Presentation from 2015 California American Planning Association Conference on technology tools for city planners by Kayla Gordon of Placeworks, William (Billy) Riggs of Calpoly, Chris Steins of Urban Insight, Steve Kokotas of MIG, and Jake Levitas of OurCity.is

1. #APATechToolkit

2. #APATechToolKit
• Introductions – Kayla Gordon, Placeworks
• Current State of Tech – William Riggs, CalPoly
• 10 Essential Tools – Chris Steins, Urban Insight
• Views from A Practitioner – Steve Kokotas, MIG
• Other Options & the Future – Jake Levitas

3. CA APA CONFERENCE 2015: Establishing your Roots in Planning Technology
The Internet of Things
• Planners share information with public
• Public interacts with cities
• Increasingly this is via mobile sources

4. 1% 1%
12%
47%
39%
Dependence on Internet Technology
Could Easily Function
Without
Not Very Dependent
Somewhat Dependent
Very Dependent
Could Not Function
Without
2014 SURVEY OF CA PLANNERS (N=130)
CA APA CONFERENCE 2015: Establishing your Roots in Planning Technology

5. 2014 SURVEY OF CA PLANNERS (N=130)
11%
22%
28%
31%
8%
Dependence on Mobile Technology
Could Easily Function
Without
Not Very Dependent
Somewhat Dependent
Very Dependent
Could Not Function
Without
CA APA CONFERENCE 2015: Establishing your Roots in Planning Technology

6. DOMAINS OF TECH USE (INCREASINGLY MOBILE)
Informational
Utility/Productivity
Wayfinding
Virtual Reality /
Gaming
Transactive /
Interactive
CA APA Conference 2015: Establishing your Roots in Planning Technology

7. 2015 EVALUATION OF PLANNING WEBSITES
• National Survey Using all Cities in ACS 1-year
Estimates (N=527)
• Evaluates Design of Website and Tools
Available
CA APA CONFERENCE 2015: Establishing your Roots in Planning Technology

9. 2015 Evaluation of Planning Websites

18. TAKEAWAYS
• Growth in demand for digital services / mobile (primarily
stemming from citizen demand)
• Many communities (large & small) may not be keeping up
with the pace of this change
• Need to adapt digital tools to user demands – increasingly
mobile (responsive design + CMS)
• Move to a transactive exchanges with social & e-service
tools (planners need essential digital / mobile tools in
their toolbox!)
CA APA CONFERENCE 2015: Establishing your Roots in Planning Technology

19. Chris Steins
Public Participation
Toolkit
www.urbaninsight.com
CA APA CONFERENCE 2015: Establishing your Roots in Planning Technology

20. Image by Mattthias Weinberger via Flickr. Used under Creative Commons License.

21. Managed using a web browser
Modest or no cost
Intuitive
Useful for public participation
Criteria
CA APA CONFERENCE 2015: Establishing your Roots in Planning Technology

22. 1. Web Publishing
CA APA CONFERENCE 2015: Establishing your Roots in Planning Technology

25. WordPress.com (WordPress)
Tumblr.com (Tumblr)
Squarespace.com (Squarespace)
DrupalGardens.com (Drupal)
Web Publishing Tools
CA APA CONFERENCE 2015: Establishing your Roots in Planning Technology

26. 2. Web Surveys &
Data Collection
CA APA CONFERENCE 2015: Establishing your Roots in Planning Technology

28. Wufoo.com (Data collection, forms)
SurveyMonkey.com (Web surveys
Zoomerang.com (Web surveys)
Google Forms (Data collection, forms)
Web Survey Tools
CA APA CONFERENCE 2015: Establishing your Roots in Planning Technology

29. 3. Mapping
CA APA CONFERENCE 2015: Establishing your Roots in Planning Technology

31. Google Maps – maps.google.com
ESRI Story Maps – storymaps.arcgis.com
MapBox – www.mapbox.com
Mappping Tools
CA APA CONFERENCE 2015: Establishing your Roots in Planning Technology

32. 4. Video Sharing
CA APA CONFERENCE 2015: Establishing your Roots in Planning Technology

34. Source: 3-Way Street, by Ron Concoca on Vimeo.

35. Video Sharing Tools
Vimeo.com
YouTube.com
ScreenFlowPro (Mac Desktop Capture)
Camtasia (Win Desktop Capture)
CA APA CONFERENCE 2015: Establishing your Roots in Planning Technology

