MindMixer Raises $1.9M For Virtual Town Halls, Launches ImproveSF Website
San Francisco, California If you live in San Francisco, you probably spend a lot of time complaining about the lackluster public transportation. I’m no exception — so today, I was really excited to see a new government website called ImproveSF, where residents can submit and vote on suggestions about how to make Muni better, faster, and more reliable.
Not surprisingly, there’s a cool startup behind the effort. It’s called MindMixer, and it just announced that it raised a $1.9 million seed round from Dundee Venture Capital.
CEO Nick Bowden says that he and his co-founder Nathan Preheim both come from an urban planning background. The idea came from their experiences holding public meetings that no one would attend. The Web seemed like an obvious way to solve that problem, but when they explored existing services for crowdsourcing ideas, but Bowden says none had the “nuance” that was needed.
“Most of those products are idea-oriented — they solicit ideas,” Bowden says. “But in a government or city process, ideas are like the first element of decision-making.”
In other words, it’s not just about submitting and voting on ideas, but also channeling those ideas into specific strategies that are affordable on a government budget. So they created MindMixer to manage that process, keeping citizens involved every step of the way.
MindMixer now claims to work with more than 125 government organizations, including the City of Los Angeles, the National Park Service, and yes, the City of San Francisco. In San Francisco, the Muni survey is just the beginning — the city plans to post a new challenge every month asking for new ideas and offering rewards to participants.
The company is starting to expand beyond the initial model, Bowden adds, by serving some schools and enterprise companies. Moving forward, he wants to add tools that allow citizens to become more involved in making the plans a reality, for example by crowdfunding a project or volunteering.
Revitalize DSM Neighborhoods with Your Ideas
Des Moines, Iowa Des Moines has been recognized nationally as a top place to live and work. City planners want to make the neighborhoods even better with your help.
Gray's Lake sees a lot of foot traffic and visitors, but people living there are trying to up its residential appeal.
"The south side has always been the butt of jokes for many, many years. It's sort of been our mission to help elevate it a little bit," said chair of the Gray's Lake Neighborhood Association Evan Shaw.
Gray's Lake is one of eight neighborhoods that residents and city planners are working hard to improve. A new online tool, Revitalize Des Moines forum, is one way to reach more people about what they want to see happening on their block.
"Typically in our neighborhood planning processes we get between 1-3% of the people that live in that neighborhood," said Des Moines City Planner Amber Lynch. "If we can go above and beyond that, I think we'll feel like we've achieved success."
Anybody can create an account, make comments, and respond to other posts. It's been up and running for about a month and the conversations are already starting. Gray's Lake, for example, got high marks in recreation and mature trees, but low marks in schools and reputation.
"They're also posting ideas about solutions," Lynch said. "They're posting ideas about let's make community gardens or let's organize volunteer projects to help our neighbors that may not be able to maintain their properties."
Whether your concerns are infrastructure, crime, or affordable housing, the forum allows your voice to be heard directly by those trying to make a difference.
"Jobs and amenities, those things draw people to a city, but neighborhoods keep people living here."
Air ideas on Barnstable's iForum
Barnstable, Massachusetts School uniforms? A playground on the town green? More affordable housing?
The ideas are bouncing off the virtual walls of iForum, a new website Barnstable officials are using to gauge what residents expect for their tax dollars.
To sign up to iforum:
www.barnstableiforum.com
"It kind of allows people to put out a lot of different ideas and see if other people agree with them," said Moira Bundschuh, a Hyannis resident and frequent visitor to the site.
IForum is maintained by MindMixer, a Nebraska-based company two urban planners started in 2010 as a better way to gather community input than holding sparsely attended meetings inside town halls.
The result is a web platform used to pose questions to the community and to receive feedback at any time of the day.
"There is a wealth of great ideas that are just coming from regular citizens," MindMixer co-founder Nathan Preheim said Tuesday.
The company, which had zero clients in April 2011, just signed up its 100th community, Preheim said. The size of communities that use MindMixer varies from a town of 1,500 to the city of Los Angeles, he said.
Barnstable's iForum already has 350 people signed up after only two months in operation, said Sarah Colvin, producer and host of the town's local cable news program and a member of the team that monitors and organizes iForum. It costs the town $7,500 a year.
The structure of the website includes a series of questions, each with a subset of ideas pitched and commented on by participants. Users who post the most comments win prizes, such as breakfast with the town manager or a Segway demonstration with a Barnstable police officer.
The site is easy to use and encourages positive suggestions rather than acting as a log for complaints, Colvin said.
Ideas posted on the website are already yielding results, Acting Town Manager Tom Lynch said.
A question on the school calendar garnered 65 responses that helped the school committee decide to start the school year after Labor Day, Lynch said.
Although she didn't post the question about schools, it started a conversation that gave residents the chance to share their voice, Barnstable schools Superintendent Mary Czajkowski said.
A new question about how to encourage a drug-free community led to an idea about school uniforms.
"It's not just about the school," Czajkowski said. "It's about the community."
The iForum is a good tool for helping school officials understand what residents think is important, Czajkowski said. "I check it every day," she said.
Barnstable Police Chief Paul MacDonald also checks the site frequently, he said. "I'm certainly paying attention to it," MacDonald said.
Police posted a link on the iForum to a crime reporting map on the police department's website in response to a user who was looking for information on crime in their neighborhood, he said.
Police are now following a discussion on iForum about a prescription drug drop-off location like the one at the Yarmouth police station, MacDonald said. Although he has concerns about controls, the department is exploring the idea, he said.
The challenge for the town is showing that officials do something with the ideas, said iForum user Amanda Converse, 33, of Centerville.
The site will soon address that question directly, according to Preheim and Lynch. An ideas implementation section will help users track their ideas and see what becomes of them, they said.
Share Your 'Hood's Historic Landmark-Worthy Places At MyHistoricLA.org
Los Angeles, California You've always thought that cool Craftsman house at the corner never gets is due street cred. And that local art house movie theater with its Art Noveau architecture two blocks from your childhood home? You probably think it's something special, too. If you've got an eye for pre-1980s, historical-landmark-status-worthy places in your community, the City of L.A. wants to hear from (and reward!) you.
Á la Foursquare but with less over-sharing and stalking potential, The new MyHistoricLA.org is Facebook- and Twitter-friendly, and it rewards members for throwing in their two cents on their neighborhood's important places.
The website is "a virtual town hall...about places that matter to Angelenos," Ken Bernstein, Manager for the City of L.A.'s Office of Historic Resources, told LAist. By engaging citizens online, the site allows the city to connect with people in a way it hadn't been able to do before.
"Often, it's difficult to reach a full cross-section (of people) across all ages and backgrounds," he said. The website will track the locations of places suggested by users, allowing his staff to see what areas and communities are the most active, as well as where they need to improve outreach.
