Tim Pringle is Director of Special Programs at the Real Estate Foundation of BC. Since 1988 he's been working with land use practitioners (local government, non-governmental organizations, land owners, developers) on a range of issues related to sustainable land use, conservation, and development.
In this conversation with CITinfoResource editor hanspetermeyer, Tim talks about policy, regulation, community, and performance and prescriptive approaches to managing what he calls "settlement change."
This is the second in a series of conversations on this topic at CITinfoResource. The first took place in January 2010 and featured Kim Fowler, Sustainability Planner with the City of Victoria in BC. You can listen to hanspetermeyer's conversation with Kim here.
Social media and the conversation about land in BC How important are social media to what Tim Pringle calls "the conversation about use and conservation of land amongst various land use practitioners in BC communities?"
That's one of the questions we're going to be asking through an on-line survey in the coming months. What's clear is that more and more of you are using things like Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube or VIMEO, and podcasts, as well as blogs to tell the story of your community and the challenges and opportunities related to the land base.
When we started CITinfoResource as a blog-based way of capturing some of the exciting ideas and stories related to Communities in Transition projects we were very new to these new social media. That's changing. Rapidly. Some of us are quite active. Others less so. Some use things like Facebook purely for family and personal purposes. For example, Jen McCaffery, the principle CIT contact at the Real Estate Foundation of BC before taking mat leave, began to share the story of her new baby several months ago. Tim Pringle signed on, first as a curious "listener," and then as a thoughtful commentator on land use related posts on Vancouver Island and elsewhere. Executive Director Karin Kirkpatrick has recently started mini-blogging her experiences on Facebook from her iPhone, making the transition from a driver to a transit user – and micro-blogger – an engaging and educational process to witness.
CITinfoResource has an active presence online. We've updated our URL so it's easy to find: www.CITinfoResource.com. You can also find us easily on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube and VIMEO (search "CITinfoResource"). We're slowly building a library of images at Flickr. Please, take a look. Leave a comment. If you like what we're doing, add us to your favourites or become a "fan." We encourage all partner organizations to tag or label CIT-related photographs, videos, and posts with #CITinfoResource so we can help tell your story. Social media is making it easier to tell the story of change. It's also making it easier, as I describe in the closing column, for some local governments and NGOs to communicate with their constituents and to find cost-effective and time-sensitive responses to critical issues and opportunities.
Whether you receive CIT information via email, Twitter link, or Facebook post – or as a photocopy – you are participating in the "conversation about use and conservation of land amongst various land use practitioners in BC communities." If you're online, you'll notice that we're moving towards more "rich" content – audio and video posts instead of simple text-based blogs. Let us know if these formats are useful to you. As we noticed in the comments that flowed from Janine de la Salle and Mark Holland's piece on urban agriculture in November, some topics are hot and worthy of extended comments, and some formats make it very easy to engage people from across the province. We invite you to have your say!
Land use practitioners The Governors at the Real Estate Foundation of BC have, over time, supported a diversity of perspectives and approaches to land use and conservation in BC. That's a boone to us at CITinfoResource, because we get to highlight very different ways of looking at our common resource. George Penfold, the Regional Innovation Chair (RIC) in Community Economic Development at Selkirk College (Castlegar) is a regular contributor. This month he asks about BC's rural development policy, a comment on a story we've been covering since before the October 2008 Reversing the Tide conference in Prince George. Nicole Vaugeois, RIC in Tourism and Sustainable Rural Development at Vancouver Island University (Nanaimo), writes about her research and community economic development activities.
Our other posts in this theme are audio interviews. Bryn White, Coordinator of the South Okanagan-Similkameen Conservation Partnership, describes this innovative regional approach to the "conversation about use and conservation of land" and how it is building capacity in local organizations, including local government. Kim Fowler is now the Sustainability Coordinator with the City of Victoria, but has worked with other municipalities and with the private sector. She talks about "performance-based" and "regulation-based" approaches to sustainable land use planning and development.
Following up on Resilient Cities, the 2009 Gaining Ground Summit One of the things that social media allow us to do is to give conferences "long tails" – we interview organizers and participants before, during, and after important gatherings related to land use and sustainability in BC, and these materials are then available indefinitely on the internet. Our current focus is on Resilient Cities, the October 2009 Gaining Ground Summit in Vancouver. We asked a number of participants what their strongest impressions were of this powerful event, and what impact it will have on their home communities. We offer an audio interview with Naomi Devine, Whistler's Sustainability Coordinator and video interviews with Doug Makaroff, a developer involved with the Living Forest Communities initiative, as well as Gaining Ground founder Gene Miller.
Research notes – Green Values Vancouver Island For several years the Governors of the Foundation have supported Green Values Vancouver Island, an initiative that looks at real estate development and sustainability on Vancouver Island's southeast quarter, which includes parcels of land associated with the E&N Land Grant of the late 1800s. Recently Tim Pringle, as the Foundation's Director of Special Programs, has been involved in a research project on large scale developments in this region. He talks to CITinfoResource about this research and its significance for communities in the region.
Please share these resources A lot of you are telling us that what we do at CITinfoResource is useful. We encourage you to leave comments on the various posts or on Facebook. We also want to encourage you to reproduce and/or otherwise circulate what we've put together.
Collaboration and sharing of resources are keys to the success of both the Real Estate Foundation of BC and of the many projects and organizations that have received Foundation support over 22+ years. The reproduction of CIT Information Resource articles and materials for non-profit educational purposes is an extension of this approach. In return, we ask that you please notify the Foundation and the author of all reproductions, including in-house uses. You may also want to follow us on Facebook or on Twitter.