36. 5. Broadcast Email
CA APA CONFERENCE 2015: Establishing your Roots in Planning Technology

38. MailChimp.com
ConstantContact.com
Emma (myemma.com)
Broadcast Email Tools
CA APA CONFERENCE 2015: Establishing your Roots in Planning Technology

39. 6. Collaboration
Tools
CA APA CONFERENCE 2015: Establishing your Roots in Planning Technology

41. Basecamp.com
Huddle.com
Slack.com (Mobile messaging App)
Collaboration Tools
CA APA CONFERENCE 2015: Establishing your Roots in Planning Technology

42. 7. Crowdsourcing
CA APA CONFERENCE 2015: Establishing your Roots in Planning Technology

44. MySidewalk.com (Was MindMixer)
Crowdbrite.com
MetroQuest.com
IdeaScale.com
Textizen.com
Crowdsourcing Tools
CA APA CONFERENCE 2015: Establishing your Roots in Planning Technology

45. 8. Website
Analytics
CA APA CONFERENCE 2015: Establishing your Roots in Planning Technology

48. Google Analytics (analytics.google.com)
Facebook Insights
Twitter Analytics
LinkedIn Analytics
Web Analytics Tools
CA APA CONFERENCE 2015: Establishing your Roots in Planning Technology

49. 9. Web
Conferencing
CA APA CONFERENCE 2015: Establishing your Roots in Planning Technology

52. Join.me (Free)
GoToMeeting.com
WebEx.com
Adobe.com/connect (Adobe Connect)
Web Conferencing Tools
CA APA CONFERENCE 2015: Establishing your Roots in Planning Technology

53. 10. Social Media
CA APA CONFERENCE 2015: Establishing your Roots in Planning Technology

56. Facebook.com
Twitter.com
LinkedIn.com
Instagram.com
Hootsuite.com (Aggregation)
Social Media Tools
CA APA CONFERENCE 2015: Establishing your Roots in Planning Technology

57. Thank you
Chris Steins
steins@urbaninsight.com
CA APA CONFERENCE 2015: Establishing your Roots in Planning Technology

58. MIG’s Technology Toolkit
THE SOFTWARE USED BY THE 150+ PLANNERS AT MIG

59. COMMUNICATIONS
and MEDIA SERVICES
• Adobe Creative Suite (design tools)
• Final Cut Pro (video editing)
• Drupal (CMS)
• Townsquare (CMS framework)
• Constant Contact (email outreach)
• Google Analytics (web analytics)
• Hootsuite (social media)
CA APA CONFERENCE 2015: Establishing your Roots in Planning Technology

60. PLANNING, LANDSCAPE
and URBAN DESIGN SERVICES
• Adobe Creative Suite / Cloud
• ArcGIS
• Google Maps
• AutoCAD
• SketchUP
• MS Excel
CA APA CONFERENCE 2015: Establishing your Roots in Planning Technology

61. PUBLIC INVOLVEMENT
and FACILITATION SERVICES
• TurningPoint (live polling)
• Townsquare (public engagement)
• MetroQuest (decision support)
• Mindmixer (crowdsourcing)
• Mapita (map-based survey)
• LimeSurvey (survey)
• OpenComment (public comments)
• Hootsuite (social media)
CA APA CONFERENCE 2015: Establishing your Roots in Planning Technology

62. CA APA CONFERENCE 2015: Establishing your Roots in Planning Technology
CHANGING HOW WE PLAN

63. SaaS Services
CA APA CONFERENCE 2015: Establishing your Roots in Planning Technology
 Amazon Web Services (cloud)
 LAMP (open source platform)
 HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript
 Bootstrap (mobile friendly)
 GitHub

64. CA APA CONFERENCE 2015: Establishing your Roots in Planning Technology
PLANNING PROCESS TERMS?

65. CA APA CONFERENCE 2015: Establishing your Roots in Planning Technology
GOVERNMENT INNOVATION LAB
Google provides state and local government
officials access to Google’s suite of enterprise
apps, developers and experts.
“Each leadership team gets to pick five hard pressing challenges
and in a Google-like way, we come together and we bring this kind
of 10X, moonshot-type of thinking approach.”

66. Kayla Gordon, kgordon@placeworks.com
William Riggs, wriggs@calpoly.edu
Chris Steins, steins@urbaninsight.com
Steve Kokotas, stevek@migcom.com
Jake Levitas, levitasj@gmail.com
Thank you
CA APA CONFERENCE 2015: Establishing your Roots in Planning Technology