Green and great!

What does it mean and how does it relate to our public participation (IAP2) training practice?

Well, it means taking a little step to improve our company’s green performance.Starting this April 22, Earth Day, the team at Delaney and Associates Inc. is greening its world-famous, Amazing Prize Bin – one of the fun things we do in class to engage (yes, it’s a P2 pun) our IAP2 participants.

We’re always looking for ways to make greener, healthier choices as part of our Corporate Social Responsibility promise; moving forward, we promise to find the greenest and healthiest prizes for our Amazing Prize Bin. We’re learning lots about really neat products and trying them at home, too.

Thanks to Terra20 – Ottawa’s new eco-department store – for the inspiration and for making green and great prizes so available.

Hint to Burlington IAP2 participants, April 22-26: Do some Earth Day research to win some green and great prizes.

Happy Earth Day; let’s make it Every Day.

While the workshop was aimed at health researchers who are planning to use this tool for community-based research, there were also some takeaways for broader use in community engagement projects such as environmental monitoring.

Overview

PPM involves recruiting participants and tasking them with photographing places that they find meaningful, recording the location of the photo, providing a related narrative and then placing these photos on a digital map using GPS coordinates (ie. Google Maps, or ArcGIS) – the final output links the three elements (narrative, photography and location) and provides insights on the “lived experience”. Following this fieldwork, the map and photos can provide data for further analysis, focus group discussion/interviews and serve as material for presentations to decision-makers and as a foundation for further action.

Some of the benefits include:

• it’s a non-verbal technique,
• it’s engaging, and
• it’s innovative (particularly for youth)

Technological requirements for a basic PPM project are fairly minimal. You’ll need a digital camera, a GPS unit (unless the camera has GPS built-in and many new ones do), a computer and mapping software (in our case Google Maps).

Community based photo-mapping is also a method for storytelling.

Benefits and Use

• Introduction and educational session
• Field work
• Putting it together
• Facilitated sessions to review process
• Analysis
• Presentation

Canadian Examples

Following the interactive workshop, I was curious what Canadian-based community engagement projects utilized this method and found the following four examples:

• Getting a Clear Picture on the Effects of Climate Change, Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada
• Mennonite Heritage Project
• Heartwood Youth Engagement Strategy – referenced[pdf]
• Community-based environmental monitoring in the Canadian arctic using participatory photo mapping

Caveats

Some issues that arose were around privacy and ethics. In particular, care needs to be taken when working with children and youth, dealing with sensitive issues that may arise during the project, photographing in public vs. private spaces, and ensuring private data collected by a public organization is safeguarded according to Canadian standards (ie. Google Maps may be off limits!).

The following article in the Health and Place journal provides a more in-depth and academic look at this research approach:

Dennis SF Jr, Gaulocher S, Carpiano RM, Brown D., Participatory photo mapping (PPM): Exploring an integrated method for health and place research with young people, Health and Place, 2009

The campaigns discussed at the workshop used a mix of in-person and online channels to both communicate key messages and engage their target audience. Beyond relying on these various channels, from traditional media (TV, radio, print/newspapers), websites, social media, to ambient and guerrilla marketing tactics, one of the other key drivers of success in terms of gaining traction and exposure includes working directly with and through community partners and thus, their community and key stakeholders.

The campaigns target key health challenges previously identified through research and community consultations.

To get a sense of the various online and social media strategies used in these campaigns, take a look at the websites below and browse their social media channels – the following three were the campaign presentations of the day:

• Northern Health’s BC Man Challenge (http://men.northernhealth.ca – launched January 2012) and HIV101 (http://hiv101.ca – launched May 2012)
• It’s Different Now – a campaign to promote HIV/AIDS testing, launched in November 2011 by the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority. Creative materials do not mention HIV or testing and are designed to grab attention in order to drive traffic to the campaign website.
• Preventable: http://www.preventable.ca – this one was launched back in mid-2009 and aims to reduce “preventable” injuries through innovative, creative and integrated social marketing tactics, including guerrilla marketing and social media.

