SeeClickFix would like to welcome our newest client, Raleigh City Councilor Bonner Gaylord!

Councilor Gaylord started using SeeClickFix as part of his efforts to engage with the citizens of District E in Raleigh. On his website, he extols the potential of new tools like SeeClickFix to foster positive interactions between citizens and local governments. "Technology allows us to shift into a whole new era of citizen involvement and governmental transparency. I want to do all I can to facilitate that shift."

In fact, by signing up to use SeeClickFix Pro, Coucilor Gaylord put himself at the forefront of a movement to increase the responsiveness and accessibility of our governments. With the rest of North Carolina watching what's going on in "a 21st century city like Raleigh" with great interest, we hope that more citizens and governments will follow Councilor Gaylord's example and decide to get involved!

Eager citizen journalists in Freehold, NJ won't have to look far to find their local newspaper's editors: they're likely to run into them when stopping for coffee on their way to work.

SeeClickFix media partner Freehold inJersey (FinJ) just launched a coffee-shop newsroom, where professional journalists and citizen journalists can meet and mingle over WiFi and lattes. By putting journalists in an easily accessible, community space, FinJ hopes to facilitate interactions between its staff and its readers, allowing new possibilities for finding news stories and aggregating citizen-generated content.



"We hope that having a 'newsroom' in the center of town will encourage folks to drop by, talk to me and the other writers, and participate in a community conversation," said FinJ Colleen Curry in a statement released today. "It will allow Freehold to get to know us, and help us get to know the people we're serving."

SeeClickFix is happy to be included in this project–our widget is proudly displayed on the project's website. The widget has long graced the sites of FinJ's affiliate the Asbury Park Press and the other hyperlocal InJersey sites run by Gannett New Jersey.

Issue 43544: "At least the tagger takes into consideration the children by using 'heck' instead of 'h-e-double hockey sticks' " ~Doug, New Haven, CT

Our widget just went live today on the website for CU-CitizenAccess, a web project that seeks to address poverty and related issues in Champaign County, IL.

According to their site, the project:

offers a place for citizens, journalists and university students to share news, raise and discuss issues, find assistance and suggest solutions... It is intended to bring together all parts of the community to disclose and deal with the issues associated with citizens living in poverty or on low wages. The project also is intended to create as many avenues as possible for citizens to address these issues, whether through this Web site, in-person or through email, social networks like Twitter, cell phones, photos and news stories.

Sounds like a mission very much aligned with our own. We look forward to this new collaboration!

Bryan Principe, city council candidate in Providence's 13th Ward, is hosting a SeeClickFix event this Sunday.

Check out the following description, taken from the event's Facebook page. What a great idea! He'd totally get our vote.

Bryan Principe invites you to participate in an effort to map areas of improvement needed in Ward 13 Providence, RI. We'll take three hours on Saturday morning to use our smartphones and the SeeClickFix application to walk the Ward and take pictures of needed improvements (such as blighted lots, potholes, trees that need trimming, sidewalk repairs). For those of us without smartphones, issues can be noted and uploaded via the website. Come learn about this impressive program as well as meeting neighbors and Bryan Principe of course!

We will meet at 9 am at the Carl G. Lauro school at the corner of DePasquale Ave. and Kenyon St. At that point we will divide into groups and handout maps of the area-split up and snap some pics! Meeting back at the school at noon for lunch.

We will have fair trade coffee and treats in the morning and sandwiches for lunch provided by Hudson Street Deli, as well as beverages provided by Swing Juice (see www.swingjuice.com), a new local beverage company.

Please RSVP so we can plan the maps accordingly.

Step 1 – See: A property in Pontiac, MI was overgrown and covered in trash. It appeared as if some homeless people were living in the thicket.


Step 2 – Click: The issue was posted on SeeClickFix to raise awareness and unite the community. Members of the Baldwin - E. Columbia Neighborhood Watch Group organized and met with the property owner to talk about removing the blight.


Step 3 – Fix: They cleaned up the site together, and 2 days later the problem was gone.

Talk of the Sound, a hyperlocal paper for New Rochelle, NY just became our newest media partner. Click here to check out the press release and the new widget.

Our users are too smart. Anyone want to take on this community action item?

