Yes, 2008 Apps for Democracy was definitely an inflection point. Good way to think about it. I think 2008 was a take-off year for civic tech — that’s also when Ushahidi got started in Kenya and SeeClickFix got started in the US. (Something about making it super-easy to put dots on maps!)

People who work in civic tech and people who work in campaign tech are definitely congruent but sometimes also really at odds. The first are trying to make democracy work for all, the second mainly care about their side winning. But knowledge and people flow back and forth across those two arenas. I think you are right to argue that non-partisanship can be a weakness of civic tech, though it’s not so much that all tech has to be partisan but that civic techies can’t be neutral or agnostic about power, who has it, how they use it. In my view, civic tech gets more civic the more it fights to shift power from the haves to all.

On sharing the guide, by all means yes! And for talking more, I’m for that too. Ping me at micah at civichall dot org…