>> That's not what he meant. I think there are two dimensions here. One is about "Can you improve the basic delivery of local services?"

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> Sure.

<<Raphael Bostic>> Because aside from the state, where we are talking about big policy priorities and how do you rank all of these...

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> Well, he makes no distinction, remember. I didn't see anything in which he made a distinction. I know, but...

<<Raphael Bostic>> Oh no. But no. I'm making the distinction.

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> I know, but the book doesn't.



<<Raphael Bostic>> So, that's fine.

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> No, it's not.

<<Raphael Bostic>> The book is a jumping off point for our conversation. I actually think that there's a local services issue that needs to be thought about, and then we have to think about the law of the citizen at a federal or state level. Right? And we had issues on both scales, right? The delivery of services of local level could be a whole lot better. And in fact, what these apps are showing in the many institutes, is it's actually not conceptually difficult, right? What it takes is unleashing of initiative and creativity that then the establishment embraces, and there are cost to that, I understand.

<<David Sloane>> No, no, no. This was actually what I thought was the most interesting part of the book and that was how conservative it was. This, to me, is a rewrite of Stephen Goldsmith's The 21st Century City where he uses He uses, if you remember that, he uses the yellow pages. They're in Indianapolis if there's three to five companies in the yellow pages, then the government needs to justify why it doesn't., okay? And it's intriguing. All the way through this book, I was reminded of this illusion to Goldsmith of this idea that government's not very good at what it does. That it doesn't manage well. It doesn't incubate well. It doesn't start well. It just, it doesn't manage contracts well. I mean there's one right after another which is essentially, Goldsmith's argument, that the way to move local services better is to privatize them, not in a simple monopoly sense because this is the brilliance of Goldsmith's initial idea but in a competitive sense. If you have competition, things will get better. And it isn't that the public service workers can't do it. You just... They have to compete with the private, and it was striking to me how many times he came back to this idea of contracting the subcontracting to finding the start after this. That will make government be better and it sounded exactly, it is. So, I was struck by, literally, here is this democratic lieutenant governor from the democratic city with its, actually, pretty conservative local government agenda that courses through the entire book.

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> Which was built upon Osborne and Gayboard.

<<David Sloane>> No, no. Yeah, absolutely. That whole reinvention governments are in the eighties and then into the nineties. Okay. So that's what strike me about the book was the philosophy of the book. So what he has done is taken that basic philosophy and then said, "Okay. Technology now allows us allow us to do that.

<<Raphael Bostic>> There's a vehicle for that.

<<David Sloane>> Now, I'm not convinced about this especially when you're deciding Mark Zuckerberg is a democratic revolutionary, But, you know, it's a reasonable, if flawed approach.

<<Raphael Bostic>> So this, I think, is a natural segue into sort of, Sherry, where you started, which was this was reinventing of Gavin Newsom. Do you think it works in that regard?



<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> No, I do not think it works in that regard. I don't know how many people are going to read this book to begin with.

<<Raphael Bostic>> *inaudible* could try that. He loved it.

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> There you go. Well, maybe Gavin will run in the republican primary for president, who knows? Now, I don't think it's going to make any difference. And Newsom to appear on the Colbert Report and got himself reamed a new orifice by Stephen Colbert. He came off looking rather like a doofus. I think that's a technical term.

<<Raphael Bostic>> But Colbert is tough. You better be careful to be going that shell.

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> Yes. Of course, you do. But he also manages to strip away the patina than anybody who tries to go on his show. But, you know, every politician who wants to be looked at as having some gravitas, who wants his or her name out there prior to a run for higher office these days has to do a book. And he did.

<<David Sloane>> The question is what is he reinventing himself for?

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> That's a good question.

<<David Sloane>> Because this book to me is an I'm gonna run for governor book.

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> Well, that's maybe...

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> Maybe.

<<David Sloane>> Not an "I'm going to run for senator book". Right, I mean. It's a funny book.

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> We don't know. I don't think he wants to run for senator.

<<David Sloane>> It's not a policy book. It's really a management book. It's an intriguing thing for me. He doesn't want to go back to being... I presume...

<<Raphael Bostic>> I'm hearing he wants to be the mayor, I am sure.

<<David Sloane>> And you know, he's got a minor problem there for foreseeable future, so I was...

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> Well, he has to *inaudible* it out at the same time, assuming that Governor Brown is reelected and I think it's a fairly safe assumption. He... at the same time, Governor Brown will have to leave office if he is reelected, that office will be vacant. And Gavin Newsom, among others, will have to move on.

<<David Sloane>> Yeah, but it's six years after the book, created five years after the book. I mean, that seems like a long...



<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> I agree with you on that. The other possibility is he was just bored because the lieutenant governor doesn't do anything and he figured he might as well get a head start.

