24/7 community collaboration arrives in Boulder

Today, the City of Boulder is proud to announce the launch of Inspire Boulder – an idea-collaboration engine that allows for real-time engagement 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Inspire Boulder is an online, civic engagement platform that combines the ease of social sites (like Facebook) with the purpose and substance of city projects, issues and programs.  A sort-of digital town hall, residents can submit ideas, help prioritize options and even do real-time budgeting.  Community collaboration happens in real time so results, ideas and priorities can occur organically, as if it were a public meeting.

 

“Boulder has a thriving tech and start-up community and our residents are some of the most connected folks on the Front Range,” said City Manager Jane Brautigam. “Having a virtual town hall, to inspire and inform all the important work we do, just makes sense in Boulder.”

Typical workshops, meeting and open houses will still be held citywide.  Inspire Boulder is meant to augment these more traditional venues for receiving community input.

The platform also combines idea submission with game theory.  Registered users get ‘points’ for submitting ideas  and can accrue points for getting ‘up votes’ on their submitted ideas.  It’s pretty simple: the better ideas are, the more points they earn.  Naturally, the best ideas move to the top.

“Boulder is also known for its well-educated residents,” Brautigam said. “We want to enrich our conversations by tapping into the many creative minds that exist in our community.”

Inspire Boulder will host topics, issues, projects and programs from around the city organization.  At launch, the site includes:

Stay tuned!  Additional topics from Parks and Recreation, the Boulder Public Library and more will be featured in the coming months.