Key Takeaways

Beyond some of the captivating and important branding and design work, the following is a non-exhaustive list of what else “stuck with me”:

• Communicate to the community and key stakeholders that a major campaign is about to take place
• Empower your audience with information tools that enable them to share messages
• Enable you audience to take action where they are (ie. community events)
• Identify champions and leaders – either in the virtual world or in-person.
• Engage community partners who can leverage their trust relationships with stakeholders to gain buy-in and support for your projects.
• Deal with the media directly , tell them how they can help get the message out.
• Have a plan and think strategically: understand the issues, their timeliness and relevance; think about the audience and its familiarity with the issue; how is the issue known relative to more mature subjects (smoking, cancer, HIV)
• Develop a brand that’s recognizable, memorable and audience centred
• Split the campaign into smaller sub-campaigns across time
• Hold a launch event and have a media kit ready
• Make information accessible in variety of ways, easy to read and understand for the target audience
• Focus the campaign: go with few key messages and make it audience centred
• Take an integrated approach: in-person/online integration, partnerships, mass media, print, websites, social media, leverage community partners and go where the audience is (events)
• Hold a contest or game relevant to the theme of the engagement
• Take stock early– seek feedback on the campaign, analyze metrics and adjust approach as you go; adopt an iterative approach; solicit feedback using focus groups

A number of other useful ideas came out of these sessions but I’ll wrap it up here. What strategies and tactics have you found useful when engaging and reaching out to the public, stakeholders and communities?

Obtaining community support is paramount to reducing overall risks and executing sustainable and successful wind energy projects. Check out the following slideshow from the workshop for further points and strategies to ensure community support: Dealing with community opposition (NIMBYism) to wind power.

For latest information on wind power and clean energy check out the following hashtags on Twitter:  #windpower, #wind, #windenergy, #cleanenergy, and #renewableenergy.

This year’s IAP2 BC Chapter Annual Symposium brought together 20+ practitioners from transportation, health care, environment, planning and private/consulting sectors and stimulated our minds with presentations on Creative Engagement. The symposium was a wonderful opportunity to learn about some of the creative, accessible and culturally sensitive ways public participation specialists can engage the community, broader public and other stakeholders. It was also a great opportunity to connect to fellow P2 professionals across Lower Mainland, Vancouver Island, and Calgary, with Richard (D&A Inc. President) and Valerie Delaney (D&A Inc. Principal) joining us from our home office in Ottawa.

Read on for a quick recap of the presentations.

During the symposium we heard about:

1. graphic facilitation and recording by Tanya Gadsby of Drawing Out Ideas,

2. the co-design process and youth engagement by the Co-design Group (Drew Ferrari and Susan Chung), and

3. engaging multicultural groups and stakeholders and overcoming language barriers, by the ICON Project team (Sophia Khan and Barbara Ho).

1. On graphic facilitation and recording

I, and apparently 65% of the population who are visual learners, really enjoy the idea of expressing and taking-in processes and ideas through creative, visual forms, so the graphic facilitation/recording presentation was quite enjoyable. The real-time illustration of key ideas and processes during a staff or public meeting seems to have the potential to really “pull” people in, keep them engaged and even empower them by enabling participants to guide the artist or create the illustrations themselves. This is important as these graphic recording can later be shared, publicly displayed, archived and consulted for broader and additional brainstorming, reflection and education. Essentially they can serve as models or blueprints for advancing long-term visions and strategic planning.

The graphical facilitation and recording process was contrasted to PowerPoints which “push” information out and can sometimes be counter-productive by disengaging the audience. This made me think of Edward Tufte and his views on PowerPoint- although there are others who would disagree with some of what he says. In addition to graphic recording and facilitation, visually engaging the audience can also involve creative infographics or other interactive tools. Flowing Data and Information Aesthetics( two blogs I follow on a regular basis)post some great examples, although they are fairly skewed towards data visualization.

The session also reminded me of the really neat RSA Animate series – if you haven’t seen those, I highly recommend watching a few of these educational and thought provoking videos covering a wide range of social issues.  And while these video illustrations are not “participatory”, they are quite engaging.

Also, thanks to Tanya for distributing some cool handouts! Her website is drawingoutideas.ca.

2. The co-design process and youth engagement

This session explained the co-design process. Part of this process involves having participants guide the artist in illustrating their vision on what a community or a place means to them. The goal is to create an output that reflects the participants’ vision rather than having planning or architectural drawings, which can often be difficult for the general population to relate to.