<<Raphael Bostic>> I actually think it's an interesting question, is to what he is doing and because...

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> Keeping his name in the media, for one.

<<Raphael Bostic>> Well, there's *inaudible* to that. But you can do that in a lot of different ways.

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> Really? But some of them would rather not.

<<Raphael Bostic>> And writing a book like this wouldn't have been the first thing I would have chosen. So... <Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> What would you have chosen? And you?

<<Raphael Bostic>> I'll give you the arc, right. So, he's a young businessman who comes to San Francisco as into government as a reformer, right. But his reforms... he wants to be more businessfriendly, he winds up discovering a bit of social policy and gets in trouble on the homelessness issue, he gets into... he is sort of the antiSan Francisco San Francisco guy, right.

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> But he did... he was right out front...

<<Raphael Bostic>> He had on...

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> on same sex marriage.

<<Raphael Bostic>> But then, he got out in front of same sex marriage.

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> But it's easy in San Francisco. You got to.

<<David Sloane>> But my point is, his natural persona is the first guy in office to sign *inaudible* marriage certificates for same sex couples. That's when most people in the country know him as. So, if I were then going to come out, and try to do something, it wouldn't be a book on writing apps. Because if you want a national future, right, you've got to speak to people in North Carolina and in Florida. And those people couldn't care less about the act.

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> But they do care about same sex marriage and that's a big risk.

<<Raphael Bostic>> And so, that's why the first counterbalance made wouldn't have been a book about apps, it would've have been something that positioned him as protrade or prounion or whatever it was gonna be, maybe education common core. I mean, there are lots of ways that you could move yourself to the middle, that I think could have made bigger splashes. This



book is actually quite interesting. And the part to me that's really interesting is, I'm half torn on this, because on one level, I want to be really cynical, and say...

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> It's easy.

<<Raphael Bostic>> He has his book, Hillary has her book...

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> Yup. Newt has his book.

<<Raphael Bostic>> Everyone, you know, you got to have a book if you're gonna be...

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> Governor Perry has his book.

<<Raphael Bostic>> Yeah, Rick Perry just can't...

<<David Sloane>> Which no one is gonna read.

<<Raphael Bostic>> But at the same time, I think...

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> But he does wear glasses now.

<<Raphael Bostic>> I think he really believes a lot of this, to his...

<<David Sloane>> I don't know.

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> I agree with that.

<<David Sloane>> It seems very sincere.

<<Raphael Bostic>> And in that regard, it's...

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> Well...

<<David Sloane>> I don't know. I think he does seem...

<<Raphael Bostic>> It was a more genuine thing.

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> I think it's seems hyperventilating.

<<David Sloane>> Well, I know, it is...

<<Raphael Bostic>> Well, he's a public official.

<<David Sloane>> But that doesn't mean he's not sincere.

<<Raphael Bostic>> But I do think, you know, he has lived much of his professional life in the shadow of the most powerful technology engine that we've ever seen. And, you know, when you go to the Bay Area, when you go to the... You're the historian, so you can...



<<David Sloane>> It's a long period of time which is throughout...

<<Raphael Bostic>> But when you go to the Bay Area, the optimism and the hopefulness...

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> Forget the steam engine.

<<David Sloane>> Forget the telegram.

<<Raphael Bostic>> that pervades the environment, I think becomes part of your personality and persona. And I think that's part of what comes through here, that...

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> Did we read the same book?

<<David Sloane>> No, no, no. It comes through. It does.

<<Raphael Bostic>> Yes, I think it did.

<<David Sloane>> It does come through.

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> I guess I'm way too cynical.

<<David Sloane>> The striking thing for me was that if you look at the index, the words social justice... term social justice, nor the term equity appear.

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> Neither?

<<David Sloane>> Neither of them. Because he never talks about them. And so, in some sense, one could read this as his moving to the middle. Is that I'm not really about social justice at all. I am a business guy. I am a pure business guy and let me tell you, I really like business. And business is a lot smarter than government, business is a lot better than government, business is a lot and more effective than government, and we need to make government business. That moment that I really, you know, as a historian for *inaudible*, I just jumped for joy. It was when you had this little paragraph where he argues that we need more engineers in government. Now, who are the two presidents?

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> Jimmy Carter and Herbert Hoover. Yup.

<<David Sloane>> And Herbert Hoover. Are two engineering presidents.

<<Raphael Bostic>> And how'd that go?

<<David Sloane>> And you're just like...

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> And how was the play Mrs. Lincoln?

<<David Sloane>> Again, it's back to that kind of... it's non... I'm not... I agree with you, actually. But it's the naiveté.



<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> Exactly.

<<Raphael Bostic>> So, I actually don't...

