This past week Dan and I had the great pleasure of traveling over to Christchurch for the IAP2 Symposium. It’s a major event for the community engagement folks in New Zealand, and there were quite a few Australians making the trip over as well. Even though we have a lot of similarities and differences in the way we operate, it’s always interesting to take a step back and explore those nuances. It was all happening on a pretty fluid basis here.

There were talks, presentations, panels and working groups that covered all kinds of topics that touch on the engagement space deeply and broadly. But in this little recap report, I would like to highlight two particular projects that stood out to me and that also happen to have been presented by our hosts at Christchurch City Council.

The first was actually presented in a walking tour format. “Meet me on Gloucester” is a theatre district campaign in Christchurch; it was presented by Hannah Ballantyne from the engagement team, where a street has been converted into a car/bike and pedestrian cross-over zone. The idea here is to maintain vehicle access to the area, but to also activate pedestrian activity in a precinct that focuses on arts, culture and food. This is a concept that feels familiar to me coming from Melbourne and having experienced a lot of “parklet” and outdoor dining activity, often on roads, as a civic response to bolster economic activity during and post-Covid. I am proud to say that after going through many of the Covid years working in hospitality, I have a very personal connection to this kind of activity…I had a parklet of my own that facilitated friends catching up over food and drink. What really struck me about this presentation by Hannah was the humility she brought to the story.

The rolling out of this project was far from a smooth process, there were A LOT of bumps in the road. It really reminded me of the term “Falling Forward”. I came across this term in the start-up/entrepreneur world, but essentially it’s about being innovative and pushing forward, knowing that you’re going to stumble and make mistakes along the journey, but it’s worthwhile and necessary because you learn from the mistakes that you make and ultimately (hopefully) you end up experiencing progress and getting to a place or outcome that you couldn’t have reached otherwise. You and your community and better for it. Check out the project details here!

The second presentation that really stood out to me was “Young People aren’t Welcome – Bays Skate Project” presented by Tara King from WSP alongside Megan Carpenter from Parks, Recreation and Panning at Christchurch City Council. I have a funny feeling that skateparks are going to be a rolling theme on our blog here for some reason. For those that know me, I’m slightly obsessed with the topic…but I’ll save my skatepark stories for another time! This skatepark story is an interesting one that has now spanned over decades. In an official capacity with the council my understanding that this skatepark in Sumner, a beachy part of town, has been in the works for about 10 years, with many stops and starts, and looks to finally get built later this year. It really blew my mind that a project like this could take so long to get completed. We’re pretty much talking about a public park, for kids and adults alike, a huge cross-section of the community, but in this instance the project in its early days faced some very strong opposition. I can see why some people would take the “NIMBY” stance here – not in my backyard. The team taught me a new type of personality in this presentation too, “BANANA” - build absolutely nothing anywhere near anyone.

The moral of the story here is that on any project, you are pretty likely to come up against opposition, and the earlier you can get the community involved, and the more time you spend with them to inform them and work with them, this early work can save a lot of time, money, resources and effort down the track. Dan and I recently learned that Infrastructure Australia has reported a $20 Billion cost in project delays in and cancellations over the past decade due to poor engagement (I’m reading that as engagement that’s started too late in the process). I think this idea of engaging early sounds logical, but is also a lot easier said than done. Check out the projects details here! And while I’m at it…here are some fun new projects going in Australia/Melbourne too. Shout-out to Convic/Baseplate and other great skatepark designers doing some amazing work!

Well how does Communiti Labs fit into this picture? When it comes to these tricky and contentious projects it’s pretty important to kick off that conversation with community letting them know that any decisions that have been made to date, have come from listening to community. But how do practitioners do this when they are already under the pump? Our platform allows teams to easily load in previous engagement datasets, council feedback and even customer service communications to drill into your existing data and insights quickly and easily. You can literally talk to the depths of your existing data using natural language. “Communiti Labs, please tell me the top 10 community concerns regarding skateparks over the past 10 years.” It’s really that easy. We’d love to hear about your most challenging recent projects too.

These were my top picks from the event – but as always if you’d like to chat more about the above, or skatepark related content, or use cases for Communiti Labs please don’t hesitate to reach out!