Another component of this process is to focus participants on thinking about what they like to do in their community and at which particular time of day, as opposed to thinking about the particulars of structural design. Participants can also be given a blank drawing sheet on which they could collaboratively or independently draw out their ideas on what they would like to see in their community. This reminded me a bit of the negotiation strategies of focusing on values, not positions – but that might be comparing apples and oranges! The session also focused on the benefits of engaging youth and how youth can offer insights and perspectives that we adults take for granted, are no longer able to see or notice, or are unable to articulate. Drew and Susan also highlighted differences between engaging youth and adults and overviewed some engagement and process tactics that are appropriate for various age groups.

The entire co-design process goes from ideation to the evaluation and ranking of ideas by peers and potentially the broader community, which can help identify concepts that have popular support.

Check out their site for more info at http://www.co-designgroup.ca/.

3. Engaging multicultural groups and stakeholders and overcoming language barriers

Lastly, the Inter Cultural Online Health Network (ICON) Project, which is affiliated with the UBC eHealth Strategy Office,  provided an overview of their multifaceted (blended) and comprehensive multicultural engagement effort in the health sector. Sophia and Barbara discussed the various tactics and strategies they used to reach out to diverse cultural groups and the various challenges they had to overcome (for example language barriers, cultural differences, time and space…). They discussed how to engage community leaders and ways that internet tools can support public health efforts referencing. for example, their experience with using multi-lingual webcasts and Twitter streams as ways to broaden reach, and the integration of online tools with face-to-face sessions. It was very interesting to hear about some of the large scale community events, where they used live cell-phone polling and translated  tweets live into multiple languages.

I probably won’t do the project justice, so do refer to their comprehensive site at: http://www.iconproject.org.

For additional info on these sessions, check out this nicely done Storify!

I think the symposium was a success and added a few tools to the engagement toolbox – or at least ideas to consider in future process designs. We’re looking forward to next year!

We were recently reflecting on some of our past work and recalled this Best Practices for Community Engagement and Public Consultation guide developed by the Canadian Wind Energy Association to “help ensure wind energy development is approved and is a welcomed addition to the community.”Delaney and Associates Inc. had the pleasure of providing community engagement and public consultation expertise in the development of this guide which focuses on the communications aspect of public engagement and consultation and overall serves as a valuable toolkit in support of constructive public participation on wind energy projects in municipal districts. Notably, the guide references the International Association for Public Participation (IAP2) engagement spectrum, as well as the five steps in planning public participation. Considering that community resistance has stopped major wind development projects in North America and has therefore cost developers lost feasibility investments and lucrative revenue stems, this tool is a valuable asset to organizations working with or in the wind energy sector.

Following up on this work, Richard Delaney, President of Delaney and Associates Inc., will deliver a related workshop during the October CanWEA Annual Conference and Exhibition 2012 in Toronto, Canada.

For more information on consulting and engaging with the public and other stakeholders impacted by energy projects, please contact us. For an overview of wind energy,  CanWEA’s website provides a wealth of information, including fact sheets, case studies and other publications.

Photo credit: flickr user Steve-h

I had a profound personal event recently. Although my business commitments have drawn me back to the day-to-day, my thoughts drift back to a different place. Now I realize I was able to witness, through our professional lens of facilitation and public participation, an insight that I am moved to share with you. Apologies up front if it is painfully personal for some.

My mother was diagnosed with small cell lung cancer just over three weeks ago. This type of cancer is very aggressive. At 87, her health condition is not conducive to treatment, so basically she has been on her final journey. As her principle caregiver I have been honoured to witness this journey, and today I was privileged to to see her condition through professional eyes. So much so that I feel compelled to capture my thoughts for your consideration and hopefully benefit. I am writing this after returning from the hospice.

A few days ago mom’s calcium levels were off the charts. Following her care plan, the doctors advised the she be treated with a “P” substance, the name of which I can’t remember the name and couldn’t pronounce anyway. Its purpose is to stabilize the calcium levels and bring back a more normal level of cognition, so that we could talk – exchange ideas and emotions. The treatment worked, but only marginally, but in that moment I experienced a profound understanding that I can only fully grasp now.

