Granicus Expands its Civic Engagement Solution with New Features & New Customers

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We’re watching interest in online community collaboration explode within the government sector. Public agencies want to have more in-depth and meaningful dialogues with their citizens online, but traditional social media isn’t solving this problem.

San Francisco, CA (PRWEB) August 16, 2012

Granicus, the leading provider of cloud-based technologies for government transparency and citizen engagement, today announced the release of new features that will enable its Citizen Participation Suite users to better collect and analyze feedback from their community. These features are part of the company’s initiative to rapidly innovate and evolve its Citizen Participation Suite product line over the next several months to accommodate its quickly growing user base.

Since Granicus announced major enhancements to the product five months ago with the addition of CivicIdeas™, nearly 100 new government agencies have adopted the solution to help them better connect and collaborate with their community online, including the City of North Port, FL, the Flood Control District of Maricopa, AZ, Hennepin County, MN, Edina, MN, Raleigh, NC, Fort Lauderdale, FL, and the Metropolitan Council, MN.

“It’s an exciting time for us – we’re watching interest in online community collaboration explode within the government sector. Public agencies want to have more in-depth and meaningful dialogues with their citizens online, but traditional social media isn’t solving this problem. Granicus is focused on architecting the right combination of crowdsourcing and other civic engagement tools to make social collaboration work for government,” said Tom Spengler, CEO and Co-Founder of Granicus. “We want to deliver effective new ways for government to productively engage the public at every stage of their process—from the inception of an idea, until a plan is formalized and deliberated in a public meeting. Since we have over a decade of experience helping public agencies govern more effectively online, Granicus is in a powerful position to do this better than anyone else,” added Spengler.

The new features introduced by Granicus today will help government staff members facilitate more productive discussions with members of the public:

•     Discussion Analytics - Quickly analyze public feedback with easy-to-use tools including geo-coding, word tags, and demographic filters. These tools help government agencies understand where community feedback is coming from and what topics mean the most to them. This insight can help drive better government decisions and actions.
•     Projects - The new projects feature combines three powerful community engagement tools into a simple package for community planners. Governments can educate their community about upcoming projects and allow for public input online through idea forums, discussions, and surveys—all for a single project.
•     eComment - Granicus also upgraded the usability and design of its flagship citizen participation tool called eComment. Now, Citizen Participation Suite users have an easier way to solicit participation in their public meetings using a “Feedback” widget on their website. This widget simplifies participation by allowing citizens to comment on upcoming meeting agenda items electronically before the meeting, through video or text, instead of attending the meeting in person. Current eComment users will have access to these upgrades for free.

The Citizen Participation Suite conveniently packages all Granicus’ public engagement tools into a single solution. It’s designed to streamline community collaboration workflows by simplifying how agencies manage and measure large volumes of citizen requests and inquiries related to projects, plans, and public meeting agenda items. As a result, it’s proven to make the process more productive and cost-effective.

Resources:

•      Read more about this announcement: Digital Community Collaboration Becomes All-in-One Tool
•     Learn more about the civic engagement with Granicus by clicking here
•     Discover why governments are rapidly adopting online collaboration: The Future of Public Engagement

About Granicus
Granicus, Inc. is the award-winning cloud platform provider for government transparency, efficiency, and citizen participation. It offers the first cloud platform and product suites designed specifically to help government agencies establish meaningful connections with citizens while reducing operational costs. Granicus has been recognized the past four years for being one of the fastest growing company private companies in the U.S., San Francisco, and the Silicon Valley by Deloitte LLP, the San Francisco Business Times, and Inc. Magazine.

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