Imaginuity Community Connect - The first civic Amazon Alexa implementation in Texas debuts in University Park

DALLAS - July 31, 2017 - PRLog -- Imaginuity, a Dallas-based full-service digital marketing agency and consultancy, launched its new proprietary platform called Imaginuity Community Connect for Alexa, Amazon's voice activated intelligent personal assistant on July 25.

Designed with municipal governments in mind, Imaginuity Community Connect will soon be assisting longtime Imaginuity client, the City of University Park, in its efforts to boost community engagement using artificial intelligence technology.

Through Alexa-powered devices, like Echo and Echo Dot, the platform will provide residents with the opportunity to receive general community news and events, road closure information and emergency alerts simply by saying, "Alexa, Ask My University Park."  Imaginuity Community Connect will also provide residents with easy access to the City's monthly newsletter and basic information about municipal services and hours of operation.

"We are excited about communicating with our neighborhoods in this innovative way.  One of the City Council's current initiatives is focused on getting more residents engaged through new and convenient pathways, so this partnership is perfectly timed," said Steve Mace, University Park's Community Information Officer.  "Community Connect will provide our residents with an efficient way to get City news and events from the comfort of their homes without logging on to a computer or making a phone call," Mace concluded.

Growth in voice computing is expected to continue:

● Gartner, a leading technology research firm, predicts that by 2018 30% of our interactions with technology will be through "conversations" with smart machines.

● Google reported in September 2016 that one in five searches on mobile are conducted using voice computing.

● According to eMarketer, this year 35.6 million Americans will use a voice-activated assistant device at least once a month. That's a jump of 128.9% over last year. Triple digit growth is also projected for 2018.

● Primarily residential, University Park has an abundance of single-family households with busy, young families that are likely users of voice activated devices.

"Voice is a natural method of interaction and is intuitive for most people, so we expect voice computing to grow," says Gary Hooker, CMO of Imaginuity. "It made sense to invest in this effort with University Park, and we're excited to see the adoption in their community and its expansion to cities nationwide. We recently unveiled Community Connect at the Texas Association of Municipal Information Officers (TAMIO) annual conference and received very positive feedback and interest. We also announced an extension of the platform to include Google Home and Apple HomePod.  If a municipality signs up this year, we will include support for these two devices for those clients."

Learn more about Imaginuity Community Connect for your city: Gary Hooker, Imaginuity CMO – 214.572.3872, gary.hooker@imaginuity.com

Learn more about University Park Community Connect:  Steve Mace, Community Information Officer – smace@uptexas.org

ABOUT IMAGINUITY INTERACTIVE

Imaginuity is the full-service, digital marketing agency and consultancy that enables complex organizations to create and manage meaningful customer connections for the digital age. An independent agency based in the Southwest, Imaginuity has been nationally recognized for creative excellence. Services areas include Digital Strategy, Creative, Web Development, Social Media Marketing, Mobile Marketing, Search Engine Optimization & Marketing, and Analytics & Reporting.  To learn more about Imaginuity visit: http://www.imaginuity.com/

ABOUT UNIVERSITY PARK, TEXAS

University Park, a predominantly residential community of more than 23,000 residents, is located approximately five miles north of downtown Dallas, Texas.  The City is home to Southern Methodist University and the George W. Bush Presidential Center. http://www.uptexas.org