The 311 Podcast – Détails, épisodes et analyse

The Heart of Public Service with Pearl Amanfu

Today my guest is Pearl Amanfu. Pearl is the Digital Inclusion Officer for Metro Nashville. Although Pearl and I just met, she's the model for the type of person I started this podcast to amplify: the humans who believe deeply in community, human thriving and progress, and are willing to do the hard organizational work to create real change through digital enablement. 

Borrowing her words, Pearl has a helper heart, and she genuinely wants a better world for the residents of Metro Nashville. Pearl is a community builder, and in this episode she shines a light onto what it's like to make sure that Metro Nashville is accountable and of service to the greatest number of Tennesseans possible, and she also shares a bit about where she thinks their work could go next. Here's my conversation with Pearl.

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Guest Information
Pearl Amanfu LinkedIn

To learn more on the Nashville Metro Digital Inclusion work please visit Metro Digital Skillslink | Nashville.gov

For more information on organizations Pearl highlights please see:

• Nashville Public Library Digital Literacy Programs | NPL Digital Learn
• National Digital Inclusion Alliance (NDIA) are the parent organization for the Digital Equity Leaders Network (DELN) 

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On this episode of the 311 Podcast Paul and Pearl cover the following topics:

Introduction to Pearl Amanfu and Digital Inclusion​​
Pearl's Career Journey
Challenges and Barriers in Digital Inclusion
Nashville's Unique Approach to Digital Inclusion
Proud Achievements and Key Projects
The Digital Navigator Program
Future Vision and Advice for Aspiring Helpers
Conclusion and Final Thoughts

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Thank you to our season two sponsor Northern. For more information on their services, visit northern.co

Recorded in May 2025.

This is a show about the people that make digital public service work. If you'd like to find out more, visit the311podcast.com

We're going to keep having conversations like this. If you've got ideas of guests we should speak to, send us an email to  info@the311podcast.com  

Today, my guest is Stephanie Deitrick, who is the Enterprise GIS [Geographic Information System] and Open Data Program Manager for the city of Tempe, Arizona.

She's also a program director for the Master's of Advanced Study in GIS program at Arizona State University. Stephanie has her PhD in geography from Arizona State and has spent her career building the next generation of data experts with a focus on GIS, but a broader lens on public data. 

As someone who consults with municipalities on digital strategy, I spend much of my time trying to paint a narrative of what mature digital practice around data and public service looks like. Imagine my surprise when I stumbled on the city of Tempe, Arizona and their open data portal and service performance dashboard. It was everything I'd been imagining for my clients and more. So I had to find out who was behind this category leading work. That's how I came across Stephanie, her team, and their work.

Tempe is a model city for these values and what can happen when great leadership and great teams come together. Tempe has launched not just a best of breed open data portal, but a performance dashboard featuring KPIs powered by real-time data that openly publishes their compliance with the various service levels and outcomes that they have committed to on behalf of their citizens.

This courageous approach is a model for how local government can rebuild, trust and engage with their community. I think you'll learn a lot from Stephanie's mindset, and even if you're not in government, it's helpful to understand the internal workings of government entities and how with the right alignment and leadership, organizations can find new ways to prove their value and serve their communities.

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Guest information:

Dr. Stephanie Deitrick LinkedIn

Open Tempe  "The City of Tempe is committed to transparency and to providing accurate and easy to access data about our community. Below are the tools you can use to get information about our community’s finances, strategic priorities and more."

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What Paul and Stephanie talk about:

• Tempe's approach to open data, including their "open by default" policy.
• The importance of courageous leadership in driving digital transformation and open data initiatives.
• Tempe's performance management program and its integration with budgeting.
• The city's work with opioid emergency calls for service and wastewater testing for opioids and COVID.
• The process of data classification and balancing public access with privacy protection.
• The impact of AI on data privacy and the need for continuous reassessment of data masking strategies.
• The importance of cross-functional teams, understanding subject matter, and building trust and communication with business units.
• The role of trust and communication in enabling the City of Tempe to achieve transformative outcomes in public service.

Resources Referenced in the Interview

 Simon Sinek, The Golden Circle.

Recorded in May 2025.

This is a show about the people that make digital public service work. If you'd like to find out more, visit the311podcast.com

We're going to keep having conversations like this. If you've got ideas of guests we should speak to, send us an email to  info@the311podcast.com  

I am really excited today to be talking to Sophia Hoosein and Jessica McQueen, who are two people that I know and respect and who have agreed to come and talk to us about government organizations trying to make digital change. We're going to talk about power and how you get things done, and I'm just really excited.

Thanks to Sophia and Jessica for the open and honest conversation about the actual experience of working in government.

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This is a show about the people that make digital government work. If you'd like to find out more, visit yellowpencil.com.

We're going to keep having conversations like this. If you've got ideas of guests we should speak to, send us an email to podcast@yellowpencil.com.

Government is about all of us. Let's keep making a better world. This has been the 311 podcast and I'm your host, Paul Bellows.

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Links
Sophia Hoosein: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sophiahoosein/
Jessica MacQueen: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessicamacqueen/

This is a show about the people that make digital public service work. If you'd like to find out more, visit the311podcast.com

We're going to keep having conversations like this. If you've got ideas of guests we should speak to, send us an email to  info@the311podcast.com  

This is The 311 podcast. I'm your host, Paul Bellows. This is a show about the people that make digital government work. If you'd like to find out more, visit yellowpencil.com.

Today, my guest is Miki Stricker-Talbot. Miki is responsible for intrepreneurship and strategic design in the citizen services branch at the city of Edmonton.

You may ask what intrepreneurship is and my answer is keep listening. That's what we'll be talking about. In addition to organizational design, kindness, privilege, and generally how to make change from within an organization rather than just top down.