At SeeClickFix we pride ourselves on the direct communication that we enable between government officials and citizens. A recent conversation about garbage dumping in Santa Fe epitomizes the sort of accessible, conversational, citizen-government interaction we hope to encourage.

I've rewritten the following SeeClickFix thread as a script. Grab a friend and act out the following parts: practice makes perfect when it comes to performing in the style of OpenGov. And as it turns out, getting rid of garbage dumps can be heartwarming stuff.

Setting: SeeClickFix Issue 35283. A SeeClickFixer named Sid has just reported that an empty lot is strewn with garbage, debris, appliances, etc. The lot is on north side of W. Alameda between Don Emilio and Tres Arroyos, in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The hot desert son is making the garbage stink a little. The Santa Fe Government has just received an alert about the problem.

Characters:

Rita: Constituent Services Liaison for the City of Santa Fe
Sid: SeeClickFixer


Act I: About 1 month ago

The website for the Calhoun County Road Commission of Calhoun County, Michigan, got a fresh, clean look–and put SeeClickFix front and center. Thanks to GovFresh's new Gov 2.0 WordPress theme, it's possible to get your site tricked out with Gov 2.0 features for dirt cheap.

The total cost of CCRC's new site? 61 dollars!


CCRC Chairman and avid SeeClickFixer Scott Brown offered excellent testimony to the benefits of this new site:

Our old website was written about 6 years ago using basic html coding. While the site was functional at the time, it was impossible for anyone other than the IT person to update it. Now comes wordpress. The thing we love about wordpress is now anyone from our offices can update information on the site on keep the citizens informed of what is happening. The site took about 50 hours of work, most of which was creating the fillable pdf forms for printing.

We chose to incorporate SeeClickFix on the website because their application on the web, along with their smart-phone apps, make it much easier for our citizens to communicate their concerns. We also chose to use IdeaScale as a way for citizens to have input on ideas for the Road Commission. We feel it is import to get as much citizen input as we can in order to be an effective governmental organization.

We took $61, the dedication and commitment of the Road Commission Staff, smart technology and built a better Web service for our citizens to obtain and give information.

This is a gleaming example of Government at its best. The entire staff, committed to spending taxpayer dollars wisely and providing the highest level of service possible.

Thanks again Luke for helping us accomplish this for our County Residents.

Scott Brown
Chairman
Calhoun County Road Commission

We'd also like to thank GovFresh founder Luke Fretwell for helping out with the WordPress theme. We hope to see it start taking over municipal websites around the country!

Photos posted on SeeClickFix normally highlight a problem that needs to be removed–like graffiti, a trash pile, or an overgrown yard. The following set of photos, aggregated from the flurry of new issues recently posted by users from Brooklyn's Columbia Street Waterfront neighborhood, does the opposite.

These photos are of empty spaces–empty spaces that residents want filled in with bike racks. You'll have to use your imagination to envision just how much better these following spots could be.

SeeClickFix is proud to partner with the City of Alpharetta, GA. Alpharetta recently signed up for a SeeClickFix Plus account and posted a widget on its website for easy access to citizens.

“The cost to adopt SeeClickFix is much less than we would have experienced by building an application from scratch,” explained James Drinkard, Alpharetta’s Assistant City Administrator in a press release on the city's website. “More importantly, the company does not sell or share the personal information of SeeClickFix users, and the application has been proven by use in other communities.”

Citing the opportunity for increased efficiency, Alpharetta's Mayor Arthur Letchas is also excited to start using with SeeClickFix.

“When an issue was reported using our old Citizens In Action Form there was usually not enough information included for us to properly respond to the complaint," said Mayor Letchas. The city would have to deploy a city employee to check out the problem on site.

However, "Using GPS technology and enabling the citizen to include a photograph when they submit the report should allow us in most cases to eliminate that middle man and simply dispatch appropriate personnel to the site,” said that mayor.

We are excited to work with Alpharetta to bring residents there the best possible service and new opportunities for communicating their needs.

Pizza isn't the only data set that New Haveners can teach New Yorkers how to perfect. Yesterday morning, New York City Council listened to Ben Berkowitz offer some tips about how New York should proceed with opening up its municipal data, to increase government accountability and encourage entrepreneurship.

