It’s time to repaint one of the City of Manor’s elevated storage tanks and our staff has come up with a creative way to get this accomplished (and advance Manor’s economic development opportunities).

Opportunity: Sponsor the Water Tower QR-code & Repainting

Cost: Approximately $15,000

The sponsor of the water tower QR-code project will also have their logo* printed on the water tank in conjunction with the world’s first water tower QR-code.   If you interested in more information on this project, please contact us at innovations@cityofmanor.org.

*Subject to logo approval.

Extracted From MarketWire

MOFFETT FIELD, CA–(Marketwire – May 25, 2010) –  CiviGuard, a pioneer in Emergency Communications 2.0, today announced the City of Manor, Texas as its first public sector customer. CiviGuard and Manor will collaborate on a pilot deployment of the CiviGuard platform, which delivers authoritative, location-specific alerts and guidance in real-time to civilian populations via smartphones. CiviGuard will discuss details of the partnership and initial deployment during a keynote presentation at the Gov 2.0 Conference in Washington, DC later today.

The CiviGuard platform is the first in the world to deliver near real-time information from authorities to civilians by combining cutting-edge smartphone technologies such as HTML5, cloud-based infrastructure, multi-touch scenario management and intelligent multi-channel message distribution into a single offering.

“We are thrilled to be announcing Manor, Texas as CiviGuard’s first public sector client at the prestigious Gov 2.0 Expo,” said CiviGuard CEO & co-founder Zubin Wadia. ”Manor has a proven reputation and appetite for innovative technology solutions that focus on enhancing the way citizens interact with their government. This partnership is the first step towards achieving our goal of making CiviGuard’s platform the global standard for Emergency Communication 2.0.”

“The City of Manor was thoroughly impressed by the innate capabilities of CiviGuard’s cutting-edge emergency communications solution,” said Dustin Haisler, CIO for Manor, Texas. “CiviGuard’s advantage is clear — its rapid-messaging capabilities, its location-specific alert focus, and cross-platform optimization enable the City’s first responders to more effectively disseminate crucial, actionable information to civilians in crisis situations. The City of Manor prides itself on making sure government is more accessible, efficient and responsive to the needs of its citizens and we feel confident that CiviGuard will be a solid partner to further our citizen-centric approach to governance.”

CiviGuard will present at the Gov 2.0 Expo keynote kick-off on Tuesday, May 25 at 5:20pm (EDT) at the Washington Convention Center in Washington, DC. Please visithttp://www.gov2expo.com/gov2expo2010/public/schedule/detail/14850 for presentation details.

About CiviGuard:

With offices in Silicon Valley and New York, CiviGuard provides a highly resilient “Emergency Communications 2.0″ platform that rapidly delivers location-aware alerts and guidance to civilians. Combining trusted government information, cutting-edge smartphone technology, cloud-based infrastructure and intelligent message distribution into a single offering, CiviGuard is poised to redefine crisis communication. For more information, please visit www.civiguard.com.

About the City of Manor, Texas:

The City of Manor is a burgeoning community just east of Austin, TX and has received worldwide coverage for its innovative uses of technology. For more information, please visithttp://cityofmanor.org/wordpress/.

About O’Reilly Media:

O’Reilly Media, Inc. spreads the knowledge of innovators through its books, online services, magazines, and conferences. Since 1978, O’Reilly has been a chronicler and catalyst of leading-edge development, homing in on the technology trends that really matter and spurring their adoption by amplifying “faint signals” from the alpha geeks who are creating the future. An active participant in the technology community, the company has a long history of advocacy, meme-making, and evangelism.

About UBM TechWeb:

UBM TechWeb is a global leader in technology media and professional information and enables people and organizations to harness the transformative power of technology. Through its three core businesses — media solutions, marketing services and paid content — UBM TechWeb produces the most respected and consumed brands and media applications in the technology market. More than 14 million business and technology professionals actively engage in UBM TechWeb’s communities and information resources monthly.

See Something That Needs To Be Fixed In Manor; There’s An App For That…SeeClickFix Plus for iPhone

Within two weeks of the apps launch, the City of Manor is the first to launch their customized version of SeeClickFix Plus. When you walk into the City of Manor and load up your SeeClickFix Plus app you will see the City’s logo and their reporting channel. Walk out of Manor and you can report just as you do now on SeeClickFix.

