This is just a quick up date on something tweeted about at the beginning of the week. 
I’ve lived in Boston’s South End since 2003. One of the things that makes this neighborhood special is the feeling of community. My neighbors are a diverse group from all sorts of socioeconomic, demographic, and political backgrounds. One thing we all have in common is an affinity and sense of ownership of our neighborhood. The City of Boston has just launched an iPhone app to allow citizens to report anything from Graffiti to a pothole. The app takes advantage of two key features the phone’s camera and geotagging.
The process is simple identify the problem, take a picture, record a comment and submit. You don’t have to find the correct department, make a call, go through a phone tree, file the issue, and so on. I submitted a report on a streetlight that needed to be fixed while on my way to the grocery store on Tuesday evening. I recieved the following confirmation by email:
I thought to myself, cool they get the report, hope it gets fixed. Within an hour I got a call from the Department that handles street light issues. The gentleman on the other end of the line had the classic Boston accent, he wanted to confirm the report, location, and type of light pole. “Ya see, up till two weeks ago we were using papah and pencil, I’m not so good with computahs”, awesome thought I. Here is a guy from the city calling me back to confirm the report, get more detailed information to expedite the issue and all after 8PM.
Today I got this in the inbox:
Government workers and Government in general get a bad rap, sometimes for good reason, but here is a case where they should be commended. Taxpayers deserve good services and the City has delivered in more than one way. They created an easy way to report problems, and let constituents know there concerns are being heard and problems resolved. What a good lesson for people in the real estate business to follow.
robertmbyrne 