We are very excited to honor Raleigh, North Carolina's Bonner Gaylord with this month's Knope Award.  Followers of the blog may remember Bonner from his acting debut here in this video:




Read on to learn more about this dedicated public servant and academy award contender:

Please tell us a bit about yourself and your role in Raleigh:  

I married with 3 kids and 2 new kittens (for the kids to chase).  I grew up in Raleigh and have lived here most of my life.  I love this city and have been blessed by this city and so I feel it important that I give back in whatever ways I can.  I currently serve on the City Council, Comprehensive Planning Committee, chair the Technology and Communications Committee, and am Council Liason to seven boards and commissions.  For my day job, I am General Manager of North Hills (NHRaleigh.com), a Mixed-Use Development District in Raleigh.  I also co-founded CityCampRal.org, serve my church, and enjoy surfing, biking, basketball, reading, and other stuff.  If you're interested in learning any more (doubtful), feel free to go to BonnerGaylord.com.

You were instrumental in arranging a really innovative partnership between SeeClickFix, Raleigh, and the Knight Foundation.  Could you tell us about that? Why did you think it was so important for Raleigh to have SeeClickFix?

SeeClickFix as a platform for open government and citizen participation was a no-brainer to me.  At first, I encountered reluctance from staff and council to explore a new way to serve citizens of Raleigh and provide openness in government, so I just launched SeeClickFix in my district to prove it would work.  I then found a way to fund the program city-wide without costing taxpayers a dime by partnering with WRAL.  With all questions answered and at no cost to the city, council voted unanimously to bring SeeClickFix to Raleigh. 

We loved the video you made about SeeClickFix.  Are you considering a career move to Hollywood? 

 
What is your favorite thing about Leslie Knope and the show Parks and Rec? 

Leslie Knope is awesome, however I am not nearly as detail-oriented as she is, so I always need someone like her around.  So, I like that about her.  Mostly though, I like that despite her kindness, she still finds Jerry inexplicably insufferable. 

Cisco's Technology News site "The Network" recently named SeeClickFix as one of three "Apps with a Conscience."

Describing our work in empowering citizens to bring attention to issues that they care about in their community, they write,

"That's where this app comes in. Introduced about four years ago, it provides a way to let the people in charge know immediately when you come across a problem. You just take a picture of, say, the offending building, and send it off to the appropriate agency. On the back-end, there's a data feed connected to the municipal work order or customer request management system at over 80 government agencies in Houston, Minneapolis and other places. Plus, SeeClickFix has its own customer request management system that aggregates all the data coming in from citizens, for tracking and visualizing reports."

At SeeClickFix, we take our social mission very seriously.  While we don't get caught up in awards and accolades, it's very nice to be recognized for this commitment.  Many thanks to The Network for this fantastic shout out!

The Chelsea Record just exposed a great SeeClickFix story about an SCF user who used the platform to report a rat problem at their local church.

The City of Chelsea partnered with SeeClickFix about 1 year ago to start connecting citizens to City Hall more effectively. As documented in this article its really working for citizens.

The following blocks from the article truly outline why we built SeeClickFix and why we think this form of communication is important for local democracy from both the citizen and governance perspective.

From the citizen's perspective

From the city's perspective

“SeeClickFix has helped us get more accurate and timely information about things like potholes and downed signs; things we may have come across, but days later than those who are living or driving by the problems will see. We’ve got a process in place that creates a work order and is allowing us to more efficiently and effectively deal with those types of issues, and, by communicating with the public, we are generating more confidence in our ability to get things done,” said DPW Director Joe Foti.
City Manager Jay Ash said the system has been up and running successfully for about a year, and the City is very pleased with how the public has embraced it and how it has helped to resolve issues that might have previously fallen through the cracks.
He said that he and Inspectional Services workers and DPW workers meet every other week to look over new or outstanding items reported through the program. They have even began encouraging users to search for new problems, such as potholes.
“The system empowers local observers to be ‘eyes and ears,’ looking, hearing and ultimately reporting problems that they see in the community that require a response from primarily either ISD or DPW,” said Ash. “Reporters can tell us what they see by sending us a message from their computer or their phones using the SeeClickFix application. From there, the system goes to work, directing the item to the appropriate official for a review and response. Each step we take results in the person reporting the matter actually getting an email back from us with an update. We’ve resolved scores of issues already.”




