PLANNING HORIZONS Thinking Spatially Pilot Project Review Report on the pilot project for the RTPI and the MUT
Prepared by: Roland Lรกposi and Zsigmond Lรกszlรณ 06-06-2016
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Summary The Planning Horizons series took an unique approach to look into future of planning profession by taking a “...step back from immediate policy concerns and offer a long term as well as well as global view of planning and the contribution it can make to some of the major challenges we face in the 21st Century.”. For the pilot project the Thinking Spatially - introducing all themes unfolded in subsequent volumes - was chosen by volunteers to see how parties can work together and cooperate in the project, while exploring opportunities of translating the other 4 parts of the series depending on reception of Hungarian audience and the effectiveness of group work.
About the Pilot The pilot project of translating and publishing a Hungarian version of the Planning Horizons nr 1 – Thinking Spatially was aimed to test the process of knowledge transfer via a volunteer scheme. The pilot was actively supported by two main international, professional body the Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI) and the Hungarian Society for Urban Planning (MUT). Both organisations worked together with the Volunteers Group (VG) and undertook various commitments in the different project stages including providing, written materials, managing media cover, quality checks and representation on the e-book launch event. Project participants Royal Institute of Town Planners (RTPI) Mr Richard Blyth, Head of Policy and Practice Hungarian Society for Urban Planning (MUT) Mr Ongjerth Richard, Chief Executive Volunteer Group (VG): Mr Roland Láposi (translating), Mr Soóki-Tóth Gábor (internal proof reading) and Mr Zsigmond László (Desktop Publishing Design designer)
About the Review In the Evaluation part of this review looks into several aspects of the process to evaluate the efficiency and performance in achieving aims outlined in the projects brief. This is done by analysing how agreed commitments were met and the efficiency of the cooperation between parties, by looking at the project management and time keeping issues. The review also assesses the number of reads and visits, the time spent while reading the full e-book as well as the individual pages and the reading trends. This assessment also draws on the feedback received from parties and the various target groups involved through the scheme. It analyses how the e-book was received by the target audience –the planning professionals and looks for clues to find out if the themes of the publications emerged in public and professional debates since the launch to understand the level of penetrations into the awareness of the planning community. In the Conclusions and Recommendation part it also explores the potential of working together on the following Planning Horizons books.
Achieving main objectives The idea behind the pilot was to contribute to the planning knowledge available to Hungarian planners and connect them to mainstream research made on planning’s future. This review has set out two main aims:
Based on evidence and experience to decide whether the work shall be continuing or not, To make suggestions on general management, timing, budget and human resource matters with a future collaboration in mind. 2
Professional audience and the architecture and planning media welcomed it. The expected outcome of seeing numerous downloads and reads was also met and more importantly the themes outlined in the e-book remained part of the professional debate and clues suggest that a wider public audience also interested. This review found that the project met its main aim of producing a high quality Hungarian Edition of Planning Horizons Nr 1 Thinking Spatially. The e-book had 227 reads, readers spending more than 17 hours by reading it. The e-book has had so far 1394 impressions – readers who only skimming the pages.
F IGURE 1S TATISTICS OF READS A ND VISITS ON THE E - BOOK AT ISSUU . COM
Continuing the project This review strongly argues to continue the project and deliver the Hungarian edition of the next paper in the Planning Horizons the Future-planning Society. It also suggests recommendations for future collaboration on project development, management, timing and human resource matters.
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Pilot project evaluation 1. Project timing issues The time schedule was amended twice and a final deadline was agreed in December 2015. The following table shows the difference between the originally planned project timing (orange colour), the amended version (blue colour) done in the middle of July and as it happened in reality (green colour). Through this pilot the team of translators, proofreaders worked close to 250 hours altogether, and the desktop publishing design lasted for another 50 hours approximately. April
May
June
July
Aug.
Sept.
Oct.
Nov.
Dec.
Jan.
Feb.
