Category: [CONFERENCE]

Are you attending the 2018 AMPO Annual Conference in San Antonio, Texas next week? If yes, please visit the MetroQuest team! As Silver Sponsors this year, we’ve got lots in store … including the latest trends in public involvement.

While Metropolitan Planning Organizations are mandated to involve the public in transportation planning, their outreach efforts are far outpacing basic regulatory requirements. To better understand the latest trends, we launched our own “2018 MPO Public Involvement Matters” survey in August. While the online survey responses are still coming in, I’m thrilled to share some preliminary results.

Over 140 MPOs have already shared their top priorities when it comes to engaging the public!

What are some of their top goals? Increasing participation, improving decision making, broadening demographic reach, building public support, and collecting informed input.

Coming to AMPO? Meet the team at booth #5 for your chance to take the 2018 MPO Public Involvement Matters survey and win one of three fitbits.

At the conference, ask our own Derek Warburton to show you the very latest trends and MPO practices. He’ll be happy to share the real-time survey results in MetroQuest Studio. Find out the top challenges and most popular public engagement methods used today.

Join Dave Biggs for the panel session “Public Involvement (Part 2)” next Thursday!

Don’t miss MetroQuest Chief Engagement Officer Dave Biggs on September 27^th at 3:30 pm (in the Zapata room). He’ll be joined by Beth Beltran from Martin MPO, Maggie Doll from Burns and McDonnell, and Abigail Zenner from the National Capital Region Transportation Planning Board. Together, they will share best practices for unpacking technical jargon and communicating to your audience in a clear way. If you participate in this session, you’ll get the chance to help build the definitive MPO checklist to effective public involvement for planning.

We hope to see you next week at the 2018 AMPO Annual Conference!

Watch Dave’s PK Slam

The highlight of the Rail~Volution conference every year is the rowdy and exciting PK Slam event and this year was no exception. A standing room only audience packed the History Colorado Center on the evening of September 19th for a series of carefully selected rapid fire presentations. The presentations must follow the Pecha Kucha format which is limited to 20 slides that automatically advance every 20 seconds. The result is a fast and fun session that always delights audiences.

This year some of the presentations were captured on video and slowly they will be processed as time permits. The first one is ready featuring our very own Chief Engagement Officer, Dave Biggs. Stay tuned for the remaining videos. We will be post them shortly.

Additional Resources

As described in Dave’s presentation, you can request your complimentary beginner’s guide to public engagement eBook here. I hope you find it useful.

Free Webinar: How to Optimize Online Engagement for Government Agencies

For agencies and consulting teams looking for cost-effective ways to engage more people and a broader demographic in outreach projects at a variety of scales.

Our special guests from the IndyMPO compared and contrasted the innovative outreach they conducted on two projects:

Let’s Talk Transit and the Near North Village Center Plan. One is a multiyear county-wide transit plan and the other a focused mixed-use village center plan.

Taken together they provide a unique perspective about how agencies can involve an unprecedented number of community members to support plans and decisions for a variety of projects at any scale. IndyMPO team members will also share advice for agencies seeking to improve the diversity and effectiveness of their community engagement efforts and talk about the positive difference that broad community support is making as they move forward.

Many thanks for all you do to improve our transportation systems

After 20+ years of urban and transportation planning and, in particular, community engagement, I know how challenging and worthwhile it is to work in this field. After examining over 250 case studies we’re pleased to share some important lessons learned about the ingredients of a successful project. As a thank you for attending Rail~Volution I’ve prepared a package of goodies including an interesting case study, and a guidebook filled with best practices for online community engagement.

Have you ever done a PechaKucha presentation? It’s a unique twist on the traditional PowerPoint. Presenters are limited to 20 slides and the slides advance automatically every 20 seconds, ready or not! The result is a 7-minute whirlwind. There are inevitable moments of humor and the pace is energizing.

I did my first one recently at an evening hosted by the International Association for Public Participation (IAP2) and I must say it was a lot of fun. The evening was meant to provide an introduction into leading online community engagement platforms and MetroQuest was honored to be invited. Since we recently introduced a new tag line for MetroQuest, “Engagement…Optimized,” I decided to tell the story about why we chose it.

By keeping the presentations concise, we were left with plenty of time for a great discussion with the audience. It’s fitting that I’m talking about how to optimize engagement using a presentation style that is meant to optimize engagement.

I put my cell phone on a little tripod on the table so I could record my first foray into this unique presentation style. Enjoy!

Watch the Recording

Additional Information

If you have any additional questions or would like to discuss your engagement needs, learn more about software licensing options or pricing please let us know and we’ll be pleased to help.

This year at the 2017 Transportation Research Board (TRB) Annual Meeting I had the honor of joining a panel of experts to speak on the topic of community engagement in the age of mobile technology. Apparently the topic caught people’s attention. Despite being one of the final session at the conference, the turnout was excellent and the Q&A was lively. The session was co-sponsored by the Standing Committee on Public Involvement in Transportation (AJE40) and the Standing Committee on Environmental Justice in Transportation (ADD50). If you aren’t a member already, please consider joining these great groups.

I gave a presentation called, “Examples & Best Practices for Mobile Community Engagement” where I showcased a variety of the best apps for transportation agencies and talked about best practices for apps, responsive websites and social media. Below you’ll find the recording from the session as well as some additional materials and links mentioned during the session.

The Frugal App Strategy for Transportation Agencies

The presentation highlights several of the best apps for transportation agencies to consider. A “frugal app strategy” is outlined which calls for agencies to support and leverage transportation related apps already available for their region and only consider developing an app is there are significant gaps. 

APA 2016 National Planning Excellence Award for Public Outreach

The Southern Nevada Strong case study was highlighted as a best practice in community engagement employing a range of digital methods complemented by a range of face to face public involvement techniques. It was honored with the American Planning Association 2016 National Planning Excellence Award for Public Outreach.

This regional planning effort for Las Vegas and the surrounding region, led by the City of Henderson, exemplified best practices in community engagement in numerous ways. Three things struck me about their effort: massive online engagement in English and Spanish, multiple supporting strategies to target typically underrepresented groups, and unique urban ethnographic research partnership with the University of Nevada. The APA describes how their efforts paid off, “SNS received unprecedented community engagement and collaboration among local municipalities. The engagement efforts set a new standard among Sustainable Communities grant recipients. An estimated 6,000 community members participated in the process and nearly 70,000 inputs were received…” Congratulations to the SNS team and thank you for your leadership.

Engaging the Environmental Justice Community Online

Additionally, I gave a presentation called, “The Final Frontier: Engaging the Vulnerable & Disadvantaged.” You’ll find the recording from the session as well as some additional materials and links mentioned during the session below.

Full Webinar Recording

The session presented above was a shortened version of a very popular 45-minute webinar held earlier. You can watch the full session, read the Q&A and view the additional resources here.