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Keeping projects moving forward through virtual public engagement

March 27, 2020

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VIRTUAL ENGAGEMENT STRATEGIESVirtual Engagement StrategiesReaching Your AudienceStakeholder input is critical for advancing projects in the public realm. For many reasons, online engagement can be an effective means of sharing information and gaining feedback. These include reaching a larger group of stakeholders, time and travel savings, and more recently, the need to practice social distancing. While public engagement needs continue to evolve, what hasn’t changed is the universal need for simple, effective communication. Stantec has always approached engagement with multiple strategies to get a variety of stakeholders involved.CUSTOMIZED PUBLIC PARTICIPATION PLANSEngagement starts with an outreach plan tailored to your project’s unique needs. Our experts will work with you to develop a targeted engagement plan that is responsive to numerous critical factors including funding sources, local environment, agency requirements, and stakeholder demographics. Ultimately, our goal is to give people every opportunity to be a part of the decision-making process. Our outreach plans are designed to identify and reach your target audiences, and then employ multiple platforms to encourage and bolster engagement. We bring proven experience with innovative virtual strategies designed to inform and engage a diverse range of stakeholders who each bring their own needs and expectations to the process. Our methodologies can provide opportunities for stakeholders to experience information in multiple languages, provide written and verbal feedback, and engage in a timeframe that works for them.
At Stantec, we understand that the most important component of engaging the public is getting the information out to numerous stakeholders. We are familiar with a variety of online tools and can help you determine what the best technology is based on your audience as well as the format or content of your meeting or presentation. Our teams have the experience and expertise to get results and input you need to advance your projects. We can help you leverage these tools effectively separately or combined to make the most of online technology.StoryMaps provide a fun, scrollable site to create and share an interactive, map-based narrative. They are an effecitve way to build compelling digital stories that allow you to engage and connect with anyone, wherever they are. StoryMaps can include narrative, interactive and static maps, survey questions, videos, infographics, and more. Stantec has successfully used this technique on the Downtown Moorhead Plan.Stantec used ESRI StoryMap to combine both project presentation and solicitation of public input onto one platform. The StoryMap started with slides embedded with multi-media images to explain project process and progress. It then moved to slides with embedded interactive maps to collect individual public comments on specific plan topics. People were guided through multiple interactive maps to provide both preset and free form comments. The interactive maps allowed people to zoom-in on particular areas, turn on and off individual layers, and draw on the maps to specify the geographic locations of their comments. The StoryMap then directed participants to a survey to gather public input on a set of non-location specific questions important to the project process. RESULT: This StoryMap received more than 400 views within 45 days and dozens of comments on the maps. STORYMAPSDETERMINING THE APPROPRIATE TOOLS FOR YOUR AUDIENCEWith more than three billion people using smartphones worldwide, it’s critical to include mobile engagement in a public participation plan whether it’s through a website optimized for mobile use or a mobile application.At Stantec, we have a team of developers that can create project-specific mobile apps that allow users to easily access project information in one place with just a tap of their finger. A mobile app can include project overview, progress, drawings, contact information, and interactive engagement tools such as a graphic survey. The use of a mobile app enables users to access project information in a purely mobile environment which is accessible anywhere at anytime. Ultimately, this technology can provide real-time interaction and an efficient means of collecting feedback, which is critical for virtual engagement.MOBILE APPS
VIRTUAL ENGAGEMENT STRATEGIESVirtual Engagement StrategiesReaching Your AudienceStakeholder input is critical for advancing projects in the public realm. For many reasons, online engagement can be an effective means of sharing information and gaining feedback. These include reaching a larger group of stakeholders, time and travel savings, and more recently, the need to practice social distancing. While public engagement needs continue to evolve, what hasn’t changed is the universal need for simple, effective communication. Stantec has always approached engagement with multiple strategies to get a variety of stakeholders involved.CUSTOMIZED PUBLIC PARTICIPATION PLANSEngagement starts with an outreach plan tailored to your project’s unique needs. Our experts will work with you to develop a targeted engagement plan that is responsive to numerous critical factors including funding sources, local environment, agency requirements, and stakeholder demographics. Ultimately, our goal is to give people every opportunity to be a part of the decision-making process. Our outreach plans are designed to identify and reach your target audiences, and then employ multiple platforms to encourage and bolster engagement. We bring proven experience with innovative virtual strategies designed to inform and engage a diverse range of stakeholders who each bring their own needs and expectations to the process. Our methodologies can provide opportunities for stakeholders to experience information in multiple languages, provide written and verbal feedback, and engage in a timeframe that works for them.
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Proven ways to gather public input in a "shelter-in-place" world.

Across the world, the COVID-19 pandemic is impacting our daily lives in ways that few could have imagined. The recent call for a “shelter-in-place” or “safer-at-home” orders have two consistent themes: 

  1. Stay at home whenever possible
  2. Many infrastructure projects are considered essential services that need to continue

But many infrastructure projects require significant public input to proceed, input typically collected at public forums. For the foreseeable future, this must now be done virtually. 

Achieving stakeholder support should not be the thing that keeps your projects from becoming a reality. Stantec has employed a range of virtual public engagement tools that now seem more important than ever, from Storymaps and mobile apps for projects to GIS based interactive maps. 

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