Project development and MoU stage Formal MoUs RTPI – MUT MoU signed RTPI – MUT MoU signed
N/A: Waiting for response
VG MoU
Translation stage Translating Translating N/A: Waiting for response
Translating
Proofreading stage Proofreading Proofreading Proofreading
Desktop Publishing Design stage DP design DP design DP design
Promotion and Publishing Stage Promotion Publishing P&P P&P F IGURE 2 T IMING PLANNED - AMENDED - IN REALITY
2. Project Development and Programming In the phase of the project development all parties responded within 1-2 weeks to volunteers approach regarding the project brief and lent their informal support. As the international conference of the European planners was hosted by the MUT in Budapest in April 2015 Mr Richard Blyth (RTPI) and Mr Ongjerth Richard (MUT) was able to talk through the initiative. To meet up in person and present our idea Mr Soóki-Tóth Gábor, a representative of VG visited Mr Richard Blyth in London in May 2015. After the informal agreement in April 2015 it took up to July 2015 to sign a memorandum of understanding between the RTPI and the MUT and up to February 2016 to formally commission volunteers. While the RTPI was ready to start after a short initial period, the MUT due to inner dynamics proved to be really slow to sing Memorandum of Understandings with other parties.
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The experience through the project - especially in case of the originally unplanned activities done in the follow up phase to boost reader numbers and get a more significant penetration - since the ebook launch showed that in the development stage parties have to put in their own input in mapping out possible synergies and activities for the follow up phase as it does significantly help raising awareness and influences the themes emerging in public and professional discussions.
3. Translation and Desktop Design For the pilot was an international enterprise volunteers did not feel secure to proceed without a formal agreement especially with the Hungarian party and valuable time was lost during the high summer – early autumn period. The consequence was that both the original and the amended timetable had to be abandoned, while the MUT proposed a final deadline (4th of February 2016) only in December 2015. On the VG’s side it took form in a relatively loose timekeeping as other, unforeseen commitments, work and private life events frequently wrote over the agenda. Cooperation in translating, proofreading In general the translation phase when it has started in earnest took up a very good pace almost at the beginning. However volunteers made a classic mistake by starting at page 1 and working through chapters to the final page, as it resulted that previous part had to be constantly reviewed and changed to keep up with the deeper understanding coming from being more delved into the text and to apply recommendations of the internal (VG) and external (MUT) proof readers. Finally translation process was changed to rather similar that of a dissertation writing process starting with the main chapters, then the conclusions and recommendation leaving the executive summary to be the last to finish up. The process was simple taking chapter by chapter, writing a draft followed by an internal proof reading, and then the reviewed text part went back to the translator with comments, who edited it again and sent it to Mr Ongjerth Richard (MUT representative). His contribution was vital in that stage and he can be coined to have an expressive and on-the-point translation for the title ‘Térben gondolkodva’ (Thinking Spatially) and he suggested the best expression able to convey the concept of spatial planning into Hungarian – ‘térbeli tervezés’. Volunteers consulted with Mr Ongjerth Richard via email or Skype regularly sometimes on a weekly or daily basis. Desktop publishing design The desktop design started in the second part of January 2016 and lasted a day before the launch event. Designer had issues with profile pictures as they weren’t up to to specifications, and some changes had to be done on the translated texts as the Hungarian version was often longer than the original and had to be cut back while keeping the main messages intact. It did not allowed volunteers to get a bit more distanced from the text and to be able to check smaller grammatical and spelling mistakes with fresh eyes. On the last evening before the launch day volunteers still found and corrected approximately 30 errors. Despite the efforts some error where only coming up after the launch, but they were corrected and a reviewed version was uploaded to all places, including the MUT articles attachment.