At that time I knew I was having the last coherent conversation that I would ever have with my mother. Tonight, in the realization that I was right, I am dwarfed by my insight. I so valued every word she struggled to voice, every movement of her lips into a smile, the flutter of her eyelids to know she was feeling something , the movement of her hands or head to know she was wanting to give expression to her ideas.

Not in that moment, but upon reflection I thought about my practice as a facilitator and a public engagement professional. I thought about all the participants who didn’t or couldn’t give voice to their emotion, their ideas, their aspiration – because we were obsessed with managing the agenda. I thought about the body language of a silent stakeholder, begging to be asked what they feel. I thought about the unasked questions for lack of time. What does this mean to me? Something I always knew; the power of presence. Of being in tune and touch with that person in front of you.

In that hospital room I saw and felt a presence, a place, a person that perhaps no one else saw or felt. Upon reflection, what gave me that insight was to try to see and feel what my mom was seeing and feeling. Empathy seems like such an insufficient word. But to be present and fully engaged was at once empowering and peaceful. I am writing these thoughts in public in the hope that I can hold onto this insight, this feeling, to help me be better for the people, the stakeholders, I can help in the future. Maybe my thoughts might help you, too.

The Interactive Advertising Bureau declared in 2008, “If you’re not on social media, you’re not on the internet.” Eight years after the launch of Facebook, municipalities across Canada increasingly are integrating social media into their online operations. The business case is clear:

• over 80% of Canadians have online access
• 86% have Facebook profiles
• 54% say they would engage more with government if they could do so online

Increasing use of social media means public participation specialists need to pay attention because these trends dramatically impact engagement strategies. For municipalities, social media is a valuable tool to address residents’ expectations for real-time information, on-demand access to services, and quick response times.

Municipalities already online realize that conversations about local government and services are happening online with or without them there. Rather than ignore, they are engaging stakeholders online and telling their stories. Some municipalities launched online profiles on an ad-hoc and experimental basis and are only now in the process of drafting policies; others are starting out small, or starting by creating strategies and policies.

Municipalities are using social media largely to inform – to promote events and services, to celebrate the community via announcements, photo galleries and videos posted on official Facebook pages or blogs, or to share public works, traffic updates and even critical information via Twitter. Social networks allow municipalities to leverage the network effect in sharing information, offer creative ways to advertise and engage, and connect a wider audience, which in turn may help build lasting relationships. The Mayor of Calgary, who runs his own Twitter account, interacts frequently with residents, answers questions where he can, or redirects queries to other channels.

Social media is also used as a platform to listen and identify issues; for example, Toronto uses Twitter as a 311 service where savvy online users can get information, raise service issues, or offer feedback. Other municipalities are experimenting with social media for public consultation. Winnipeg, for example, created the Speak Up Winnipeg website and blogging portal, to inform residents and solicit feedback via blog comments on upcoming initiatives. The City of Calgary used Twitter to gain residents’ perspectives on its annual budget. Beyond Facebook or Twitter, municipalities are also utilizing specialized crowdsourcing tools or all-in-one online engagement suites – some new consultation platforms also involve geographically authenticating users!

Costs definitely must be considered because although social media tools are free, these efforts do take up staff time and other resources. Success depends on internal buy-in, trained staff, the right tools, content strategy and policy, evaluation and monitoring, as well as managing expectations all round. For some municipalities, it may be a one person/one hour a week job; for others, it may involve multiple staff sharing responsibilities. It is possible now to integrate the use of various tools within new management platforms, in order to automate sharing of information across different channels and thus save resources; however, this can weaken the personal touch and interaction that users expect from social media and may limit engagement.

Consideration must also be given to privacy and legal requirements, plus potential risks, such as security, confidentiality, and abuse. Clear Terms of Use and other policies provide a degree of control and assurance to both senior managers and users.

As municipalities adopt social media platforms to promote ideas and listen to citizens, public engagement specialists will need to consider opportunities to use social media as a public and stakeholder engagement tool. Next time you’re online, take a look at your municipality’s social media efforts to engage you, as a resident. When you find something interesting or new, be sure to post these examples to the IAP2 Canada Facebook page. We are all in learning mode these days!