LiveStories Adds New Features to Increase Usability of Civic Data

SOURCE: LiveStories

Seattle – May 12, 2017 – LiveStories today launches a series of enhanced features to its platform that include a civic data library with data exploration, deep analysis, benchmarking, and social collaboration functions, making LiveStories the industry’s first integrated civic intelligence and engagement platform.

LiveStories is the first solution on the market providing governments, nonprofits, and content creators of all kinds with a cloud-based platform to develop engaging stories. The updates to the platform will help users streamline the data sourcing and cleansing processes, giving them more time to explore, analyze, and visualize their data.

“In looking at the processes our customers use to build data-driven content, we found 80 percent of their time was spent on sourcing and cleansing the data. Only 20 percent of time was given to exploration, analysis, and presentation of that data,” said Adnan Mahmud, CEO and founder of LiveStories. “Considering analyzing and visualizing the data are arguably the most important steps, we saw this as a big problem facing customers. By adding these features our customers will be able to spend less time messing with data and more time telling an impactful story.”

With these new features, LiveStories replaces the fragmented workflow processes once required to generate data-driven content. Users no longer need to spend hours on the Internet sourcing the data, Excel to clean the data, Tableau to explore the data, and Photoshop to design the content. Customers can now complete each of these tasks using LiveStories’ integrated solution. In addition, users can collaborate with their colleagues to drive efficiency across the entire data lifecycle.

“Our communities in 100 Million Healthier Lives have adopted LiveStories with joy and ease, creating visually stunning stories that capture the mind, heart, and spirit of their transformation journeys. What a powerful tool to help communities share stories and data together,” said Soma Stout, MD MS Executive Lead, 100 Million Healthier Lives.

“Making vast amounts of civic and other data easier to understand, find and access is part of building more informed and engaged communities in the digital age. This next version of LiveStories strengthens these goals, helping people create more intelligent, useful data-driven insights for all,” said Chris Barr, director for technology innovation at the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, which invests in LiveStories through its Knight Enterprise Fund.

More information on LiveStories’ new features:

– Civic Data Library – The civic data library allows users to more efficiently gather data on more than 40,000 cities and counties across the United States to reduce the need for users to source and cleanse their own data. The library currently consists of more than one billion data points, a number that grows each day as LiveStories continues to expand its data library.

– Benchmarking – The benchmarking feature enables users to compare data in LiveStories’ new civic data library in search of similarities and differences across an assortment of metrics.

– Data Exploration – The data exploration feature gives users the power to select from thousands of different indicators to generate a data catalog for any location in the United States. With nothing more than a click of a button, users can compare their zip code, city, county, or state to a neighboring one.

– Deep Analysis – Using the new deep analysis function, users can correlate indicators from different sources, allowing them to go beyond pure comparison to dive deeper into multiple data sets.
Social Collaboration – These new web-based features allow teams to collaborate in real-time on building data-driven content. This increases efficiencies across the entire data lifecycle.

To learn more about LiveStories, visit: www.livestories.com. For a free trial of LiveStories, visit: https://www.livestories.com/request-demo

About LiveStories

LiveStories, an integrated civic intelligence and engagement platform, is the first solution on the market providing a cloud-based platform to help governments create engaging stories with charts, images, videos, and stories. Governments and nonprofits around the world use LiveStories to serve more than 45 million constituents. The platform makes it easy for data novices and experts alike to gather, explore, share, and present data more effectively.

LiveStories is based in Seattle and was founded in December 2013 by Adnan Mahmud. The company is backed by top Silicon Valley and Seattle investors, including True Ventures, Social Leverage, and Founders’ Co-Op. For more information, go to www.livestories.com. Follow us on Twitter, as well as connect with us on Facebook and LinkedIn.