Hack Your Bureaucracy with Marina Nitze

In this episode Steve has a conversation with Marina Nitze about political capital (what it is and how to get it), tackling big challenges, navigating organizational dynamics, inclusive innovation, hacking bureaucracy, and her affection for dry-erase boards.

Marina is author of Hack Your Bureaucracy, and a partner at Layer Aleph, a crisis response firm that specializes in restoring complex software systems to service. Marina is also a fellow at New America’s New Practice Lab, where she works on improving America’s foster care system. She was previously the Chief Technology Officer of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (2013-2017), helped found the United States Digital Service, and served as a Senior Advisor on technology in the White House under the Obama Administration.

In the book, and during our conversation, Marina shares a story about how not even the leader of the free world could mandate that agencies and stakeholders cooperate with her vision and plans to make it easier for veterans in VA healthcare to get the services they need and consolidate over 1500 disparate websites into a single veteran-friendly website. I hope you find this conversation with Marina and her new book as insightful as I did. Share the links with a colleague or a friend, grab a copy of the book from your favorite bookseller, and get started with bureaucracy hacking today.