With only a few days left to apply for the Code for America fellowship, we are starting to review the applications we have received. While we’ve been impressed by the candidates’ credentials and experiences, what stands out the most are their responses to the basic prompt: “Why do you want to participate in Code for America?” We decided to pipe them into the Wordle.net word cloud generator, so you can take a look for yourself:

This says to us that people “believe” in “government,” “technology,” and “people,” and that they “want” to “make” something. That’s exactly what we’re looking for. If feel the same way, we encourage you to apply to join them: http://codeforamerica.org/apply.

We promise, you’ll be in good company.

“If it was up to the NIH to cure polio through a centrally directed program… You’d have the best iron lung in the world but not a polio vaccine.”
- Samuel Broder, Former Director, National Cancer Institute.

Instead of having one government agency drive the fight against polio, the NIH encouraged multiple private efforts, fostering competition and so creativity. So while the government would be focused on mitigating polio’s effects, the private sector was able to isolate its cause and create a drug to neutralize it. As Broder suggests, the government’s mode of thinking wasn’t apt for developing a cure. Since industry was able to be more creative, more experimental, and more nimble, it could both determine and answer the question the federal government wasn’t asking: How do we stop this from ever becoming a problem?

Those are the kinds of challenges government still faces today, albeit in different ways and on a different scale. Everyday, cities are forced to grapple with issues such as public safety, infrastructure, and engagement with outdated processes and technologies. This is why we think so many cities reached out to Code for America: because they wanted to reimagine the way the provide those services, they wanted us to look at their problems, ask new questions, and think of new answers.

And that’s what we’re asking our Fellows to do. It’ll be up to the Code for America Fellows to take on these challenges, design a solution, and translate it into a reality in 11 short months. And that means in small teams with big responsibilities, they’ll have to do everything from researching city services and working with local officials to designing the user experience and coding the application. In a way, for the CfA Fellows, their cities will be their startups.

Who could handle all of this? We asked a startup veteran, Lane Becker, Founder of AdaptivePath and Get Satisfaction, what he’d recommend we look for from our applicants:

Good startups don’t just need developers. A good product team has a mix of people with complementary skills that they can use to push each other forward. Developers are core, but so is having someone focused on product and project management, someone with skills in design and user experience, and also people with backgrounds in user research, business development, strategic direction, or even financial modeling. Get the most capable individuals, each with their own unique perspective on the issue at hand, and you can be sure the product that results will successfully address it.

In this sense, “Code for America” might seem a little misleading. Well it is, and it isn’t. Good code isn’t just written, it’s researched, designed, marketed, and implemented as well. That’s how good code becomes good products, and our cities need great products. Take for example two of our projects:

• Boulder County has asked us to redesign 311 services for the 21st century, and to do that, we will have to start by finding out what citizens need to report to their local government and how. Is it potholes and phones or wifi “borrowing” and Facebook? We’ll need an experienced researcher with solid interpersonal skills to interview people, collect data, and analyze tons of information to find out.
• Washington DC hopes not only to build a site to encourage the sharing of civic software — a “civic commons” — but to also create an independent organization committed to its future success. We’ll need business developers and analysts to think through everything from staffing and organizational policy to funding and sustainability; we’ll need people who know how to build an NGO from the ground up.

These are just examples of the responsibilities our Fellows will be given to illustrate that we need all hands on deck. There are many, many more challenges they’ll face — most of them, we don’t even know yet. That’s why we need your help now. On each city page (Boston, Boulder, DC, Philadelphia, Seattle), we have included a feedback widget, and we invite you to ask challenging questions you feel will need to be answered by these projects. We plan to use your thoughts in our in-person brainstorming sessions and throughout the entire cycle to make sure that we heed Broder’s advice, that as take on these big problems, we keep asking the right questions.

The Center for American Progress released a report this week about Millennials’ perception of government, calling this generation the “most pro-government.” Interestingly, that belief stemmed not from satisfaction in policy but from confidence in reform: Millennials believe that a robust government can and will be smarter, especially if it embraces new information technology.

“The key lesson embedded in these seemingly paradoxical results is that people would rather improve government performance than reduce its size. They are extremely receptive to a reform agenda that would eliminate inefficient government programs, implement performance-based policy decisions, and adopt modern management methods and information technologies.” (emphasis mine)

This generation wants to keep government at the table, but seated in a desk chair, not a recliner.

