October 1, 2009 By Andy Opsahl
New York City CIO Paul Cosgrave
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced today his Connected City Initiative, a host of IT projects designed to make citizen interaction with local government easier and more Web-centric. The New York city Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications (DoITT) will administrate most of the projects.
The mayor premiered a new iPhone application enabling citizens to submit certain types of 311 complaints from the Apple phones and to attach pictures to those submissions. The iPhone component expands upon a 311 Web interface that New York introduced last July. The updated version taps the iPhone's GPS system to tell the city exactly where the user was when he or she sent the complaint. Citizens can override that and manually enter the location if they're no longer standing in the location of what they're reporting. The application requests the citizen's e-mail address to offer an update after the situation has been resolved, but that is optional.
"We like to follow up with the user and let them know their complaint has been e-mailed," said Paul Cosgrave, commissioner of DoITT.
The agency plans to offer more 311 services online. Currently only half of the city's 311 offerings are accessible on the Web. New York also plans to disseminate more 311-related data on social networks, like Twitter, and to answer more questions on social networks as well. DoITT plans to help develop neighborhood wiki sites for citizens to share technology ideas for solving various New York-related problems.
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Based off of discussions of the Digital Communities Large Jurisdiction Chief Information Officer (CIO) Working Group, this white paper aims to answer the question, "In today's economic, political and business environment, what constitutes a successful relationship between government and industry?" Cause for Optimism identifies and clarifies the issues that separate government and industry, and begins to find an answer to the question necessary for both to enjoy a successful and prosperous future.
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