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> We're assuming things and we can't assume without his telling us what he's going to *inaudible*

<<Raphael Bostic>> But to me, I've saw a lot of conflict in the book.

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> Yes.

<<Raphael Bostic>> So, he wanted to run it like a business. Let's make all the data available until he realized it wasn't business and then he was gonna get in trouble. And then, we're not gonna do that anymore...

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>>But this doesn't make all data available to begin with.

<<Raphael Bostic>> But the transparency... I mean, so, fair enough. But he tried to do things and then didn't and then was chasing repeatedly.

<<David Sloane>> Again and again.

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> Well, he tried.

<<Raphael Bostic>> When it was... when the institute... when he realized the institution was different.

<<David Sloane>> But then you get to the end of the book and he acts as if all those conflicts didn't exist. I mean, he basically comes back to it, we just need to do this. And you're like, you've just told me five times that you're trying to do this and you get your head kicked in and now you're telling me, "Oh, this is the way to go."

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> And he doesn't tell you how, why or how much it costs.

<<Raphael Bostic>> To me, that was the biggest conflict in the book because I would say, you know, having been in government for a little while, all things that he wrote about how all the incentives are for government people not to take risks, just stay in the box, to just put your head down, don't think, just do what it says. Those were all real to me. They were spot on.

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> Sure. But it's true in other cultures, too. Yes, it is.

<<Raphael Bostic>> But the culture I'm less concerned about than sort of the institutional comparisons. I feel like in the private sector, it is relatively common for workers to be given incentives so that if their innovations work, they benefit by it.

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> Depends on the industry. It depends on who's in charge.



<<Raphael Bostic>> Look, it's always gonna be that. But it's not...

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> Yes, that's the point!

<<Raphael Bostic>> No, but, no... but you're... You know, I'm saying...

<<David Sloane>> It doesn't matter who's in charge in government.

<<Raphael Bostic>> It really doesn't.

<<David Sloane>> Very, very, difficult.

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> Buy why does he go off on this *inaudible* to Eric Cantor? And all of that he has and now, boy...

<<Raphael Bostic>> And how is that going?

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> talk about egg on face. You know, what will happen now? Well, all of these wonderful innovations that Eric Cantor and his staff seemingly put into play in the house of representatives drop off the map or will they continue? I don't know.

<<Raphael Bostic>> That's an open question, isn't it?

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> You know, I have always believed, and I will continue to believe that any system is only as good as the people who inhabit it. And he never even discusses that.

<<Raphael Bostic>> So look, I run a center on government which is about how we implement policy and we spend a lot of time talking about issues of leadership, and how you set an institute or organizational environment for behavior. What is true though, in the public sector, which makes this very difficult, is that the enforcement and oversight comes from outside, oftentimes from outside the direct report. Right, so the people are not worrying about getting slapped from their boss per se. They're worried about showing up on the front page of the newspaper and having their careers ruined forever. And so, the pressures and the incentives are, I think, disproportionately on the negative side. And then, the other thing do you know how hard it is to give someone a bonus for a good idea in the public sector, at the local level?

<<David Sloane>> Virtually impossible.

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> You don't, you can't.

<<Raphael Bostic>> It's extremely...

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> It's the spending of taxpayers money, and it's tight.

<<Raphael Bostic>> So you look at an employee, right...



<<David Sloane>> The employee *inaudible* the taxpayer's million dollars and we can't give him taxpayer's 5 million dollars and we can't give him 25,000.

<<Raphael Bostic>> Or 25! 25,000? 25 dollars, period.

<<David Sloane>> I know, I'm just saying. That that to me is...

<<Raphael Bostic>> And so, if you're sitting in the public sector, you look up and you say, "Okay, if I put my neck out here, the upside is zero, and the downside is my job, I'm not putting my neck out!" And that is a fundamental barrier that all of this needs to address. And part of what bothers me is, is part of why we have our best and worst in governors now is that, the good things that happen in government are just assumed to have... of course they should exist. We should not attribute any skill or talent or extra insight. They just happen and they're supposed to happen. And it's the bad things that are the only things that we talk about. And I think we...

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> That's... part of that is because that's what the media talks about, that's what the media likes to talk about, that's what people like to hear from the media. I think we got to talk about that.

<<Raphael Bostic>> So, I agree with that but I would say it a different way. The media takes us some of the way. But then it's a feedback loop.

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> Of course!

<<Raphael Bostic>> The media does something, we don't really pay attention to that, then they're going to do something else. They're going to find another way to try to capture our attention. They're varied. So, this is the part about us. I do feel like...

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> I agree with that completely.

<<Raphael Bostic>> We collectively help perpetuate this system where there isn't any reward for being good.

