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Ariel Kennan is a designer who has created everything from policy to public spaces. She is the co-founder of Designing Government, an online resource and gathering place for the civic design community, and she is on the board of BetaNYC, a network of civic-minded volunteers who contribute their skills toward government and community service.

Previously, Ariel was a 2013 Code for America Fellow working with the governments and local communities of Kansas City, Kansas and Kansas City, Missouri to make city hall more entrepreneurial and improve how city hall serves entrepreneurs. She has also worked with New York firms, including ESI Design, the Center for Urban Pedagogy, and Local Projects.

In one sentence, what do you do?

I’m designing government.

Why do you work in/with government?

I have always been interested in cities and public spaces and how they work. If you want to create things inside cities, you need to work with government since governments are the protectors, caretakers, and decision-makers in our cities. In the last few years, this idea has gotten me interested in working more closely with government, especially now that I see governments valuing design and wanting to adopt better practices for engaging with citizens.

Why do you work in New York City?

Because it’s the best city in the world! It was always my dream to come to New York City. Next week is actually my ten-year anniversary living and working here. I’ve stayed because I think it’s the most fascinating place and it inspires me daily. If you want to be at the center of the universe, you need to be in New York City.

What does your typical day look like?

I like starting my day with an espresso and then some exercise – either running or cycling out on the waterfront or going to my local gym. My day then gets busy meeting with community members or government staff. I’m also out attending and organizing events around the city, everything from social happy hours that bring together professionals who work across different spaces – like design, technology, and government – to events like BetaNYC, where civic hackers are actively building technology to improve the city. 

What is the most challenging part of your job? Most rewarding?

Juggling all the pieces is usually the most challenging! I think it’s really rewarding when new people meet each other or have “a-ha” moments about projects they didn’t know were possible. Especially at BetaNYC, we’ve been having a lot more staff from across different City agencies come and participate with the technologists and designers. They’re starting to see things in new ways, then they come back and say, “We never would’ve done it that way inside the City.” I think taking some of that new perspective back to their own work – whether they use the exact idea or not – is really powerful.

What work are you most proud of?

I’ve been very fortunate to work on a lot of cool projects, everything from giant LED signs in Times Square to media installations in retail stores and museums. I even worked on a new city in China several years ago. But in the last couple years I’ve been working directly with local governments. When I was a fellow at Code for America, I worked with the mayors and their staff in Kansas City, KS and Kansas City, MO. I’m really proud of the technology we built over the course of the year to help the city better serve entrepreneurs, but most of all I’m proud of the larger community and government change that we helped create – not only through community organizing, but helping the governments write policy and create new roles within the government itself. To me that was a much bigger, lasting impact than any single app could achieve.

(Ariel worked on BizFriend.ly, go-to resource that helps entrepreneurs start, run and grow great businesses.)

What has been your most recent "aha!" moment?

This week I was with the City Council Speaker’s office talking about civic technology. It was really refreshing that it wasn’t just the usual suspects from the technology community. The City Council invited a diverse audience of community organizers, technologists, designers and advocates. It was actually mostly women! We were sitting around the table to inform City Council about ways they could use technology to be more responsive to residents and inclusive of their needs. I continue to be impressed that the administration is sticking true to its word about serving all New Yorkers. 

What is the one thing you would change in government?

Government is full of people who are incredibly well intentioned and who want to improve our cities. But sometimes I think public servants get held back by the larger systems of government, like procurement, human resources, and technology delivery. I’m really interested in how to bring new skills to public service, including design. What are the modern standards? How can we be more agile and nimble in the way that we work? And how can we be more informed by the people who actually use our products and services? By bringing these design values and skills to government, we can create more efficient and effective policies and services. 

What one person or organization would you like to work with?

The City! As I said before, New York is the center of the universe – we have one of the biggest governments in the world, which is pretty incredible. Thinking about how you work at scale is a very exciting challenge. Just think about the sheer number of peoples’ lives that you can improve and change in a city of this size by both improving policy and implementing new tools and services.

What inspires you?

Being out in the city. Summer time, especially in New York City, is just great for wandering and enjoying both the architecture and the people. Recently I’ve had the greatest time enjoying our public spaces, including some of the new ones like Brooklyn Bridge Park and the recently opened areas of Governors Island, which are full of wonder and delight. Seeing New Yorkers out in their collective backyard makes me fall in love with the city a little bit more every time I’m there.

Any words of advice for someone early in their career?

Dream big – which sounds a little cheesy! People don’t always know what you’re capable of. Keep proving yourself. Don’t think that just because you’re a certain age you can’t do something. Keep showing them that you can.

What do you want your legacy to be?

Lara Torvi is the Communications Manager at the New York City Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications (NYC DOITT). NYC DOITT is responsible for modernizing government technology; improving IT infrastructure, service delivery, and civic engagement; increasing digital literacy opportunities for New Yorkers; and facilitating a more transparent and open government. In her free time, Lara helps run CART NY, a non-profit that supports and promotes the contemporary Canadian art community in New York City and around the world.