"Set aggressive deadlines. It's time for this to happen," Ben told the Committee for Technology and a crowd of 50 or so gathered in a hearing room on lower Broadway. Ben stressed the importance of developing the "write side" as well as the "read side" of the city's data systems. Third parties like SeeClickFix need to be able to add to the city's databases, as well as draw from it. "It's not just listening: it's speaking up and communicating," said Ben.

While other municipalities like Washington, DC and San Francisco have positioned themselves at the forefront of open data practices by transitioning to an Open311 API, New York City lags behind. A new bill, Introduction 029-2010 by Council Member Gale Brewer, will push all city departments to open up their data within the next few years. Yesterday's committee hearing took testimony from entrepreneurs, politicians, administrators, and educators in reference to the proposed bill.

Brewer said that she expects that "having this bill would help 311 operators answer some of their calls." SeeClickFix hopes so too. More open data practices on NYC's end would help SeeClickFix take the burden off of call centers by directing service requests to the proper authorities. Closed data policies make it harder for SeeClickFix to work with existing 311 data and service request channels.

Check out the full content of the proposed bill below. Also, see yesterday's blog post to read SeeClickFix's written testimony as submitted to the city council.

Int. 029-2010 Details

(Below is a document written by Zak Stone of SeeClickFix submitted to NYC Council in support of open data)

June 21, 2010
New York City Hall
SeeClickFix White Paper
SeeClickFix & Open Data

What is SeeClickFix?

SeeClickFix is a free mobile phone and web tool that allows citizens to report and publicly document non-emergency issues on an interactive map. From pot holes to blighted houses, from requests for new bike lanes to reports of possible gang activity, SeeClickFix issues run the gamut of everyday concerns within the public space in communities around the country. Each issue reported on SeeClickFix receives a distinct page where users can monitor the issue's progress, post updates and photos, and discuss potential fixes. Citizens, community groups, local government, and local media can find out about breaking news in their community by signing up their email addresses to receive issue alerts in real time.

What’s the Difference between a standard 311 System and an Open Data System?
A standard 311 System, which many municipalities including New York City currently use, provides a platform for citizens to enter complaints with city departments by calling a hotline or filling out an online form. The service request data is entered into the city’s CRM, and citizens receive a tracking number for their problem. End of story. If a quick fix does not arrive, citizens can check their problem’s status online or call back to complain. If they are feeling particularly energized or annoyed, citizens can lobby neighborhood officials to help get the problem solved. However, this is time-consuming work for taxpayers¬ to secure what they might feel like is already entitled to them—things like paved streets, clean parks, and shoe-free telephone wires. It can be frustrating to get put on hold again and again by call center workers. And such a system does little to empower citizens; rather, it reinforces a relationship of citizen as supplicant and government as benefactor. Citizens are put in a position where they must ask for change in their local neighborhoods rather than do anything about it themselves, like contribute ideas or organize their community.

An Open Data system like SeeClickFix seeks to change this relationship in several, important ways, by publicly documenting service requests online and harnessing the power of social media and crowdsourcing to discuss and diagnose everyday, quality of life problems. From the moment a SeeClickFix issue is reported, the entire community has the ability to comment on it, vote to support it, and provide evidence. The local government can immediately weigh in on the problem, provide a repair schedule, and alert the whole community when the problem is fixed. SeeClickFix has used this approach to obtain results everywhere from New Mexico to New Jersey. A noteworthy case occurred in Washington, DC, where community groups, city councilman, and transit officials used SeeClickFix over the course of a year to discuss and design solutions for a dangerous intersection. SeeClickFix’s dedicaton to an Open Data system—through which all service request data are publicly documented and publicly available—enables such results. SeeClickFix is a testament to the power of Open Data systems to empower communities, increase government accountability and efficiency, foster more transparent communication, encourage civic engagement, and enable new enterprise.

• Empowerment. By transferring 311 data from a closed system to a publicly accessible one, SeeClickFix empowers citizens to hold their government more accountable. If everyone can see that a problem has not been fixed yet, government will have more incentive to get an issue fixed. And when government fixes a problem, officials can use SeeClickFix to communicate directly with citizens and let them know how hard they are working to listen to citizens’ needs. Finally, government can use SeeClickFix to keep citizens up-to-date about the fixes that they are planning for a certain site, making communication between government and citizens more transparent.