<<David Sloane>> Well, you know, but it's also... I remember when we did *inaudible* and I did an opinion survey for the LAPD back in the 90's. And the LAPD was sure that the LA Times was out to get them. And that's...

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> And they were.

<<David Sloane>> That's how everybody got their negative opinion about the LAPD. Our findings were exactly the opposite. People who had a negative experience, either themselves,



or their family or their friends, with the LAPD, had a negative appreciation of the LAPD. And if you had a positive and formal, you just met a cop, you knew a cop, you went to communion and hung out with a cop, yours was way better. And I think part of it, you're right, it's partially media, but it's also partially the government. I mean, there's this spiral, you can have virtuous spirals or negative spirals, and the government has this negative spiral. Many times... how many times have you interacted with the government in the last year? How many of those have been positive? How many, you know, how many of those have been where you went someplace and they couldn't see you, and you had an appointment and it was two hours late? Or you went to the DMV and stood there. I mean, they are not a lot of times, where we have positive relationship with the government.

<<Raphael Bostic>> But that is actually not true. We have positive relationship with the government every day, when you go down the street and the street lights work. Then you will get on the train and the train arrives. When you go on the bus, the bus works. Maybe the bus works sometimes.

<<David Sloane>> When I get on Google, Google works.

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> Not for me.

<<David Sloane>> The difference is when Google doesn't work, I hit a button. Somebody pops up on my screen and says, "This is what you have to do." That's interaction. Yes, you're absolutely correct. Government makes our lives possible. I am a complete believer in street lights but they are part of the environments. When you begin to... When the streetlights doesn't work and you come by an hour later and the streetlights still not working and you come by an hour later, and there's now, two hours later after, there's like billions of cars around. There's a cop who's come up and is trying to sort things out. Then, that's the experience that people have with government, that's when you experience government. Now, it's not fair when Google stops working and then that global person doesn't pop out when I think of Google.

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> But I think it's a matter of perception and a part of that perception, quite recently. And I think we are seeing more hostility than I ever remember in the years I've been working at government but when the budget on the federal level does not get passed, when the budget on the state level does not get passed, that's extrapolated into government. And government, really, and by perception, isn't working. And that's something, you know, how do you deal with that? I guess it's the question I have.

<<Raphael Bostic>> There's actually a little irony in this, in that I think technology has contributed to the worst working of government in recent times, particularly at federal levels when you think about the sophisticated drawing of district boundaries and the like.

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> Well, but I...



<<Raphael Bostic>> That create... and that's transparencing government.

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> Honey, well before computers you can *inaudible*. This is not Newt.

<<Raphael Bostic>> For public information. But they are much more strategic, much more surgical and they can do it much more quickly. I think...

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> Well, they can do it much more quickly, which as far as they're concerned is either good or bad but...

<<Raphael Bostic>> I actually think that...

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> I watch them do it before computers rule the world.

<<Raphael Bostic>> I'm not saying that things weren't done before computers. I'm just saying computers, as we said at the very outset, can often improve the efficiency and the effectiveness of the strategies. So, I'm not arguing.

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> Wait, wait! But. But, the other part of that is now computers allow individuals and groups to do their own reapportionment and bring it to the body who is reapportioning.

<<Raphael Bostic>> Aren't you just now on the other side of the argument?

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> No, no, I'm just pointing out. Nothing.

<<Raphael Bostic>> I thought that you were saying...

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> Nothing is axiomatically bad and certainly nothing is axiomatically good.

<<Raphael Bostic>> So, that was a turn I wasn't expecting.

<<David Sloane>> It's a contrary interval.

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> Yeah! I mean, there's just the real world, period.

<<Raphael Bostic>> So, let me ask you about what prescriptions do you think the book gives that are actionable? The things that we should be thinking about for trying to really incorporate change into government.

<<David Sloane>> I actually agree with you though, the biggest thing, the most important thing on my perspective that he talks, the most important things were one, two or three. The first one is the fear thing, and there's no action in here. You know, government has struggled with this for a very long time. It's not new, and one of the problems with government is that it actually, if you read about the 60's and Johnsons, at first you think about poverty. As soon as anything worked anywhere, he suddenly made it a national program, and it turned out that that was a really bad



idea. That just because it worked in one place, doesn't mean it's gonna work everywhere. And I think government, and this is a problem both for private sector, and the public sector, needs to be a little more patient. And that's a really, really hard thing. And no matter which way you look, patience is not either in the technological world, or in the governmental world. It's not rewarded. I don't think he has any way to get out of the fear thing. The second one is, and I do disagree slightly with my esteemed colleague who knows a lot more about politics than I do. But I do believe that the app thing is... there is a place here for apps.

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> I didn't say there wasn't.