Idea submissions will get you 10 points, and you'll earn even more points for giving feedback on other ideas or commenting on current topics, which include "Post-WWII Suburbia" and "Agricultural History of the San Fernando Valley". In true social media fashion, the site features a Leaderboard of the most engaged users who've earned the most points by submitting or voting for ideas. Location ideas with the most votes get a chance at historic landmark status, and users with the most points get a chance at earning rewards. The rewards will include tickets to historic tours, programs and other events, said Bernstein, and the full details will be announced in the next few weeks.
So far, there have been 25 to 30 places that have been suggested, including a remnant 1920s garden in Echo Park, "a place that wasn't on our radar at all," said Bernstein, and the Ogamdo Cafe building, a brick Spanish-style structure in the Miracle Mile area that was purportedly once Ozzy Osbourne's recording studio.
The city is not only looking for buildings of architectural significance, but that of social and historical importance as well, said Bernstein. Meeting places of women's clubs, labor union halls, Freemasons and other organizations "are so part of the social fabric of the city," said Bernstein.
The site is part of the Office of Historic Resources' SurveyLA project, which seeks to identify and preserve the city's historic properties. According to office's website, 85% of the L.A. has never been surveyed, leaving many buildings and locations with social and historical significance unprotected from demolition. By identifying potential historical landmarks, the city may benefit from federal financial aid programs set aside for conservation. They'll also be able to provide a more comprehensive list of locations for tourism purposes, film shoots, city zoning and more.
The city also rolled out a similar website last fall for transit ideas with LA/2B, where citizens can share their ideas of how to improve L.A.'s transportation system. There are 500 registered members on the website, and Bernstein said the city has already "gotten hundreds of new ideas related to transportation policy" through LA/2B.
City Hall Kicks Off 'Mill Valley 2040' with MindMixer
Mill Valley, California What should Mill Valley look like in 28 years?
That’s the question city officials are posing this week as they kick off an outreach campaign as part of the city’s update of its General Plan. The guiding document for land use, transportation, infrastructure and development throughout the city hasn’t been updated since 1989, and the city hasn't updated its affordable housing element since 2003, despite state law requirements that it do so every five years.
The City Council approved an 18-month timeline and scope of work last month and Vice Mayor Andy Berman was appointed to a General Plan advisory committee, which also includes Planning Commissioner Steve Geiszler and seven at-large members yet to be chosen.
The first phase of the effort focuses on outreach, and City Hall inked a deal with MindMixer, an Omaha, Neb., startup company that creates “virtual town hall” websites to engage communities on specific issues.
The ‘Mill Valley 2040’ website created by MindMixer is organized around four topics, the first of which is dubbed “How would you define Mill Valley.” The website lists seven “Ideas” and asks users, who must create an account on the site to use it, to “second” the idea and/or comment on it.
The “Ideas” dovetail with the seven community values identified in the 1989 update. They include: accommodating affordable housing; preserving and enhancing creeks and other natural areas; maintaining healthy and attractive commercial areas, preserving the quality and diversity of neighborhoods, protecting people and buildings from natural hazards, maintaining the scenic quality of the bay front; and minimizing congestion and encouraging use of public transit.
City officials expect to create a trio of working groups focusing on the natural environment, community vitality, land use and transportation, with up to 10 community members appointed to each based on their interest and experience. The council directed city staff to ensure that applicants state their affiliations up front when they apply.
The timeline calls for the advisory committee to start reviewing the ideas submitted through MindMixer and from the working groups in May. The review and adoption phase of the General Plan update is expected to begin in early 2013.
Denton launches virtual town hall
Denton, Texas Denton city leaders say they hope a new website will help them gather more feedback on issues facing the community, including a possible smoking ban.
EngageDenton.com will serve as a virtual town hall where residents can offer ideas and suggestions to help officials make decisions, said Katia Boykin, a supervisor in the city planning department.
“It gives you another alternative to get your input and your idea out there so we can take it back and analyze it as a city,” she said.
Planning officials initially wanted the site to help with their ongoing review of the city’s comprehensive plan, but other city departments quickly saw the potential benefits, Assistant City Manager Fred Greene said.
“Well, it looked so good,” Greene said. “And it can answer a lot of questions that the city constantly has in desiring input from the public.”
The city is paying about $10,000 a year to MindMixer, an Omaha, Neb.-based company, to maintain the site at least until the comprehensive plan review is complete, which will take about two years, Greene said. The city could keep the site going after that if it proves to be useful, he said.
Planning officials believe they can save money by reducing the number of public meetings associated with the comprehensive plan review, Greene said. Those meetings can get expensive with the consultant there on the clock, he said.
“We believe the benefit [of the website] is going to be more input and fewer large meetings on the comp plan,” Greene said.
But the city has no plan to do away with public meetings, he said.
Officials say they also hope the site appeals to Web-savvy residents, especially those in their early 20s to mid-40s who might not attend public meetings because of work or family obligations. The site allows easy sharing on the social media sites Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google Plus.
“I think it’s a great start to get more citizens involved in the process, so I’m a fan,” said council member Kevin Roden, who took to Twitter to help publicize the launch.
Roden said the city could improve the site by allowing a way for people to create and vote on new topics that may not be on city officials’ radar.
The city launched the site with three initial questions on smoking, community gardens and historic preservation. Topics will come and go after about six weeks, officials said.
Council members informally agreed this month to form a citizen committee to study a ban on smoking in restaurants, bars and other workplaces. The Engage Denton website allows people to vote on whether they would support the ban, view a slide presentation from the Jan. 10 council meeting, and submit comments to which other people can read and respond.
The site is also seeking feedback on how the city can promote community gardens and which areas to include in a historic resource survey.
Signing up is free but requires a name, e-mail address, year of birth and zip code.
For more information, visit www.engagedenton.com.
Barnstable is talking--and listening
Barnstable, Massachusetts It took a random cold call to bring the Town of Barnstable into the 21st century's Gov 2.0 world.
In a first of-its-kind for the Cape and southeastern Massachusetts region, Barnstable's new iForum - tagline "Barnstable is Listening" - provides a platform for public conversation between citizens and town officials.
The online exchange lets people suggest and share ideas, expand upon existing ideas, and ask questions of the town - at any time, from any web browser.
One month and counting
The space went live just over a month ago in December 2011 and since its debut quickly scaled to nearly 200 registered users who have been kicking around 89 ideas and sharing more than 350 comments.
Acting Town Manager Tom Lynch agrees that number represents only a tiny slice of the city's 50,000 residents, but said the user base and conversation grows daily and the town has begun actively inviting people in.
"The town has been working on ways to better communicate with citizens." - Acting Town Manager Tom LynchExtension of effort
"The town has been working on ways to better communicate with citizens," said Lynch. The effort began with former Town Manager John Klimm and the active expansion of the daily TV program Barnstable This Morning two years ago. Several e-newsletters and other formal communication structures followed.