• Engagement. SeeClickFix provides the communicative platform for neighbors to discuss and brainstorm solutions to local problems with one another and with neighborhood officials. Crowdsourcing principals allow the good ideas to rise to the top while email alerts spread the ideas to those in decision making roles. Citizens who take the time to report even minor issues and see them fixed are likely to get more engaged in their local communities: it's a self-reinforcing loop. Such a process helps build civic engagement and encourages community groups to take certain problems into their own hands, like park clean-ups or graffiti removal.

• Efficiency. Two heads are better than one and thousands of heads are better than two. We make it easy and fun for everyone to see, click and fix by providing citizens a multi-platform interface to quickly and easily report everyday concerns, transforming passive residents into active collectors of data. In computer terminology, this is called distributed sensing, a particularly powerful method for recognizing patterns, such as those that gradually take shape on a street. This process takes the burden off of government to track down the problems, and the precision of GPS lets government know exactly where to find them.

• Entrepreneurialism. Opening up municipal data creates new windows for entrepreneurs like SeeClickFix to act. By exploiting city data, web developers can create new municipally-oriented applications that aim to compliment city services and boost government transparency and efficiency. Most apps, like SeeClickFix’s, are free for citizens to use, providing residents with significant value at a low cost to government.

In the past two years, SeeClickFix has enabled hundreds of thousands of citizens in thousands of municipalities to communicate more directly with their government. SeeClickFix has strengthened community activism by providing new outlets for advocacy. And SeeClickFix has saved governments time and money, by helping them target the most pressing issues in their communities. All of this is possible through a simple change to data management, by opening up locked 311 service request data.[

A redesigned intersection in New Haven worries one SeeClickFixer, who called the corner "incredibly dangerous, possibly deadly."

According to a SeeClickFix issue posted today, the traffic light at State and Grove in the northbound left turning lane is difficult to see: it was placed at eye-level as opposed to the standard overhead position. Drivers end up turning left on a red light, when looking up at the other traffic light and completely missing the eye-level light intended for them.

The fixer who posted the issue, Pedro Soto, staked out the site with his video camera and captured a car making this common but dangerous mistake. Pedro is "seriously concerned that unless a change is implemented soon, someone is going to lose their life," he wrote.

Check out the helpful video footage that Pedro posted of this possibly deadly corner:

Yesterday SeeClickFix was a stream. Today, it's a hybrid animal creature that's "neither fish nor foul."

This change in metaphor took place on the HuffPost, where we were written about for the second day in a row. Yesterday's article by journalist Sally Duros mentioned SeeClickFix as one of many streams of hyperlocal news coverage, converging into something bigger. Today's article by Gadi Ben-Yehuda (pictured at right), director of social media for IBM's Center for the Business of Government, calls SeeClickFix an innovative tool in the Gov 2.0 kit, since it pushes social media beyond a tit-for-tat between citizens and government.

Ben-Yehuda argues that the use of digital media for governance is typically limited to citizens complaining about governments and governments showing off to citizens. SeeClickFix, on the other hand, provides the opportunity for citizens to unite and fix problems on their own. Citing examples like a park clean-up in Pontiac, MI, Ben-Yehuda attributes SeeClickFix's unique success to the following developments:

• The self-organizing features of social media
  
  
• The resources of the government-as-a-platform
  
  
• The utility of Geospatial Information Systems (GIS) to focus and analyze community action

Ben-Yehuda writes that he hopes to see more platforms like SeeClickFix come along soon. Click here to read the full thing. And check out this animated video about using GIS for civic engagement. Ben-Yehuda will lead a panel on the topic tomorrow in Washington, DC.

A picture is worth 1,000 words. But how many words is a picture with two arrows and a 12 word caption worth?

Sally Duros sees SeeClickFix as an important "stream" of hyperlocal news, merging and connecting with other streams along the way, as new media and journalism transition and coalesce into something new and unforeseen.

Check out today's HuffPost article on the "future of news" by journalist, SeeClickFix widget user, and former Chicago Tribune editor, Duros.
Here's an excerpt.

