Creative consultationOver the years, community consultation has mostly evolved into a boring, box ticking exercise. Did we tell people we are doing this thing, and they can fill out some things to tell us their things? Tick. Okay, consultation is done. It has become less about talking to people and more about ticking the box with the least amount of effort.
Planner Jen Olson wants to know, when was the last time you were excited to give feedback? Not to get it, to GIVE it. And she means excited, looking forward to it, not just moderately interested! |
First steps |
I worked for a local council for several years. I liked that a lot of council processes required community input, but it was clear that we would only ever hear from the “usual suspects.” We were happy about having a passionate group of people taking part. However, my manager and I were keen to reach more people so we could get a better picture of what the community wanted.
So, the next time we needed to get feedback about a project, we worked really hard to present the information in an appealing way. It was a skate park proposal, which made it easy to discuss in a casual way. We made great, modern-looking booklets that included easy to use feedback forms. It was all available online as well. We held informal meetings with the public and shared cups of tea! We thought no one would even come along, but I recall about 50 people showing up. It seemed like such a small step, just making the documents easy to access and fun to read, and inviting people to have a cuppa and a natter. It made the process seem less scary. We thought we'd be able to tell people all sorts of information, but what really happened was this: we let people tell us their stories. We happily turned consultation into a nice visit, and really, truly learned what people thought! But what really happened was this: we let people tell us their stories |
There is no box |
At Perception Planning Limited we hijacked our own team meeting the other day because we got really excited about all the interesting “outside of the box” ways to get feedback from people. Particularly when seeking feedback on topics that are hard to articulate, like “fresh water values”.
We came up with some smashing ideas that would work beautifully for working out what people like, and what their values are. We are so excited to use these ideas ourselves, we can’t wait until our next consultation project! Here are a couple of the fresh water examples: |
There is also no spoonWe're here to challenge you to break out of the box! Make it fun for you as well as for the public. Think about what you are trying to do: Get feedback from people. Get buy-in. Be present and engaged yourself. Encourage people to be excited to be involved. Try new things and you'll hear from new people.
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If you'd like specialist training or need a creative hand with some consultation, we can help!