Read on

Last week Samantha Stark, a video journalist from the New York Times, spent a few hours with us at the SeeClickFix office, interviewd New Haven's CAO Robert Smuts, wandered down State Street with me for a history of fixes over the past four years and finally hung out with us while we wrapped up insideoutnhv.

Follow this link to check it out.

SeeClickFix CEO Ben Berkowitz was recently interviewed on WTNH by Ann Nyberg. It was a great conversation, and really informative for people who are just starting to become familiar with the idea of SeeClickFix

 Check out the interview here, in which Ben talks about how SeeClickFix began, some recent visits to the While House, as well as how he was able to "make fixing potholes sexy."

Here at SeeClickFix, we are well aware that it can sometimes take a long time to action from a local government on an issue that matters. Even with SeeClickFix, it sometimes takes municipalities a little longer than any of us would like to address something that is really important.

That is why we are very sympathetic with our pal "Pothole Harry," a reporter for CBS Atlanta.  Pothole Harry uses the widget that is on the CBS Atlanta page to investigate issues that are important to their viewers.

This is a cool segment, and we're psyched that CBS Atlanta is using SeeClickFix so creatively and effectively for their viewers.  As you can see in this video, not everyone is so impressed.

Don't worry, Harry.  We still believe in you!

Our friends at HTown Bingo need our help! HTown Bingo is a fun way for citizens in Houston to engage with SeeClickFix. They're currently competing in a contest for some prize money that will help them get more exposure for the game, and they need our support:

Htown Bingo is a community-building game for Houstonians. After a resident makes a report through SeeClickFix, an online tool and mobile app that lets you report community problems in real-time, tweet a picture of the reported issue with the tags #htownbingo. If you don’t use Twitter, don’t worry, you can also play using Facebook. SeeClickFix is an online and mobile app that lets residents instantly map community problems for city officials to see. It’s had great results in D.C., San Francisco, Richmond and many other cities. I'm trying to give it the push it needs with a community game called Htown Bingo. The game introduces Houstonians to SeeClickFix and rewards them for using it to report problems like potholes and broken street lamps. You can find details at htownbingo.com and at seeclickfix.com.

 Click here to vote for this cool game.

City of Minneapolis Launches SeeClickFix-Powered 

311 Mobile App

We love our hometown of New Haven. Its been good to us, its helped us grow and its nurtured us and informed many of our decisions.  Some of our top users are here and over half our employees live in town. Today Alexandra Sanders at our media partner the New Haven Register did a nice write-up and video interview with some of team members at SCF.

Recently the 2000th issue was fixed in New Haven and the City under the lead of Chief Admin Officer, Robert Smuts, has been proactively engaging citizens more and more in recent weeks. The platform has grown so much here that some of our users have made signs and posted them on telephone poles to promote the growth of the tool. Those same signs have been reported as illegal on the platform that our users are promoting.  I guess the signs work, illegal or not.  

With the addition Mike Cipressi the team has grown to 14 strong. Check out the story in today's NHRegister

Last week, you met Zack, last month, Jose and Emmanuel.  These are some serious footsteps to follow in, but now it is my turn, and I am really excited to say hello!  My name is Ren and I currently hold the title of newest SeeClickFix-er.

I am joining the technology team here at SCF, and honestly, it is a really great time to be joining.  The team is on the tail end of doing some pretty serious TypeClickUpgrading to SeeClickFix.  So, I thought I'd take a minute to shine the spotlight on my new teammates, because, while it is a small team, the folks are really sharp and they care a great deal about what they do.

