13. Innovating Innovation with Molly Cain

In this latest episode of “The Convergence,” we talk with Molly Cain, founder of GovCity, the Nation’s first disruption and culture accelerator focused on government, civic, and culture change. Molly works at the intersection of technology and cultural disruption with broad ranging expertise in industry, startups, and helping the Federal Government tap into innovation with greater ambition and more visibility.

In this episode, we talk with Ms. Cain about leadership, barriers to youth in government service, and rewarding disruption. Some of the highlights from our interview include the following:

• GovCity is a hackathon-style think tank that promotes collaboration, innovation, and disruptive thinking through 48-hour events. These events give people a safe space to share innovative ideas and have disruptive conversations.
• Government leaders should trust themselves in uncomfortable situations, and allow their teammates to make mistakes as they strive for innovation.
• There are lots of similarities between the government and private sectors. DoD can better harness this relationship by focusing more on learning about the local business ecosystem and collaboration with their partners. Private companies hoping to work with DoD should use sources like LinkedIn and Twitter to start conversations on departmental innovation.
• People who communicate and cross-index well are valuable in every workspace.
• Government employees should constantly send internship and job opportunities to young applicants, and eschew government jargon to make jobs more appealing to the next generation of innovators. Young people should seek to find the right boss, as well as the right job, so they can fully participate in their work.
• The government should innovate their promotion process by promoting more leaders who have made difficult or disruptive decisions rather than those who have “toed the line.”

Stay tuned to the Mad Scientist Laboratory for our next podcast with Lisa Kaplan, founder of the Alethea Group, addressing weaponized information as a national security problem, algorithmic silos created by social media, and disinformation as the next iteration of warfare on 9 July 2020!