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4. Promotion and e-book launch The campaign The 1 month long promotion campaign was in fact limited to a few media announcements within a week before the launch. The e-book launch event (4th of February) was announced one week before the event took place on the 28th January by the MUT. The announcement also appeared on news sections of the MUT’s own website mut.hu, the mek.hu (Chamber of the Hungarian Architects’ website) and the epiteszforum.hu (leading architecture and planning affairs online magazine) as well as their Facebook channels. Attendance on the event Even though the MUT arranged a very strong panel of presenters including RTPI president Phil Williams and a junior secretary of the Prime Minister’s office (department responsible for national planning policy and framework), the audience was less than expected. Due to the inconsistent promotion and the late advertising only around 20 people turned up including participants of the panel talk session. Younger audience – age groups between 19-40 years - presence on the event was minimal for around 2-3 university students and young professional were there. It might be connected to the profile of the MUT members. It also raises the question of having only one Hungarian professional organisation participating in the project. MUT has around 105 member and most of the members are of the older generations. Possible improvement could be to include organisations with wider outreach especially to the university students and active citizens in any segment of urbanism. However attendance isn’t the adequate representative indicator as readers’ age and career segmentation could be entirely different. Issues of panel discussion and pre-even engagement The audience who made it did not have a chance to look into the Hungarian edition of the Thinking Spatially prior the e-book launch event, which in turn made it very difficult for them to engage in a real conversation about its topics. It also meant that there was no meaningful way to communicate the project and the Thinking Spatially in details. The consequence was that the panel debate was more or less revolving around differences between the Hungarian and the British planning systems instead of talking about the future challenges waiting for any planning system in any country. Some of the audience who was especially interested in global examples and bad/best practices found it hard to follow and boring therefore left early. One reason for this that the full version itself was only finalised for the deadline which was the book launch event’s day (4th of February) as agreed with the MUT. Panel discussion potentials Findings of study papers published after the launch of the Thinking Spatially show a country in 2050—2100 with ageing society, a population number going down by 1-2 million people, depopulated country sides and abandoned small villages, transformed land and agricultural uses, the existing built environment and ecosystems under pressure by climate, demographic and economic changes, brain and population-draining effect caused by the relative rise of secondary cities and 6
their city regions. Volunteers and peers attended the panel discussion also identified some questions which never came up on the panel discussion, even though they shall be in the middle of any discussions regarding the future of planning: *How shall the National Spatial Development Plan (Hungarian national level planning framework) deal with those changes? *How shall the emergence of city-regions and increase of depopulating areas influence policy? *What shall be included into the NSDP – housing, infrastructure provision, transportation? *How shall governance systems delivering national, regional, county and local plans respond to demographic changes and different trends of urbanisation? *What government system can provide sustainable services, quality built environment for communities - city-region and territorial local governments or partnerships based on functional connections and spatial factor instead of individual municipalities? *How to deal with the increasing demand for housing, services and infrastructure in the new city regions or in the depopulated areas? Feedbacks on the event venue and timing According to feedbacks the launch event was advertised to late and to close to the actual date for some people to make arrangements. Some of the prospective audience complained that it was on a relatively early Thursday afternoon (5 pm) and people couldn’t get away from work to get there on time, while others coming out of the Budapest commented that a Friday afternoon would have been easier for them to attend as they couldn’t get manage to come to the event and get back on time to start working on Friday morning. Issues of the online presence Continuous online presence is an issue as there isn’t any permanent dedicated website to the Planning Horizons Hungarian Editions project from which people could get info about the initiative, or be advised about releases and upcoming events. The suggested sub-page dedicated for the Planning Horizon series under the ‘Knowledge Base – Tudástár’ menu point on mut.hu hasn’t been delivered. The e-book was uploaded as an attachment to the short launch event summary article in their news timeline section. While it is still available, the nature of the timeline means that it is not anymore on the front page and if someone was looking for it the archives should be searched. As an alternative solution VG published the Thinking Spatially on one of the volunteer’s publication list on the issuu.com, on the researchgate.com and the academia.edu websites, which in turn provided a mean to monitor the number own readings and downloads and other, more detailed statistics. Setting up a webpage for the project at free service providers such as wix.com (website builder for pc-s and mobiles) and an account on issuu.com (online publishing) and Facebook to engage with readers and hold all the embedded media content would be advantageous and cost effective.
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5. Follow ups MUT announcements and news posts Following the e-book between the 5th and 7th of February the MUT published a very brief summary about the event on its website and posted several posts on its Facebook page. However MUT’s activity in cooperation with the VG has been stopped here. There were no more planned actions beyond this point. Secondary channels Use of secondary channels such as Facebook groups (UrbaNEXT – young planners’ network), the RTPI, alumni and university blogs (Science University of Pécs, Budapest University of Technology and Economics) also helped to spread out the pilot’s media coverage.
