Browsing by Author "Pflughoeft, Ben"

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    Community Engagement for the Historic Eidem Homestead Master Plan
    (Resilient Communities Project (RCP), University of Minnesota, 2016) Arnold, Sarah; Latta, Robert; Pflughoeft, Ben; Priestley, Kevin
    This project was completed as part of the 2016-2017 Resilient Communities Project (rcp.umn.edu) partnership with the City of Brooklyn Park. The Historic Eidem Homestead is an historic and cultural landmark in Brooklyn Park. The City was developing a new master plan for the farmstead, and wanted greater community input into the development of the plan. The goal of this project was to develop a public engagement plan for the Eidem Farm master planning process. Brooklyn Park project lead Pat Busch worked with a team of students in PA 5145: Civic Participation in Public Affairs, to better understand the target audience for the master plan, design a process to engage diverse participants in the planning process, and increase the number of visitors to the homestead. The students' final report and process diagram are available.
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    Effective Social Media Engagement Options for Minnesota’s Diversifying Population
    (Minnesota Department of Transportation, 2018-02) Schneider, Ingrid E.; Quick, Kathryn; Peck, Melissa; Pflughoeft, Ben
    Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT) and Minnesota Local Road Research Board (LRRB) supported the University of Minnesota to investigate social media options for effective public engagement. A three-part approach assessed 1) the state of social media use through a literature review, 2) the status of social media use and interest in its use for transportation in Minnesota compared to national data, and 3) actual and perceived effectiveness of social media in two pairs of case studies in Minnesota. In sum, results reveal social media is effective as a strategic and select part of engagement plans and can likely effectively engage select groups. Survey results revealed 11-21% of respondents participated in planning for transportation programs, policies or projects in the last 12 months, 72% use social media of some sort, and 36% expressed interest in using social media to get information, provide feedback or make suggestions related to transportation. Finally, social media analytics and interviews related to four case studies revealed social media does indeed lead transportation projects to make more connections with stakeholders, but the quality and effectiveness of those connections vary. Four main opportunities include: 1) integrating social media into multi-pronged, dynamic engagement approaches, 2) considering the demographic qualities of the key stakeholders to determine how social media can be most useful, 3) employing best practices for social media engagement, and 4) expanding and/ or developing research and evaluation plans to understand and assess future social media engagement efforts.