For a comparison, check out the video-graphic laden/newsy/ interactive inviting 21st century effort hosted and posted by SEWRPC's Chicago area counterpart, here.
Shall we admit those folks just to our south in the land of tolls and Cubbies are smarter than we are?
That they get planning and public participation in ways that we poor backward Wisconsinites can't grasp? Or afford?
Please.
Despite having hired former executive director Phil Evenson as a consultant six months ago, in part to work on site upgrades, little seems to be happening - - except that there are a few more links and items, all in that SEWRPC planner-speak that would drive an everyday reader to sleep, drink, or to another site altogether.
Take, for example, this notice on the site's home page - - literally crying out for graphics, photos, video and real description, but here's what you get:
Regional Natural Area Plan Update
The Regional Natural Area Plan Update documents a proposed amendment to the natural areas and critical species habitat protection and management plan for the Southeastern Wisconsin Region. That plan identified and recommended protection and management plans for the most important remainingNatural areas
Critical species habitat areas
Aquatic areas
Geological areas
Archaeological sites
I can't decide if SEWRPC continues to host the Internet equivalent of an eight-track audio deck to underplay what it's doing, or to make it hard to figure out what, in fact, what they are not doing, but either way, it's working.
Enticed by the opportunity to participate in a "community outreach" effort by SEWRPC, I went to the Rotary Building in Waukesha's Frame Park late Wednesday afternoon to hear what the agency staff had to offer on the subject of the regional Housing Plan the Agency has been shamed into to conducting. The last housing plan was offered (and ignored)in 1975.
ReplyDeleteEverything about the offering confirms that SEWRPC staff are languishing in 1970s-era technique and perspective on how to communicate with their constituents.
Just going through the motions.
This citizen's arrival was greeted by some staffers hovering around a registration table. Once signed-in, I was given a handful of material and directed to about a dozen large easels displaying large posters with paragraphs and bullet points about the philosophy, the process and the progress of planning for housing needs in the 7 county region. The "display' wasn't too useful, as the registration desk had just handed this visitor both a long-form and an "executive summary" of the exact same material.
I and the other visitors were encouraged to read panel after panel of this redundant boilerplate information by strolling past the easels and reading the stuff in 48 pt. type, as a supplement to reading the same stuff in 12 pt. type on ordinary sheets of paper.
Then...the culminating display: A Power Point presentation was presented to the six or seven attendees after all had the opportunity to absorb the leaden planning agency prose in both 8.5" X 11" and poster format.
And what did we see?
The same wooden stuff, projected on a screen, narrated by an earnest young fellow who was perfectly attuned to the process of using Power Point to put listeners to sleep.
My mentor in "The Visual Display of Graphic Information" is Edward Tufte. He has a useful monograph on the "Cognitive Style of Power Point". But the accompanying visual display of what he's talking about (laughing at) is the real thing.
Check it out: http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/graphics/home_stalin_poster.jpg
New SEWRPC website is on its way!
ReplyDeleteWow. Is this 1999, or what?
ReplyDelete