In May 2015, the City of San Jose created the Data Analytics Team in the Office of the City Manager to champion the role of data-driven decision making. Over the course of the past 10 months, I have been a part of something tremendous taking place in the halls of local government. The thirst for data, as much and as varied as we can get it, is surging and we are at the precipice of change.
I began my venture into public sector a few years back, bright-eyed and optimistic about improving democracy and our community. Fortunately, the passion that lead me to San Jose has only grown during my tenure. While others may denounce the role of government as wasteful at best or burdensome at worst, I take a different view. Without city government your roads would be crumbling, your street would be dark, and you’d have a huge problem of where to put all that trash.
I am not, however, disillusioned enough to think that government gets it right every time. We do the best we can, and by the way, San Jose in particular is doing its best with less revenue than any other Bay Area city despite increasing costs of providing these services. Our community cannot support throwing more money at the problem, even if we had more to give. And so we arrive at an alternative approach – build capacity by delivering the same city services smarter, faster, and more efficiently through data analytics.
Full disclosure, I came to local government by way of a degree in Engineering, so my penchant for quantitative methods is long standing. And it was way back in college when I realized that private industry had plenty of the best minds tinkering with how to make things better. Public sector was uncharted territory. So rather than go the way of my peers working on supply chain design, I poured my heart and efforts into public policy.
As it turns out, I’m not alone in my passion for marrying data and bureaucracy. My fellow City of San Jose staff are just as jazzed about pursuing technology and analytics in government. And together, we don’t just nerd out on data analytics—we apply these insights to changing the lives of the residents we serve. We improve Code Enforcement inspectors’ ability to reach out to folks living in substandard housing. We help Environmental Services counter illegal dumping and clean up San Jose. We work with Transportation and Police to make our streets safer for commuters, bicyclists, and pedestrians. Our work is about more than numbers and graphs—it’s about making our communities better.
I am increasingly heartened by my peers’ eagerness to learn and champion new technologies. A group of us data enthusiasts meet monthly to share success stories, teach each other about new tools, and build a community of data evangelists from within. And the community is growing as we partner with local universities, Code for San Jose and other municipal agencies. I am so excited to be a part of this endeavor and so glad to be a force for change in San Jose.
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Erica Garaffo works for the City of San José as an Executive Analyst for the City Manager’s Data Analytics Team. Erica is a San José native, proud data geek and an outspoken advocate for improving City government through data analytics and smart cities technologies. Follow her on Twitter at @erica_garaffo.
