Jennifer Pahlka – Medium

Jennifer Pahlka

Featured Book

Recoding America: Why Government Is Failing in the Digital Age and How We Can Do Better

Recoding America: Why Government Is Failing in the Digital Age and How We Can Do Better

A bold call to reexamine how our government operates—and sometimes fails to—from Obama's former US Deputy CTO and the founder of Code for America.

2023

Jennifer Pahlka

Jennifer Pahlka

Stories

Jennifer Pahlka

I wrote a policy book?? I wrote a policy book!

I spent yesterday pinching myself. (Serious brag alert here.) Ezra Klein’s interview with me dropped, and he starts out with “My pitch for…

3 min readJun 7, 2023

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I wrote a policy book?? I wrote a policy book!

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Jennifer Pahlka

Bad News for Procedure Fetishists

How do procedures that are not required by law or policy become required in practice? It happens because as soon as one person in a risk…

5 min readFeb 14, 2023

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Bad News for Procedure Fetishists

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Jennifer Pahlka

Not throwing away our shot

I need to start writing again. I used to write pretty often, and then I went and wrote a book, which weirdly means I didn’t write for a…

5 min readFeb 6, 2023

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Not throwing away our shot

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Jennifer Pahlka
in
GEN

Why Biden’s Executive Order on Customer Experience Could Be a Game-Changer

Unlike prior initiatives to simply digitize the bureaucracy, this one could actually improve access to government services

16 min readDec 14, 2021

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Why Biden’s Executive Order on Customer Experience Could Be a Game-Changer

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Jennifer Pahlka

Slow Train

The people in sleeping compartments on the Sunset Limited from New Orleans to Los Angeles see each other mostly in the dining car, which…

4 min readJul 12, 2021

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Slow Train

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Jennifer Pahlka
in
OneZero

Pitting Private Tech Against the Public Sector is Bad for Everyone

How Marc Andreessen’s criticism of governmental responses to Covid misses the mark

8 min readJun 29, 2021

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Pitting Private Tech Against the Public Sector is Bad for Everyone

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Jennifer Pahlka
in
OneZero

How the Government’s Multibillion-Dollar Plan to Modernize Its Tech Could Go Horribly Wrong

Our ‘Kill It with Fire’ Moment

9 min readApr 20, 2021

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How the Government’s Multibillion-Dollar Plan to Modernize Its Tech Could Go Horribly Wrong

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Jennifer Pahlka

What on earth is SME-QA and why should you care about it?

A stunning announcement about how federal government hires recently passed largely unnoticed. Only in the age of vaccine rollout drama…

8 min readFeb 4, 2021

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What on earth is SME-QA and why should you care about it?

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Jennifer Pahlka
in
U.S. Digital Response

What states must do about Pandemic Unemployment Assistance

Tens of millions of people are suddenly out of work. Your Lyft driver, your hairdresser, your barista, the waiters at your favorite…

9 min readApr 17, 2020

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What states must do about Pandemic Unemployment Assistance

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Jennifer Pahlka

Digital is Not Always Better Than Paper

AKA Help me with my book!

8 min readFeb 4, 2020

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Digital is Not Always Better Than Paper

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Jennifer Pahlka

Jennifer Pahlka

Book Author

Author of Recoding America: Why Government Is Failing in the Digital Age and How We Can Do Better, Fellow at the Federation of American Scientists

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