Blog

While most of the country has been enjoying beautiful weather, we have been having a blizzard of activity at DotGov.  In keeping with our monthly tradition, February has been another solid month of releases and updates.

One of the important updates we rolled out this month was the ability to reload your map feeds within the admin.  We published our update frequencies recently to help you understand how often we pull new information from your map feeds. However, there are times when you want to make a change to a Google Map for example, and would like to see those changes reflected in real-time.  So we added the “Reload” button to help you do just that.

We made several performance changes to our databases.  This should make the admin area even faster and smoother than before.

We added CSV and XML import support for maps.  We also added custom XML fields to our maps modules as well. Both open data formats allow you to simply upload a file with address information, for instance with school locations or city facilities, which is automatically converted into a map.  Don’t need GIS skills required to push your maps to YouTown!

CSV upload functionality was added to our Events module.  You can also simply link to a CSV file that is hosted online.  This will be great for organizations that utilize Trumba or Google Calendar.  Publishing a public CSV link is easy to do with many online calendar applications.

We are getting closer to launching push notifications!  We have been testing this feature and as always, are still interested in hearing your feedback.  If you have any ideas as to how you want push notification implemented, please let us know!

DotGov is proud to partner with the Keep Kids Alive Drive 25 program!

Hundreds of agencies are learning how they can make neighborhoods safer for our kids through the efforts of the Keep Kids Alive Drive 25 organization.  An now, these agencies can  add news, events, and even maps about their “KKAD25″ campaign and push them out to their citizens’ mobile devices.

I landed in Newark, NJ early this month to meet with cities and county folks.  It was one of those trips that just ended way to quickly.  Morris County, New Jersey has been a part of the DotGov family since the beginning.  Carol Spencer, the webmaster there at the county, was a beta tester and has always been one of those people we could rely on for insightful feedback and useful suggestions.  She is always trying to bend technology to make it do what she needs done.

Carol has been using DotGov’s free YouTown application for a variety of purposes like publishing services, maps and news.  What is also really remarkable is how she has been using the application in emergencies.  When Hurricane Irene came knocking on their door earlier this year, Carol needed a way she could push information, especially spatial information, out to the public and to agency personnel.  She launched a revolutionary program in Morris County called McUrgant.  McUrgant is Shared Emergency Information Network  that is set up managed by the county but is available for all the dozens of municipal and local agencies in the county.  Talk about shared services!  The county conducts training for the cities –which is why I was there.

Carol asked me to speak briefly after one of her training meetings about YouTown.  It was great to share our company story with so many folks who had already heard about or were using YouTown, but had never met any of us from the team.  As always, the feedback, the questions, and yes, the feature suggestions were all great and I can’t wait to get back already.

As if the first meeting wasn’t productive enough, Carol had me meet with members from the Morris County GIS team.  Steve and Janice helped me understand even better, how critical it is for us as a company to focus on creating technology that fits the role of the professional, and not just strictly the data format.  So context really matters and we want to translate that lesson into better tools for our users.

My final day was spent with an unruly bunch of webmasters from around the region.  I say unruly because Carol was quick to let me know that they were pretty laid back.  I found them to be a delightful bunch.  She was right, they were pretty relaxed, but the questions, the discussions…they just kept coming.  Thank goodness I took good notes!  From this group, I was reminded of how true it can be that one agency not far from another, can be at two very different locations on the technology timeline but can still have exactly the same needs.   For example, it doesn’t matter if you have a GIS department or if you don’t even own GIS software.  Chances are you are trying to figure out how to do what Ushahidi does.   Speaking of Ushahidi, I enjoyed taking off my DotGov hat and putting on my dusty Crisis Mapper hat (it is actually a grey fedora to be precise) and talking about the power of the Ushahidi and crowd-sourcing opportunities out there.

Thanks Carol and Jamie for the warm hospitality and seemingly unlimited supply of great discussions and laughs. It was a trip that ended too quickly and I can’t wait to return. Next stop on my Tour of The DotGovs – Texas!

You’ve got calendars, schedules, directories, and other event-related information for your agency — and naturally, it’s a top priority to provide citizens with efficient access to this data.  YouTown has integrated support for Events feeds, but we noticed that some agencies have trouble getting their event information out in the iCalendar format, while others have been seeking a solution that allows them to easily manage and combine several event calendars for their website.  But now we have good news for all agencies that want to take control of their online and mobile community calendars.

Trumba,  a Seattle-based web calendar solution provider, and YouTown will be working together to make the publishing of event information — both online AND mobile — easier than ever.

Governments that use Trumba to power their web calendars will now enjoy the convenience of having that information automatically pushed through their YouTown account, disseminating it to citizens in a mobile format.  This will make it easier for residents to access their local events, schedules, directories, and other info via the web or their mobile device, while requiring less effort on the part of gov agencies who are utilizing both Trumba and YouTown.  Employees may also benefit by having mobile access to their agency’s event information.

The city of Seattle already uses Trumba’s online calendar solution which is seamlessly embedded in their events webpage. Take a look: http://seattle.gov/calendar/default.htm

This new partnership will save you time and effort by creating seamless communication between your ONLINE calendars and your MOBILE calendars.  We’re embracing the opportunity to work in conjunction with Trumba, making it easier for you to keep your residents and visitors up-to-date on community happenings.