Then came the cold call.
Mixing it up
Last summer a company called MindMixer reached out to Lynch. He doesn't know where it got Barnstable's name, but Barnstable was intrigued by the story the company told:
For $7500 year, it could have an interactive space where town officials and citizens could communicate. Content included both video and text and MindMixer staff would be on hand to help manage the area. Long story short, six months later Barnstable iForum came online, as a next logical extension of the city's efforts.
MindMixer hosts the service on its hardware and helps Barnstable manage videos and other content, enabling the city to dip its toe into the world of Gov 2.0 with minimal staff or development overhead.
Gov 2.0
The term Gov 2.0 describes a whole mix of techniques and technologies that open up government to citizen interaction. From data sharing to human communication to service delivery, Gov 2.0 trends offer governments and communities new ways to operate in a changing world.
Barnstable's iForum provides an example of one way a town might use a Gov 2.0-style communication process.
Instead of limiting interaction to business hours or set meeting times, citizens have a tool for offering ideas, responding to ideas, and asking questions that stays "open" 24/7 and that is reached from the comfort of home, the supported environment of the library, or the group space of a senior center or school.
Town employees engage with citizens, answering questions and sharing their views. Colored boxes, like the one around Channel 18 Producer Sarah Colvin, identify them in the conversation.Anywhere, anytime
With tools like iForum, people can connect to their government and with each other from any connected web browser at any time of the day. In theory, at least, removing the barriers of time and place encourages and enables more active participation and a stronger sense of connection among a wider group of people.
"We're trying to take as much info about what we're doing as we can and put it before citizens in a way that doesn't require them to go to a meeting at a specific time and place," explained Lynch.
Success in other locations
Although Barnstable may be the first in the region to embrace a tool like this, other parts of the country say it works.
For example, a neighborhood consortium in Santa Barbara, CA and a planning agency in Burbank, CA both incorporate iForum routinely to gather project specific input. Here in Massachusetts, Springfield deployed an iForum specifically gathering input for the master plan to rebuild Springfield.
Meanwhile, the municipalities of Wichita, KS; Los Angeles, CA; Rockford, IL; Fargo, ND; Kansas City, MO and Flagstaff, AZ use the tool as a "virtual town hall" for more general and on-going conversations.
Grounded in need
MindMixer, based in Omaha, Nebraska, grew out of need. Co-founder Nick Bowden worked as a community planner and grew increasingly frustrated trying to gather community input on projects.
As happens often in community efforts, no matter when and where a meeting gets scheduled, only a tiny fraction of the people impacted by the project seem able to show up in person.
Bowden started thinking there had to be a better way to generate and share community ideas --this is the 21st century after all! -- and co-founded MindMixer in 2010 to create it.
Reaching in and out
Sarah Colvin, producer of Barnstable's television program, works with iForum every day. She says getting the word out to the community as well as across the town's department heads is a work in progress - but one that is essential to the forum's ongoing success.
Externally, the town created small handout cards and distributed them to the various places people gather. Colvin says the town will begin visiting senior centers, libraries, schools, and other community sites to show, tell, and encourage people to join the conversation.
"It won't drive policy but it is certainly already adding to conversation and thinking." - Acting Town Manager Tom LynchA similar outreach has been happening internally, as cautious department heads learn new ways of interacting. To really work, Gov 2.0 efforts need two-way communication - to and from government and citizens.
Town officials appear in the iForum by name, with color bars highlighting their role as town. So far Lynch and Colvin, as well the chief of police, head of DPW, and superintendent of schools have become regular contributors.
Positive encouragement
The physical structure of iForum around "ideas", "seconds to ideas", and "improving ideas" was developed to encourage ideas and discussion within a constructive framework.
The goal was to generate conversation and multi-way feedback -- without devolving into the name calling that make many people shy away from forum-based discussions.
To participate, you have to register a valid email and posts appear with a first name and last initial. To encourage activity, each idea or comments earns points. High point earners "win" rewards, like a ride on the police department's Segway scooter.
Policy input
Colvin pointed out that even in this first month of operation, town departments have been surprised by some of the thoughtful discussion - and have begun using it as input in making decisions.
For example, an idea topic asking about the town's strengths led to a discussion about beaches which led to feedback about beach maintenance schedules. The town DPW began connecting through iForum and came away with ideas that might impact how it schedules maintenance activities next summer.
The new school superintendent has also begin participating and after hearing about school start date preferences debates set up an informal poll on the before vs. after Labor Day question to gather more input from the community.
"It won't drive policy but it is certainly already adding to conversation and thinking," said Lynch.
By that alone, iForum has already begun to prove itself as a useful tool, showing that new ways of working can engage and change the dynamics of creating a working community. To engage, register at: http://www.barnstableiforum.com.
It just might work: Barnstable tests the waters of Gov 2.0
Barnstable, Massachusetts If you don’t give it a try, you don’t know what will happen.
That’s why I have to applaud the Town of Barnstable for taking a stab at something new. Or at least something new for this technically conservative region of the country.
Earlier this month the town unveiled Barnstable iForum (http://www.barnstableiforum.com/), an interactive space built upon a product from a startup based in Omaha Nebraska.
Mindmixer and its eponymous product (http://www.mindmixer.com) came to market just over a year ago. The genesis of the product came from direct experience with community meetings where only a tiny fraction of the people who could be impacted by the outcome showed up.
Community planner Nick Bowden started thinking there had to be a better way to generate and share community ideas. So he began to create one. The company launched in the summer of 2010 and took in a $300,000 round of funding from Omaha’s Dundee Venture Capital last February.
Since then, a host of towns, cities, community groups, and civic organizations have signed on to set up a “virtual town hall” with Mindmixer – organizations ranging from a neighborhood consortium in Santa Barbara CA, to a planning agency in Burbank CA, to the Cities of Wichita KS, Los Angeles CA, Kansas City MO, and Flagstaff AZ … and the Town of Barnstable MA.
In social media speak, Mindmixer and products like it are “community engagement platforms.” In normal English, it means the companies provide a ready-to-use online place where people can share comments, thoughts and ideas that could lead to action.
For Mindmixer, the community it wants to engage includes municipalities, elected officials, and other quasi-government entities seeking the input of their constituents. In short, it provides a place for people to talk with both each other and with their community leaders, without the constraint of a specific time or place.
In Barnstable, the Barnstable iForum started out with some proposed topics, each introduced by videos from town officials talking about the issue. For example, Alisha Parker from the growth management department and Lyndsey Counsell, chair of the Community Preservation Committee introduce the topic of bike transportation, while Hilary Sandler with the Committee for Barnstable Dog Parks asks for thoughts about dog park development in the town.