Bryn White is the coordinator of the South Okanagan-Similkameen Conservation Partnership, an innovative coalition of regionally based organizations. SOSCP membes share a common interest in sustainable development and conservation of land. The partnership format provides a mechanism for diverse interests to come together, learn from each other, and develop complementary approaches to land use related challenges in the South Okanagan-Similkameen region.
CITinfoResource editor hanspetermeyer talks to Bryn about SOSCP's capacity building work amongst local government and non-governmental organizations in the region. This is the first in a series of conversations between CITinfoResource and land use/conservation focussed non-governmental organizations (NGOs).
There is a movement inside government at all levels in Canada to become more transparent – and cost-effective. It's called GOV2.0, and developments are very uneven. In spite of the unevenness, however, the implications are generally positive for community sustainability.
A lot of people, especially of my generation and older, are suspicious of things like Twitter and Facebook. If you are reading this you are, nevertheless, using one of the various social media tools. Either you're reading it via a "traditional" social medium – the printed page – or you're reading it via one of the "new" social media: one of several blogs, circulated via email, Facebook, or Twitter (or perhaps tagged on bookmarking sites like Delicious). Or you may be holding an in-office "small press" version (ie. photocopy).
There is nothing special about this column; it's just an example of how one writer reaches an audience via a continuum of media, all of which are "social" - that is, shared by people. We are, at least as far back as the days of cave paintings and drums, a "sharing" species. What has changed is our ability to do more than consume. We are now sharing and shaping the stories and information flows – and the actions that emerge.
What does this have to do with land use and community sustainability, local government and NGOs? A lot.
Working Hard in the Hell's Kitchen of Sustainability
For a number of reasons both local governments and local NGOs get no respect. Ironically so, because they represent our most direct contact with agencies of change, regulation, and action. Local government has been called "the hell's kitchen of sustainability" exactly because it is the agency closest to on-the-ground community land use decisions. Our local NGOs are in a similar kitchen as the deliverers of a range of social and environmental services that local government is not well-equiped to deal with. But for these two channels of action to be most effective, they need to be well-connected to the passions and energies of us as citizens of our community, our place.
In some jurisdictions – the cities of Victoria, Kelowna, Guelph, and Edmonton are some examples – elected officials and staff are actively opening up channels of communications with citizens. The topics being covered are varied, as are the means used (online radio, video, blogs, Twitter, etc). They include explaining street closures, tax increases, providing transit updates, and street snow removal scheduling. In some cases the online presence doesn't make two-way communications easy – but it's always easier than writing a letter to City Hall. People see the posts, and they comment on them.
"To be an effective CEO you've got to be the Chief Listening Officer" (from this morning's Twitter feed). Consistently, corporate "best practices" have to do with willingness to listen to what people are saying and responding quickly before problems escalate. This gives those "listening" an opportunity to build relationships to make exciting things happen – drawing on the energies and resources in the community at large, not just those of civic staff and officials. Another of this morning's posts talks about how social media is helping a municipality deal with its debt. As a taxpayer, very cool news.
PnPP – A (neglected) History of Building Community
Local NGOs are, despite their sometimes testy relations, local governments' greatest resources. With their street cred and volunteer base, who better to manage or oversee projects related to affordable housing, stream stewardship, land trusts, community foundations, social services? We hear a lot about PPP (Public Private Partnerships), and very little about PnPP (Public non-Profit Partnerships). Most of our communities were built on PnPP, which were typically informal arrangements. That's why today they're under the radar and largely under-valued.
Local governments and local NGOs face chronic underfunding (and downloading from senior levels of government) and few have good communications channels. These are among the reasons that both are sometimes publicly perceived as being removed from the democratic process ("you can't fight City Hall" or "it's all an old boys' club" syndrome).
Even good local NGOs doing excellent work have the appearance of being outside an accountability structure. Which is why they are sometimes dismissed as "special interest groups." A big loss – for all of us.
Yes, the local land trust is a "special interest group." But their special interest – identifying and holding land in trust for non-market uses, ie. sensitive habitat, water quality, etc – has huge positive benefits for all who live in a region. Similarly the local family services organizations' special interests – a focus on the well-being of vulnerable families – benefits the community at large. Without a way to interact with these organizations, however, I don't know their story, I can't voice my appreciations or grievances. Importantly for them, they can't tap into my knowledge or passion on a particular issue.
The social media opportunity for both local government and local NGOs? Creating a social media presence may help you be more effective and efficient in what you want to achieve – without burning out volunteers and/or staff. It may help you positively engage your constituents, members, voting citizens. It may give you the support you need to do critical – and amazing – things.
2-way Tools
They're just tools – with a difference, because they work two-ways. The conversation that can ensue when organizations commit to using social media creates the opportunity for positive change to happen, quickly. The evidence is everywhere today. Literally. Rescue efforts in Haiti are moving more quickly via citizen-directed social media information than via official aid and government channels. Some municipalities are finding Twitter a faster emergency response channel than 911.
There is a body of social media best practices emerging. It's mostly about being patient, courteous, generous, setting clear expectations – and trusting folks to respond in kind. The evidence to date indicates that most of us do respond in kind. At a time when we face significant challenges in our local organizations – governmental and NGO – we do well to engage the growing number of us who are going online. We are a significant, if latent, force for creating better communities and neighbourhoods. Use us. Please.
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