Sid Burgess just posted a great little story about "how to fill a pothole with tweets". It inspired me to write a little about Civic Engagement the SeeClickFix Way.

Through the platform we created we are finding that encouraging civic engagement might be as simple as providing better communication channels and encouraging people to voice their smallest concerns through those channels.
While reporting a pothole on a website might not seem like its the ultimate act of good citizenship, its a sign of the end of apathy and the beginning of giving a shit.

Getting stuff done is addictive and once you start its pretty hard to stop. The trick is that you have to start somewhere simple where the reward for doing the stuff is immediate. I, like many average citizens, am the kind of person that needs instant results to feel good about what I've done. I'm a sucker for the cheap thrill. I could never run for office or attempt to fix our broken schools but I can plant trees and pick-up garbage on the street. If I feel like my voice is being heard or that I can make an improvement in my neighborhood on my own I'll do it. The more opportunities that are given to people to improve their communities with their own hands the more our communities will be improved and the more people we'll have improving them. The trick is that you need to expose the simplest opportunities to encourage those, like myself, who aren't setting out to save the world.


The trick to maximizing engagement in a community is to provide simple and diverse opportunities for engaging so that all of a community's human resources are exposed and exploited. I have neighbors that like trees so they come out to plant trees. I have neighbors that like art so they help to organize public arts projects. I have neighbors that like planning events so they plan festivals and farm markets. I have neighbors who like inflated tires so they report potholes. Each of them is helping to improve their community because they know that they can do it themselves with the skills they were given and the pay-off will feel good.

We hope that the person who takes the time to report a pothole gets enough of a thrill from taking the little action that it leads to a bigger action or at the least more of the same. If we can publicize those actions in a meaningful way then maybe that engagement can become viral. If we can provide a platform where a person who reports a pothole becomes more connected to their community and is given more opportunities to improve it then we just might be onto something. That's what we are trying to do with SeeClickFix.

And because Sid is much more of a wordsmith than I, here is my favorite part of his post which I will use to end this one,


"The reality is our communities are falling apart largely because we are failing to let our leadership know that we actually do see and care about these things. As a councilman, I was always trying to look at the big picture stuff. It was easy to become oblivious to the small things that could be causing friction in the community. Never fall into believing that it is rude to bring up something that is wrong. These are your streets, your parks . . . it is your community! And more importantly, whatever doesn’t get fixed while we are around will get left for our children to clean up. Speak up and let’s get this stuff done."

The Logan Square Neighborhood Association is an all-volunteer community organization. It is dedicated to maintaining and improving the Logan Square neighborhood for the enjoyment of all who come there to live, work and visit. Use the links to the left or below to find out more information about the work of the LSNA.

Rob Stuart of Logan Square says, "We think it's one of the greatest neighborhoods in the world but with SeeClickFix we hoping to make it even better!"

I actually got to visit with Rob a few months back and agree that it is one of the Greatest Neighborhoods in the world( a close second to Upper State Street of course). You can really tell that their is a dedicated civic population that cares deeply about their community. Its also is really cool that they are nearly in the heart of downtown Philly, a few blocks from the river and its still pretty peaceful.

Check out their site here: http://www.lsnaphilly.org

...and then gets hit a week later at the same location.

Read this Ironic tale of SeeClick...er Hit: http://www.newhavenindependent.org/archives/2009/09/bridge_claims_a.php

http://seeclickfix.com/issues/7750

You Can read the full article here: http://www.usingiphone.com/profiles/blogs/editors-choice-seeclickfix

Here's a clip:

The article reads, "Our choice this week is another social application: SeeClickFix. SeeClickFix is an iPhone app for getting help and helping others in your community with something that is wrong and can be fixed. We love this application because it encourages residents to become citizens by participating in taking care of and improving their neighborhoods. SeeClickFix is more useful the more people who use it..."

Our new version in development is really starting to come along nicely.
Fresh design, Better location service and more social features like commenting, closing issues, adding photos to existing issues and voting on issues.

We'll keep you posted!

I had a hard time understanding what government as a platform meant until reading this post from Tim O'Reilly on Tech Crunch this am.

Tim asks, "Can we imagine a new compact between government and the public, in which government puts in place mechanisms for services that are delivered not by government, but by private citizens? In other words, can government become a platform?"