Then, people chime in with ideas, comments to ideas, seconds to ideas, and alternative ideas. Participants get publicy ID’d by first name and last initial and have to register for a site account using a real name and email. To encourage participation, the site hands out points for ideas, seconds and comments. You can trade your points for rewards like a dog license or a ride on the police department’s Segway.
I’ve been following and writing about Gov 2.0 for a couple of years now. The Gov 2.0 blanket enrobes all those idea that use technology to reshape the interactions of governance and civic engagement.
All that cool stuff about data visualization and open data? Gov 2.0. Mobile devices that let you report potholes and unplowed roads? Gov 2.0. Civic engagement platforms? Yup, that’s Gov 2.0 too.
Efforts like Barnstable iForum have the potential to reshape the ways communities, their members, and their leaders interact and drive decisions and direction. They have the potential to use technology to open up the doors and invite more people into the tent.
They even have the potential to change those relationships and dynamics that seem to have created a sense that government is “them” and we are “us” — the dynamics of being two teams on opposite sites of the field. Deep my hidden optimist’s heart I wonder if perhaps Gov 2.0 applications could be the trigger we need remember that we are all part of governance and that there is no ‘them’ vs. ‘us.’
It won’t just happen though. Nice as it is, the mere presence of a community engagement platform doesn’t actually engage the community.
A thread in Barnstable iForum called “Think Tank for well paying jobs” shows this pretty clearly. There’s a back and forth among the same group of people. In the middle of it Eddie D asks:
It seems like all we’re doing is talking to ourselves … What was this Barnstable iforum created for? Is there anybody in charge to pass these ideas on or are we just wasting out time. [sic]
Fair question, Eddie D!
Because that is the challenge of Web 2.0 and Gov 2.0. It only works when a critical mass both talks and listens. And that takes work. Real work.
Communities need people to nourish and tend them. Online communities are no different. Getting the software platform into place is the easy part. Setting aside the time to monitor, comment, interact, and engage … well, now …
If Eddie D gets a meaningful response posted, he’s going to keep engaging. And he might even encourage others to engage as well. But if no one responds to Eddie, pretty soon he’s going to click away and never return.
I’ve always called this the watering hole effect. You put out something attractive. You put out tools that let people get to the attractive stuff. Then you put out tools that let people share what they find. And create new stuff from it.
And then you watch the watering hole, adding extra bait to draw in more critters or shooing away predators that threaten to shutdown the watering hole.
You make sure fresh and clean water trickles through and you spend time drinking there yourself in case anyone didn’t get the message. You can’t force anyone to come to the watering hole, but you can make it an attractive, safe, rewarding, enjoyable place to be.
If you’re lucky, pretty soon it starts to take on a life of its own and it attracts more and more activity. It begins to grow organically. Interactions happen. It’s a success!
But it wasn’t a random unplanned and untended success. The world of 2.0 works because someone in every 2.0 community tends to it.
I love that Barnstable put Barnstable IForum out there. I have my fingers crossed that someone has been tending the watering hole. I hope the right balance of bait will bring people in and that predators don’t take over.
There’s potential! Will it work? Only time will tell. But if you don’t give it a try, you never know what will happen.
A Virtual Town Hall
Barnstable, Massachusetts Want your ideas about Barnstable to be heard and make a difference? Get out your keyboards, because Barnstable launched an online forum to pull in and knock such ideas around. BarnstableiForum.com went live Dec. 7 for residents to offer their thoughts on a variety of subject areas that will be directly monitored and reviewed by Town of Barnstable staff.
“I think the point of it is to try to get a conversation among citizens about ideas they have [about the town], and we'll be adding to that,” said Interim Town Manager Tom Lynch. Lynch said he and others in town “had been kind of talking about this type of thing” when he was contacted by MindMixer.com, which developed the platform.
A co-founder was in Massachusetts to meet with city officials in Boston and Springfield, and arranged a meeting with Barnstable, which went well.
“It’s using this social media aspect to try to get people to participate who don't normally participate.
MindMixer was founded and developed for communities as a virtual town hall to engage residents and solicit ideas. Among the things that attracted Lynch was that the founders have experience in municipal government, so the product was developed by people familiar with the challenges public entities have with outreach. The service costs $7,500 annually, Lynch said.
Barnstable is starting out with six areas for citizen ideas and input: News and Information Sources; Strengths; Vision 2030; Getting Around Barnstable; Dog Park; and Bicycle Improvements. Under these heading, users are asked to provide some thoughts on what exists and what could be done. They also have the opportunity to comment, build and vote on the ideas of others. Marketing of the online forum has just started, which will include integration with existing communication vehicles such as the monthly and weekly newsletters, as well as the daily morning and evening programming on cable channel 18. Lynch said that the expectation is that it will grow slowly.
Lynch said he and a small team have met weekly on this to develop the ideas and get it ready for launch. Department managers have participated in webcasts and helped prepare some of the initial ideas to start the conversations.
The system also tallies reward points for users based on participation, which can be accumulated for prizes such as lunch with the town manager or a department head of one’s choice, a Segway instruction and tour with the Barnstable Police Department; Weather-Person-For-A-Day on Barnstable This Morning or even a free dog license for two years.
Soon, town department heads will be flagged as such when they respond to suggestions or information presented in the forum. Lynch said that the idea is not to engage in an online dialog, but to add to the knowledge available for the discussions. As far as pulling the ideas back into the policy discussion, Lynch said that suggestions and ideas from BarnstableiForum.com will be categorized – considered, implemented, educational, financial, etc. – then analyzed to see if and how they can be incorporated. Lynch believes the schools and other town groups, such as the Hyannis Main Street Business Improvement District and Hyannis Chamber, are interested in participating in the forum.
Users will need to register first before posting ideas, comments or voting on ideas they like. Lynch said the registration will not be restricted to just Barnstable residents, as there could be opportunities to hear from those with Barnstable roots who may look to come back, especially for younger residents, who have been leaving the town and Cape.
“We’re hoping that has somewhat of an impact,” Lynch said. Among those using the system are Los Angeles and Burbank, California; Rockford, Illinois; the Citizens Advisory Recovery Team of tornado-ravaged Joplin, Missouri; and even a congressman, Representative Lee Terry, R-Nebraska.
To learn more or register, log on to BarnstableiForum.com.
Let's Talk Westside Is Open for Your Ideas on How to Make the Neighborhood a Better Place
Santa Barbara, California Through an innovative public-private education collaborative, a small but diverse group of people has begun meeting to discuss ways to improve and enhance Santa Barbara’s Westside neighborhood.
As a result of a unique new partnership with Noozhawk, that effort has just expanded into an online public-engagement initiative called Let’s Talk Westside.
The overall project is called THRIVE Westside and it’s an undertaking by Harding University Partnership School, McKinley School, La Cumbre Junior High School, San Marcos High School, the Santa Barbara Unified School District, the James S. Bower Foundation, Just Communities, One Nation Foundation, the Orfalea Foundations and the Santa Barbara Foundation.