<<David Sloane>> And I do hope that that the app thing is not simply, do we get the bus on time. I do hope that it is actionable to make government more transparent, to make the analysis of data better, and to make participation better.

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> Who decides?

<<David Sloane>> We have made progress on this, at the local level with the design charades, the policy charades that people are now doing. There's lot more ways that people can interact with ideas than there were when I was in college. There's just techniques to do it. And whether we can now take that to the next step and enable technology to help us. Because that's all it is. It's not technology doing anything more than enabling a good idea. That would be nice. And I think that is actionable. I think we can do more of that.

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> I think the most practical suggestion, maybe the only one that he gives in this book, has to deal with the concept of publicpublic partnerships. He talks about the publicprivate partnerships, which at one time was the really hot thing, you know, government and the private sector.

<<David Sloane>> That was in 1918.

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> Yeah, well, since 1918. I want you to know when this school was first established, that was the big thing.

<<David Sloane>> I know.

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> Because I was around here teaching. And no longer do we talk about private... publicprivate partnerships...

<<Raphael Bostic>> Just to be clear, you weren't here in 1918.

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> Not but I was here in the 1980's! I was here.

<<David Sloane>> When it officially started.

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> Well, I actually was...



<<David Sloane>> But in she means *inaudible*.

<<Raphael Bostic>> I know what she meant, I know what she meant.

<<David Sloane>> But I was here, as well.

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> I mean, let me just...

<<David Sloane>> And remind you people that the first publicprivate partnership...

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> There you go, private partnership.

<<David Sloane>> In American history were in the 1820's, so it's been around way longer than people think.

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> It's been around, it was once a very hot topic. He says and I think he's right about it. Publicprivate partnerships are too limited. What we're missing out on and what the new age of what networking will engender is publicpublic partnerships. Cities collaborating with cities, neighborhoods collaborating with neighborhoods. Publicpublic partnerships are all about networking, coordinating resources, and I think this is key. And leveraging existing money. And once, you know...

<<David Sloane>> That's on page?

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> That is on page 234, almost to the very end of the book, which ends at 236.

<<Raphael Bostic>> Look at the very, very end. You know, I actually... So, the thing that I thought was interesting. I thought there were a couple of things. One, I agree, I think there's a place for apps. And I think this is a way to, hopefully, to get some people to think creatively, about how to get them more better integrated into, particularly the local delivery services. I actually think at a very local service delivery, their level, there's a lot that can be done. The second thing that he asked for...

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> I agree.

<<Raphael Bostic>> Which you speak to is institutional flexibility for institutions to basically survey and canvass their situation, and be open to lots of different approaches and solutions, which is interesting. They're both in the creativity space, that's how we think about. The third thing, he actually never speaks to, but I think it's really important. And I think, Sherry, you raised this up, which is leadership matters?

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> Oh, yes.

<<Raphael Bostic>> And that if we don't get leaders... I mean, he has lots of examples where things didn't happen, he has lots of examples for things did happen, and mostly examples where



did happen. He doesn't talk enough about the management or willingness to let it happen and to support it and to lift it up. And I think there's an under message here, which is speaking to higher levels of management that if this is gonna work, if we're going to have these new ways of having government function, you have to step up. And you won't have to embrace it and really believe it, and back up your staff. All right. So, for me, one of the biggest eyeopening experiences that I had at HUD was when I learned that many of my staff had not had experiences where they felt backed up by senior management. And that kind of shut them down. And you don't, you wouldn't, there's no surprise, right? But, Newsom in this book projects a lot of, you got to back them up. You got to be there because innovation and changes *inaudible* is not always gonna go in the up direction, it's gonna go on the down direction. And that's something i think was an important message.

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> Except when it has to do with disclosing who your contributors are and which donors you meet with.

<<David Sloane>> Even more than that. It's a message, but it's a very unevenly done in the book. I mean, he doesn't... there are times when he seems to say, I'm going to back people up and exactly or that he actually did. And there's time when he doesn't talk about it. I mean, you know, he's using the startup world as sort of his model here, and we all know that, you know, what is it four out of ten startups *inaudible*

<<Raphael Bostic>> If you *inaudible*

<<David Sloane>> Just... there's a lot of people whose heads end up on the guillotine in the private sector. And I think that people...I think he's not fully dealing with what we need to teach leaders to be able to do that, and to reframe leadership in a public way. He's... it's just not there.

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> Let me add something to that. You were talking about startups and we never even talked about what I see and what has been proven to be a gender gap in the whole area of technology. For example, in startups, women are 40% of private business owners. They are 8% of technology startups. 85% of venture capitalists are male and this, I think, is a really interesting statistic. Women use Wikipedia as much as men, but it looks as though they write less than 15% of the articles. Approaching 90% of the contributors to important sites like Reddit or Slashdot.org. He doesn't talk about that, so the apps, basically, that follows are gonna be basically created by guys, and there's a gender gap in what he is proposing.

