The Story of OurTown 2.0

Agust Gudmundsson, founder of GOVT.com, has long admired Our Town, the spellbinding 1938 play for which Thornton Wilder won a Pulitzer Prize. The story employs a simple setting and plain talk to explore life’s deepest dimensions.

When Gudmundsson sought a name for one of his own creations, it was more than fitting that he chose to play on the title of Wilder’s famous drama.

OurTown 2.0 combines the wizardry of computer technology and magic of modern telecommunications to produce a remarkable result -- a practical and efficient solution to one of society’s most vexing problems. The software system actually makes it easy for citizens to do business with their local City Hall, whether it is reporting a pothole, lodging a complaint or seeking a permit. And the same product makes it easier for local governments to deliver timely and effective responses.

But the software was not always blessed with such a clever and meaningful name. In early stages of development it was known simply as the Constituent Service Manager. 

The idea was born in 1989.Gudmundsson worked as a political consultant for candidates and elected officials who regularly turned to his company, Austin Professional Systems (APS), for help in election years.

During campaigns, most candidates promised they would be responsive to their constituents -- keep long office hours, listen to voters’ ideas, and take care of their problems. Once they were elected, however, officials learned this was easier said than done.

Gudmundsson found that most politicians wanted to be good representatives, but in many ways they were stymied by a system choking on sluggish communications and backlogs of paperwork.

One day Chicago Alderman Bernie Stone called and asked for a method to track constituent requests. He wanted to know what was being asked of his office -- where the requests were coming from and how they were being handled. Plus, he wanted to keep citizens informed of progress, making sure that no appeal was left unresolved.

APS designed a computer program to do all that, and more.

"We didn’t see a market for this right away, because it seemed very few elected officials were so committed to constituent service," Gudmundsson recalls. "But as our political business grew, we received more requests from the people we helped elect.

"The common cry was, ‘Help us manage our constituent contacts.’"

"I discovered it was easier to reelect a mayor who took care of his citizens than it was to elect a totally new candidate. So I designed this package for all my candidates to track all of the services being provided to the citizens, so they knew when things were falling behind and where the different departments were overtaxed. The system made it possible for officials to shift resources and actually do a better job providing services."

APS surveyed the municipal market to determine if a broader application of Constituent Service Manager was viable. The findings showed that many cities and towns needed vast improvements. They were operating in the dark ages of constituent service.

Most municipal software packages provided merely a small option dedicated to citizen service. Interviewing various town leaders and staff was even less exciting. It seemed that many considered a constituent phone call to be nothing more than an unwanted interruption in an already busy day. ‘Complaint tracking,’ many called it.

But in the early 1990s, APS detected attitudes were starting to shift in a new direction both among constituents and local government leaders. All of a sudden, citizens were paying more attention to what was going on at City Hall and officials were beginning to get the message. The shift, at least in part, rode a developing wave of interest in the Internet.

"We at APS saw an immediate problem," Gudmundsson says. "Towns were putting up web sites to promote their community as a place for people and corporations to settle into. No one was giving much to the citizen who already lived there. Some towns have pages describing the city government and an email address, but none offered true access to city services. We saw the future."

The truth is that in many municipalities most people leave for work before City Hall opens and return home after it closes.

"The only way to get anything done -- let’s say a simple thing like reporting a street light out on your street -- was to sneak away. Not everybody has an office job and can easily sneak a phone call during the day.

"If it was something that took filling out a form, they have to actually take some time off from work to go to City Hall and do the form."

With an Internet-based product like OurTown 2.0, creating a catchy slogan for the software was as natural as deciding on the name. The slogan: "On-line, Not In Line." The system would give citizens access to City Hall 24 hours a day, seven days a week, from the comfort of their homes.

As an added advantage to the municipality, the constituent does all the data entry via the Internet. The request is processed directly to City Hall, where OurTown 2.0’s smart software triggers a work order to the right department and a reply to the constituent.

When APS introduced OurTown 2.0 in 1995, most people were still unfamiliar with the Internet. But that changed rapidly. In 1997, the company scored a major breakthrough when the product was installed in Des Plaines, Illinois.

Gudmundsson recalls, "NBC came out and did a story on it, as well as WGN of Chicago and the Chicago Tribune. And they did research and determined that Des Plaines was actually the first city in the nation to make its public works’ computers link with the Internet."

Scott Shirley, Public Works Director for Des Plaines at that time, reported that OurTown 2.0 saved his department $20,000 in the first year alone.

Other cities and towns took notice.

"We started getting a lot of requests for information and at that time I was still running the show all by myself, except for a couple of administrative staff and one technical support person," Gudmundsson says.

He wrote the software, conducted presentations, established sales, and installed the product.

"At one point early in 1998, I found that I had hundreds of towns that wanted to see my product, and I realized that there was no way that just Agust and his PC was going to be able to demonstrate it to all these towns, much less deliver it."

In early 1999, Gudmundsson developed a business plan for rapid growth. Austin Professional Systems evolved into GOVT.com. As of June 1999, the company had three employees. By February 2000, the number had grown to more than 30, including business and financial administrators, a marketing team, sales staff, product development division, programmers and installers.

The new business plan was well timed, as installations of OurTown 2.0 quickly accelerated.  In December 2001 GOVT.com penned a deal with Government Solutions, Inc. of Alexandria, Virginia to sell and support the entire GOVT product line.

Kevin Gallagher, Public Works Management Analyst for Hampton, described his community’s success with OurTown 2.0 in an article that appeared in the American Public Works Association’s magazine, APWA Reporter.

"We found this solution has the power and flexibility to handle all our needs and has actually exceeded our expectations," Gallagher said.

•  Click on the OT2 Logo for more features and benefits.  Click Here for the On-Line Demo.