Civic apps connect neighborhoods, city governments

Shoulder surgery had left Marilyn Bravo, a 65-year-old Jamaica Plain resident, unable to lift more than a gallon of milk this winter. So when the record-breaking snowstorms hit, she planned to look for help shoveling out her car.

Bravo posted a request for help on a website called “SnowCrew,” whichconnects people who need shoveling help with able-bodied volunteerscalled “Yetis.” About an hour later, a strapping stranger named James was at her door, shovel in hand.

“I was never so happy to see anyone in my life,” Bravo remembers. “And later I said to him, ‘You just have no idea what this means to me, you know. This is my freedom. I can get out of the house.’” James returned to help Bravo with two bouts of shoveling this season.

SnowCrew is an app built by New Haven company SeeClickFix, and it’s one of a growing number of websites, databases, and phone apps being developed to encourage civic engagement and connectivity between neighbors. They’re now serving as the digital equivalent of a neighborhood meeting or virtual Town Hall.

Launched in 2008, SeeClickFix has developed a suite of apps for city governments that work as tools to collect and track city maintenance requests; if a resident spots a problem, they can report it easily by uploading a photograph of the issue. This month, as the East Coast has begun to thaw, the company has seen a spike in usage, and last week it reported its most active week ever, with more than 10,000 issues logged — requests ranging from pothole repairs to streetlamps where bulbs have blown out.

Another civic app connecting the public online is Nextdoor, which is essentially a private social network where neighbors can post notices about a lost pet, or ask for suggestions for contractors. Since launching in 2011, the San Francisco-based site has expanded to more than 53,000 neighborhoods, and this month Nextdoor announced that it had raised $110 million in funding from investors including Greylock Partners, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, and Comcast Ventures.

“They’ve proven themselves to be quite popular and quite useful,” Mitch Weiss said of the apps. Weiss, who was Mayor Thomas Menino’s chief of staff and played a key role in the 2009 launch of the city of Boston’s own fix-it app, called Citizens Connect, developed by the Office of the New Urban Mechanics.

“They also have a grander possibility,” he added. Weiss, who now teaches cases on civic entrepreneurship and technology as a lecturer at the Harvard Business School, said these apps can be the first step towards building a trust between residents and their elected officials. Today, the discussion may be about potholes, but they could fuel a future dialogue about urban education or public safety, he said.

After seeing the success of Citizens Connect in the city of Boston, SeeClickFix was contracted by the State of Massachusetts in 2012 to build a state-wide app called Commonwealth Connect. It’s now active in more than 40 neighborhoods around the state.

“I started this as a citizen advocating for change in my neighborhood,” said SeeClickFix founder Ben Berkowitz. “I was thinking about this as a way to document problems, I wasn’t even sure it was going to solve problems.”

Mark Slater, a Bay Village resident who launched the Nextdoor website for his neighborhood, describes the service as “the electronic version of the village square.” “If somebody noticed there car was unlocked or graffiti somewhere, they’d go to the president,” Slater said. “This was all stuff that could have gone directly neighbor to neighbor.”

While apps like SeeClickFix and Nextdoor are peaking in usage, law enforcement and city governments are also trying to figure out how to best use them.

The Billerica police department has been using Nextdoor since August 2013, and Lieutenant Greg Katz, who works on public safety technology at the department, said he believes it has played a role in bringing crime to the lowest ever rate in 2014. One in five Billerica families use the site.

What made the difference? “I think it’s awareness and the ability to communicate with the neighbors and share information, it really kind of pulls on that tendency to get into a complacency mindset,” he said. “Social media in general has a really big impact on crime prevention.”

To join a Nextdoor site, new residents must register with a verifiable local address. Nextdoor’s policies also limit the amount of lurking law enforcement can do on the site, meaning Katz can’t read posts between neighbors. But the department can use it to broadcast updates and information.

“We know the audience we speak to,” he said. That’s what sets it apart from services like Twitter, where the Billerica PD has more than 13,900 followers. On Nextdoor, said Katz, “We know when we send something out to the neighborhood, it’s the residents within the area that are reading it,” and no one else, he said.