In one sentence, what do you do?

I help bring people closer to government through technology.

Why do you work in government?

I’m fascinated by the intersection of technology and public service. There are so many ways government can harness technology and I love seeing the direct impact of that work. I’m also driven by the challenges of an organization as big and complex as local government.

Why do you work in New York City?

I wanted to be a part of the growth of New York’s many digital tech initiatives. Working in the City’s technology agency has given me the opportunity to be directly connected to all of the innovation happening here.

What does your typical day look like?

My days are pretty unpredictable, which I love, but typically I’m liaising with different departments, other agencies, and external partners to provide input and get updates on various projects. This extends beyond New York City - I frequently host visiting delegations from other cities, states, and countries to share ideas and experiences in civic technology. I also spend time responding to press inquiries, preparing communications content, and monitoring our digital channels. In my role, something can happen at any moment and you’re completely thrown into it.

What is the most challenging part of your job?

Most of what we do is highly technical, so there is an added level of translation required to convey the benefits to the public. We're also connected to a vast number of initiatives through technology, with internal and external communication priorities. Ensuring that we’re reaching our many stakeholders – whether other City employees, New Yorkers, visitors, or the media – and measuring that reach can be quite complicated.

What work are you most proud of?

I’m really proud of New York City’s open government efforts. We’ve built up one of the country’s leading open data programs with 1,100+ data sets from 80+ City entities. We’ve participated in dozens of hackathons. Every day we get closer to becoming a City platform for innovation with more and more lasting uses of our data: creative apps, businesses, analytics projects, and more. It’s an incredible movement!

(This data visualization by Andrew Hill used data from NYC Open Data and displays vehicle collisions aggregated by time of day using recently released NYPD motor vehicle collision data.)

What has been your most recent "aha!" moment?

Our agency is working on a number of human-centered design pilots. Through these pilots we're applying startup principles to our traditional development process, like working in small interdisciplinary teams and rapidly prototyping solutions. It's working! We've already developed some really transformational tools, which will launch in the fall.

Also, I’ve been thinking about the idea of innovation labs in government. I think it’s often assumed that these labs should be placed outside of government - but there are a lot of really brilliant minds and really important happenings buried deep within government. We just need to figure out a way to connect with them and tease them out.

What is the one thing you would change in government?

I want to see government have the ability to experiment more with emerging tech tools and platforms. If there was some sort of space for this work within the public sector to connect with subject matter experts in areas like security, privacy, and accessibility, there might be more opportunity for innovation.

What one person or organization would you like to work with? The work happening at the Centre for Social Innovation in Toronto and here in New York City is so impressive. They are bringing together a diverse network of social innovators, enabling amazing collaboration, and doing it in a sustainable way. I’m really interested in the intersection between social enterprises, like Centre for Social Innovation and local governments. I want to work with the people that are helping create the connections, who aren’t interested about where they themselves fit, but who are bringing everybody together regardless.

What inspires you?

I’m inspired by New York City’s civic hacker community. Groups like the NY Tech Meetup and betaNYC have helped build an incredible base of technologists that devote their tech skills and time to helping the City address and solve shared civic challenges. This community helped pass New York City’s landmark open data legislation in 2012 and continues to work proactively to improve government through data analysis and apps.

What gets you up in the mornings?

A good strong cup of coffee! Seriously, though, it goes back to never having a typical day. I’m often sitting up in bed really quickly going, I’ve got to look at my calendar! What’s going on today? What events are happening? Where am I going to be? There’s so much going on in New York and that’s exciting. I love knowing that each day brings inspiration, new connections, and the opportunity to provide greater access to local public services.

Words of advice for someone early in their career?

Don’t be afraid about going down the wrong path. If you have an open mind, it’s going to be OK. There’s no right or wrong direction if you’re engaged in your work and making a difference.

What do you want your legacy to be?

Chelsea Mauldin is the Executive Director of the Public Policy Lab, which works with public agencies to identify service-design challenges. The Public Policy Lab assembles teams that translate complex policy considerations into pragmatic, replicable solutions through research, prototyping, testing, and documentation. Chelsea has previously worked as Director of the Montague Street BID and Deputy Director of the Design Trust for Public Space.

  In one sentence, what do you do? 

I work with public agencies to improve the design and delivery of services for vulnerable and low-income Americans.

  Why do you work with government?

Government has the scale and authority to make change on a significant level.

  Why do you work in New York City?

That’s just an accident. I was only supposed to be here for a year!

  What happened?

I got jobs, I started to build a life here, I got married. You know - life happened.

  What does your typical day look like?

We don’t really have a typical day. We have days where we’re just working away on the computer, emailing, and making stuff. We have other days where we’re off doing fieldwork with members of the public. We have days where our teams of fellows and our public sector partners come do co-creation sessions here in the office. So it really depends.

(Public Policy Lab Fellows working with partners from the NYC Department of Education.)

What is the one thing you would change in government?

The procurement process!