I know that our podcast theme is on digital government and the people who are making change. And while digital isn't part of Miki's purpose in the organization, I think that the mindset she brings to making change is what's necessary for any digital worker who is feeling frustrated and like they can't do their work in the right way. Like they don't have the right supports. Miki's work has been recognized globally and Apolitical recently named her as one of the 100 most influential people in government.  If you've come across, Miki's work on UNICORNS, that's an acronym that I'll let her unpack, then perhaps you've come to understand why the way she thinks and works is so important to pay attention to.

In particular with digital work, government is on the same talent hunt as the rest of the startup and software world but without the salaries and profit sharing that the private sector can sometimes offer. I think it's more and more important to think about the kind of organizations that we're creating to operate our public trusts. We need government to be the first place that passionate and talented people think about spending some or all of their career.

And if we have more people like Miki in positions of influence, then maybe we can make that come true. I loved having this conversation. Miki is a colleague, but also a friend. We had to edit out a few moments where we were just having fun, but I think you'll like what we left in. I hope you enjoy the conversation.

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Thanks so much for listening. If you want to learn more about Miki's work and in particular, find her now infamous blog post on unicorns or read about unlearning, we'll have links in the show notes.

Government is about all of us. Let's keep making a better world. This has been the 311 podcast and I'm your host, Paul Bellows.

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Links
Unicorns: https://apolitical.co/solution-articles/en/saving-unicorns-making-government-less-lonely-for-the-trailblazers

Unlearning: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxBLlDOKfZY

This is a show about the people that make digital public service work. If you'd like to find out more, visit the311podcast.com

We're going to keep having conversations like this. If you've got ideas of guests we should speak to, send us an email to  info@the311podcast.com  

Today my guest is Lawrence Eta, Chief Technology Officer at the City of Toronto. Toronto is the fourth largest municipality in North America, behind Mexico city, New York city, and Los Angeles. Toronto is one of the most multicultural cities in the world. And it's the home of much of Canada's media and cultural community, as well as the headquarters of Canada's five largest banks.

Toronto's population is about as diverse as it gets both culturally and economically, and the city faces unique, digital challenges and opportunities. As a result, when I first spoke to Lawrence about the podcast, he was direct on his goal. He wanted to talk about equity. I love that because what I love most about digitization is the ability to remove barriers to equity seeking groups, when we make that a priority, and it's definitely a priority for Lawrence.  I love his perspectives on how to invest in a more equitable world. 

I do need to call out a technology fail that I had during the call. Due to an operating system upgrade, one piece of my recording software became unlicensed. You'll hear the audio quality change about 10 minutes in because I was using the software in trial mode and didn't realize until it was too late. 

We've done our best to fix this and keep the quality as high as possible.

Technology is never perfect, and humans less so. That's why I'm glad we have people like Lawrence Eta in positions of responsibility to keep watch and ensure that everyone's interests are in balance. 

Here's Lawrence Eta. 

This is a show about the people that make digital public service work. If you'd like to find out more, visit the311podcast.com

We're going to keep having conversations like this. If you've got ideas of guests we should speak to, send us an email to  info@the311podcast.com  

Today, my guest is one of Canada's most influential government technologists. Dominique Bohn is the chief officer and assistant deputy minister at the digital innovation office at the government of Alberta.

Dominic has held various executive leadership roles in the government of British Columbia, as well as a director role at global IT leader CGI. Alberta's digital innovation office is a relatively new department at the government of Alberta. It reports to executive council and has been given the mandate to transform how software is created in the government with citizen needs and design leadership at the forefront, the Dio has been running exemplar projects to showcase how modern agile software development can work within a traditional government organization.

And the outcomes have been transformative. We spoke in August, 2020 over a web meeting. So the odd word may drop, but there's no denying the wisdom and enthusiasm that Dominic brings to her role. I think you'll enjoy her refreshing perspective and vision. 

This is a show about the people that make digital public service work. If you'd like to find out more, visit the311podcast.com

We're going to keep having conversations like this. If you've got ideas of guests we should speak to, send us an email to  info@the311podcast.com  

This is a show about the people that make digital public service work. If you'd like to find out more, visit the311podcast.com

We're going to keep having conversations like this. If you've got ideas of guests we should speak to, send us an email to  info@the311podcast.com  

Sean Boots, technical advisor at the Canadian Digital Service, joins Paul to share his experience with digital government and bringing modern tools to government workers.

Sean Boots:
https://sboots.ca/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/seanboots/

This is a show about the people that make digital public service work. If you'd like to find out more, visit the311podcast.com

We're going to keep having conversations like this. If you've got ideas of guests we should speak to, send us an email to  info@the311podcast.com  

Norman Mendoza, manager of business and technology innovation at the City of Edmonton, joins Paul to share his experience with open source and open data, and how to make practical use of them within the context of a municipal government.

Norman Mendoza on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/normanmendoza/

Norman Mendoza on Twitter:
http://twitter.com/normanmendoza

This is a show about the people that make digital public service work. If you'd like to find out more, visit the311podcast.com

We're going to keep having conversations like this. If you've got ideas of guests we should speak to, send us an email to  info@the311podcast.com  

Bianca Tomazeli, senior advisor for architecture, security and innovation at Ville du Montreal, joins Paul to share her experience building an open source practice and talks about collaboration, cost management, and long term support.

Find out more about Montreal's open source work at: https://github.com/opensourcecities/montreal

This is a show about the people that make digital public service work. If you'd like to find out more, visit the311podcast.com

We're going to keep having conversations like this. If you've got ideas of guests we should speak to, send us an email to  info@the311podcast.com