F IGURE 3R EADING DEVICES AND S OURCES OF READERS
According to data on sources of readers secondary channels also played a big part in directing readers to the version available for reading on the issuu.com, as in the assessed period 69% of the readers used embedded links to find and read the applications. Even more interesting that 14% of the readers accessed the publication through mobile phones perhaps on the way somewhere.. Feedbacks on secondary channels also reinforced that a dedicated website or a webpage of any willing supporting organisation would be important. Not just because it would be easier to find it on the internet – comparing to one volunteers issuu.com publications list – but it could be a permanent, and well promoted home for the subsequent publications as well. Connecting to readers In lack of any further planned activity to reach out to a wider audience launch leaders of volunteers decided to directly engage with two leading actors defining the professional architecture and planning media scene in Hungary.
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T ABLE 1 PLANNED AND UNPLANNED MEDIA COMMUNICATIO N ACTIVITIES
Planned Follow up
Unplanned Follow up
January
February
March
MUT e-book launch announcements
MUT E-book launch th on 4 ,
RTPI blog post
Facebook event invitations sent on th 28
MUT article & Facebook posts on th th 5 -7
3 March
VG Facebook invitations
VG approaching epiteszforum.hu, Book review th published on 16
VG contacts Octogon
April
May
Book review published in the Octogon Magazine on 15th
MUT Smart cities conference book review
rd
The first book review of 1000 words (plus illustrations and pictures) was published on the 16th of February on the epiteszforum.hu (the leading online magazine). A blog post RTPI’s blog was posted on the 3rd of March. The second, detailed book review about the Planning Horizons series and the Thinking Spatially and its implications to Hungary was published in the printed version of the Octogon magazine (2016/2, 126, page 108) on the 7th of April.
Preparing the articles requested by media was a new challenge as no one of the volunteers done before something like this. Due to inexperience on behalf of the VG no brief version, front cover or any other illustrative abstract was prepared for media announcements. On the other hand MUT taking on the promotion neither provided any guidance on the matter through the project development phase nor required any pre-launch material to be used in media communication for running a successful promotion campaign.
F IGURE 4 R EADERS OPENING UP T HINKING S PATIALLY ON ISSUU . COM
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However reviews have had a very positive impact on download and read numbers, there was an immediate and significant rise in each case in the following days. The latest article on Thinking Spatially was released on 15th of May in the printed version of the Octogon magazine, but it is s too soon to evaluate its impact and the numbers it has reached.
F IGURE 5 F RONT PAGE OF THE O CTOGON
F IGURE 6 I NDEX – R EVIEW ON PAGE 108
Penetration of ideas: Event drawing on Thinking Spatially The themes of Thinking Spatially seem to be slowly penetrating into the thoughts of the Hungarian planning community and MUT is gaining a momentum to harness it. On the 10th of May 2016 on the Smart Cities mini conference series (episode 8) one of the volunteers, Mr Soóki-Tóth Gábor was invited to give a lecture on of spatial thinking and making the best use of GIS. Peers also suggested that “it deserve a conference session on its own right” not unlike TED talks or Pecha-Kucha nights, where researchers other of fields would draw up a picture how Hungary would look like in 2050 and 2100 which would set a daily life context within planning shall perform in the future. New volunteer recruits - new supporters, Unexpected, but very welcomed outcome of the pilot is that some new senior academia lecturer, who read the paper decided to sign up as a volunteer help translating the subsequent volumes. This could give for the volunteer team an improved flexibility in delegating tasks and text parts as well as the extra eyes for more rigorous proof reading and grammar- error checking. The Contemporary Architect Centre (KÉK) repeatedly expressed its interest to join to the MUT – RTPI – VG team. KÉK is a very active and effective organisation run by young architects and planners. The board of curators has already supported the Thinking Spatially by sharing the publication on its channels, however this time they would step in as the Hungarian co-host and event coordinator partner. They are running a series of events with a very high level of participation by students (the campus of the biggest Hungarian university the Budapest University of Technology and Economics is just next door) for active citizens, planners and architects which could give a huge boost in reaching 10
out to the one of the main target audience to which the MUT or the volunteers has basically and unfortunately limited or no connection at all. Volunteers also approached the Directorate for Environmental Sustainability at the Office of the President of the Hungarian Republic (responsible participation COP21 in Paris, 2015) and gained the support of the Director, Mr Csaba Kőrösi and a promise that if the Directorate had a chance to promote the publication it would do so. It seems to be very important, and parallel with expressed interest to connect the different parties and not to swap one for the other to have a more effective promotion campaign and to align focus of the planner and urbanism community to future challenges waiting.
