PlaceSpeak is a location-based

civic engagement Civic engagement or civic participation is any individual or group activity addressing issues of public concern. Civic engagement includes communities working together or individuals working alone in both political and non-political actions to ...

platform designed to consult with people within specific geographic boundaries. It is a product of PlaceSpeak Inc., a

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

technology company A technology company (or tech company) is an electronics-based technological company, including, for example, business relating to digital electronics, software, and internet-related services, such as e-commerce services. Details According to ''Fo ...

headquartered in

Vancouver Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the ...

British Columbia British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, ...

. Its suite of feedback collection tools and features was designed with the International Association of Public Participation (IAP2) Spectrum of Public Participation in mind. PlaceSpeak has been used by public and private sector organizations to consult with the public on community plans, parks and recreation, public transit, public health, budgets, and more. As of late, it has supported the emergence of Smart Cities across the world with citizen engagement tools for real time development.

History

Urban geographer Colleen Hardwick founded PlaceSpeak in 2010. The idea came to her while looking at a

Google Map Google Maps is a web mapping platform and consumer application offered by Google. It offers satellite imagery, aerial photography, street maps, 360° interactive panoramic views of streets (Street View), real-time traffic conditions, and route ...

of Vancouver’s Arbutus Corridor, and she posed a question about how to best consult with residents based on where they live. She thought that a tool was needed to provide a platform for government, decision makers and developers of public policy “to demonstrate honesty…and authenticity in their desire to respond to the will of the people”. Traditional forms of civic engagement, such as public meetings, often have low attendance with very selective participation; PlaceSpeak initially began as a way to supplement and enhance traditional forms of consultation. Hardwick developed the platform as a way to advance public participation. By 2011, the City of Vancouver was testing it as a way of gathering ideas from residents. The PlaceSpeak platform was designed to enable open and transparent engagement by connecting people to local issues. By connecting users'

digital identity A digital identity is information used by computer systems to represent an external agent – a person, organization, application, or device. Digital identities allow access to services provided with computers to be automated and make it possibl ...

to their physical location, PlaceSpeak keeps them notified of new and relevant public consultations in their communities, creating opportunities for dialogue between

citizens Citizenship is a "relationship between an individual and a state to which the individual owes allegiance and in turn is entitled to its protection". Each state determines the conditions under which it will recognize persons as its citizens, and ...

and

local government Local government is a generic term for the lowest tiers of public administration within a particular sovereign state. This particular usage of the word government refers specifically to a level of administration that is both geographically-loca ...

. The ability for proponents and participants to engage with each other reflects PlaceSpeak’s two-sided market. Proponents register their organization with PlaceSpeak and set up a topic to consult with the public. Geo-verified users can respond to surveys, polls, discussion forums and participatory maps, providing insight into how residents in a specific area feel about a particular issue.

Technology

PlaceSpeak is a cloud-based public participation platform that generates geo-spatial feedback data, closely related to a form of Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI). It is an e-consultation toolkit that allows proponents to connect with and geo-authenticate citizen users based on their location. It uses a 3-step digital identification process to authenticate a user’s residential address. PlaceSpeak is based on a web application framework which enables

GIS A geographic information system (GIS) is a type of database containing Geographic data and information, geographic data (that is, descriptions of phenomena for which location is relevant), combined with Geographic information system software, sof ...

scaling and has a built in archiving structure. It has an

Application Programming Interface An application programming interface (API) is a way for two or more computer programs to communicate with each other. It is a type of software interface, offering a service to other pieces of software. A document or standard that describes how t ...

that enables integration with third party applications, such as

Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin M ...

and

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

. PlaceSpeak was developed with the support of the

National Research Council of Canada The National Research Council Canada (NRC; french: Conseil national de recherches Canada) is the primary national agency of the Government of Canada dedicated to science and technology research & development. It is the largest federal research ...

(NRC-IRAP).

Neighbourhoods

In 2015, PlaceSpeak launche

a private civic network that allows users to connect with people who live in their neighbourhood. ''Neighbourhoods'' pools together geo-verified users who live in the same area, providing key features like a community noticeboard and an events calendar once logged in. Any communication between registered residents is kept private.

References

{{reflist, 2

External links

Official website
Companies based in Vancouver Political software Web applications