I wish that SCF could have repped the real #TCAMP2010 in DC this weekend but as you can see we were conducting our own camp SeeClickFix style.

Thanks to Yale's Freshmen Day of service hundreds more public officials are being signed up for watch areas around the country.

The State of California wanted to publish all the cities receiving alerts from SCF so we're helping to add to that list.

Hello Transparency! Hello Open Gov! Hello Sunlight and O'Reilly!

Peace Out Government Black Box...you're soooo 2009

Help out and sign-up to receive alerts from your citizens: http://www.seeclickfix.com/gov

We recently introduced ourselves to the folks at GovLoop.com, a new social networking site for government officials, with the following blog post. Look for it on GovLoop's blog.

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Government of the people, meet the people. With technology making our world smaller and more closely interconnected than ever before, it seems only natural that new social media like SeeClickFix.com could link citizens and government in productive dialogue about issues affecting the public space. Recently we helped bicyclists in Lansing, Michigan help clean up debris-coated bike lanes.

Spring time brings messy streets just as much as it brings flowers: John from the League of Michigan Bicyclists noticed that all sorts of gravel and debris has collected in the bike lane on Kalamazoo St. in Lansing, MI since the snow melted. You can tell how bad it is in the photo he posted.

After he filed a report on SeeClickFix, a city official responded within eight hours. Not only did she inform John that the street would be given priority when street sweeping began, she explained how the city's system works, complete with a phone number for checking up on a street's status. John was grateful and suggeted that the city sweep all the streets with bike lanes first. Prioritizing bike lanes would be an easy way for the city to act in accordance with its new Complete Streets ordinance, John wrote on the issue's SCF page. Erica from the City of Lansing, said that she'd be happy to forward the suggestion on to the Superintendent of Public Service.

By creating this space for discussion, we hope to build up the development and implementation of good ideas in the public space. Local problems will find straightforward fixes from those who know the area best. Moreover, the provision of public services is too often a thankless job. By making the process a little more transparent and a little more accessible, citizens get a better idea of how much work public servants are doing on their behalf - and ultimately, they are muchmore grateful for it.

This week has been full of media mentions for SeeClickFix by big name publications; yesterday there were three. The Washington Post picked up a story from Gazette.net (a Maryland news site) about how important SeeClickFix was during Maryland's massive snowstorms this winter.

The article reports that Natalie Cantor, director of the Mid-County Regional Services Center for Montgomery County, MD, regularly uses the site to browse for issues and direct them to the appropriate department. "Anybody anywhere can look at SeeClickFix, and people's comments become available to the entire world... It keeps everybody on their toes and in contact with each other," she said.
In New York, The StreetsBlog wrote about how SCF is used in Philly, New haven, Boston, NYC and San Fran. "We know that it can be much bigger than 311 in New York," Ben told the blogger.

And on the Huff Post, in a post titled "Government Must Give a ****" (that first * stands for an 'f') tech blogger Christina Gagnier railed against government insensitivity to citizen demands. She said that if governments try to become high-tech and interactive without showing their citizens that they care, the new products won't accomplish much. On the other hand, "Civic iPhone applications like SeeClickFix work because their users feel like the city government actually cares when that pothole finally gets filled," Gagnier wrote.

And Gagnier's advice for this year's mid-term election season?

"Candidates, you want a winning November election strategy? Act like you give a ****."

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.

According to the article:

"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."

Check out a nice write up of an interview with Ben about SeeClickFix on Conntact.com, Connecticut's Business News Journal, that came out recently.

Here's a little sample from the article:

There's a big difference between being a resident and being a citizen of a community, according to entrepreneur Ben Berkowitz.

Citizens relate to local affairs, react to local events and respond to local problems, Berkowitz insists.

With his Web-based company, SeeClickFix, Berkowitz allows residents to identify, report and resolve neighborhood concerns, helping them exercise the role of citizen with the click of a computer mouse. [...]

The site is easy to use, and it demonstrates that any citizen can help resolve a neighborhood concern, he notes. The basis of SeeClickFix is the strength of that citizen power, Berkowitz says, adding, "Never doubt the average person."

Holy Cow! I was interviewed in Dubai.
Now that's reach

http://nightline.podomatic.com/entry/2010-03-22T18_37_01-07_00

Want to have a SeeClickFix user account but don't want to use facebook?
Now you can: https://seeclickfix.com/register

With the SeeClickFix free user account you can track all of your issues and earn civic points for fixing up your community. Compete with your neighbors and your elected officials for civic glory.