The SeeClickFix Plus app allows users to take a photo of an issue, get and verify the address from GPS, describe the issues and report it to all who are watching. Citizens and other entities who want to help fix or receive alerts can also follow Manor from the town’s homepage on the app. From that homepage citizens can see top issues and other top users in their area. Users can attach the app to their facebook account for easy tracking and to earn “Civic Points”

For City inspectors and other city employees, the app allows for viewing issues on the map by service request type or filtering by keyword. Blackberry and Android applications will be launching by the end of the month to allow users to easily submit problems regards of what mobile platform they are using.

SeeClickFix designed and built SeeClickFix Plus to allow governments to customize and launch their smart phone reporting applications within minutes of sign-up. An easy dashboard allows cities to customize the colors and the logos on the app as well as the service request types that a city wants its citizens to choose from when reporting to them. Governments can add additional questions as well as private data questions to the app to collect personal information from constituents.  This application was developed with advice from the City of Tucson’s City Manager Andrew Greenhill. Tucson, New Haven, CT and Hillsborough, CA have all signed on as SeeClickFix Plus Customers.

The City of Manor announced today that they have chosen SeeClickFix, a website that empowers residents to take responsibility for their neighborhood, as the tool to create a community solution for improving service orders in Manor. The technology will first be utilized in the Public Works department to report issues related to the City of Manor’s street, water and/or wastewater systems. Mike Tuley, Manor’s Public Works Director, stated, “I’m excited that the citizens will have a useful tool for a faster response to utility and street issues using SeeClickFix.” In coming the coming weeks, the Development Services Department will be evaluating SeeClickFix for code enforcement and building inspections.

The SeeClickFix.com website allows anyone to:

• See – See a non-emergency water, street or wastewater issue in your neighborhood.
• Click – Open a ticket over the Internet, phone, e-mail or mobile app describing the issue.
• Fix – Take responsibility to help alert the city of the problem.

As a pilot city, Manor will be among the first cities to take advantage of this new tool.

SeeClickFix will empower Manor’s citizens to participate directly in maintaining the infrastructure of the city. Citizens can also see view real-time information about active and closed service orders on the City of Manor’s website.

Fore more information or to submit a service order with SeeClickFix please visit the City of Manor’s website at http://www.cityofmanor.org and click on the SeeClickFix tab.

Manor’s CIO, Dustin Haisler, explains how the process works below.

About SeeClickFix

SeeClickFix encourages residents to become citizens by participating in taking care of and improving their neighborhoods. By creating a few watch areas for the people responsible for the public space and reporting a few issues and encouraging your friends to do the same, you can have a full blown 311 in minutes. As a web-based service free to the public, SeeClickFix empowers local governments, business improvement districts, special service districts and others with the tools to identify, track and resolve local issues. Founded in 2007 and based in New Haven, CT, SeeClickFix is in pilot mode.

Contact:
SeeClickFix Main
Ben Berkowitz
ben@seeclickfix.com

City of Manor
Mike Tuley
Director of Public Works
seeclickfix@cityofmanor.org

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.

Today City Staff presented a digital (RFID) and analog key to the City of Manor to the Stanford Persuasive Technology Lab, received by Stanford Researcher Margarita Quihuis.

With the help of Muzar.org and their partners, the City of Manor has placed a virtual 3-D Santa Claus on City Hall for your viewing pleasure. This virtual Santa Claus is visible from up to 3 miles away, and demonstrates the new augmented reality (AR) technologies being developed for mobile devices. Currently, it is only visible to individuals with an iPhone on Android-based mobile device. In order to view you must download the free Layar application from your app-store, and launch the Seasons Greetings Layer. If you have any questions about how to view, please e-mail innovations@cityofmanor.org. You can also send your family and friends an augmented reality greeting card at Muzar’s homepage at http://www.muzar.org.

The City of Manor and Manor Labs are currently working on bringing augmented reality technologies to a local government setting. For more information about how you can sponsor this research and developed, please e-mail innovations@cityofmanor.org.

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.

Check out the City of Manor’s new research & development initiative called Manor Labs. You can now participate in the City of Manor’s internationally recognized innovation process, and be rewarded for your input. Visit www.ManorLabs.org for more information.