Memo to SJ: Try being more like Steve Jobs when gathering public input
Image by Ben Stanfield
Strong Towns believes local community engagement isn't as effective when we ask granular policy questions, like “What percentage of the city budget should we spend on parks?” Instead, why not take a cue from tech mogul Steve Jobs, focusing instead on residents' actions: “Do you use the park?”
Our thinking is a byproduct of the questions we ask. This is one of the reasons Steve Jobs was not a big fan of asking the customers what they wanted. Customers don’t know what they want, at least when it comes to something innovative. Something different.
I was in a public meeting last week that was representative of so many others I’ve experienced. It was a focus group, of sorts, with some youth. …
The meeting started out with the standard public policy questions planning professionals like to ask. What do you like about the city? What do you not like? If you could change one thing, what would it be? The answers were worse than worthless, and it was painful to watch non-policy people trying to answer questions that weren’t designed for them.
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After a bit of pain, we got around to asking the kind of questions Steve Jobs would have asked. How did you get here today? (A: Walk or bike.) Is this how you get around in the winter when it’s twenty below zero? (A: Yes.) Do you feel safe walking? (A: No.) Do you feel safe biking? (A: No.) …
Time and again, the ones there to ask questions and listen tried to put things back into a policy box, to bring the conversation back on to comfortable ground. If you were to cut something from the budget to pay for a skate park, what would you cut? If we created a job training program at the college, would that help you get a better job? If we added more lighting to the street, would that make it safer to walk? The answers were the same type Steve Jobs would have received if he asked people what they wanted in the years before Apple invented the iPod: a better Walkman. …
I’m a planner and I’m a policy nerd. I had all the training in how to hold a public meeting and solicit feedback through SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) questions. I’ve been taught how to reach out to marginalized groups and make sure they too have a voice in the process. That is, so long as that voice fit into the paradigm of a planner and a policy nerd. Or so long as I could make it fit.
Modern Planner: What percentage of the city budget should we spend on parks?
Steve Jobs: Do you use the park?
Our planning efforts should absolutely be guided by the experiences of real people. But their actions are the data we should be collecting, not their stated preferences. To do the latter is to get comfortable trying to build a better Walkman. We should be designing the city equivalent of the iPod: something that responds to how real people actually live.
Read the whole thing here.
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