TurningPoint Case Study

Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning

BACKGROUND

The Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning (CMAP) is the regional planning organization that coordinates seven northeastern Illinois counties. Responsibilities of the agency include land use planning, transportation planning, housing policy and environmental work for areas surrounding the city. In addition, the organization is responsible for the regional comprehensive plan GO TO 2040 that prioritizes and outlines strategies for the development and growth of the community in the next 30 years.

Erin Aleman is the Senior Regional Planner at CMAP and coordinates many outreach programs that involve the community. In order to create a development plan that accurately reflects community wants and needs, input is regularly gathered from interested citizens. In order to gather data in an effective way, CMAP was an early adopter of audience response technology.

THE CHALLENGE

During her time in graduate school, Aleman worked with AmericaSpeaks, a non-profit organization aimed at engaging audiences in governance. AmericaSpeaks employed Turning Technologies' audience response systems during events, providing credit card size keypads to participants and using simple software that was native to PowerPoint for interactive polling questions. After experiencing the technology first-hand, she purchased the system for a forum program in which she wanted to track how audiences were responding to and learning from presented material.

When Aleman first came on board at CMAP, the group was already using audience response. However, the system was not as intuitive as her previous experiences with the technology including the use of large keypads that made the systems feel "clunky." Aleman suggested that the team upgrade in order to provide further flexibility and advanced features not available in the current system.

THE SOLUTION

In order to select the best system for her organization's needs, Aleman first obtained quotes from several vendors. Comparing service, price and features, Turning Technologies emerged at the top of the list. With the TurningPoint system, the team could expand usage of the technology so that other area entities could poll participants during meetings.

"The response system is used to poll people around the region regarding what their priorities are in terms of planning for future growth and development," said Aleman. "We are now providing hands-on technical assistance to communities to go out and use it within municipalities. If there is land available for development, they can really get a sense of what the community would like to see put in place - anything from hotels to grocery stores to landscaping and streetscaping projects."

Aleman uses the system for a variety of functions, from internal meetings to community outreach programs. During internal meetings, the technology is used to vote on policy priorities and what should be pursued as an agency. Externally, community meetings that provide participants the chance to offer input into the future design of the area are attended by approximately 30 citizens, but can see up to over 200 involved members. At the beginning of meetings, Aleman typically asks for demographic information.

"We really like to know who we are reaching," she said. "We will gather demographic information, especially for reporting requirements for the federal government. We can easily show that we have reached all kinds of residents in the region and not just one demographic. It really shows the breadth of our outreach."

For the GO TO 2040 plan, CMAP is trying to understand what the priorities are for residents of the region, in addition to what trade-offs they are willing to make to accommodate those specific concerns. For example, votes to keep density unchanged but increase transit services conflict, creating a need to prioritize. The response systems allows for CMAP to present an initial scenario, vote according to the importance of factors and then display results of how the area would be affected. In order to come to a consensus, often additional votes are needed. Since everyone has a keypad for voting, all input can be counted when decisions are made.

"We've used the system a lot when we've had some hot issues where it seemed like density really wasn't something the community wanted," Aleman said. "However, you couldn't really tell if the entire community agreed or not because there were a few loud voices. The system was very powerful in showing what the entire community wanted. When they were allowed to vote anonymously you could see that it was really only a few people that didn’t support new development at the proposed density. The majority of the people at the meetings were comfortable with it."

CONCLUSION

The agency regularly uses TurningPoint in meetings to the point where participants know it's a CMAP-driven event once the keypads come out. Audiences, however, enjoy using the system since it makes the meeting an engaging and fun experience that allows for greater audience participation. Aleman encourages the use of the systems so that all members have a voice and are actively contributing to the future of the area. The TurningPoint system provides the options and flexibility the agency required.

"Being a government agency, the system really provides transparency. Whether it's transparency to the people we are working with or to funders or to the federal government for reporting requirements, it really accomplishes all of that," she said.

For more information about purchasing or renting Turning Technologies' audience response systems for your organization, contact us at 866-746-3015.