Dan Hickman, CEO at Trumba, explains that mobile calendars are essential for a public that is coming to expect on-the-go access to all their information (including local events).  ”Calendars represent critical time-sensitive information that is constantly changing from day to day, making it important to provide quick and easy access on the go,” he said.  Dan expects the partnership with YouTown to benefit Trumba’s customers as well, for agencies that want to “go mobile,” but not just for calendaring.  ”They want a mobile app that gives a complete picture of their organization where events are just part of the puzzle,” he explained.  ”Partnering with YouTown provides a complete solution that integrates calendars alongside other important community information.”

Both Trumba and YouTown provide an interactive avenue for engaging the public, a strong focus within many agencies striving for open and accessible government.  The partnership will be welcome news for cities and counties seeking efficient and effective connection with citizens.

Oklahoma.  Land of sweeping winds, tornadoes, and . . . earthquakes?  The state usually experiences about 50 small-scale quakes each year (rarely felt by anyone), but that number has increased dramatically this past year, to over 1,000 temblors.  Huffington Post reported on Saturday’s unusual 5.6-magnitude earthquake, centered about 44 miles northeast of Oklahoma City, that surprised many Oklahomans and left them with a few damaged roads and structures.  It was the state’s strongest recorded quake ever.  The aftershocks have continued through the morning, one of the latest being a 3.3-magnitude temblor 10 miles northeast of the City of Shawnee.

Shawnee has taken an active role in keeping citizens informed about earthquake damage in the area, and providing contact info where citizens can report damages.  The City is also using the YouTown app to keep a location-based record of quakes with magnitudes greater than 2.5 throughout Oklahoma in the past 7 days.  The record appears as a map pinpointing the location of each temblor.  Tapping a specific point gives access to further info: the quake’s magnitude, exact location, date and time.  The map refreshes occasionally to provide a real-time resource for Oklahomans and other folks wishing to keep track of exactly what’s going on with the state’s strange earthquake uptick.

The City of Shawnee has been one of the most creative users of YouTown Maps.  The earthquake map is another example of how any data feed can be transformed through YouTown into usable information that’s easily accessible to the public.

Shawnee Incident Map

On October 26th of 2011, I had the opportunity to assist in a presentation about Youtown, the mobile app the City of Shawnee is currently testing / deploying for one of our mobile solutions as well as sit in on a meeting later that evening about a major website redesign project the City of Oklahoma City has underway. Interesting and informative day.

The presentation audience were government entities, primarily State Agencies and Libraries, from across Oklahoma attending the annual Oklahoma State Webmanagers Group (OSWG) – See #OSWG hashtag on Twitter or the OSWG Website for more information. Although I did not attend many sessions due to presentation coordination and planning time on site, both Governor Mary Fallin and Oklahoma State CIO Alex Pettit were keynote speakers at the conference.

The presentation went well with DotGov Inc/YouTown’s Director of Government Operations Sid Burgess leading off the discussion about the history behind the app, and an overview of the company. Sid has been a local Gov 2.0 advocate in Oklahoma City for several years and was the brains behind the past Oklahoma Gov2.0a (applied) forums that brought in Open Government and social media experts from across the nation for presentations, City Camps, and discussions. Sid is moving to Seattle to run the DotGov offices the end of October 2011. He will be missed greatly by many in the OKC and beyond area.

Derrick Silas, Web Communications Development/Social Media Specialist from Enid continued with their involvement in the YouTown Beta test run, why they chose YouTown and how to setup various features of the app from the dashboard control. Derrick is deeply involved in the re-branding of the City of Enid and their use in Social Media and Mobile access and helped to bring YouTown to the forefront for Oklahoma cities.

I then discussed the news feeds, the ability to repackage existing data from your existing RSS feeds and the mapping options with emphasis on how we at the City of Shawnee are generating dynamic KML maps of all the various data feeds we have such as CAD Calls, nuisance properties, Police Incidents, etc. We appear to be the only YouTown user of the 300+ cities participating in the app that are currently doing this dynamically. However, we are lacking in general GIS maps such as zoning, water and sewer lines, etc as this information needs to come from the proper department in either SHP or KML formats to be utilized.

Although the audience were not City or Town based, DotGov plans to rebrand the app as simply DotGov or DotGov Mobile and market up the layers of government as they have done in other parts of the world. This provides the ability for a single app to aggregate news/events/mapping and service feeds for end users in a single app solution if desired. There are challenges, but acceptance at the City level has surpassed their expectations and projections to date.

If you haven’t already, you should download the YouTown app in the App store for Apple devices or the market for Android devices. We will have a story in the Shawnee Outlook Magazine in the near future that will be timed with a press release and official publication of the YouTown app as well as our City of Shawnee Mobile Website.

I also had a long lunch and coffee with Sid discussing the YouTown app, DotGov’s future plans, and a City’s needs and limitations, resources, etc as well as some technical features behind our data. DotGov is also working towards Open Data standards in government services and data that can allow better data exchange and more transparent government. I believe there will be a long term relationship working with DotGov and all their customers to help explore the directions of DotGov and the needs of Cities similar to ours and to help continue to improve the solutions helping Cities, Towns, County’s and State’s deliver needed information to our citizens.

Long-awaited and eagerly anticipated, the latest version of the YouTown app is available for download in the Android Market!

Now you Google-folk can access your local government news, maps, events, and services from your Android-powered devices!

  Download YouTown!     

Not using Android OR iOS?  Never fear.  Blackberry and mobile web versions of YouTown are coming soon . . .

All of our apps can be downloaded on our Apps page – http://youtown.com/apps