Business's started -Openbay,Chef Nightly,Luxe Valet

Cambridge-based Openbay, 

a startup trying to improve the car maintenance industry, announced today that it will allow users to pay for car repairs using Apple Pay.

Openbay is an online service and mobile application that allows customers to input the problem they are having with their car and get competitive offers from surrounding auto repair shops for service. Users can both book and pay for the maintenance through Openbay’s online dashboard.

By adding the Apple Pay option to its mobile app, Openbay makes it that much easier for customers to pay for auto repairs, even if the maintenance shop doesn’t use Apple Pay in its point-of-sale units.

Chef Nightly 

Will provide pointers to the most popular restaurants and dishes in your neighborhood, based on actual orders..

Luxe Valet

A blue-jacketed valet who'll take your keys and park your car. The San Francisco startup Luxe Valet, which recently raised $20 million in fresh funding, hopes to be up and running in Boston in time for Opening Day at Fenway Park 

7 Critical Skills That Predict Success

What skills do you really need to succeed? In school, they taught us history and algebra and if we got good SAT scores they said we'd succeed. But are those the skills we really need? Developmental psychologist Susan Engel researched the skills that actually predicted success. I'll give you a hint--differential calculus isn't on the list. Here are the 7 skills that are critical for success.

1. Reading.

Of course, you can read. If you couldn't you wouldn't be reading this. Engel defines reading as follows: "It means having the ability to read an essay or book and understand it well enough to use the information in some practical way or to talk about it with another person."

I'd like to ask a different question: Do you read? Do you apply what you've learned? Share it with others? People who read fiction, for instance, are more empathetic. That empathy can certainly help you be a better boss.

2. Inquiry.

If you're running a startup, you probably already have this skill down. After all, the purpose of every startup is to either solve a problem that exists or convince people that they have a problem so you can sell them the solution. But, the question is, do you allow your employees the same level of inquiry?

Are ideas encouraged? If they are, are they encouraged at all levels of your work force, or are they welcomed just from your senior team? The process of inquiry is the process that will lead your company to success. Keep asking those questions.

3. Flexible thinking and the use of evidence.

Sometimes we get focused on the solution we think is right, and we forget that there are many different angles for looking at each problem. When I taught political science courses, I'd have students write a persuasive essay on a controversial subject. Then, I'd have them write a second essay arguing the opposing viewpoint. There's a good chance you had a professor that required the same, but do you do this now?

Have you really looked at your decisions from all sides? Are you looking at evidence or are you rejecting anything that doesn't back up your predetermined conclusion? And when you find new evidence, you need to change your course of action.

4. Conversation.

Engel identifies conversation as a way that children gain not only the ability to communicate, but also pegs it as a way that children actually learn. "Children living in poverty are much less likely to hear and be part of such rich exchanges at home," Engel says. Have you put yourself into such an environment? Not that you aren't speaking with your colleagues daily. Of course you are. But, are you having rich conversations about a variety of subjects that expands your mind? If you're hyper-focused on your business, you just may have given up the conversations that can actually help you.

5. Collaboration.

Are you working together with others, or simply directing their work? Some people are natural-born collaborators and others of us prefer to sit alone. While the idea of the lone genius is interesting enough, you'll find yourself better off if you work in a collaborative mode.

6. Engagement.

How successful are you on a project that you hate and wish you could avoid? Not very, right? Do you have enough of interest going on that you can "immerse" yourself in work? Is there something that excites you?

What about your team? Are you making sure that employee engagement is high on your list of priorities? Because your company's success isn't just dependent on your engagement but on the engagement of your employees.

7. Well-being.

Remember, you're a human and your employees are human as well. It's critical to know if you and they are happy. And if you're not happy? It's time to change that. The children that Engel studies don't have a great deal of freedom in their own lives (after all, they are children), but you do. If things are not working out for you, you can change what you are doing.