The goal is to create a network of resources and information that can provide Westside children a successful future “from cradle to career” as well as to come up with ideas to create a better community, said Jarrod Schwartz, executive director of the nonprofit Just Communities.
Through the THRIVE project, residents and stakeholders of the Westside can attend meetings where they are able to discuss with others their ideas and thoughts about assets and strengths of the community. The dialogues will also be used to identify concrete improvement strategies and initiatives to better inform the overall goals of THRIVE Westside and help enhance the Westside neighborhoods and schools.
THRIVE was created to give residents the opportunity to “turn their thoughts into actions,” Schwartz said.
Just Communities, he said, hopes to engage the Santa Barbara community through a collaborative project. Instead of “working (for) the community, we want to work with the community,” he added.
Through their efforts, Schwartz hopes to have approximately 150 Westside residents come together to develop a vision for the community they want.
Although meetings give residents the opportunity to sit down to discuss their ideas in person, Just Communities also wanted to give residents who couldn’t attend an opportunity to have their ideas included and their voices heard.
Schwartz approached Noozhawk about developing a public-engagement platform on the Internet and publisher Bill Macfadyen leaped at the chance.
“Ever since our Santa Barbara Challenge, Noozhawk’s public-engagement project exploring the city of Santa Barbara’s budget, we’ve been looking for another chance to use these Web tools on a community initiative,” Macfadyen said. “THRIVE Westside is an ideal opportunity.”
Macfadyen turned to a frequent Noozhawk collaboration partner, the Davenport Institute for Public Engagement and Civic Leadership at Pepperdine University’s School of Public Policy in Malibu, and asked executive director Pete Peterson for some platform referrals. That led him to MindMixer, a virtual town hall service based in Omaha, Neb.
“MindMixer is a community engagement platform that makes it fun and easy for community residents to share practical and creative ideas that will help move the community forward,” said Nathan Preheim, a MindMixer co-founder and its chief operations officer.
Traditional methods of community meetings are limiting, Preheim explained. They offer set times and dates to meet, and if you cannot attend your opinion and thoughts will not be presented.
“MindMixer took the basic rules of the town hall meeting, people coming together to solve community challenges, and wrapped that in an easy to use Web interface,” he said. “Now people can participate in these same conversations anytime, anywhere.”
The result is Let’s Talk Westside, a Noozhawk Web site through which registered users can earn points by participating in the online discussion, making suggestions and commenting on and supporting other users’ ideas. Next week, a series of rewards will be added to entice further participation.
At the end of the project, in mid-January, those who have amassed the most points will be asked to join the in-person meetings as representatives of the online community.
“We’re excited about Let’s Talk Westside, and are eager to learn how different or how similar our online discussions are to the in-person results,” Macfadyen said.
The in-person meetings have been ongoing, but residents are still invited to get involved and be a part of the discussions. From 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, La Cumbre Junior High, 2255 Modoc Road, is hosting an open discussion for THRIVE Westside.
Additionally, meetings are scheduled from 5 to 7:30 p.m. for each Wednesday in December, beginning Dec. 7. The meetings are open to anyone involved in the Westside community.
THRIVE Westside has also been fundraising to help turn the project’s ideas into action. So far, $10,000 has been raised through an outside nonprofit organization to serve as a budget for the residents to work with, Schwartz said.
Lead sponsors of Let’s Talk Westside are MarBorg Industries, Wells Fargo Bank and Southern California Gas Co.
Additional Let’s Talk Westside sponsors include the Academy of Koei-Kan Karate-Do, Business First Bank, El Zarape Mexican Food, Griffith & Thornburgh LLP, Meridian Group, Paper Moon Printing, ParentClick.com, Presidio Sports, Santa Barbara Home Improvement Center and the South Coast Community Youth Cultural Center.
Social Media to the Rescue
Andy Grace, a documentary filmmaker who teaches at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, lives two blocks from the path of the deadly April 27 tornado that sliced through his city, killing 46 and destroying nearly 5,000 homes. His home was spared.
Following the storm, Grace and hundreds of his fellow citizens in the town of 83,000 went online to the social media website Tuscaloosa Forward to share their ideas and visions for rebuilding. In less than six weeks, more than 4,000 visitors provided more than 300 ideas in over 8,600 separate site visits. Grace, a leader of the local community garden and produce nonprofit Druid City Garden Project, suggested an urban farm. Other residents suggested increasing biking and walking trails, adopting clean-energy solutions, and repurposing existing buildings. Citizens commented on and rated dozens of similar suggestions, creating a level of public involvement and dialogue that far exceeded what would have been possible through traditional town hall meetings alone.
“There’s something very harried about disasters—you need to talk to lots of people quickly due to trauma and displacement,” says Stephen Hardy, director of planning at BNIM, the architecture firm commissioned to develop a post-tornado rebuilding proposal for Tuscaloosa in only six weeks. “I know of no other mechanism than this new online technology that lets you get so much wide participation in so short a period of time.”
Increasing input and lowering barriers
Online input into Tuscaloosa Forward is grouped by key themes, including housing, neighborhoods, economic development, infrastructure, and sustainability. Big ideas that have gained critical mass include the development of a greenway that runs throughout the city along the path of the storm, affordable and mixed-income housing within connected and preserved neighborhoods, and new village centers with more walking and bike trails.
Design concepts endorsed by the online community gave BNIM, the Kansas City–based AIA 2011 Architecture Firm Award recipient, enough confidence to include them in its master plan. All the online commentary appears as a 600-page appendix to the master plan presented on Aug. 30 to the Tuscaloosa City Council, which unanimously adopted it at its Sept. 7 meeting. The city is now working with the community on detailed plans for the public infrastructure identified in the plan.
“With online participation, we not only captured ideas and organized them around themes, we actually used the online words of city residents to help write the plan,” Hardy says. “And the thing that most surprised me was how the online tools actually improved attendance at the in-person community meetings.”
MindMixer, a 17-month old company based in Omaha, Neb., developed the technology behind the Tuscaloosa website. It now has 40 similar projects nationally, including online town hall meetings for disaster recovery efforts in tornado-ravaged Joplin, Mo. MindMixer’s goal? To increase the amount of community input in the civic-planning process and decrease the costs and barriers to incorporating those ideas. One of those obstacles are the assumptions about who is and who isn’t a social media user. “The perception is we get a lot of 20-to-30 year-olds, yet the demographic across all 40 sites we have developed shows an average age of 49,” says Nick Bowden, cofounder and CEO of MindMixer. “Participants across all the sites we have developed have ranged from 14 to 97.”