6. Feedbacks Feedbacks received through social media showed that planning community is very much interested in seeing future challenges; but current debates are wrapped up around more technical and sectoral approaches such as smart cities or renewable energies. Recent research papers published on future state of the country: of its economy, demography and environment in the fundamentally changed reality of 2050 and 2100 proved that the topic is absolutely relevant for the people. Volunteers received questions regarding a possible Hungarian planning focused Planning Horizons to look into the consequences of the changes reviled in research papers for Hungarian planning system and for the profession itself – but it would be way beyond the limitations and resources of a project. The quality illustrations, the layout and design of the research paper were also highlighted as exceptional by the chief editor of the Octogon Magazine. It is an important achievement as Octogon is the biggest architecture and design online and hardcopy magazine in Hungary.
7. Budget The project did not have any extra costs out with those volunteers were willing to pay by themselves. RTPI offered to pay and paid Mr Roland Láposi’s flight ticket to travel from Scotland to Budapest to be present on the e-book launch event.
8. Measuring outcomes All parties perceived that the pilot was a successful venture and the two main objectives were achieved. The evidence and feedbacks shows that the project met its main aim of producing a high quality Hungarian Edition of the Thinking Spatially which was welcomed by professional audience and the architecture and planning media. The project met its expected outcome of seeing numerous downloads and reads of the online Hungarian edition and the themes outlined in Thinking Spatially remained part of the professional debate and clues suggest that a wider public audience also interested.
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Key evidences in meeting with main objectives
F IGURE 7 K EY STATISTICS
People who actively engage with your content are readers. Readers spend time in the publication, do navigate, and search. The e-book had 227 reads, readers spending more than 17 hours by reading it. Simply skimming the pages like one would do at the local newsstand, count as an impression. The e-book has had so far 1394 impressions.
F IGURE 8 R EADERS WHO READ THE
FULL E - BOOK
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Altogether Thinking Spatially had 227 reads -it was227 times read from front to back page. It doesn’t seems to be a big number, but the size of the planning community in Hungary could be around 45000 people (according to volunteers estimation) with only 207 members licensed by the Chamber of the Hungarian Architects.
F IGURE 9 I MPRESSIONS - READERS BROWSING THR OUGH PAGES
While number of reads was significantly higher in the first month after the launch, the publication has a really active afterlife: it was mentioned, shared and skimmed through many times, reaching the top in March and a second rise in April (coincidently with RTPI blog and Octogon published).
F IGURE 10 E CONOMY AND C LIMATE CHANGE CHAPTERS PERFORMED WELL
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Typical to Hungarian audience that chapters connected to physical planning were most read, thus Economy and Climate change performed well. Outlooks to “exotic” places also drawn interests.
F IGURE 11 R EADING TIME PER PAGE
By looking at total time spent of reading the pages a different pattern emerges. Apart from the executive summary, the economy and climate change chapters readers were interested to read about social justice, and the solutions offered too.
F IGURE 12 R EADERS AROUND THE WORLD - G LOBAL OUTREACH , DOMESTIC DOMINANCY
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Conclusions This review has two main objectives: 
To evaluate the pilot and decide whether the work shall be continuing or not, and support it with evidence based on data research and experience communicated through feedbacks.
As the researched evidences shows the Hungarian edition of the Thinking Spatially was successful and considering the limitations of the project participants and that no money was involved to pay for other professionals services (designers, translators, media communication agencies, advertisements ect.) it fulfilled its mission. The published e-book did have - and continuing to have - an impact on the professional discussions in the planning community and revealed a real, existing interest towards the themes outlined in the subsequent papers. Data on page preferences also shows that economy, climate change and social justice is very much in the focus of the readers, however specifics related to the state of the future –other- Hungary are needed to set the context for meaningful planning discussion and to grab the attention of the wider public. 
To outline recommendations on general management, timing, budget and human resource matters with a future collaboration in mind.
Taking into account the experience of the parties involved into the venture, the cooperation was effective even if sometimes got to be stalled by factors beyond the reach of the participants. However the pilot was also an exercise to highlight issues and unintended consequences or not anticipated situation which needs to be dealt with to have achieve a deeper penetration of ideas into the way we, professionals are thinking about our position, and profession if Hungarian planning wants to adapt to the changing realities of the future. Having achieved both main objectives this review strongly argues to build on the momentum and deliver the Hungarian edition of the Future-proofing Society (Planning Horizons nr 2).
