Loomio
Wed 14 Oct 2015 1:31PM

Submission 2: Barq Communication Platform

SR Shadrock Roberts Public Seen by 261

If neighborhood watch and twitter had a baby it would be Barq. Barq is a communication platform. It connects people in a community together and also connects citizens with public safety. People that use Barq submit dangers, what we call barqs, which they see in their community, ranging from flooded paths to suspicious people. This information is made available to the rest of the community, which helps with prevention of safety issues and provides meaningful information to public safety.

While the benefits are many with Barq, one key purpose it serves is to give people in the community a channel to communicate with government and for government to communicate back. There is a secondary purpose that can also be served and that is when a true crisis happens. If we go back to the floods that occurred here in Boulder, if the community was using Barq, critical information could have been communicated amongst people in the community as well as public safety officials.

The largest challenge for Barq will be user adoption as it is only an effective resource if it is used to report real and meaningful information on a regular basis throughout a community. Also, it will be important for public safety to embrace the tool for the added value of the data received as well as so that citizens feel heard by government. To achieve these goals, budget will need to be spent on marketing to citizens. The other large source of cost will be in user experience design of the mobile app and enterprise solution as ease of use will be key to adoption. Lastly, a government agency that can be responsive and listen to feedback will need to be identified.

SR

Poll Created Wed 14 Oct 2015 1:32PM

Submission 2: Barq communication platform Closed Sun 18 Oct 2015 5:07AM

Will this idea improve resilience in Boulder or strengthen citizen engagement?

Results

Results Option % of points Voters
Agree 72.2% 13 VA SJ SA BR SN AT TS AG KK SDC JV DU BP
Abstain 11.1% 2 JZ SR
Disagree 16.7% 3 GM AT PW
Block 0.0% 0  
Undecided 0% 28 AOL ER MH SB RS BK RR SC KH ES RH GH DP MT JF JD RH MV JM MB

18 of 46 people have participated (39%)

PW

Page Weil
Disagree
Wed 14 Oct 2015 2:05PM

There is a distinct lack of partners with this app. The marketing and adoption may take more budget than the app development itself

BR

Brandon Reid
Agree
Wed 14 Oct 2015 6:20PM

Engagement might be challenging when events aren't actively happening, but maybe it could be expanded to allow people to also share things happening around town like pumpkin patch mazes, festivals or other seasonal family fun.

JV

Jose Vieitez
Agree
Wed 14 Oct 2015 8:31PM

It may be challenging but it worked for Waze!

AT

Aaron Titus
Disagree
Wed 14 Oct 2015 9:30PM

Barq would need to be used during peace time in order to be useful during an incident, essentially competing for market space with FB, Twitter, etc. I favor building this capability into existing platforms instead of competing.

GM

Geri Mitchell-Brown
Disagree
Sun 18 Oct 2015 3:44AM

The idea is good, but it has to fit in people's current online experience to be adopted.

JZ

Jennifer Zawacki Thu 15 Oct 2015 12:38AM

I think this is an interesting and useful idea, but my two concerns are that 1) it's a crowded marketplace (NextDoor, neighborhood FB groups, Twitter), and 2) how to monitor/mediate when posted concerns are being used to retaliate or discriminate against someone else.

SR

Shadrock Roberts Thu 15 Oct 2015 2:32PM

I would agree that this is a useful idea, and there has clearly been some thought put into potential challenges, which I appreciate. I also agree with other comments that see a problem with this being parallel to existing tools that people use. Having a committed local partner or government office to work with would greatly strengthen this idea.

AOL

Angela Oduor Lungati Wed 21 Oct 2015 6:56AM

Delayed response here :).

Definitely an interesting idea, but at first glance, it's not too clear to me exactly how Barq works, and how it facilitates that conversation between Citizens and governments.