Some circumstances we're stuck with. If you have a chronic health problem, it's not like you can just wake up one morning and say, "I'm not going to be sick anymore." But, you can choose your friends, your job, your method for getting to work, what you read, what you watch on television, and how you treat your dry cleaner. If you're not in a state of happiness, the best thing to do is to start making some changes.

Why field services is the next frontier for mobile apps

by  Heather Clancy  @GreenTechLady  MARCH 10, 2015, 11:50 AM EDT

More than 80% of the U.S. workforce never sits at a desk. That’s why there are more than 400 early-stage startups working on solutions.

Cloud software company ServiceMax is gaining some heavy-hitter board members this week. That’s drawing new attention to technology for automating field services, especially mobile applications for overhauling inefficient processes.

The appointments, disclosed Monday by Re/code and set to be announced later this week, include former Jive Software CEO Tony Zingale (who used to work with ServiceMax CEO David Yarnold at Clarify Software) and former Epiphany Software CEO Roger Siboni.

ServiceMax specializes in software that automates tasks and processes for service technicians, delivery teams and other field workers that spend very little time at a desk. That’s roughly 20 million people globally, in field services alone. If you include occupations in healthcare, manufacturing and other industries, those desk-less workers add up to an estimated 80% of the U.S. workforce. In January, the company released its first native app for Android devices (it already supports one for iPad and iPhone).

“Being ‘field-ready’ means making sure technicians have access to the people, the processes, the systems, and the data they need to do their job at all times, and that’s what we deliver with our mobile applications,” Yarnold said.

Over the course of its existence, ServiceMax has raised $120 million in venture financing. Its last round was a $71 million Series E led by Meritech Capital. Other investors include Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, and Emergence Capital Partners, one of the venture capital firms backing Box. One story line suggests that the appointments point to an initial public offering in the near future.

Field services software and other industry-specific applications that “democratize access” to technology are a big focus for Emergence’s new, oversubscribed $335 million enterprise cloud venture fund, according to general partner Kevin Spain, with whom I chatted last week.

The firm tracks at least 400 early stage companies that are building mobile-first apps for healthcare, retail, agriculture, construction and other industries where most people are constantly on the go, he said. The potential market size for transforming processes far away from desks? Up to $100 billion, estimates Spain. “Mobile devices are making entirely new app categories possible,” he said. “This is a greenfield opportunity.”

Here are three existing Emergence portfolio companies building practical field apps:

Augmedix, which is building applications for doctors that use Google’s SmartGlass technology to collect patient data. (It has raised approximately $23 million.)
Doximity, a secure messaging app that counts at least half of U.S. doctors as registered users. (Its reported total funding is about $82 million.)
Handshake, a developer seeking to bring wholesale trade into the digital age. (So far, it is supported by $8 million in Series A funding.)
Another example comes from Kofax, which develops electronic signature software and other workflow applications. This week, it introduced mobile technology that uses photos of passports, driver’s licenses or national identity cards to initiate processes—such as opening a bank account.

“As customers demand to interact with businesses through their mobile devices, companies must respond by creating mobile applications or mobile web experiences that reduce customer friction at the start of the relationship,” wrote Sheryl King, research director of Yankee Group/451 Research, in a recent report.

Opportunities with connected car

The connected car is equipped with Internet connections and software that allow people to stream music, look up movie times, be alerted of traffic and weather conditions, and even power driving-assistance services such as self-parking.

By 2020, BI Intelligenceestimates, 75 percent of cars shipped globally will be built with the necessary hardware to connect to the Internet.

In a new report from BI Intelligence, we take a deep dive into the connected-car market. We size the market for connected cars, determine the average selling price and how it will decline over time, and assess different manufacturers’ approaches.

Here are some of the key takeaways from the report:

• The connected-car market is growing at a five-year compound annual growth rate of 45 percent — 10 times as fast as the overall car market. We expect that 75 percent of the estimated 92 million cars shipped globally in 2020 will be built with Internet-connection hardware.