360DigitalInfluence

On November 23, 1787 James Madison wrote:
“A pure democracy is a society consisting of a small number of citizens, who assemble and administer the government in person.”

When he wrote those words, social media was nowhere on the horizon, nor was the telephone. At that time, getting messages out in a timely manner was much more challenging than it is today… significantly more challenging. The smaller the society, the easier it was to make sure everyone was informed. Today’s technologies make reaching thousands of people in real time no challenge at all.

SeeClickFix is a company that is empowering citizens and governments to assemble and administer process through crowdsourcing. SeeClickFix has fully embraced the social business model by offering governments a tool that builds community both online and off, and is breeding engagement and efficiencies the way way that James Madison envisioned it in the 1700s.

The premise of SeeClickFix is simple: they provide the technology for governments to empower citizens to report community issues from the web or their smartphone. It is being used by thousands of cities across the country today to report everything from power outages to pot holes.

SeeClickFix uses social media to deliver real value not just to governments but to their constituents as well in many ways. Here are four we find interesting:

Increasing operating excellence by extending their resources and reducing operating costs.

Creating constituent value by activating the community to create efficiencies and participate in the process improving the government’s overall effectiveness.

Building the government’s reputation and value by fostering an environment of transparency that allows anyone to check on the progress of what has been reported. This openness is powering advocacy and along with responsiveness for both the governments and the citizens.

Strengthening and extending the workforce by making it easy for anyone to report what they see and even upload a photo of their concern. User photos also make it easy to prioritize and deploy the right people to provide the right kind of attention to the issue being reported.

SeeClickFix is using crowdsourcing to bring communities together online and off – check back with us this week to read our interview with Ben Berkowitiz, CEO and to hear his vision of “democracy” and real stories of how cities are realizing the goodness of SeeClickFix and making their business more social.