The Wall Street Journal put out an article today about our good friends at Manor, Texas, a SeeClickFix Plus using suburb of 6,500 people near Austin.

The city has become the poster child for low-budget, high-tech, high-creativity governance thanks to its early embrace of services like SCF as well as its unprecedented use of a game-based software, called Manor Labs, to incentivize citizen brainstorming of good ideas.

"People who sign up for Manor Labs submit ideas that are voted and commented on by other users. Participants get points for contributing ideas, voting, having ideas implemented and so forth — and the points can be used in Manor’s online store to get prizes such as T-shirts, a framed flag and the opportunity to be mayor for a day. Since the site launched in October, Manor has gotten 68 ideas and implemented five of them, including posting recycling and trash schedules online and allowing automatic debits for utility bills.

Manor also uses SeeClickFix to help residents report street and water problems in their neighborhood. Through the program, people can open tickets online and send photos to illustrate the problem."

Manor's Assistant City Manager Dustin Haisler shared the stage with Ben last week at a SXSW panel called the City is a Platform.

Both Manor Labs and SeeClickFix understand the importance of government transparency and demonstrated interaction with its citizens. In the words of Haisler “You can trust citizens … to drive an idea to solution."