Councilman Matt Mahan of San Jose, California: Start-Ups, Government, and Performance Measurement

Joining Traci for today's podcast is Councilmember Matt Mahan from the City of San José, District 10 who is also running for Mayor. Councilmember Mahan shared his experiences growing up in Watsonville, California, through today and how he relates his work in the social sector to that in the private sector. Councilmember Mahan specifically compares and contrasts start-ups and venture capital to work in government. For instance, both sectors operate in environments of uncertainty and Matt helps propose some potential solutions for alleviating such within government. As part of Matt's work serving the public, he is extremely customer-centric much the same as businesses serve customers and clients. Matt highlights for us many of the questions citizens have for instance around "where does our money go?" and he shared about the 311 app that has been successful in San Jose as the initial step in performance measurement in a community that the public responded positively towards that others may want to learn more about, too.

Councilmember Mahan strongly advocates for a public sector environment that creates comprehensive measurement and analysis in the performance of their community that helps us identify what didn’t work in the system, and also what does work which gives us all as leaders to drive clarity, and an opportunity to empower ourselves to create better options.