<<Raphael Bostic>> Well, there are more... there's more than just a gender gap.

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> Well, I mean there was...

<<David Sloane>> In class, as well.

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> Well yes, I mean, the whole use of Internet younger, better educated, higher income. Although, new polling data, suggests that in the case of both Latinos and



AfricanAmericans, the technology gap with whites is closing dramatically. The real interesting thing is that Latinos and AfricanAmericans are more likely to reach the Internet and music on a smartphone, than our whites.

<<Raphael Bostic>> But I think, there are couple of gaps here, you know, the class, race, gender gap is one of them, but also I think there's an important gap in terms of using the technology versus creating the technology. And, you know we just had a program here, for PhD students, where we're trying to increase the diversity of the people who get PhDs and the reason I think that's important more than anything else is that, people with different backgrounds ask different questions.

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> Without question.

<<Raphael Bostic>> They focus on different things, and you would wind up with solution for other things that would ordinarily just fall through the cracks, and in many of these instances, those things are things that we really need solutions for. Right, so, you know, maybe we have a hard time synchronizing our like...

<<David Sloane>> You know it's one of the... I'm so glad both of you said that because one of the things was, you know, he can talk about *inaudible* stamp versus steam?


<<David Sloane>> At the end there. And yet, his definition of "steam" is computer science. I mean, it's not social science, it's not art, it's not really the kind of things that you're talking about, people who come. You know, we know kids that have art classes, or do better in SATs, they do better. I mean, there's this like this huge literature on difference and how it's affected by education, and how different kinds of education affect you. I mean, Dean Knott and I were in Washington, we were doing this little panel on, why the government wants the part of the Republican agenda, part of the part, it's not all GOP but, several Republicans who don't believe that NSF should have any social science funding. And you know, and the comeback, the pushbacks are real pushback. You know, some of the most important scientific inventions of the 20th... early 20th or early 21st century came out of game theory, which is, essentially, a social science. And so, there is this... it is important. I would like to have seen him begin to integrate some of that throughout, instead of saying coming back to us time and time again, you know, engineers.

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> Well, this would make, his book, I think, will make a very adequate 10page paper.

<<David Sloane>> I'm not going to be that hurt.

<<Raphael Bostic>> So, I did want to spend some time talking about that, which is, how was this book to read? So, you know, there are lots of books written by public figures, which are



quite engaging. Others are boring as boring can be, and they're hard to finish. How did you guys find this one? In terms of its writing and its flow?

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> Well, I found a lot in common with Hillary Clinton's latest book, "Hard Choices". "I...I...I", "I did this", "I did that", "I'm wonderful", "Don't you think I'm wonderful?", "Isn't this a bright idea?" I got to the point where I started skimming, radically. I mean, I did what I had to do, what my assignment was, but I didn't do it happily.

<<David Sloane>> You know, it's a funny book. In the sense that it's actually a very easy reading book. It goes...it flows very...you know, the writing's pretty good. I agree with Sherry that it's, you know, it's very egocentric. But I got about halfway through it and I really got the complete faith in technology, really began to weigh me down. I just found that, you know, chapter after chapter was, in the end, Stewart Brand, Mark Zakharov and Steven Jobs, they know what to do. And the rest are just, sort of *inaudible*

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> As does Bill Clinton.

<<David Sloane>> And it's just like, come on. I mean, you know, it just needs to be some diversity in the way that we think about these ideas, and it was. I have... about twothirds the way through, I didn't begin to skim because I'm a better, you know, younger student than Sherry. I kept to my assignment but I did find it difficult at the end.

<<Raphael Bostic>> More earnest.

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> I just skimmed the repetitive parts and it made it very easy.

<<David Sloane>> Because in some sense, you know, it is an interesting idea, but it's complicated and he's stripping... slowly stripping away the complications to...

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> Exactly.

<<David Sloane>> You know, Stewart Brand really knows what he's talking about, and why don't you just pay attention to him?

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> And you know, and I agree with that and I also felt that his analysis was basically shaped to fit the theme he wanted to sell, not... he didn't come to conclusions, he came to the conclusions first and then wrote the book.

<<David Sloane>> I didn't think there was any analysis.

<<Raphael Bostic>> Yeah, so, that was... I was going to say two things on that one.

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> Now, you're being harsher than I am.

<<Raphael Bostic>> Two things on that; one, I did feel like it was an easy read,



<<David Sloane>> I know. I agree.

<<Raphael Bostic>> The stories were short, they were catchy.

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> Ten pages.

