Civic Punks

Thea Snow is one of those people I love talking to because I always leave our conversation feeling a little more grounded and wise.

At the time of this recording, Thea was Director at the Centre for Public Impact for Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand. She has since stepped back from that role and is taking time to enjoy life, reflect, and explore what comes next.

In this conversation, we cover a lot of ground: local empowerment, the changing role of public servants, how expertise is shifting, what AI might mean for government and citizen interaction, and how we prepare public institutions for what is coming.

But the question that stayed with me most was one Thea posed: what would it look like if government loved you?

It's a provocative question. We don't ever think of government this way, but what if we did?

This is part of a series I am doing where I sit down with some of the people who inspire me the most in the field of public sector innovation to get their thoughts on the future of government.

What if one of the problems in government is that we keep using the wrong pattern for the work in front of us?

In this conversation, I sit down with Suhit Anantula to explore his framework of Lines, Loops, and Vibes. Vibes are about instinct, intuition, and sensing what is emerging. Loops are about iteration, experimentation, feedback, and learning by doing. Lines are about structure, process, and scaling what has become clear.

The fun part is applying this to government. When should public servants trust a vibe? When does a problem need a loop? And when is it finally ready to become a line?

We also wander into reflexes, innovation, public service learning, Peter Drucker, and the strange joy of just jamming on ideas with someone who is thinking deeply about how organizations actually work.

Curious to hear what you think: where is government stuck in a line when it probably needs a loop?

Public sector innovation was supposed to help government change.

But what happens when innovation becomes part of the system it was meant to challenge?

In this conversation, I sit down with Nicholas Gruen, a longtime voice in public sector innovation, to talk about why the field may have lost some of its edge. We get into perpetual pilots, reform work that never quite lands, and the strange way innovation can become another layer of process rather than a force for real change.

We also talk about one of Nicholas’s bigger ideas: the gap between the systems world and the life-world. Systems help us see patterns, scale, and structure. But when they drift too far from real human experience, things start to go sideways.

This one is a thoughtful, slightly uncomfortable conversation about change, institutions, and what it takes to keep reform connected to real life.

Roger Watson has been one of the leading voices shaping the practice of design in government in Australia — as a practitioner, teacher, author, and long-time champion of better public services.

I sat down with Roger in Sydney to talk about how he found his way into this work, the personal experiences that shaped his interest in government design, and why he believes the field needs to evolve.

We also dig into the idea of Design Thinking 3 — what comes next after earlier waves of design practice — and some of the ideas behind his upcoming book, including the conditions needed to create truly innovative spaces: labs, temples, podiums, and academies.

It is a thoughtful conversation about design, government, innovation, and the spaces we need to build if we want public institutions to think and act differently.

There’s a lot of pressure right now to be more efficient, more effective, and somehow keep up with a steady stream of new tools—especially AI. In this conversation, I sit down with Michael Baskin, Chief Innovation Officer for Montgomery County, to talk about how he actually approaches that challenge in his work and life.

This isn’t just a conversation about tools. It’s about process, judgment, and the underlying philosophy Michael uses to get the best out of himself without losing what makes his work human. He moves fast, and there’s a lot of wisdom packed in here for anyone trying to work smarter, stay grounded, and figure out what real effectiveness looks like right now.