How San Francisco Does Innovation: 5 Tips Your City Can Use

Hundreds of tech leaders from California and beyond gathered in Sacramento at the California Public Sector CIO Academy for a series of panels offering practical advice for the information technology leaders of today and tomorrow.

Keynoting the event lunch on day two of the conference was San Francisco's Deputy Chief Innovation Officer Shannon Spanhake, who works alongside Jay Nath in Mayor Ed Lee's Civic Innovation Office. Spanhake offered some tips based on San Francisco's path to its current position as, according to Spanhake, the most innovative city in the world.

• There's More To It Than Technology. Champion new ideas and new approaches -- not just new tools. The Civic Innovation Office certainly promotes the use of new technologies, but that’s not its only mission. Ultimately the goal is to surface ideas that make San Francisco city government more accountable, accessible and responsive.
• Turn Your Data Into Jobs. San Francisco is creating new companies and new employment through an aggressive open data campaign. The city has opened more than 500 government data sets, which have spawned more than 100 apps, along with new businesses built around them.
• Rethink Your Hackathon. Start your event by having government stakeholders frame the civic problem, in all its complexity. This approach, deployed at an "unhackathon" event focused on transportation, gave San Francisco some apps it could use.
• Put The People In Partnerships. Spanhake pointed to San Francisco's Living Innovation Zones project as evidence of the city's commitment to engaging the people with dynamic public installations that inspire exploration, innovation and play.