<<Raphael Bostic>> You can run through this. I mean, he had more than ten pages worth of story. *inaudible* I didn't think it was scholarly that way.

<<David Sloane>> Not at all.

<<Raphael Bostic>> In a sense that there wasn't a strategy that who was going to be interviewed or which narrative was going to be compiled. I felt like he knew a lot of these people, he called them up and said...

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> Sure!

<<Raphael Bostic>> "Let's go have a beer, I have some things I want to bounce off of you." He got a couple of good quotes and then found a writer and piece it together in a book.

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> It was a very political list of people.

<<Raphael Bostic>> It was a strategic list of people.

<<David Sloane>> It seemed to me that maybe I'm strategic rather than political.

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> Uhuh.

<<David Sloane>> And because there's very few women. There was no woman inside of those circles .

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> But these are contributors.

<<David Sloane>> To me, if he was political, he would've been...

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> No, no.

<<David Sloane>> Better at it.

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> We have a different definition of "political", Dave.

<<Raphael Bostic>> I think we may have a different definition of "political". But, I actually thought that, he was signaling connections through this book.

<<David Sloane>> Yeah.

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> Of course! He was namedropping throughout the whole thing.



<<Raphael Bostic>> That he could get...

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> George Clooney on technology, please.

<<Raphael Bostic>> I don't... I've not had that conversation with George so...

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> Well, it's in the book!

<<Raphael Bostic>> When I have that opportunity, I'll get to see what he knows about that. But I do...

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> I talked to George.

<<Raphael Bostic>> I do think that it was, once I put down the notion this was going to be a scholarly piece. Once I dropped that, it was pretty easy to flow through. I thought that.

<<David Sloane>> *inaudible*

<<Raphael Bostic>> Yes, she did, and I actually think that the conflicts then became clear, once I stopped doing that. Right.

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> Your conflicts or his?

<<Raphael Bostic>> The internal conflicts in this book.

<<David Sloane>> The ones that he raised. Yeah, yeah.

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> I didn't notice.

<<Raphael Bostic>> And then the other thing, which has struck me, this is two books in a row, because our last one was on "Capital in the st Century". I didn't feel like there were any, here are some things for you to do.

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> Right.

<<Raphael Bostic>> And at the end of the day, I didn't know what anyone was supposed to actually change or how they're supposed to go about their business, and that left me a little...

<<David Sloane>> I was very surprised with the end. There wasn't any tenpoint plan.

<<Raphael Bostic>> A tenpoint plan.

<<David Sloane>> This is how you could *inaudible*. These are the tenthings lesson.

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> That requires thought.



<<David Sloane>> But I was really surprised because you saw that the end, it sort of just drifts away. And if he wants it to be here, you know...

<<Raphael Bostic>> Here's my marker.

<<David Sloane>> That could be five years from now. You know, this is the agenda that I'm going to sort of drive as lieutenant governor and I want to drive as governor. You would think, you would do that?

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> He never say that.

<<David Sloane>> Then, there's this allusion, throughout the book, especially the middle part of the book, that this is actually going to have a website and there's going to be, sort of "out there" stuff. So, actually, I went looking for the website and I couldn't find anything and so.

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> Yeah.

<<David Sloane>> I was surprised by that too, because, it does seem like a...

<<Raphael Bostic>> Like it was a springboard to something else.

<<David Sloane>> That's not...there's no, you know, an empty pool out there, right now. And you want water to be in there if you want to go out the springboard.

<<Raphael Bostic>> You definitely want water.

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> But he didn't go after the string, and I have a funny feeling that that last chapter will be written when and if he decides to run for governor.

<<David Sloane>> Well that may be, and maybe he put it out again. And that's the way he'll make it. But, I am surprised. I was surprised by that a lot. Because if it's a strategic book, the strategy is "I know really famous people."

<<Raphael Bostic>> The strategy has got to be a full look into something else, right. Alright. So, any last thoughts that you had on this. We've talked about this for a while and gone through a lot of particular issues. The things that we haven't touched on that you think we should have?

<<David Sloane>> There is one that I just thought was delicious, you know, it's where he talked about liking the tea party.

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> Wasn't that wonderful?

<<David Sloane>> It would be now, here's the San Francisco, sort of hip guy. And again, if it has a strategy. Right? Technology is good. Private sector is good. Limited government's good. "Oh, geez, isn't that that tea party?" And that's where, right there, is where he lost me as a voter. Because he didn't say, "Oh! But even though I liked the tea party, we have to have social



justice. We have to have equity. We want to have a multicultural society." And he didn't do it. I have to say, right there, I was like, okay, you're Stephen Goldsmith. You're the old middleright conservative, democrat, republican, that old mishmash and that's not how I want to run my state.

<<Raphael Bostic>> Sherry?

