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Justin Holmes, Director of Constituent Engagement at Office of Mayor Thomas M. Menino:
My name is Justin Holmes. I work for the City of Boston, and it’s a privilege to work
for Mayor Tom Menino as his Director of Constituent Engagement. We manage several communication
channels for our constituents that make a promise of delivering response of service
to our residents.
So our Mayor’s been in office for about 19 years in Boston. Since his first day in
office he’s been called an “Urban Mechanic”. That is someone who is focused on issues that
are important to city residents. Things like making sure potholes get filled, the graffiti
gets cleaned up, the street lights are on and working.
His most recent term in office, when he was reelected to his fifth term, he talked about
how we’re in a state in Boston, in our country, and in our world where technology really can
empower all of our citizens in Boston to be “Urban Mechanics” using things like smart
phones and that type of technology. So that really led us to develop in 2009 our “Citizens
Connect” application, which was really the first of it’s kind at the time. And it really
empowers citizens to simply use their smart phones to make their city and their neighborhoods
a better place to live by simply reporting the issues they see around them and using
crowdsourcing we’re able to better direct city resources in those areas that are most
in need. So it’s really the Mayor’s vision along with the willingness, and the energy,
and the engagement of our residents of Boston, and the technology that’s powered both by
our partners and by KANA that allow us to deliver a more responsive government using
really great innovative technology in the City of Boston.
In the City of Boston we receive about 700 telephone calls each and every day to our
24-hour call center. And really our effort, our goal is to provide a high level of service,
personal service, to our constituents. So, unlike some corporate call centers, when you
call the Mayor’s hotline in Boston at 617-635-4500 you get a live agent to answer you call within
30 seconds, and that personal level of service and attention is incredibly important to us.
And not only that, if you contact us using our IPhone application, which is called Boston
Citizens Connect, or you reach us through our website at CityofBoston.gov you get the
same level of responsiveness to the issues you’re concerned about the Mayor’s most
concerned about.
It’s really been a pleasure for us in Boston to be KANA customers since about 2007 or so
when we went live. And really we were fortunate in Boston because we always had a very dedicated
group of individuals in Boston that provided good constituent services. Both those folks
who work for our public works, parks and transportation department, and those folks that work in our
call center, answering calls from constituents. But before we worked with KANA and with the
Lagan software product we really didn’t have a connection between those two agencies.
Between those folks that were delivering service on the front lines of city government and
those folks who are on the backend delivering our services, fixing our street lights, and
repairing our potholes. So really through our partnership with KANA and Lagan, we’ve
been able to close that loop and to provide that guaranteed level of response of government
to the citizens of the City of Boston.
A few years ago after we were successful in developing an app for our constituents we
turned to our city employees. Those folks who were out on the road each and every day
delivering service to constituents in Boston. What we determined is we really needed a tool
that would allow them to stay on the road, stay doing their work. Again things like filling
potholes, and fixing streetlights and allow them to more easily access constituent reports.
So we developed an app in 2011 called, “City Worker”, and what that really guarantees
is a high level of responsiveness to our constituents so the Public Works employees, Parks employees,
and pretty soon transportation employees can respond to service requests while they’re
out in the field read on an Android device we’ve given them. So pretty soon we hope
that the service in Boston will be as seamless as you taking a photo on your IPhone or calling
our call center and that direct request gets routed directly to a responsive employee who’s
already out in the field on their Android device, and within hours be able to respond
to your city service. And we’re already seeing a lot of evidence of that happening
in Boston. Really the introduction of mobility is not just totally changing the way the government
operates in Boston but really changing people’s notion of government and government responds
to citizen request.