You are walking down the sidewalk late at night and
you
notice a streetlight is out. What do you do? Most people just ignore it and keep walking, partly out of laziness and partly because we don't have
the
slightest idea whom to contact. Enter Cartegraph's new application, YourGOV, now available for the iPhone (with other platforms to follow).
YourGOV is designed for the purpose of allowing citizens to quickly and easily
report
non-emergency issues and service requests in their community. The app is
very
simple to use; you see a fallen tree on the street, you open the YourGOV
app,
complete the location (with the help of the GPS on your phone), details
of the
issue, and photographs if applicable.
Once you complete the details, YourGOV submits the request on
your behalf.
"We
see
citizen involvement as a vital component in our future vision for
connected
government," said Cartegraph Vice President of Product Strategy, Jake Schneider, echoing a familiar mantra of the so-called Gov 2.0
movement. While other industries have been using technology to
gain
insight into the opinions of their customer base for years, the government is
now waking up to the possibilities of connecting with constituents more directly.
Naturally I wanted to road-test the YourGov app, so I downloaded it to my phone before walking to work this morning. There are always plenty of potholes to
complain
about in Manhattan, if nothing else. The app is slick looking, and after requesting permission to
access my
location, took me to the Issue Detail page, where sadly I was
stonewalled.
"Your issue's location is not currently serviced by a YourGOV
organization.
Continue submitting your request to encourage this area to adopt
YourGOV." Upon
re-reading their press release I see now that Cartegraph states that
"YourGOV
will automatically deliver requests to the appropriate participating organization." Key word there being
"participating", and I suppose that my local government isn't
participating in
whatever program they would need to in order to receive these
notifications.
The YourGOV app seems to face the same mountain to
climb
that I
noted VisibleVote.us does; gathering relevant data is one thing, but
making
it useful is another. It's a circular effort, YourGOV needs to prove to
organizations that it will connect them with individuals who will
provide
useful and accurate information, while individuals need to be convinced
that
their efforts will be heard and resolved. They cannot succeed without
both of
these working in harmony.
Bottom Line: Well designed, easy to use app by a
company
that obviously understands the value of connecting with a user base. The
usefulness of the app will depend on how many government organizations
they can
bring on board.