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> Well, I have to think that was one of the fun part of the book, too. I take it pretty much, how's my fire to be polite. But I will say that, I saw in a lot of unsubstantiated stuff, a lot of opinions, a lot of observations that were not backed up, obviously, it is not a scholarly book. I don't mind a book that isn't scholarly, what I mind is, a book that simply shoots peas up in the air, and let's them fall where they may. And I got that from this book. It was a warm and fuzzy book, but it was very cliched, I thought. And very little *inaudible* came out of it. I'm not sure I would recommend that anyone who didn't just want to spend a couple of hours perusing a book. Read this book. Maybe if and when he runs for another office, that's the time to get into the head of the man. And I'm not even sure this book does that.

<<Raphael Bostic>> So, I am...


<<Raphael Bostic>> I too, struggle with the roll of evidence. I didn't feel like there was any evidence.

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> None!

<<Raphael Bostic>> or any real citations to research...

<<David Sloane>> Yeah, that I actually say... I have to say that didn't bother me. It's a political book.

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> Thank you.

<<Raphael Bostic>> But it did kind of bother me to the extent that it started... when I started doing this, I thought that these were going to be a prescriptions. So, if we want to have be prescribed to do something, then, I kind of want to know that there was some evidence of this work in the past, and we didn't really have that. I guess when I was reading this, the question that came up for me, repeatedly, was is this a book for the every man. Is this a book for your average Joe on the street corner? Who may or may not be thinking about the public sector. Who may or may not be thinking about, you know, their role as a citizen or civic participation, all those sort of things. I couldn't help but think that the answer was clearly, no.

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> Definitely.



<<Raphael Bostic>> That this was on some level for techsavvy people, maybe who are more inclined to complain than not, and to tell them that you need to stop complaining, get off your butts and write a map. I think on some level, if you wanted to have the subsubsubtitle, it'd be, "Get up! Get off you butts and write out." Right? And to me, that's not such a bad message. Right? Because too often, people will just complain and complain and not really think about solutions. And someone, I think, would be inclined to read this. They can't leave here or stop reading this thinking, you know, "Oh now, I can go back and complain."

<<David Sloane>> No, no, I think it's very much a book for people who believe in technology and just like most of the people.

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> The true believers.

<<David Sloane>> I mean, it is that kind of book. I mean, it's not a book, I agree, you know. It is your average Joe or Gayle or whatever, getting up and saying...

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> Sherry.

<<David Sloane>> Sherry, Rufus. It just doesn't... it isn't. And it's not that they can't read. It's very simple. I mean, everybody will do fine. But I don't think it's really for them.

<<Raphael Bostic>> It's what you make of it, right.

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> Why bother?

<<David Sloane>> I think it is, as you suggests, it is just him and let's be cynical for the moment and say, "It's him trying to cement his place in the Silicon Valley, Silicon Beach crowd." and say, "I'm one of you, give me money." I mean, that's the cynical way.

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> And I also can think and I can put a sentence together, so I can be governor!

<<David Sloane>> Yeah. That's another thing. I was surprised by that, as well. I thought... I was surprised at how he constantly sort of came back to the language, to the sort of... to this narrowness that the book portrayed. Because I would, again, and the reality, the evidence isn't great that that 25 years olds, the 35 years olds, people in Silicon Valley and Silicon Beach are going to elect the next governor of the state of California.

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> Well, by the time he runs, though, they're theoretically going to be bore up to vote.

<<David Sloane>> We'll find out.

<<Raphael Bostic>> Yeah, I think their numbers are probably unlikely to outweigh some other groups in the state.



<<David Sloane>> And their willingness to vote.

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> Who are negative, who are cynical towards technology.

<<Raphael Bostic>> And so on that note, I think we will have to close the conversation.

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> Why?

<<Raphael Bostic>> That would have to be the last word on Citizenville. I want to thank both of you, Sherry Bebitch Jeffe, David Sloane, both faculty members here at the Price School and affiliates of the Bedrosian Center, for helping us have this conversation, as I know it would be. Lively and interesting. It went on a lot of directions and certainly no one would mistake this conversation as being sort of a blind endorsement or support for anything. And that's exactly what we want, because I think, part of what we are trying to do is get people to think about the implications and to see through some about the top level messages and try to think about what the stuff really means. So thank you, again.

<<Sherry Bebitch Jeffe>> Our pleasure.

<<Raphael Bostic>> Thank you for... you all Thank you all for listening. And please do stay tuned for more of these. We're gonna try to do this on a pretty regular basis. I hope you've enjoyed it. And until next time, have a good one. >> The USC Bedrosian Book Club Podcast Citizenville by Gavin Newsom. Recorded at the USC's Sol Price School of Public Policy.



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