Thursday, August 27 · 10 AM - 3 PM · at Convene, 100 Stockton Street · 25 seats, free, lunch included
Bring a laptop and a problem your team has been stuck with, and leave with working software. Reserve your seat.
Two months ago, we tried something a little unusual.
We invited thirty organizations from across the Capital Region of New York to spend an afternoon at the Montgomery County Sheriff's Office. Everyone came with a laptop and a problem from their own department, and by 2:45 they had built more than 40 working applications between them.
A 911 dispatcher at the Sheriff's Office replaced her paper scheduling system with an online rostering app before the day was over. The City of Albany built a fleet tracker. Montgomery County's Executive Office built a contract management system that flags deadlines before their attorneys miss them. A county HR team built a policy handbook staff can search instead of asking around. Three TV stations covered the day.
And the savings were real: $500,000 for the City of Johnstown, $250,000 for Montgomery County Health, and $30,000 a year off Albany's Microsoft bill.
None of that came from a vendor or a two-year procurement cycle. It came from the person who lives with the problem every day finally being able to fix it themselves. When that person builds the tool, the right thing gets built, and it gets built in an afternoon.
So we're doing it again, this time in San Francisco.
Our first West Coast Build Summit
On Thursday, August 27, the Zite Build Summit comes to downtown San Francisco: 10:00 AM to 3:00 PM at Convene, 100 Stockton Street.
The room is already filling with organizations that shape how the Bay Area runs:
- City and County of San Francisco
- Solano County
- County of Santa Clara
We'll announce more as we get closer to the day.
Joining them are department heads and staff from IT, Public Safety, Public Health, Human Resources, Finance, Operations, and Leadership offices - people who know exactly which broken workflow is costing their team hours every week. If that's you, and you work in Bay Area government, civic tech, or a nonprofit that touches public services, this day was built for you.
Hear from a builder who's already running on Zite
Our featured speaker is Anna Sherr, MSW, Assistant Deputy Director for Grants Management at the City of Boston's Office of Workforce Development.
Anna oversees $40-50 million in grants every year, supporting 150 community organizations that connect Boston residents to training, employment, and education. That used to mean a mountain of administrative work pulling staff time away from the programs themselves - until she built a grants management app on Zite that now runs those workflows for her team and the organizations they fund.
She'll walk us through what she built, how it changed her team's day, and what she'd tell anyone staring at the same kind of problem.
What the day looks like
- 10:00 AM - Doors open. Coffee, and time to meet the people you'll be building alongside.
- 10:30 AM - Welcome, plus a look at what Bay Area organizations are already building on Zite.
- 11:15 AM - Build session I. Bring a problem from your own work, or start from one of our examples.
- 12:00 PM - Lunch (on us).
- 1:00 PM - Build session II. Keep going, or start something new.
- 2:15 PM - Show and tell: see what everyone else built, and show off what you made.
What to bring: a laptop and a problem you've been working around for too long. That's it. We're keeping the day to 25 people so everyone gets help when they need it and everyone leaves with something that works. No laptop? Let us know and we'll have one you can borrow.
Reserve a seat
Reserve your seat at summer26.zite.com.
If it's full by the time you get there, add your name to the waiting list on the same page. A second Bay Area date is likely, and the waiting list is how we'll decide when and where.
See you on the 27th.