Where broadband Internet isn’t readily available, MindMixer offers call-in options as a way to allow all residents to participate. When calling or logging in online, participants provide a level of personal information (age, e-mail, zip code, gender) that ensures authenticity and allows for meaningful aggregated data sorts. Google Translator is now used in new MindMixer sites as a way to accommodate more non-English speakers.
“I held some concerns in a rural state like Alabama, with many older residents, that people wouldn’t go online unless you already participated in social media,” says Grace, a six-year resident of Tuscaloosa. “But the wide amount of participation showed how interested people are in improving the community.”
Own the debate
But while online media can help form and unite communities, they can also create rifts. After an outpouring of positive public empowerment at the beginning of Tuscaloosa’s planning process, tensions have risen. Key business and property owners have spoken out against the proposed plan in recent city council meetings. Some have claimed that plans for sustainable development will come at the cost of private property rights.
For some, time spent dreaming up nontraditional redevelopment plans online is an excuse for more delays and continued loss of business. “People do not understand what the city's direction is,” says Tuscaloosa developer Stan Pate, who owns multiple buildings within the tornado-affected zone. “Dreams are free, but we're sitting out there watching time pass, and it's costing us money.”
This classic tension between rebuilding after a disaster as quickly and simply as possible, and using the opportunity to envision a better and stronger (and possibly very different) community, isn’t lessened by social media tools. However, social media does force this natural conflict to play out much more transparently, allowing more people on each side to take ownership of the debate. In urban planning, where disassociation with one’s built environment is an unparalleled killer of communities on par with any natural disaster, community ownership of whatever is rebuilt is a raw necessity.
Wichita sets up new website for transit service feedback
Wichita, Kansas The City of Wichita wants to know what you would like to see from the city's transit system, and it's launched a new website to get your input.
Over the summer, the Wichita City Council approved increased bus fares to help deal with the city's money trouble and keep Saturday service, which riders said they did not want to lose.
The city has set up the site WichitaTransitTalks.com, which it calls a virtual town hall on transit services. The city says it will use ideas and comments from the site, surveys and feedback from past meetings to come up with future ideas for transit service. Those scenarios will be presented to the public in January, and then to the city council for action in February or March.
The site also will include a reward system. Transit officials say, the more people weigh in, the more points they earn, and they will be able to win rewards. Officials say details on that will be announced later.
Bringing Los Angeles streets into the 21st century
Los Angeles, California The City of Los Angeles launched a virtual town hall last week to engage residents in a discussion about how to create an updated street plan that is not car-centric.
Rather than widening streets to make room for all users, a key goal is to create a layered network with streets that prioritize different modes of transit, said City Planner Claire Bowin. For example, one east to west street might accommodate cars, while another caters to bicyclists or buses. The revised Mobility Element, the main policy document for transportation goals and strategies, is also aimed at lowering carbon emissions by reducing the time cars spend idling in traffic and encouraging alternate modes of transportation, she said.
That's where the discussion comes in. Traditional public workshops typically attract older residents, she said, and the virtual town hall is aimed at soliciting feedback from wider slice of Angelenos. Participants will help the city decide what streets should be priority transit streets, and can offer other ideas and proposals for the updated plan, Bowin said.
Questions on the site, ideas.LA/2B.org, change every few weeks to target different issues. Current topics include how users primarily get around the city and how they hope to do so in the future, changes residents think would make streets work better, and the street that is most representative of Angelenos. Users can respond to the questions or "second" and improve others' ideas.
So far, the town hall seems to be working, she said. Though most of the respondents have been male, the majority fall in the 20 to 40 year-old bracket, a previously underrepresented group at public meetings.
The virtual discussion will last for six-months and will be rounded out with face-to-face town halls as well, with the goal of finalizing and adopting a plan in Spring 2014.
The city last created a transportation plan in 1999 and will keep the goals of The Complete Streets Act in mind when drafting the new plan, Bowin said. AB 1358, which passed in 2008 and took effect on Jan. 1, requires cities to move away from car-centric streets design networks in favor of those that are safe for a variety of transportation methods.
"If we have clogged streets, people don't have a way of getting around. It deters business and affects the quality of life," Bowin said. "We're rethinking how we have city streets and transportation designed to make it more livable in the 21st century."
The city also formed a task force to ensure feedback comes from number of stakeholders, including taxi drivers, pedestrian advocates and transit agencies. Members will meet every few months to discuss how the feedback from the virtual town hall relates to their own experiences and ensure their communities are involved in the conversation.
"Transportation is near and dear to our hearts. We're all users of it, whether we're walking or in car, we're all using our city streets so we want to make sure everyone is involved," she said.
High-Touch/High-Tech Charrettes
Getting El Paso talking on MindMixer
El Paso used a virtual town hall website — created by the Omaha company MindMixer — as part of its Plan El Paso comprehensive planning process. Looking at four small-area plans, including three sites for transit oriented development, the city and its consultant, Dover, Kohl & Partners, sought to create a citywide master plan for sustainable development.
Public outreach began six weeks before the June 2010 charrette. MindMixer and Dover Kohl promoted the website through fairly traditional means — a press release signed by a prominent official — and the University of Texas at El Paso's Communication Department also pushed the site address out to students via email.
As a result, the website attracted both high-quantity and high-quality participation: Thousands of participants offered great insight that otherwise would not have been possible.
During three two-week charrettes, the planning team talked to more than 1,200 studio visitors, meeting attendees, and hands-on participants. More than 35,000 people followed the project on its website or took part in online conversations and polling in the project's virtual town hall. Topics included transportation, public facilities, community health, sustainability, land use, economic development, housing, neighborhoods, and implementation.
One online participant complained that El Paso's new housing was "poorly designed" and asked the team to hire an architect to fix the problem. The team did just that. As a result, front porch homes with simple massing and context-sensitive local styles became a focus of subsequent workshops with local developers.
Discussions continued through the week-long charrette, where the public could access the MindMixer website, view the uploaded plans designed by the charrette team, and contribute their ideas and critiques in real time. Online discussion remained active for weeks after the charrette, allowing the team to glean information while generating subsequent reports and plans.
MindMixer's virtual town hall requires participants to sign in and provide their names and e-mail addresses. The lack of anonymity discourages negative, heated, and one-sided discussions. Ideas with only one supporting vote get ranked very low in the results of the virtual town hall's ongoing idea tally. Ideas with many "seconds" rise to the top of the list reviewed by the consultants, municipal staff, elected representatives, and general public review. The end result is a well-rounded conversation that represents many points of view.
Although El Paso's comprehensive plan will take some years to complete, the charrettes already have informed several ordinances that will improve the quality of the city's open spaces, street design, and neighborhood design. For example, the plan has included more than 22 square miles of illustrative plans showing areas targeted for form-based coding, new communities, infill sites, and new civic spaces. Several of these plans are currently under development.