So could government act in a way that encouraged its citizens to not only ask for their needs to be met but to also help meet the needs of others? At SeeClickFix we designed our platform so that citizens would not only be able to hold government accountable but also hold themselves accountable. We allow anyone to deem themselves a "fixer" and create a watch area that alerts them to issues in their neighborhood.
We see Fixers fall under the categories of Public Works, Utility Company, State DOT, Cycling Coalition, City Councilman, Parks Groups, business improvement districts and the Good Samaritan.

While reporting issues is a valuable citizen service that can potentially act in the stead of city inspectors SeeClickFixers are also providing other traditional government services such as: graffiti removal, parks clean-ups, documenting speeding with video cameras, providing engineering and design solutions for road improvements and probably most importantly sharing and redistributing municipal information with each other to lessen the information requests on government.(We've even seen a rebel pothole patching crew.)

In a recent meeting between a large city IT dept and a group of Open Data thinkers a co-conspirator of mine suggested that we, the outsiders, take every other seat in the board room so that when the city officials sat down it would not appear as if it was us vs. them. This is the type of thinking that needs to continue so that governments understand when we ask for them to "open up" it is not so we can bring them down but so we can help them succeed for us.

SeeClickFix's slogan "Power to the Community" includes government as one of the community members and we hope more and more they will see themselves that way.

Tim says, "Too often, we think of government as a kind of vending machine. We put in our taxes, and get out services: roads, bridges, hospitals, fire brigades, police protection… And when the vending machine doesn’t give us what we want, we protest. Our idea of citizen engagement has somehow been reduced to shaking the vending machine."

I think that if you want people to stop shaking the vending machine you have to provide the keys to the backside of the machine. Here's an example:

Last winter the Connecticut State budget made it such that the City of New Haven was going to have to shutdown overflow shelters for those on the streets. Before conceding defeat public officials made the public aware of the issue and asked for their help in funding the shelters through private donations. Events were held across the city and public officials from the Mayor to State Legislators to City Council all pleaded for citizen aid. (yup you heard it: Citzen Aid!)
When citizens saw that many would be left on the street local community groups began to lobby their members and their neighbors for private donations to fund the traditionally government subsidized service.
Within weeks the shelters had received more than the city had budgeted and a month in advance of the deadline.

If governments open the back door to the vending machine we won't have to shake as much and the vending machine can shake us back occasionally.(sorry to butcher your analogy Tim).

Updated 09.09.09: Community members wear red t-s to support bolt bus coming to New Haven: http://www.newhavenindependent.org/archives/2009/09/buses_encourage.php

I took a trip to Philadelphia recently via bolt bus after a few New Haveners turned me on to it via an email discussing the potential of a New Haven stop for the Internet Enabled discount bus service.

When I returned from my Bolt bus trip I was on the band wagon and gave a shot at using SeeClickFix to get the city's help to lure Bolt Bus. Enter http://seeclickfix.com/issues/7425

The issue description read, "If you want Bolt Bus or similar to run a line from New Haven, CT to New York Click I want this fixed too and add your email.

Bolt bus has wireless Internet, outlets, leather seats and its cheap. You can also put a bicycle under neath for free."
The issue was posted about a month ago and there 172 comments supporting a bolt bus including this one from the City's Office of Economic Development, "The City of New Haven is committed to getting Bolt Bus to add us to their route. Working with area partners that share this goal, we are sending the company extensive demographic and marketing materials to show that New Haven would be a profitable addition to their business. We are asking the company to check out this ticket at seeclickfix to gauge community interest--so keep the posts and links coming!

Thanks,
Chrissy Bonanno
Deputy Economic Development Administrator
City of New Haven"

The Yale Daily News Reported today that, "The Board of Alderman will vote this Tuesday on a resolution to support the addition of a New Haven stop to the BoltBus, a coach service owned by Greyhound Lines."
"(Alderman)Morehead said he was prompted to draft the resolution one month ago, after he saw a popular discussion thread about bringing the BoltBus to New Haven on SeeClickFix.com, a popular community Web site."

Whether the economy is right for Bolt Bus to add another line is another story but hopefully they are following the thread on SeeClickFix and will look to New Haven as their next stop to add.

SeeClickFix is about Citizens, Governments, Media, Universities, and Private Industries communicating openly and collaboratively to get things fixed.

Thanks Alderman Morehead and Ms. Bonanno

See the Yale Daily News Article Here