Abbe Boulah’s Weblog

An effort to clarify the role of deliberative evaluation in the planning and policy-making process.  Thorbjørn Mann,  February 2020

TARGET AUDIENCE


Audience and Distribution: Overview

The target audience for the results of the effort to evaluate the role of evaluation in the planning discourse is admittedly immodestly diverse. While it may be of interest to many participants in the social media groups currently discussing related issues who will be consultants, offering services and tools planning, problem-solving‘ and ‘change management’ to corporate and institutional clients, the focus here will be on public planning, at all levels from small, local communities to national and international and ultimately global challenges. Thus, the issues concern any officials as well as the public involved in planning. But it is especially at the global level of challenges and crises that transcend the boundaries of traditional institutions, that traditional decision-making modes and habits break down or become inapplicable, generating calls for new ideas, approaches and tools. Increased public participation is a common demand.

The planning discourse at all levels will have to include not just traditional planning experts, decision-makers in all institutions faced with the need for collective action, but also the public. New emerging IT tools and procedures must also be applied to the evaluation facet of planning engaging all potentially affected parties, and leadership as well as the public will have to be involved and become familiar and competent with their use. This will call for appropriate means for generating that familiarity: information, education.

Obviously, at present, whatever discussion and presentation tools are chosen for this exploration of evaluation in public planning discourse, they will not be adequate for informing and achieving the aim of developing definitive answers, not even carrying out an effective discussion. It must be seen as just a first step in a more comprehensive strategy. To the extent that meaningful results emerge from this discussion, the issue of how to bring the ideas to a wider audience for general adoption will become part of the agenda. It should include education at all levels, down to general education for all citizens, not only higher levels. Thus, the hope is to reach planners and decision-makers for general education.

The audience that can be reached via such vehicles as this blog, selected social media, and perhaps a book, will be people who have given these issues some thoughts already, that is: ‘experts‘. So any discussion it will incite, will likely involve discipline ‘jargon’ of several kinds. But in view of a desired larger audience, the language should remain as close to conversational as possible and avoid ‘jargon’ too unfamiliar to non-experts. Many valuable research results and ideas are expressed in academic, ‘scientific’, or technical terms that are likely to exclude parties from the discussion that should be invited and included.

Given the wide range of people and institutions involved with planning, the question of ‘target audience’ may be inadequate or incomplete: it should be expanded to look at the best ways for distributing these suggestions. Besides traditional forms of distribution such as books, textbooks, manuals, new forms or media of familiarizing potential users may have to be developed; for example, online games simulating planning projects using new ideas and methods. This aspect of the project is especially in need of ideas and comments.

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