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OpenGov<\/a>, a Redwood City, Ca., company whose\u00a0software helps local governments keep transparent financial records, has been picking up speed in a variety of ways, and co-founder and CEO Zac Bookman traces some of that momentum to the election of Donald Trump as U.S. president.<\/p>\n \u201cWe had the best Q1 in company history. It\u2019s typically a quiet quarter, and we blew the top off\u201d our internal projections, says Bookman.<\/p>\n He adds that OpenGov has seen a 20 percent surge in job applicants, too.<\/p>\n It\u2019s easy to see why Americans\u00a0may be growing more focused about transparency than in recent years. In just one small example of how things have changed under the new administration, the White House announced earlier this month that it will no longer disclose\u00a0the logs of those who visit, a meaningful\u00a0shift in stance compared with the Obama administration, which disclosed more than 6 million related records.<\/p>\n White House communications director Michael Dubke told reporters<\/a> that the\u00a0decision owes to the \u201cgrave national security risks and privacy concerns of the hundreds of thousands of visitors annually.\u201d (The\u00a0previous administration also redacted some records\u00a0on a case-by-case basis.)<\/p>\n The Trump administration has also removed the \u201cOpen Government<\/a>\u201d section from the White House website, and, more recently,\u00a0Walter Shaub,\u00a0director of the Office of Government Ethics, which advises federal agencies on how to ensure that employees comply with federal ethics laws, very publicly complained about the lack of transparency<\/a> into potential conflicts of interest arising across the executive branch.<\/p>\n To hear Bookman tell it, local governments are\u00a0largely moving in the opposite direction, partly in reaction to these White House moves, but also because it\u2019s easier than ever to make public data seeable\u00a0and searchable.<\/p>\n In fact,\u00a0according to the five-year-old, 120-person company, there are now 1,400 public agencies across 47 states using OpenGov\u2019s software, which helps governments create budgets and perform analytics and allow residents to see what is being spent and where.<\/p>\n Bookman half-jokingly suggests that a third reason\u00a0that city and state\u00a0governments\u00a0are embracing its services is peer pressure; when a neighboring city employs\u00a0the technology and others \u201csee them achieving so much more with so much less,\u201d\u00a0they feel more obliged to do something.<\/p>\n One of the biggest municipalities to embrace OpenGov\u2019s technology to date is the city of Boston, which earlier this year created Analyze Boston<\/a>, an open data portal built on OpenGov that\u00a0enables it to publish sundry\u00a0open data sets and make them available to residents.<\/p>\n Other local governments\u00a0include Omaha, Neb.; Kenton County, Ken.; and Ohio, where\u00a0every local government<\/a> in the state is using the platform.<\/p>\n OpenGov claims to be signing\u00a0up a new customer every two days at this point. And it says that owes to its three offerings. One of these is budgeting software\u00a0that aims to slice in half the time it typically takes to build a budget. Another is an\u00a0operational performance management suite that helps local governments benchmark their performance against other cities. Meanwhile, a newer, open data service enables cities and states\u00a0to turn their data into narratives for public and internal consumption, as well as connect their budget and performance data with Census data, FBI crime data and financial data from thousands of other counties and cities.<\/p>\n The\u00a0biggest governments are signing up first for its open data product, says Bookman, while smaller governments are signing up for management reporting and business intelligence.<\/p>\n He says in both cases, getting OpenGov\u2019s customers up and running\u00a0takes an average of just two days. (He credits\u00a0a training program that OpenGov\u00a0has designed for government administrators as the reason his own team can get in and out so quickly.)<\/p>\n Given the Trump \u201cbump,\u201d we ask Bookman\u00a0\u2014 who has already raised $47 million<\/a> for OpenGov and will announce a Series C round this year\u00a0\u2014 \u00a0if he has observed whether\u00a0governments in so-called blue states and red states are distinct in any way. We ask if they use different products or whether their attitude toward the company itself is discernibly different.<\/p>\n They\u00a0are, admittedly,\u00a0stupid questions.\u00a0They\u2019re also\u00a0questions that Bookman, who calls\u00a0OpenGov \u201capolitical,\u201d has seemingly fielded in the past.<\/p>\n Volunteering\u00a0that OpenGov\u2019s customer base is \u201cshowing a near even split between red and blue,\u201d he says he finds that \u201con a person gut level, conservatives are drawn to the message of efficiency and of cutting\u00a0waste and fraud and abuse.\u201d<\/p>\n As for liberals? \u201cThey\u2019re drawn to [OpenGov\u2019s]\u00a0innovation and tech and progressive element,\u201d says Bookman without missing a beat.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"![\"\"](\"https:\/\/tctechcrunch2011.files.wordpress.com\/2017\/04\/screen-shot-2017-04-25-at-2-04-15-pm.png?w=680\")
OpenGov, a company whose software helps local governments keep transparent financial records, has been picking up speed in a variety of ways, and co-founder and CEO Zac Bookman traces some of that momentum to the election of Donald Trump as U.S. president. Read More<\/a><\/p>\n\n<\/img><\/a>
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