  Why?

I think that one of the reasons why services aren’t delivered the way that we’d like to see them delivered – and the way people in government would like to see them delivered – is that they don’t have access to the kinds of professional skillsets and assistance that they should have. And it’s almost impossible for them to get access to that. There’s a chicken and egg problem where, since government doesn’t have a lot of past history hiring designers, government doesn’t hire designers. Because government doesn’t have a lot of experience hiring ethnographers, government doesn’t hire ethnographers. And on and on!

  What has been your most recent "aha!" moment?

We have sort of a slow-rolling “aha” that is around this question of, Where is our work best situated? Right now we are in the messy middle where we are both trying to influence the creation and implementation of policy and also trying to influence the operational delivery of services. So we are having ongoing discussions of what it would look like to focus just on one end or the other.

  What work are you most proud of?

What feels most personally satisfying is the time that I spend with members of the public, working with them to understand what their experience is. There is no better use of my time than talking to a group of parents about the experiences that their children have or to residents about the housing experiences they’re having. I’m most proud that we commit to building that time into all of our projects, that that is the fundamental part of our work.

There was also a moment, in this project that we’re doing around affordable housing, when our public agency partner showed me the Gantt chart that she had made to implement our pilot projects! That was the moment where I thought, Fantastic, this set of ideas that were generated out of the strategic design and co-design process have now been translated into a thing that will drive implementation inside different divisions in their organization. We’ve made this beautiful thing together and now they’ve adopted it and are running with it. That was an exciting moment to see the work come to life. 

(Chelsea presents at the Helsinki Design Lab.)

What is the most challenging part of your job?

Project initiation is challenging, both because of issues around funding and issues around transparency. We create real problems for ourselves through our requirement that we be able to publish our work. But we think that it’s absolutely crucial to the progression of this kind of work in the world. Just creating the context for doing the work is challenging.

And then I would say there’s just the hard work of doing design! After doing discovery or co-design with users, then you have to do synthesis and say, OK, what can we derive? What are our insights? And how do we render them? That’s just difficult emotionally because you’re trying to be generative, while also being reductive. That’s challenging.

  What one person or organization would you like to work with?

I’m actually working with them right now! We have had a long-time desire to do some work with the U.S. Department of Veterans' Affairs. We are just now doing a discovery project with the VA and that’s incredibly exciting. I come from a family with a long history of military service, and so does [PPL Design Director] Jennifer Rose, so we’re really excited to do that work.

  What gets you up in the mornings? 

In a lot of ways, we’re solving puzzles – and we’re really privileged to have interesting and challenging puzzles to solve. That’s always a thing to look forward to.

And there’s the obvious thing, the hope that the work that we’re doing is helpful and is doing something to alleviate unnecessary suffering. We are here in New York City, which is this wonderful place and is so rich in so many ways. But we have a quarter of the population living below the poverty line. There are 25,000 children in this city who are going to sleep in a homeless shelter tonight. It’s not appropriate. We can certainly do better.

(Part of Chelsea’s workspace in DUMBO)

What inspires you?

I hear stuff all the time that blows my mind, like when we were out last week talking to parents at a school in Harlem. It’s the richness and the complexity and the fundamental decency of most people. I feel privileged to have people trust me with their stories. So that’s very inspiring.

Also, I feel like there are all kinds of people who are doing things all the time to try and be helpful in a lot of different contexts. We went to the centennial celebration for the AIGA recently. Here are the people who are the most respected designers in the United States and the vast majority of them, when they stood up to give their acceptance speech, what they talked about were their mentors.

They talked about the people who gave them their first job. Or the people who trusted them. They talked about people who took a chance on them or who tried to help them. I just think, that’s it – that’s what’s happening all the time. People are going out of their way to try and be helpful to somebody else just because it’s the right thing to do.

  Who were your mentors?

The reason that I was at the AIGA was that they were giving an award posthumously to Sylvia Harris, who was one of the co-founders of the Public Policy Lab and a mentor of mine. She was an amazing graphic designer who worked in public interest. She spent her whole career asking the question, How do you design services and communications to make them more comprehensible and legible for citizens?

She was a big influence, not just in terms of the nature of her work, but also how she moved through the world. She was an incredibly generous person. After her death, it turned out that many hundreds of people felt that she was their mentor! I have often thought that since she died, those of us who were privileged to know her, if we can all do a bit of that, we can try to compensate a little for her loss.

A memorial award has been established in her name. It’s launching this year and is being administered by Design Ignites Change. The award is going to be $10,000 for a designer who’s working on a public interest / social good project. It’s a wonderful way to recognize her legacy.

What do you want your legacy to be?

It’s easy to think that you want to make a difference in the kind of tangible way of having your personal work change things. In the end, though, what really matters is how you change the lives of the people around you.

If I am able to generate some tangible value in the lives of thousands of people that I will never know, who use services that we’ve helped redesign, that’s great. But if I can be helpful to the people who are my co-workers and partners - that will actually be a great legacy as well.