"New development in El Paso is more likely to be safer, greener, denser, more diverse, more lively and — thanks in large part to MindMixer's virtual town hall — more informed by local ideas," said Jason King, AICP, project director for Dover, Kohl & Partners.
A New Kind of ROI: Using Social Media to Identify, Win and Execute City Planning Projects
Kansas City, Missouri When it was time to get down to business, it only seemed appropriate to turn again to social media to create the same rapid-fire interaction and response that would be needed to create community engagement at all levels. It was critical to gather input from the full community. At the beginning of the project, Bob Berkebile told the Tuscaloosa City Council that the process for constructing a plan to rebuild Tuscaloosa will require a “full, robust community dialogue. Allowing the whole community to be a part of the dialogue will contribute greatly to your success.”
Mindmixer, a crowdsourcing tool for community planning, was a logical fit to create an interactive environment for feedback and, ultimately, success. BNIM had previously teamed with Mindmixer on the Fargo Comprehensive Plan, Nashville Recovery Plan, and Kansas City Area Plans work, so the planning team knew what to expect and how to launch the site effectively.
MindMixer acts as a virtual town hall, allowing community conversations about the vision for the city to happen online 24 hours a day. At the onset, BNIM’s planning team identified themes that are common to livable and vibrant cities. These included infrastructure, housing and neighborhoods, sustainability, vision, economic development, streamline processes, partnerships and collaborations — and more.
When you visit the homepage of Tuscaloosa’s MindMixer site you are greeted with a message, “Welcome to the Tuscaloosa Forward MindMixer. Think of this site as an online town hall meeting. We're looking for practical, creative and resourceful ideas that will help rebuild this community”, along with a list of topics that are open for discussion.
The topics become portals to facilitate meaningful dialogue and input on topics that are valuable to each resident. As these ideas build on each other, they become cornerstones of the draft community plan. The first draft plan heavily quoted over 50 of the best ideas from the site and used the community’s exact words to support the many strategies being promoted in the plan. Not only did this make a direct connection from community participation to actual endorsed recommendations, it happened at a pace that built trust and transparency in the planning process.
The Tuscaloosa MindMixer site got an amazing response:
9,426 visits
74,562 pageviews
6:10 average time on site
275 original ideas
Online Community Collaboration Tool Brings Town Hall Meetings into the 21st Century
Town Hall meetings are a nice idea. Invite the community to share their opinions, and hopefully improve the local area based on their suggestions. Unfortunately, status and who-can-shout-the-loudest often creeps in to the process, rendering this supposedly democratic process anything but.
Enter MindMixer – a new organisation based in Omaha, Nebraska. Founded by a small team of urban planners that saw major problems with traditional town hall and charrette models, MindMixer.com allows users to submit ideas within a series of given topics like Transportation, Public Safety, or Community Vision. This idea then remains open for ‘support’ (think Facebook’s ‘like’ button for urban design) and feedback, with the comment system allowing for collaborative refining of ideas.
In order to incentivise users, MindMixer rewards points for submitting ideas, commenting, and receiving supports. Those with the most points score small civic rewards like bus passes, and ideas created within MindMixer that end up being implemented in the real city are proudly displayed.
MindMixer is currently partnered with Omaha, Burbank, Joplin, Tuscaloosa and Kansas City, with future US launches planned (and clear potential for global expansion). Hundreds of ideas have been submitted within MindMixer, including innovative public space concepts, enhancements to transportation networks, and creative new housing policies. The tool has also proven to be a particularly adept model in the disaster recovery efforts of Nashville, Tuscaloosa, and Joplin, in the aftermath of floods and tornados. And the city of Omaha recently made major adjustments to their city budget based on input from MindMixer – the first time in history an online civic engagement platform has been used to create a city budget.
For a web tool only a year old, MindMixer has seen some pretty impressive success stories. As the service expands across the US it will be interesting to see whether the traditional pitfalls of town hall meeting creep into the process. If not, MindMixer is an exciting service to keep an eye on, with a lot of potential for positive community engagement.
Planners seek traffic fixes via web forum
Flagstaff, Arizona Have you ever felt strongly about a local issue, but also reluctant to skip dinner, miss work, or possibly stay up until midnight to speak at a public meeting?
In Flagstaff, there's a website for that.
Urban planners are hoping online crowds can help them find the most viable solutions to resolve winter traffic jams that plague Highway 180, when skiers and sledders converge.
"We struggled with getting people to attend town hall meetings for a number of years," said Nathan Preheim, an urban planner and one of the developers behind MindMixer, a sort of online forum.
This is better, he thinks.
"We're just trying to use technology to break down barriers," he said.
Users on the site must give their names, and can vote ideas up or down, helping popular ones generate a critical mass.
The website also works in other languages.
Planners will later test out which suggestions could be viable, then plan to seek out funding and hold in-person public meetings this fall.
Some of the easier-to-implement ideas could ease traffic on the highway this winter. Plausible options could involve making a temporary center lane of travel, electronic billboards on Interstate 17 that note approximate traffic times on Highway 180, or shuttles, said Dave Wessel, of the Flagstaff Metropolitan Planning Organization, the city's traffic-planning agency.
One rough idea would involve signs that give sledders an idea of how long it would take them to reach town at 2 p.m., for example, when traffic is lighter, versus at 4 p.m., when traffic is heavy.
"We can reach people in Phoenix with this site, where a lot of our visitors wouldn't be able to weigh in with a public meeting," Wessel said.
Government-involved committees have met and discussed traffic on 180 for more than a decade now, only to have various participants state that their agencies don't have the time, staff, or money to address the volume of traffic and people.
Population growth in Phoenix is a big part of the story, keeping locals in Fort Valley home-bound and sometimes blocking in emergency response vehicles.
Maricopa County grew nearly 25 percent from 2000 to 2010, according to the U.S. Census.
Altogether, one estimate from the U.S. Forest Service counted 411,762 people coming here in winter 2009-10 to play in the snow -- and another survey guessed that another 313,184 could be added to that number.
Solutions Sought in Snowplay Traffic Congestion
Flagstaff, Arizona Do you have an idea that could improve winter traffic congestion along U.S. Highway 180 during the snow play and ski season?
The Flagstaff Metropolitan Planning Organization and HDR, Inc are developing a winter traffic congestion study. They have partnered with MindMixer to launch an extensive public outreach campaign to get Flagstaff residents to share ideas about ways to minimize congestion along U.S. Highway 180. On August 16, the Flagstaff Metropolitan Planning Organization will launchwww.us180wintertrafficstudy.com, a virtual town hall event that invites anyone in the community interested to submit practical, creative, and resourceful ideas for improving winter traffic congestion.
US180WinterTrafficStudy.com is powered by MindMixer, an innovative web application that allows the public to generate ideas, help others evolve their ideas, and ultimately support their favorite ideas. “It’s a great way to involve a larger number of citizens in the transportation planning process at their convenience, from the comforts of their own home,” said David Wessel, FMPO Manager. “It allows for those people unable to attend meetings to still provide their feedback on this important issue.”
