Commonwealth Connect: 2013 Year in Review

Friday, January 17, 2014 - By Anonymous - No comments

Over one year ago, the Patrick Administration, the City of Boston and SeeClickFix announced Commonwealth Connect, a program that allows municipalities and constituents in Massachusetts to communicate about and quickly resolve non-emergency issues.

The flexible nature of the SeeClickFix platform allows for an issue-management solution that is adaptable across municipal governments of varying sizes, locations and demographics. The small island and beach community of Nantucket has found the service to be equally, though differently, impactful as Randolph, a mid-sized city with a high number of city-initiated requests.

In reflection of the success of this program, I used Insight, a new, interactive reporting mechanism designed by SeeClickFix, to extract data and highlight a statewide victory. These numbers and graphs draw attention to high levels of engagement by both Massachusetts’ residents and city employees.

This chart represents issues reported by municipal employees and residents. The spike of issues reported during the summer months is indicative of the June 2013 launch. New issue creation tapered in the Fall, but have been on the rise this Winter. We saw a similar trend nationwide:


Number of Issues Reported by Month in 2013





Municipal governments have actively addressed a large portion of reported issues. The overall increase in closing issues echoes the increase of new reports.  Impressively, 86% of the nearly 17,000 issues reported through the program have been resolved.


Number of Issues Closed by Month in 2013



While many citizens are reporting new issues, even more are voting for existing issues, highlighting the power of transparent information and crowdsourcing:

Number of Votes per Year





Similarly, this transparency encourages open communication between residents and governments. This open communication is evident in the high number of comment creation – Over 39,000 comments have been made in just one year:



Comment Creation By Year





Click Here to Download the Full Report


We have been impressed by the results of this program and know that its success can be credited to many – the Patrick Administration, the City of Boston, the SeeClickFix team, and of course, the Massachusetts municipalities and residents. This is the first of the three-year grant, and we look forward to expanding and strengthening the Commonwealth Connect program in the subsequent years.


SeeClickFix Launches New Android App on Wave of Citizen and Local Government Move to Mobile

Wednesday, January 15, 2014 - By Unknown - No comments

New Haven, Conn., January 15th, 2014 - Today, SeeClickFix released a native app for Android that allows citizens to report neighborhood issues--such as potholes, graffiti and burned-out streetlights--and engage with their neighbors and the government officials responsible for fixing/addressing these issues. 



"The Android extension has become a top priority over the past six months due to consumer and government behavior on the platform," said Ben Berkowitz, CEO, SeeClickFix. "We've seen from our users that local government employees are more likely to be carrying a government issued smartphone or tablet, with many on the Android OS. We saw issues created by government officials increase by 600 percent in 2013, indicating that smartphone reporting apps are becoming a popular medium for increasing municipal productivity and citizen engagement."


Android App Eases User Experience The new SeeClickFix Android app is designed to make it easy to report, comment, track and share issues in your neighborhood — bringing the performance, speed and aesthetic of top-performing consumer apps to the government engagement platform. Among the core features of the application:


  • Users have access to an infinite scrolling list of issues documented in their community—complete with photos, location and the ability to comment and support existing issues. Government users can acknowledge and close out issues that they have worked on from the field.

  • When documenting a new issue a user's location is determined by GPS and they are walked through an intuitive issue reporting form determined by the responding agency in their community. Photos and videos can be added from the camera or gallery to illuminate the issue.  

  • Once an issue has been submitted, it is routed based on request type and keywords to the appropriate agency. Responses from the agency and others are then documented on the issue and pushed back to the user.




SeeClickFix serves as an unofficial channel for citizens and governments to communicate in more than 10,000 communities around the world.  In the past few years the platform has also become the official service request platform for local governments serving over 25 million individuals.  Official city partners include Washington DC; Houston, Texas; San Francisco, CA; Oakland, CA; Sacramento County and The Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

The new Android application is available for download here.




SeeClickFix is Hiring!

Friday, January 10, 2014 - By Anonymous - No comments

We are currently looking to hire two (2) high-energy and driven Account Executives with knowledge of technology, solid business-to-business or business-to-government sales and experience in closing new business. You will be selling our hosted CRM and citizen engagement solution to municipal, utility and educational verticals within a defined prospect territory. This role is strategic to our long-term growth and provides tremendous upside. SeeClickFix offers a fast-paced, start-up environment. Our goal is to build an organization of smart, ambitious New Business Account Executives, committed to our mission and focused on success.

