Today we were excited to find two interesting pieces of news relating to SeeClickFix--both of which were in the same publication. Writing about ways cities have modernized while simultaneously finding smarter ways to spend budget in the wake of the 2007 financial crisis, Shannon Bond writes for Financial Times about SeeClickFix as a tool for Bostonians:

“Traditional technology targeted at cities is extremely expensive,” says Nigel Jacob, co-head of Boston’s office of new urban mechanics, the city’s research and development group. “For small to medium-sized cities there is the need for something lightweight that doesn’t cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, that is easy to use – that is very much like a web app.”

Including quotes from an interview performed with our very own CEO & Co-Founder, Ben Berkowitz:

“In some cases cities are saving money on customer service,” he says. “In many it is just allowing them to provide customer service in an age where it is expected. If the city didn’t do this kind of thing, that administration would not stay in office. People, anywhere in the world, expect feedback loops for speaking out.”

Public officials also point to broader social benefits from the company’s services. “They build community,” Boston’s Jacob says.” You see conversations happening on SeeClickFix that you just don’t on standard government tech platforms.”

Read the whole article here.

On top of this great article we highly encourage you to read, we got a second surprise/delight by a quick mention in another Financial Times article, "Crisis-stricken cities can fight back with ingenious solutions":

Over in New Haven – once famed for its arms manufacturing and, of course, Yale University – SeeClickFix presents another urban action scheme, in this case to report and repair minor urban irritations, such as potholes and broken street lamps. This is very much in the model of New York’s broken window experiment (fixing vandalised infrastructure to deter further criminal damage). A neglected-looking city attracts crime and decay faster than one that appears pristine.

We've seen plenty of awesomeness come out of Burlington, Vermont over the course of SeeClickFix. From animal issues to general responsiveness to great cycling advocates, Burlington is a poster city for progressive, transparent, community action. But this takes it to a new level.

With all the beds and couches dumped and promptly cleaned up (heck, even surfboards), you might think it'd be a sore spot for the folks in Burlington. Turns out, exactly the opposite: to celebrate their Art Hop event taking place last weekend, the Code Enforcement department created their own couch, covered in turf, with pillow-case collages of all the couches they've previously removed.

This is a hall-of-famer for sure.

New Westminster – The City of New Westminster has launched a new mobile device application for city residents. See Click Fix enables residents to report non-emergency issues such as potholes and graffiti to city staff from their smart phone.

“We are excited to offer an additional way for residents to be involved in their city,” said New Westminster Mayor Wayne Wright. “City staff are looking forward to interacting with citizens through the See Click Fix mobile app and working with them to improve our city.”

Available for free, the See Click Fix app enables smart phone users to conveniently report issues they see around the city by choosing an issue category to report, taking a photo of it and providing any other relevant details all at once. The See Click Fix mobile app also tags the specific location of the issue through the user phone’s global positioning system, making it easy for city staff to respond. Once submitted, the report is forwarded to the appropriate city department for action and staff can provide updates on the status of the issue until it is “fixed”.

See Click Fix can be downloaded for free in the app store for iPhone and Android users. See Click Fix reports can also be made through the City website, on the City of New Westminster Facebook page at facebook.com/newwestminster, and through SeeClickFix.com.

For more info, contact: 

Blair Fryer
Communications and Economic Development Manager, City of New Westminster
604-527-4688 or bfryer@newwestcity.ca 

or Contact SeeClickFix.

Like hacking away with intelligent peers? How about effecting positive social change? MONEY? If you're in San Francisco on September 27, we'd love for you to attend this 24-hour hackathon in conjunction with Microsoft and Kaggle. Here's the basics:

When: September 27 - 28, 2013
Where: Microsoft San Francisco (835 Market St Ste 700, San Francisco, CA)
About: The purpose of the competition is to be able to quantify and predict how people will react to a specific issue. What makes an issue urgent? What do citizens really care about? How much does location matter? Being able to predict what the most pressing 311 topics are will allow governments to focus their efforts on fixing the most important problems. The data set that will be provided for the competitions contains several hundred thousand 311 issues from four cities.

Read more about it and sign up here!

For those of you who follow us on Twitter and Facebook, you may have seen this yesterday--but just to make it all official, we'd like to welcome our new partner Charleston, Illinois to the SeeClickFix family. They've already gotten good coverage, but here is their official press release for those who are into that sort of thing:

PRESS RELEASE

FROM: R. Scott Smith, City Manager

RE: SeeClickFix launch

The City of Charleston Announces New Partnership with Online, Mobile Citizen Reporting Platform

Charleston, IL (September 4, 2013) - Today, City Manager, R. Scott Smith, announces a new program that will allow residents to report quality-of-life issues and request the City of Charleston services through an online and mobile interface. Powered by SeeClickFix, the place-based reporting platform allows residents to document neighborhood concerns and improvements alike, ranging from litter and flooding to damaged sidewalks and malfunctioning traffic signals.

Smith says, “With the online and mobile reporting platform, residents can report quality-of-life concerns through service request categories via the City of Charleston website, mobile applications (iPhone, Android), 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, the City of Charleston, and anyone ‘watching’ the area will receive an alert. The City of Charleston 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 partnership allows residents to report community issues, as well as 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.”

The City of Charleston SeeClickFix website can be found here: www.charlestonillinois.org and residents can download iPhone and Android apps here: http://www.seeclickfix.com/apps.

About SeeClickFix

SeeClickFix allows citizens anywhere in the world to report and monitor non-emergency community issues ranging from potholes and planted trees to garbage and graffiti. Launched in 2008, it empowers citizens, community groups, media organizations, and governments to work together and improve their neighborhoods. Through mobile web, web, iPhone and Android apps, the SeeClickFix platform is the most widely distributed citizen-reporting tool in the country. SeeClickFix supports the Open311 standard that promotes improved communication between local municipalities and the citizens they serve. The platform is fun and easy to use for citizens while being inexpensive and easily adaptable for governments. Over 60 percent of issues reported on SeeClickFix are ultimately resolved.

For more information or to report an issue, visit www.seeclickfix.com.

It's September, so with that it's (of course) time to send out our August press shoutouts from the world of SeeClickFix.

For starters, there's the Henry Daily Herald talking about our new partner Stockbridge, Georgia. Joining our many friends in the state of Georgia, we were thrilled to announce this new addition.
--Read More: http://www.henryherald.com/news/2013/aug/13/stockbridge-second-city-to-consider-interactive/

The Patriot Ledger, serving communities south of Boston,  joins in and lets its readers & viewers report and track issues directly from their website here.
--Read More: http://www.patriotledger.com/news/x678159243/See-click-fix-Report-hurricane-damage-here

UT San Diego covers our friends Chula Vista officially launching SeeClickFix.
--Read more: http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2013/aug/22/tp-residents-can-use-app-to-inform-city-about/

Charleston, Illinois gets announced just in time for their announcement last night.
--Read More: http://www.dennews.com/news/local/new-application-to-help-report-city-issues/article_6d959bbc-0f92-11e3-aa38-0019bb30f31a.html

And finally, Alexander Furnas over at the Sunlight Foundation mentions SeeClickFix in his piece about creative effective transparency policies.
--Read More: http://sunlightfoundation.com/blog/2013/08/07/opengov-conversations-alexander-furnas/

Did we miss something? Leave it in the comments. Writing a story about SeeClickFix? Go ahead and contact us.