This is why I think there’s been such great response to the CfA Fellowship from Millennials. It comes at a time when government needs to change and people believe they can make that happen. It’s a perfect storm. We can catalyze increased volunteerism, modern efficiencies, and renewed confidence, all by connecting the dots between the Millennials’ desire for service and change and politicians’ interest in better government and, well, self-preservation. As the CAP report puts it, Millennials “hold the key to a new era of public confidence in government—if public officials learn to spend taxpayers’ dollars more carefully, and do what works.” In fact, a majority (67%) across generations shared this sentiment. And so in a way, CfA can offer any city the chance to “ask not,” and provide any citizen — young and old — an answer.

History is sometimes intimidating. Especially on days like today, we think of the Patriots in Concord firing the first shot of independence, the suffragists in New York taking to the streets for their rights, and the activists in Selma standing strong for equality. We hear stories of challenges and greatness in the past — the moments that made American history — and are overwhelmed at times by their magnitude. They won independence, expanded suffrage, and secured civil rights. They did all that: it’s been done. What are we supposed to do now? How can we meet their legacy? Where can we go, and what can do do?

We can start, I think, by remembering what these great moments have in common. These generations of Americans realized their time was marked by a opportunity to make progress — be it political, cultural, or economic — and they seized it to make history. And this generation, a generation evidently eager to do the same, should realize that we too can make a difference, in our own way. And that the world needs us to.

This desire for impact is well documented. Not only are we Millennials interested in the world around us, but we are also committed to being involved positively in it. The former is strikingly seen in the impressive participation rate in the past election. Students and young adults were engaged by both parties, taking part in campaign activities and voting at the polls at the highest rate in the past 50 years. And even after we turned the page on the poetry of the campaign, we have remained interesting in the prose of day-to-day service. The National Association of Colleges and Employers found that 27 percent of graduating seniors in 2009 plan to work for nonprofit groups or government; another survey by the Partnership for Public Service found that 90 percent would be interested in a federal government job. And according to UCLA’s Higher Education Research Institute, 66.3 percent of college freshmen said it is “essential or very important” to help others — the highest percentage in 25 years. This generation spends more hours in community volunteer work and service projects than any generation before it. This blend of political action and public service means that we want to show our patriotism through action — inside government and out. We want to serve our country.

But the nature of that service need not be defined by the traditional models of the past. As a recent Pew study, found, we realize that our generation is unique, and what makes us unique? “Technology use,” most of us said. This survey, fittingly titled “The Millenials: Confident, Connected, Open to Change,” went on to describe the profound role of technology for this generation: “Millennials’ technological exceptionalism is chronicled throughout the survey. It’s not just their gadgets — it’s the way they’ve fused their social lives into them… Millennials have been leading technology enthusiasts.” We live our lives online, and we have realized that technology can be used to make life better — more so than any other demographic. Technological innovation, the survey concludes, is the Millenials’ badge of generational identity; it is who we are.

And it’s what we should do.

What we bring to the table is an eagerness to serve, a passion for change, and a comfort with modern technologies: all things in high-demand for governments, struggling to provide essential services because of out-of-control budgets and outdated processes. The very tools we use casually everyday are in need urgently inside government, from the State Department to City Hall.

Tech volunteers working with the Crisis Commons made a huge difference in the Haiti Earthquake relief earlier this year; grassroots mappers using homebrew balloons and camera rigs are helping to track the Gulf oil spill. Others are crowdsourcing investigative journalism, or building tools for government transparency.

But it’s not just grand crises that call for our involvement; making the world a better place begins right where we live.

And one of the biggest problems government has today is doing more with less.

Consider for example traditional 311 services. If you’re walking along the street and see a street light out, what can you do? You can get out your cell, call the city to report it; a municipal worker has to pick up the call, transcribe the information, submit it to the public works department manually, and then send staff out to document your report. This costs the city money and time, and just as importantly, who really wants to close Facebook or stop texting to make that call? That’s just not how we communicate. If technology has already changed the way we work, and the way we talk, why can’t it change the way we govern? It can. The Open311 API, for example, allows developers and entrepreneurs to build simple but powerful apps which make it easy to report issues: you just tweet it. And that’s just the start.

This kind of innovation is about more than just fixing potholes. It’s about re-imagining governance for the 21-century — helping government catch up with us, move as quickly as we do, and speak in our terms.

That’s what we’re about here at Code for America.

It’s time we have our own American Revolution.

As we approach the Fourth of July, we couldn’t help but think of some words of inspiration from some of our Gov (1.0) heroes. For centuries, they have helped define the very principles we want our fellows to realize through Gov 2.0: democracy, participation, and patriotism. In that spirit, I gathered together some of our team’s favorite lines and published them as posters — modernized a bit — for our 21st century audience.

Check out all eight, and if you think we’ve missed one, let us know at @codeforamerica. Share, print, and post them to spread the word, and help others see how we’re all — coders old and new — speaking the same language.