Responsibilities:
- Target, identify and close new opportunities with municipal, utility and educational institutions within a defined territory
- Manage sales-cycles that can include multiple departments and potential integrations into existing client solutions via our API
- Present to C-level executives the value of our hosted CRM and engagement platform
- Consistently hit sales outreach activity and revenue goals
- Accurately forecast revenue achievement
- Create referencable, satisfied customers
- Lead in-person and on-line demos of our product via web technologies and web-based presentations

Minimum Requirements:
- 2 to 5 years of quota carrying software or technology sales and account management experience
- Track record of over-achieving quota in past positions
- Experience identifying and closing new business in complex sales-cycles

Preferred Skills:
- Previous experience selling to clients in the municipal marketplace
- Previous experience selling CRM solutions
- Experience responding to RFP’s
- Desire to work in a fast-paced, start-up, team environment
- Strong computer skills, including Microsoft Word, PowerPoint and Excel
- 4-year degree

Benefits:
- Competitive compensation package with uncapped commission and employee stock purchase plan
- Laptop computer
- 2-week sales training boot camp at hire with continuous sales training

Send Resume and Cover Letter to:
Jeff Mooney
jeffm@seeclickfix.com

A Warm Welcome to Windsor, CT!

Thursday, January 9, 2014 - By Anonymous - No comments

The SeeClickFix team is happy to share our first client launch of 2014! This week, the Town of Windsor in our home state of Connecticut officially announced SeeClickFix to residents as a key part of their initiatives to enhance customer service and engage with citizens around current issues in their community.

Our hosted platform has been rolled out across multiple departments in the town, meaning that residents requests from potholes to broken playground equipment will be quickly and easily processed and responded to by Windsor's staff. Residents can report issues directly through the town's website, as well as through the SeeClickFix app for iPhone and Android.




Windsor's new initiatives are already making waves and capturing the attention of local media in their area. Read more about how the Town of Windsor is using SeeClickFix on the Hartford Courant and on the Windsor Patch site.

Ben Berkowitz's Interview with FoxCT

Tuesday, January 7, 2014 - By Anonymous - No comments

This morning, Ben Berkowitz appeared on FoxCT to discuss the ways in which SeeClickFix has helped transform cities and communities in Connecticut, across the country, and around the globe. 

 Check out the video and textual responses to additional questions here! 

SeeClickFix Stats: A Year in Review

Wednesday, January 1, 2014 - By Anonymous - 2 comments

As the year ends it seems like everyone is reflecting on the past and looking towards the future. I thought this was a good time to dig through the data collected on SeeClickFix over the past few years. Using Insight, my favorite new tool built by our dev team, I created a few charts below that track our progress and the growth of the Gov 2.0, a term keyed by one of our investors Tim O'Reilly, way back in the mid 2000s. The following charts show, in my view, the key metrics when tracking how local government is using SeeClickFix to connect with citizens.

Below is the first data set that really caught my eye, 6 years worth of comments compiled in a simple line graph. Its humbling to take a look back and think that SeeClickFix started with just a handful of posts in 2007. The first comment I found on our servers (issue #1) was a simple thanks from Ben our CEO to the New Haven DPW.


Number of Comments Over Time

The second data set I want to call out is the number of issues "closed" by cities. Over half a million civic requests have been resolved and communicated to citizens across the country and around the world. A number that highlights the passion local officials have to provide essential services to their citizens. This is one aspect of my job that gives me incredible confidence in our local government. In the past it has been difficult to give credit where it is due because the overall stats were just not available to the average person. SeeClickFix helps highlight the complex business of running a city, adding a foundational level of transparency to the process.

Number of Closed Requests Over Time

The last data set I want to highlight is the number of "Votes" over time. This simple feature reflects the essence of citizen engagement in my mind. A citizen can vote for a service request that someone else has reported. This action not only lends an additional voice to advocate for a fix but also makes it easy for the city to communicate to many citizens at one time, creating a microcosm for communication closely resembling the traditional town hall meeting. 

Number of Votes Over Time


There is a lot of exciting stuff happening in the space where local government overlaps with social technology. SeeClickFix has played and continues to play a key role at this intersection. I am confident that I speak for everyone on our team when I say we are excited to see what 2014 has in store.

Cheers,
Ryan 


"But as with Web 2.0, the real secret of success in Government 2.0 is thinking about government as a platform. If there’s one thing we learn from the technology industry, it’s that every big winner has been a platform company: someone whose success has enabled others, who’ve built on their work and multiplied its impact."

-Tim O'Reilly
Founder O’Reilly Media