9. Future collaborations To keep the venture a pro-bono based project it is very important - and parallel with expressed interest of the parties - to link in new prospective supporters and recruits to deliver a more effective translating and promotion campaign. New volunteer recruits can help delegating tasks more effectively and reducing the overall time schedule. It will improve the quality of the Hungarian edition too as it will add to volunteers capacity to implement a more rigorous proof reading and grammar- error checking routine on the translated texts and the desktop design. Any new partner could extent the outreach towards future readers and by utilising their special knowledge and networks a better targeted promotion campaign and follow up phase can be programmed. However findings of this report proved that one major hiatus of the planning debates is that main themes are not related to the context of Hungary in the future and like this it is not intriguing, interesting enough for a wider non-planner audience to get involved. Thus it is important that new partners shall have the ability, the willingness and the capacity to engage with and organise contemporary researchers to share their views on future state of the country.
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The Contemporary Architect Centre’s (KÉK) interest to become a potential new Hungarian co-host should be assessed on terms of their capacity to link in the younger age groups particularly the university student of urban related studies. KÉK is already a well established brand within the circle of active citizens and urban dwellers therefore with its support there is a chance to raise the topic of future challenges and planning into mainstream urban discussions.
10.
Recommendations
Recommendations are broken down to phases and main issues to provide a complement the existing framework of the project. Keeping the project cost free is important and only freely available solutions are suggested. Partners have no cost to bear out with their own usual activities in promoting and publishing. All materials will be provided by the volunteer team. Project development phase Successful future collaboration requires the buy-in to the development phase of willing actors. The time schedule and the commitments undertaken shall be mapped out in this phase and written into a mutually agreed project brief. The brief shall contain tasks, deadlines and processes for all participants. It is also important that with more players on board Memorandum of Understandings have to be signed right at the end of the development phase. Translation and proofreading phase Using the experience of the pilot the translating – proofreading process shall be streamlined by delivering a draft translation chapter by chapter. Draft versions will be examined internally by volunteer proof reader. After internal review the draft will go back to the translator with comments, who reviews it again and send it to Mr Ongjerth Richard (MUT representative) to have an external proof reading be done. The external proof reading is followed by an internal review to keep the interpretation of the whole material concise and consistent. The finalised version of the text will go to the DPD designer to have it edited into the layout provided by RTPI. Using the finalised text translators will also deliver the 2 page long summary version and hand it over to DPD designer. Desktop publishing design phase The DPD designer process will start when the whole text is finalised and can be edited into the layout provided by RTPI. However transfer of copyrights of the DPD materials is available only after MoU are signed. All materials including DPD material, replacement photos and profile pictures have to be sent over before the design start to avoid unnecessary delays later. The DPD phase will have three main results: -
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Finalised, edited full version of the e-book delivered 4 weeks before the launch day as presenters and panel discussion participants will need it prepare; E-book launch event poster (built on the design of the front cover including the confirmed presenters and panel discussion participants) and the illustrations, maps (and any other visual illustration material extracted from the publication) delivered 4 weeks before the launch day Finalised edited version of the 2 pages long summary delivered by 3 weeks before the launch day as for e-book launch announcements to publish it in media outlets. 16
After delivering the layout RTPI needs to give green light on the appearance. Before publishing online any materials a final error check has to happen with special attention paid to references, misspellings and illustration qualities. A translator and someone with fresh eye are suggested to prepare an error list which can be corrected. Promoting the e-book and building up online presence The project shall have primary and secondary channels to communicate, share information and engage with audience. All primary channels will be managed by the volunteer team in cooperation with co-hosts and partners. Primary channels: A dedicated website for the whole Planning Horizons Hungarian Editions shall be set up at a free service provider such as the wix.com. By using pre-built website templates and the brand elements of the Planning Horizons series (especially attractive the front cove of the Thinking Spatially) is would be relative easy and most of all cost free to create a website. An issuu.com profile shall be set up for the project to keep permanently all the Planning Horizons books in one easily and freely accessible place. The issuu’s statistics analytics abilities can be harnessed to monitor content penetration and keep count on reads and readers. Building on the pilot project a dedicated Facebook site could be set up to give updates and previews during the translation periods and publish short peeks and illustration materials as well as link up other news relevant to the e-book and panel discussion themes. A Facebook event or Eventbrite (online ticketing) could be created to invite audience when the 2 page long summary and the other publishable media materials are ready around 3 weeks before the launch day.
