My first full blog post, and my first opinion. Planners, in general, lack public relations skills and know-how. We shy away from having public personna and tend to feel that having an opinion is a dangerous thing.
We need to rise above this. Explore the advantages of finding and using all technology available to us to spread our message. In my own experience I have found that most employers want us to take leadership roles. To express an opinion and provide guidance to a discussion. We just cannot take it personally when an idea we float gets shot down. That’s all part of life, and part of growing in the field. Without planners challenging communities, we would be stuck back in the days of Euclidean Zoning, single use zones everywhere. Entire concepts like Smart Growth, New Urbanism and Form Based Codes would not exist without forward thinking planners to challenge the communities they serve.
However, we also cannot simply sit in our tiny offices talking amongst ourselves or with our board members. We need to find ways of bringing the message to the public. We cannot continue to rely upon the local media to sell our plans. We need to expand. The planning
world needs to embrace the new technologies, bring planning to where the people are. Podcasts linked to ITunes, blogs such as this one in Blogger, MySpace pages and Facebook all need to be tapped into.
Whether you are a grey-haired planner or a new planner still wet behind the ears, the challenges are out there to advance our profession. Remember our message must reach our target audiences. If nothing else, get our there and blog!
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