...and Mark is headed to Philly

Mark Abraham is headed to Philly today to speak at the Society Hill Community meeting about using SeeClickFix to get things fixed in Philly. Rob Stuart will be there to assist Mark with his presentation as well.

This is no small community group. Rosanne Loesch sends a letter out to 5000 neighbors and the meetings are held in a 200 person auditorium. As SeeClickFix is taking off in Philly Roseanne was kind enough to invite anybody from the city who wanted to come.

Philadelphia 311 has been great at adapting to our open Government Platform and we hope that really good things will come out of SeeClickFix in Philly.

If you want to go to the meeting its at 7:00 PM at Pennsylvania Hospital, 8th and Spruce Street, Auditorium.

Jeff is headed to PDF Spain as a google fellow today!

On top of our last post we should mention that Google and PDF have been kind enough to send Jeff Blasius, CTO and Co-Founder, to Barcelona for the first Personal Democracy Forum in Europe.

Jeff is excited to meet people interested in Open Government and Civic Participation in Europe. If you want to help translate SeeClickFix or want to be one of the first media partners to work with SeeClickFix in Europe please find Jeff at PDF.

He looks like this guy:

SeeClickFix Launches 83 Languages into beta

Citizens will soon be able to report non-emergency issues in 83 languages anywhere in the world using SeeClickFix on their PC or mobile phone.

We should give a special thanks to Portnoy in Mongolia, Vladamir in Russia, David in France, Ahmed in Kuwait and Mariano in Argentina for pressuring us to push translation at the front of our priority list and google chatting us at weird hours of the evening with "are we there yets?"

As a translator you'll be able to use google translate to suggest translations. You'll also be able to preview your translation in context before saving. SeeClickFix already tracks civic participation using the civic points scoring system. Shortly we plan on granting international SeeClickFix users the right to translate based on earned civic points.

Key SeeClickFix Translation features:
- Break down language barriers by allowing citizens to view other user's content in which ever language they feel most comfortable.
- Support multilingual citizens with a translated interface of their own particular languages.
- Enable media organizations everywhere, in any language, to engage their audience with the power of SeeClickFix.

We are excited about the prospects but there is still more to do and we can use your help. We are looking for:

- Translators - Are you someone that speaks English as a second language? Would you like to help us launch SeeClickFix in another language? If you are interested please contact us at team@seeclickfix.com

- Media Partners - Do you have a site where you would like to embed a SeeClickFix widget? Do you serve two different language groups and would like to enable engagement between them? Would you like to see the openness and transparency SeeClickFix fosters in your region? Contact us at team@seeclickfix.com

- Advocates - Do you know the email address of a public official or a government department? You can create a watch area for them right now (http://seeclickfix.com/government).

- Developers - Are you interested in building an open source application on top of our API? Please contact us at developers@seeclickfix.com

Jeff Blasius, SeeClickFix CTO, will be at PDF Spain this weekend as a Google Fellow and you should reach out to him if you are interested in helping to translate, are a government official or a media property looking to get involved.

Power to the Community

(*The Screenshot above is from the work of the first translator to use SeeClickFix translation engine. Thanks Portnoy!)

Why Open Government Matters: Case and Point

Two days ago a citizen in Meriden, CT reported Foul tasting tap water.

The City Manager promptly responded,

"According to the Director of Public Utilities, there was a late algae bloom this weekend. Dana Lane water lines will be flushed today. The Broad Brook reservoir will be shut down this morning and treatment started. The water was tested last week and is safe to drink despite the odor."

Shortly there after 6 more complaints of foul tasting water were reported. On top of those complaints were comments that noted the same thing at different locations.

The City Manager had not gotten a chance to get back to those individuals so I decided to jump in. I live in New Haven but was still able to help out by disseminating information. I copied the message from the City Manager and added them as comments on the other issues which in turn sent a notification to all concerned about the problem.

I was able to use SeeClickFix to save the City Manager time and hopefully put some minds at ease in the process.

This is one of those exciting moments that can only happen on an open platform. A total outsider can help disseminate a government message to a group of concerned citizens that they have no prior affiliation with. That's cool and no we were not smart enough to think that this was going to be one of the benefits of the site.

You can can track the tap water issues in Meriden and if you see a post where a citizen has not been updated feel free to let them know what the City Manager had posted above. Click here to see water issues in Meriden

Citizenship 2.0

Media and Government have both been disrupted by a more open society. At the heart of and fueling the disruption are citizens that are using the web to get more out of these two vital traditionally institutional resources.

Curious what people think about the changing face of Citizenship and what it means for the future of democracy as two of our oldest institutions continue to have their doors pulled open for wider participation.

Where Participatory Gov Meets Participatory Media, what does participation look like in the age of the platform?

Comments here:

Give us your vote at the Crunchies

Here's why we think you should vote for us:

-SCF has gotten a lot of your potholes and other neighborhood problems fixed
-SCF has connected 1000's of communities around the world with the common goal of improving their community
-SCF released the first iPhone app to connect citizens to 1000's of local governments around the world entirely free of charge
-SCF fixes potholes but it also saves an animal or two in the process: see next post
-SCF is creating interesting local stories for a locally shifting media environment
-SCF grew around the world this year as a boot-strapped co.

Thanks For you Support

Animals Saved from home reported for 9 months on SeeClickFix

After emails sent from SeeClickFix to Mayor Picard, West Haven City Council, West Haven Health Department and the West Haven Police for nine months police finally raided 4 Bassett Court and found many abused animals "and the worst conditions they have ever seen" SeeClickFix issue here: http://www.seeclickfix.com/issues/1902

WTNH Here:


Register Here:
http://www.nhregister.com/articles/2009/11/13/news/metro/a1_--_animalhouse.txt