The cities of Arvada, Geneva, Manor and Rockwall have teamed up with DotGov, Inc. to participate in a unique innovation project. The goal of the project is to develop an iPhone Application, at no cost to the citizens of Manor, which will offer citizens mobile access to city services and information. You can participate by sharing your best ideas or wishes for a mobile app on: http://ideas.dotgov.com/ You can add your ideas till February1, 2010.

It seems like today so many agencies are plagued by the expenses of online web development and associated hosting; Manor was no different. Smaller agencies pay thousands of dollars to private companies to developed attractive websites that can be done at a fraction of the cost.

After discussing my frustrations with Luke Fretwell, the founder of GovFresh, he had a solution that would not only work for Manor, but many other cities as well. His idea was to build the entire site on WordPress, which is an open-source blog publishing application, with full-social media integration. I knew of WordPress, and had even used it for my personal blog, but have never thought of using it for a government site outside of a traditional blog.

After doing some research, it became quite evident that the WordPress platform was optimal for our agency, and would help empower the non-technical employees to become involved with the website. Soon after, we set out to make the WordPress idea into an actual site. Over the next day, Luke designed an amazing WordPress theme, while I transferred and tweaked page content. In about 48 hours the entire site frame and basic page content was completed. A few days later, the site was rolled out and is now live at http://www.cityofmanor.org.

The story isn’t over yet. GovFresh has packaged the theme and made it available at http://tools.govfresh.com for any agencies to use at no cost. This story highlights the power of social media tools, like WordPress, to help make government more efficient, transparent and cost-effective.

Benefits to using WordPress:

• Simple Web design practices
• Easy site administration
• 508 compliance
• Social media integration
• Cost savings
• Faster site deployment
• Ease of site administration

Site template features:

• Site search
• Simple primary/secondary/tertiary navigation
• Home page template with rotating carousel
• News page template for updates and press releases

So take a look around and let us know what you think.

New contest! The best submitted picture of our LED water tank will be featured on our website and the winner will also receive 50,000 Innobucks on Manor Labs. The contest is open until December 18, 2009 at 5:00 p.m. You can e-mail pics to innovations@cityofmanor.org.

The City of Manor has developed numerous incentives to offer developers that locate a grocery store in Manor, and now we want YOUR help. We have launched the following online petition to prove to retailers that their is a growing need of a grocery store in Manor. In 60-days we will take the results of this petition and send it to all the major grocery stores. Sign the petition today, and spread the word!

The survey can be found at http://bit.ly/manorsurvey

Manor Labs was recently highlighted at the Web 2.0 Expo in New York City by White House CTO Beth Noveck. A video clip is available here (Minute 36). There is also a White House Blog posting (located here) about Manor’s use of innovative technology. Manor Labs, which is powered by Spigit, is the City of Manor’s open innovation platform designed to build citizen engagement and participation.

You can also keep up with the City of Manor’s innovation in real-time through GovFresh.

The City of Manor is pleased to announce the publication of its QR-code White Paper. An free online copy is available by clicking here.

Please vote for the City of Manor’s panel for the 2010 SXSW Interactive festival in Austin, Texas. The panel will bring together government innovators from across the area to share about their Gov 2.0 efforts. CLICK HERE TO VOTE