Many Chicago alderman are signed up for SeeClickFix. We are forming new communication channels on the Web for talking to our governments, creating a crowd-sourced complaint system and measuring the quality of government's response to our complaints and requests for service [...]

It can't be long now before this all comes together, and when it does it will be in several robust forms that will provide access to volumes of information we've not had access to before. And it will be up to a diversity of journalists to do the job of helping to create, vet, sort and distribute these streams.

Owners of a Peruvian restaurant in a high-crime area of New Haven were denied permission to build a porch for outdoor seating at a zoning hearing last week. Local cops claimed that a porch would further aggravate crime. SeeClickFixers, however, are suggesting that more eyes on the street could be better for that corner.

What do you think? How have similar issues played out in other cities? Will building a porch help take back the street, provide a high-concentration of potential crime victims, or none of the above?

Check out the New Haven Independent article that brought the issue to light and the corresponding SeeClickFix thread. It will be interesting to see how this issue unfolds.

We came across the following user testimonial on a Detroit discussion board that epitomizes the kind of change that SeeClickFix can help make happen. Rather than take quotes from it, here's the whole post, which speaks for itself.

Sitting at home this evening I see a SUV pull up in the driveway next door. Mind you, this home has been vacant for the last 9 months and you can imagine the jungle/yard it has obtained since then. The gentleman in the vehicle pulls out two weed wackers and a lawn mower so I go out to greet him. Turns out he is the city councilman for my district. He mentions to me that he was tipped off by a website called SeeClickFix.com. He used his Blackberry to take before and after photos of the work which he then posted to the website. I checked it out and it seems like a good idea. My free time is limited but I'd be willing to help out too. Anyone here use or visit this website? I'd love to hear any comments.

Imagine a city made of boxes, where the urban planners are eight years old. The result? A patchwork of candy-colored buildings and a water-slide plunging into Long Island Sound.

SeeClickFix helped bring this Box City to life this weekend at the kick-off of New Haven's International Festival of Arts & Ideas. The imaginative event helped teach children about the building and planning process. Aspiring architects and developers were required to obtain building and materials permits before they constructed their dream building and zoned it in one of New Haven's nine squares.


Since even imagined communities can use some improvements, A SeeClickFix kiosk was provided for attendees to report issues, in cities both real and fake. Let's hope Box City has a public works department.

The Town of North Hempstead, NY has been responding quietly to its residents' SeeClickFix requests for 5 months now. With more than 220,000 residents, The Long Island "town" is as big as a small sized city (comparable to Orlando, FL or Baton Rouge, LA). But politically and aesthetically, the town's an amalgamation of 30 villages and 19 hamlets with a history of independent representation.

The idiosyncrasies of Long Island's Town/ Village system can make alerting the proper authority tricky on our end. If a user reports a problem with a road in Plandome Manor, a village within the town of North Hempstead, who is responsible? The village or the town?

Frankly, we dunno. We're still working these issues out as we expand into new communities. But while many local governments would abdicate responsibility altogether after receiving a SCF report outside of their jurisdiction, employees from the Town of North Hempstead have been helpful enough to report theses issues to the village authorities themselves.

They genuinely care about getting things fixed. Thanks!

It's been a little while since we've aggregated fixes du jour on the blog. In recent weeks (thanks to the new Washington Post widget) the pace of incoming issues has accelerated from a steady stream into a waterfall– over 1,000 issues were reported in the past 5 days!

This is exciting news indeed, but it makes it a bit trickier to stay on top of all the wonderful fixes that are happening each day on account of SeeClickFix.

Here's news of two that came in today, in Nashville and in Bethesda, MD.

'Hallelujah' from Nashville:

In Nashville, SeeClickFixer Debi Tucker created an issue five months ago to raise awareness about an abandoned home sitting on a flatbed trailer. Two to three years of looking at this eyesore and numerous ignored reports later, citizens were thrilled to learn that the trailer was finally demolished.

Debi rejoiced on the SCF website, “The house on the trailer is FINALLY gone. Hallelujah. After several years, it’s finally gone.”