In no particular order, they have recently completed:

A major version upgrade to the primary programming language we use, Ruby (http://www.ruby-lang.org).  The new version of Ruby performs faster, allowing us to maintain a snappy website and service for you.  If you have an interest in learning more about Ruby (it's fun!), you might want to explore TryRuby (http://tryruby.org/).

A major version upgrade to the web framework we use, Rails (http://rubyonrails.org).  A web framework helps us focus on writing code that does interesting things.  One of the major benefits of a framework like Rails is that it handles many of the more mundane chores of code writing.  This upgrade positions us well to continue to take advantage of new technologies and techniques which will make SeeClickFix better for you.

Some serious infastructure upgrades.  Among those were upgrades to our databases, our server operating systems and the way we deploy new code.  Updates like this help us to continually keep your data safe, allow us to meet higher usage demands, and put more options at our disposal to quickly respond if things go wrong.

These upgrades serve as a foundation for us to continue making SeeClickFix a great tool, and I am excited to be a part of our work as we move forward.

Andover, MA (August 6, 2012)- The Town of Andover announces a new web platform and smartphone application for the public to create service requests and receive real-time status updates in just a few clicks.

Powered by SeeClickFix, this place-based reporting platform allows residents to document neighborhood concerns and improvements alike, ranging from litter to damaged sidewalks to illegal dumping. Using this real-time, online reporting system will increase productivity and efficiency for many city services and departments.

Using the new online and mobile reporting application, residents can report concerns through service request categories via the free downloadable mobile applications for iPhone, Android, and Blackberry a Facebook App, and at www.seeclickfix.com.

“The Town of Andover is excited to add SeeClickFix to our methods of communication with the public. This product will enable the residents to quickly notify us in a manner that many will find more convenient, and in a format that incorporates this technology with our reporting systems, creating what we are sure to be a quicker, more efficient response, and help us identify community needs and control future costs”, said Chris Cronin, Acting Director of Public Works.

With SeeClickFix, residents can report quality-of-life concerns through service request categories via the Town of Andover website, custom mobile applications (iPhone, Android, Blackberry), Facebook App, and SeeClickFix.com. When submitting issues via mobile app, for example, residents can provide locational, descriptive, and photographic information as they see the issue in real time. Once the resident submits an issue, the reporter, Andover, and anyone 'watching' the area will receive an alert. The town can then acknowledge the service request, route it to the proper department, and update the request—and residents following the issue—once it's been resolved.

The SeeClickFix platform allows residents to not only report community issues, but also view, comment on, and vote to fix problems submitted by their neighbors. Citizens can even create their own "watch areas" to receive notifications about all issues reported in their community, enabling them to follow the progress of all service requests---not just the ones they report.

Andover residents can start using the new system today by visiting http://andoverma.gov. Service requests can be submitted directly through tools on the town website, or by downloading the SeeClickFix smartphone application.

The team is very excited to be featured in the PureWow a daily newsletter for "sophisticated influential women everywhere."

As PureWow puts it, "When it comes to complaining, we are truly first-rate. (Just ask us about how hot it’s been this summer.) But sometimes we fear we don’t have the right outlets for expressing our woes.
Fortunately, we can now productively grumble about that tire-popping pothole, eyesore graffiti and obscured stop sign, thanks to SeeClickFix.:

Check out the article here and sign up for PureWow to hear about more sophisticated services.

Wow!

We are excited to announce that The City of Lake Elsinore, home to Southern California's largest freshwater lake, officially joined the SeeClickFix family last week! The city will be using our web and mobile tools to allow residents to report problems such as potholes, graffiti, abandoned vehicles and more directly to the correct department for resolution. City officials in Lake Elsinore stressed the advantages of using SeeClickFix in a press release on their website that encourages citizens to download our apps for iPhone and Android. Increased community involvement, improved customer service, real-time data tracking and quicker response times are just a few of the benefits our platform offers to citizens and government officials in Lake Elsinore.

To learn more about our newest partnership with the City of Lake Elsinore, check out their local Patch site or read the press release on the city website. Want to report an issue in Lake Elsinore? Head over to their SeeClickFix widget and submit your concern in just a few clicks!