00:01Okay, I usually start off with a joke about Jack Dangermond meets Saint Pete at the Pearly Gates, right?

00:06But since the man is sitting here and I only have five minutes, I'll say it at the end, right.

00:10So if I have time I'll tell a joke, otherwise Jack will beat me up later, right?

00:15My role is going to be provocateur, here, right?

00:18As a...as a former academic.

00:20And say the question for us is not how can we use the technology...

00:24...as what it will allow us to do, but how should we use it?

00:26What should our goals be?

00:27Okay, and I'm a planner...

00:29...and so I think my goals for using geodesign for planning are first to engage the future...

00:36...because the public is concerned about the future, issues of modeling.

00:39And secondly, providing meaningful public participation.

00:42...I think the public is not as...as interested, as wowed by...by expertise as it used to be...

00:48...so we need to change our tools, change our focus... focus on the future...

00:51...and focus on giving the public a meaningful role in decision making.

00:55Okay, I think the problems we have are identified for...

00:58Is first off, the planners do little planning.

01:01Second, our forecasts are usually wrong, our tools are inherently political...

01:06...and public participation is often a sham, alright?

01:09I'm willing to debate any of these at...later on, right?

01:13But ah...I'm willing to defend all these.

01:15Paul Farmer may disagree, but...I'll...I'll...okay.

01:19I think the problem is not the technology, alright?

01:22The technology is great, every year it gets better, I'm wowed every time I go to the user conference, right?

01:26The question is, how are we using the tools, right?

01:28I think part of the problem for geodesign is the temptation to do planning for the public...

01:33...rather than planning with the public..

01:34So let me talk about that a little bit.

01:36Planning for the public takes ideas, architecture, landscape architecture, and applies them in the public sector.

01:42Okay? You train as an architect, you train as a landscape architect, you train in my case as an engineer...

01:48...so I know how to do design, I did it for my building, now I'm going to do it for the public.

01:52The same kind of model and so on and so forth, okay?

01:55In the private sector, you have agreement on organizational goals, like to build this building, you know.

02:01You know...you predict a relevant future accurately, you have well-defined solutions to problems...

02:06...you also have centralized control of resources to make it happen.

02:09The problem is, none of these are true in the public sector.

02:12Again, provocateur, I say none of these are true in the public sector...just remember all of these points, right?

02:19Okay, the model is to say okay, we're going pretend...

02:22...that we're going to do it in the public sector and in the private sector.

02:24So the planner, or the designer, uses his or her expertise to prepare a plan...

02:30...balances the interests of society, designs a plan, and then convinces the client, the public to accept it.

02:37Same model as the private sector.

02:39The public is basically...sits on the side, right?

02:42You know, the proposal prepared by the professional, there's some kind of feedback at the end.

02:46Most decisions are made in advance by the designer...

02:50...and then they bring the client in to accept applause, right, and implement the goal, right?

02:56Rule of technology is to enhance the expertise of professionals.

02:59I use a model of, like, a physician, right?

03:01You know, the idea is that we go to physicians...

03:04...the physician's the expert, we trust the physician.

03:07Rule of technology is to make the physician smarter, right?

03:10And so we develop more sophisticated models...

03:11...to do a better job of making the professional more expert.

03:16Okay, the problem is, systems don't buy it anymore, they want participation.

03:21Public officials are indebted by, you know, pressure groups and often difficult to get things done...

03:28... because the public objects and so on and so forth.

03:30I think the better model is what we call planning with the public.

03:35The idea here is new models, bringing the public in, alright?

03:38Getting the public directly and seriously involved in the policy making process.

03:42Things like civic engagement, visioning, consensus building, and so on and so forth.

03:47The idea here is, again, what, the...the environmental blueprint model...

03:53...we saw from the Trust for Public Land was an example of this, right?

04:00Of the...of the...kind of the ideal thing here.

04:01Where you bring in the participants, you know, actually involved...

04:05...and the stakeholders who are going to be affected by the result, they also make things happen...

04:10...but you require, you know, skilled leadership, experienced facilitators, the kind who designs procedures...

04:18...active involvement of all involved groups, and difficult to achieve...

04:21...but I think it's what it really takes, right?

04:24The role of the planner now is to facilitate the process, right?

04:28Provide...you know, the decision-making process is made by the public.

04:30The planner's role is not to make decisions, but to facilitate the process of the public, right?

04:34Provide information, appropriate tools and technologies.

04:38Role of the public now is to become informed about the past and present...

04:42...conditions, alternatives about the future, represent their interests...

04:46...learn the interests of others, and work together to implement the solution.

04:49So again, the goal...the work is done by the public, not by the planner.

04:54Role of technology is to enhance the expertise and knowledge of the public...

04:58...so they can use the technology to do their own planning, right?

05:00Again, we're not trying to make the technician smarter...

05:03...we're trying to make the public smarter.

05:05So the idea is to develop simple, easy-to-use tools which allow the public to look at the implication...

05:10...of alternative futures and so on and so forth.

05:13And I say geodesign can not only support design efforts of professionals...

05:19...it can also support public deliberation-type decision making...

05:24...help the public work together to consider their collective futures.

05:27And I think we expand beyond just supporting the visual designer to some kind of...

05:31...participatory design, but to do this requires appropriate technologies...

05:36...appropriate tools, and appropriate process, right?

05:39The technology is not the answer.

05:41The real goal, the real thing that really works is the process.

05:44We can develop tools to try to support this process.

05:46That's why we call them planning support systems.

05:49The idea is that the system doesn't do the planning...

05:51...it supports the process of community design planning and so forth