F IGURE 13 E XAMPLES : A WIX . COM CONFERENCE TEMPLATE ( LEFT ) AND AN
ISSUU . COM PUBLICATIONS LIST ( RIGHT )
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Optionally a YouTube or Vimeo account (or any other) shall be set up to hold the video records of the presentations permanently and easily and freely accessible. Combining the Vimeo or YouTube channels and the issuu.com account could provide a central place where embedded content can be linked, liked, shared by the audience. Secondary channels Social media - blogs, tweets, and Facebook - channels of the supporting organisations, MEK, MUT, épitészfórum and Octogon magazines, PTE Urban studies could also spread information. They shall be provided with information and material regularly especially on previews, posters, abstracts and news Engagement – conference and media Engagement of the panel discussion participants shall be done in advance to provide time for prepare and confirm their role and presence. Presenters and panel discussion participants will be invited 6 weeks and be confirmed 4 weeks before launch day. Written summary and DPD media materials (event poster, book cover some illustrations) and the 2 page brief shall be provided for épitészfórum and Octogon 3 weeks before event-launch. Engagement with professional media out with the supporters shall be starting when the panel discussion program and the participants are confirmed, and the media materials are ready to be handed over. Invitation will be sent out 3 weeks and be confirmed 1 week before launch day. Creating Facebook event and invite people sent out 4 weeks before E-book launch event It is not just about the e-book. It is all about the context in which planning has to redefine itself and perform and the ability to present it. It is suggested that the panel discussions should reflect on the people’s interest. Representative of the RTPI shall also be part of the presenters to wrap a planning issue context around future changes helping Hungarian planners to shift their focus. The setup of the presentations will be engaging, provocative and brief, excessively using illustrations and relatively short similar TED-talks or Pecha-Kucha night presentations to keep audience interested and not be bored. The venue arrangement should make it easy to reach the place by public transport and ideally have some parking capacity nearby. The venue shall be also able to accommodate a bigger number of audiences as well as provide technical assistance to presenters and record the presentations and the panel discussion. The timing should reflect on feedbacks. This could be a Friday afternoon with a start around 17:OO hours to allow interested professionals from the country side to get there and back home with public transport too. It might be suitable for people working in private sector as they probably don’t finish before 5 pm. The calendar day shall be set in late October after autumn semester took off for university students, while council planners and private consultants are over the busiest period after the holiday season of councils finished. 18
Presentations and the panel discussion potentials: “The még10év - next100years” prezis Optionally a series of fast paced presentations (5-6 presenters and 3-5 minutes per presentation) could give a strong background context to the panel discussions by painting a picture about the realities of that other Hungary in 2050 and 2100. We call them the “még10év - next100years” as they are looking into that time span and planning horizon. This review identified two recent studies whose authors can help to shed light on the future. However the list is not exclusive or set in stone, it can be developed, changed and shaped according to programme. The first one the Klímaváltozás – társadalom – gazdaság; Hosszú távú területi folyamatok és trendek Magyarországon (English title: Climate change – Society – Economy; Long time spatial processes and ternds in Hungary) examined the future trends for the whole country is edited by Czirfusz Márton, Hoyk Edit, Suvák Andrea in 2016. The second one is a dissertation the A Dél-Dunántúli Régió funkció-ellátottság vizsgálata (English title: Analysis of service provision in the South Trans-Danube region) written by Rácz Andrea. The dissertation examined the impacts of changing demographic and economic trends on service provision in 656 settlements and its implications for spatial network and settlement hierarchy in the region. Making it easy to imagine The main point is to make it tangible for everyone including people who are not spending too much time to think about issues and challenges. In 2014 the OzoneNetwork television channel made a fictional weather forecast report played in 2050. It really did the job to display for and engage audience on a very simple, plain language by showing some every day features -consequences of the climate change (http://goo.gl/wuchzL). Presentations could have this fictional weather report as a “guideline” as well as the networks TV’s personalities as presenters.