The Codes and Building Safety Department reported that they exhausted their resources trying to track down the party responsible for the trailer. With an absentee owner, the City was able to submit it for demolition and it was wrecked. (Sadly, no before and after demo photos were provided)

Dude, Where's my Porsche?

A SeeClickFixer in Bethesda, MD was shocked to see five weeks go by without a driver claiming the Porsche 928 GT that sat in a grocery store parking lot. The user had notified the police to no avail, but got word from a town official just one day after posting the issue on SeeClickFix.

Upon investigating, police determined the status of the abandoned vehicle: it was not stolen and cannot be towed since it lies on private property. SeeClickFix was able to make this communication happen, and the issue was closed just five days after it was posted.

Six months ago, Journalist Doug Hardy created a SeeClickFix Issue to raise awareness about a blighted building that has plagued the town of Windsor, CT for years. Along with the town planner, Hardy has been using SeeclickFix to update Windsor residents about the town's progress in getting rid of the building.

Just today he posted the following photos. Seems like they're nearing on a fix!

The Washington Post became the latest publication to join forces with SeeClickFix. As of today, the Post's website will feature our widget prominently on its local news section.

The paper created a sleek new page called "The Daily Gripe," dedicated to providing users an outlet for reporting local problems through a SeeClickFix Map Widget. The Post will pick the most interesting report every day to highlight in "The Daily Gripe" blog. Problems that get fixes will be mentioned in a section called "They Fixed It?"

According to the site:

The goal of The Daily Gripe is to use our power as a news organization to help residents fix the basic problems that are not being addressed in their communities - broken parking meters, potholes, trash-strewn medians and the like. It's service journalism on a grassroots level.

We are very excited to launch this new partnership and are thrilled by the Post's innovative use of our services! Please click here to visit The Daily Gripe.

An article published today in a blog by The Guardian makes an emphatic case for why SeeClickFix is such a great tool for journalists. Local news reporters can use SeeClickFix to glean important facts and quotes for a story, reducing the cost of pounding the pavement for cash strapped publications.

Thanks again to the author Dan Kennedy, who stopped by the SeeClickFix office in May to chat with Ben.

Kennedy describes how the Independent's managing editor Melissa Bailey used SeeClickFix to assemble the facts for her story:

I spotted the SeeClickFix ticket when it popped up on our homepage through an RSS feed [...] The story was perfectly lined up – I had the location (pinpointed on a map) and a stream of quotable comments critiquing the facade. All I had to add for the story was a photo of the storefront and a call to the owner.

Kennedy writes that while many internet forums on news-sites degenerate into "banality and sheer nastiness," SeeClickFix manages to "channel audience participation in constructive, useful ways."

The article presents two different perspectives on the relationship between SeeClickFix and journalism, one from CEO Ben Berkowitz and from New Haven Independent Editor Paul Bass. Surprisingly, the more glowing review of SeeClickFix came from outside the company.

While Ben said that he does not consider SeeClickFix to be journalism but a "tool for journalists," Bass called SeeClickFix journalism "in its purest and rawest form." According to Bass, SeeClickFix:

"brings out information that journalists wouldn't have known about, information that often leads to good stories upon further investigation. It also makes things happen. In New Haven it has restored my faith in democracy as I've watched city officials monitor the site and act upon its complaints."

Please click here to read the full article! And check out Kennedy's interview with Ben that served as the basis for the Guardian piece.

SeeClickFix CEO Ben Berkowitz got mobbed at the Gov 2.0 Expo last week–by Smart Mobs blogger Stephanie Gerson. In a blog post, Stephanie calls SeeClickFix an important mechanism to "leverage the capacity of the civic sector and facilitate collaboration between citizens and their governments" at the city level.

In her interview with Ben, the two talked about the success of SeeClickFix in New Haven's Wooster Square neighborhood, "which began with individuals reporting issues online and culminated with them collaboratively resolving issues offline." Stephanie imagines that this online-to-offline transition could happen in other cities as well: "As SeeClickFix expands its user base worldwide, in turn servicing the emergence of a more ‘open city,’ its usage may shift from predominant ‘seeing’ and ‘clicking’ to increased ‘fixing.'"

Check out the full blog post here. And click here or here to read Stephanie's other coverage from the Gov 2.0 Expo.