Project ideas are sought in four topic areas:
- Community Impacts
- Traffic Solutions
- Economic Development
- Visitor Experience
“Winter traffic congestion is a big problem here in Flagstaff,” says Carl Taylor, Coconino County District One Supervisor “and we want as many people as possible involved in contributing ideas and offering constructive solutions.” Flagstaff Mayor, Sara Presler, echoes these sentiments and adds, “With residents and visitors attending this Virtual Town Hall, we can find the solutions that will allow us all to enjoy winter in Flagstaff even more.”
The Virtual Town Hall will go live on August 16th. Anyone interested in submitting project ideas can do so until the end of September. Users can submit as many ideas as they like. After submitting their ideas, users have the opportunity to help others improve their ideas, and ultimately the community will identify the best ideas through their support. You must be 14 years of age to participate. In addition, the site will be used for meeting announcements as well. The study will be concluded at the end of December 2011.
To submit ideas, go to: http://www.us180wintertrafficstudy.com/.
Burbank residents turn to Internet to voice ideas on master plan
Burbank, California Residents who have not been able to attend meetings to share ideas on Burbank long-range planning guide have instead turned to the Internet to be heard, officials say.
The online site for the Burbank 2035 master plan, burbanktownhall.com, has generated at least 2,050 visitors since it launched June 20, said Tracy Streinkruger, a senior planner in the city’s planning and transportation division.
“We have 115 registered users, and I expect many other persons have, at least, viewed the site but opted not to participate,” she said.
The average time visitors spend on the site is 6 minutes, 9 seconds, she added.
At least 110 ideas have been submitted, which have garnered more than 280 comments, Streinkruger said.
“Quite a contrast from those two persons or five persons who have showed up at our community meetings,” she said.
MindMixer infographic captures “state of cities’ ideas”
Omaha, Nebraska So we're sort of suckers for sweet infographics like this. But, come on, can you really blame us? I mean, just look at it.
This gem, courtesy of the team at MindMixer, shows the "state of the cities' ideas" for the month of July. In other words, in this illustration, MindMixer, an Omaha-based company that creates virtual town hall websites, captured all the ideas submitted by users on all its active sites last month. The graphic provides, as MindMixer CEO Nick Bowden said via email, "some insight into what's top of mind for citizens around the country. Pretty amazing stuff."
KCMO Launches Website to Improve the City
Kansas City, Missouri The interactive website allows public input from the convenience of home, office or anywhere else an Internet connection is available.
The City of Kansas City, Mo., wants to hear from residents, business owners, members of community organizations and anyone else interested in how to make Kansas City better. To facilitate the process, the City has launched KCmomentum.com, an interactive website that allows public input from the convenience of home, office or anywhere else an Internet connection is available.
The innovative website went live early Tuesday, Aug. 2. Since going live, many residents have discovered the site and are contributing ideas to improve the City.
"KCMomentum.com makes it possible for the City to hear from individuals who are busy with work, family and other commitments and find that attending a traditional public meeting is not possible," said Mayor Sly James. "I encourage everyone in the community with an Internet connection and a civic-minded heart to engage in the process. Give voice to your ideas - we're listening."
With 'Lee Listens' launch, MindMixer debuts first legislator-specific site
Omaha, Nebraska The expansion that the MindMixer team hinted was imminent when we checked in with them last month became official today, as U.S. Rep. Lee Terry, a Republican from Nebraska's second district, announced the launch of the website Lee Listens in collaboration with MindMixer.
Terry is the first legislator to have an individual page powered by MindMixer, an Omaha-based company that creates and manages virtual town halls. Until now, MindMixer has worked with cities and special causes, but the move to legislator-specific pages was always part of the company's plan, according to co-founder and CEO Nick Bowden.
"MindMixer was designed to be a way for elected officials to better connect, listen, and communicate with their constituents," said Bowden (left, photo from mindmixer.com), "so this new market is really an extension of that vision."
Terry's site has the same basic features and functionality as MindMixer's city- and cause-centric sites, but with different topics for discussion. Bowden said Terry's office expressed excitement over the site's ability to help the congressman communicate with his constituents in a town hall setting despite the physical distance separating them...
MindMixer revamps homepage, announces launch of seven more sites
Omaha, Nebraska When I reached out to Nick Bowden for a phone interview Thursday morning, the MindMixer co-founder and CEO was happy to oblige. But it soon became clear that Bowden's a busy man.
"Nathan (Preheim, MindMixer's co-founder and COO) and I are at a conference in Madison (Wis.) this whole week presenting the concept and showing people that it's out there," Bowden explained. "We were at a conference in Boston awhile back.
"There’s a lot of legwork that’s going into making people aware. Cities don’t tend to be proactively in the market for alternative technologies, so you’ve gotta kind of take it to them. And so, for us, it's a lot of legwork." (Below: Bowden, left, and Preheim. Photos from mindmixer.com.)
Fortunately for the MindMixer team, that legwork means their product will soon be popping up in far more cities than they are. On Thursday, MindMixer rolled out a revamped version of its website and announced the impending launch of seven new MindMixer city sites: Des Moines (for a regional planning effort); Norwalk, Iowa; Wichita, Kan.; Tuscaloosa, Ala. (for tornado recovery efforts); Burbank and Fullerton, Calif. and Federal Way, Wash...
Omaha debates budget in a virtual town hall
Omaha, NE Omaha residents have a lot to say about how the city spends its money. The budget is one issue that had Mayor Jim Suttle defending his position in a recall election earlier this year. Omaha residents now have a new place to discuss their budget opinions - at a website called EngageOmaha.com that mixes social media with public debate. Ideas range from establishing free wireless Internet downtown to supporting After School and Summer School programs - currently the most popular idea...
The Three Startups You Must Know From Big Omaha
Nebraska. The land of steak and cornhuskers is, for a small but passionate and fast growing community, also a land of start-ups. In the last few years, the Silicon Prarie has gone from basically no venture backed start-ups to a couple dozen pioneers who are starting to make waves in the Midwest and beyond. The ranks of attendees at the Big Omaha conference are thick with these companies, but here are three you won’t be able to ignore for long.
MindMixer: People care about the issues that impact their lives, from local schools to crime to property taxes and beyond. Unfortunately, the model of civic participation in America is still anchored in community meetings that require busy people from diverse locations to convene in one space at one time, and wade through lots of issues they may not care about to get to those they do. MindMixer updates that model by giving city officials and citizens a platform where they can come together anytime, from anywhere, to discuss and aggregate ideas around the most important topics affecting their community. After a successful prototype in Omaha, the company, which has seed funding from local venture firm Dundee Capital, has signed up more than a dozen new cities around the country.