F IGURE 14 W EATHER
2050 - 40C IN S EPTEMBER , – SOMETHING EVERYONE C AN PICTURE
REPORT FROM
SWAMPS AND MOSQUITOES
ALMOST COMPLETELY DR IED OUT
B ALATON L AKE ,
DESERTS ,
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What planners want to know Drawing on feedbacks on the Thinking Spatially e-book launch event it is possible to give some examples of questions which can start a meaningful and hopefully long lasting discussion on planning’s future, because audience is genuinely interested to know them: -
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How shall the National Spatial Development Plan (Hungarian national level planning framework) deal with those changes? What to do with the emergence of city-regions and increase of depopulation in other areas? What shall be included into the NSDP – housing, energy, services, infrastructure provision, and transportation? How shall governance systems delivering national, regional, county and local plans respond to demographic changes and differing trends of urbanisation? What government system can provide sustainable services, quality built environment for communities - city-region and territorial local governments or partnerships based on functional connections and spatial factor instead of individual municipalities? How to deal with the increasing demand for housing, services and infrastructure in the new city regions? How to deal with the oversupply of services, abandoned or unmarketable properties and the cost of keeping them up in the areas facing with depopulation already started? How would the planning system and the hierarchy of plans fit into that new reality? What ways can have planning enough spatial data for decision making?
Patronage News reported that in late May the PM David Cameron held a short meeting with President János Áder of Hungary. The 2 leaders discussed climate change and agreed to explore ways in which the international community can work together to build on the agreement. They also spoke about global water issues with both leaders keen to find solutions to international problems of supply and sanitation, with Hungary due to host a World Water Summit in 2016, November (https://goo.gl/oO74yf). It is worth to remember that the main mission of the Planning Horizons initiative is knowledge transfer and that is in the same time a British and Hungarian soft power exercise for a common goal. Built on this momentum there might be a chance to gain the patronage of Mr Iain Lindsay the British Ambassador as a representative of the UK and Mr Csaba Kőrösi the Director for Environmental Sustainability at the Office of the President of the Hungarian Republic. The project has already received a non-bidding support letter from Mr Csaba Kőrösi might be a good stepping stone to attempt a successful approach. Timing seems to be alright, even more so as the presidential Office in a recent consultation asked the public about continuing and participating in the Élő Bolygónk project (www.elobolygonk.hu), which is the Hungarian branch of the Live Earth (liveearth.org/) campaign of the COP21. The Élő Bolygó also has a very active Facebook account providing frequent round-ups on climate change, sustainability and environment.
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Follow ups – post event activities The raison d’être of the follow up phase is to keep target audience aware of the published e-book at to direct new readers to it for a longer period of time. It is to pave the way for the Planning Horizons Nr 5 - Promoting Healthy Cities and the following pieces. Planning Horizons - News and reports In a form of a blog on a dedicated website or through the Facebook account many different domestic and international news - special focus to presenters research, Habitat III and the new Urban Agenda ect. - can be communicated under which are relevant to Hungarian audience. This could spark a wider public interest and attract more readers to the Hungarian editions of the planning Horizons. Épitészfórum book review A book review shall be written for épitészfórum 1 month after the e-book release to direct readers who missed the publication or needs to be more details about its content to raise their interest. Word count: 1000 words. Octogon research abstract The Octogon Magazine requires long deeper, more analytical abstract of the research supported with data and conclusions highlighted. Its release might be 2-4 month s after the launch depending on editorial decision. Word count: 800 words. Interview potentials This review suggests having an exclusive interview with RTPI representative after the e-book launch about the PH series in general which includes about RTPI’s activity for the New Urban Agenda on the upcoming UN-Habitat III in 2016 Quito (Chile) and about its role in reforming planning in the various nations of the UK. While themes can be suggested supporting épitészfórum and Octogon might ask different questions as well. Monitoring and reporting The monitoring session closes with a project review. The review concentrates to measuring outcomes and improving processes as well as forming recommendations based on findings. To measure outcomes, understand penetration and assess performance the project will be monitored. Similar to the pilot project 4 months after the e-book launch the project shall be evaluated by:
using data on downloads and reads feedbacks on event and engagement through various channels and experience of project participants and co-hosts.
To analyse how agreed commitments were met and the efficiency of the cooperation between parties, by looking at the project management and time keeping issues.
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