Engineers + Planners Contact WHAT WE DO WHO WE ARE WHO WE SERVE HOME RESOURCES OUR WORK CAREERS WHO WE ARE News & Events Our Team Recognized Leaders in Virtual Public Engagement June 24, 2020 We can help you keep your project moving forward, better than ever. Many of us have been working from home for three months. With remarkable flexibility across our industry, we adopted new ways to keep projects pushing forward — while remaining healthy, caring for our children, finding what our pets do all day, managing staff and clients flung away from conference rooms, and learning just what we all look like on camera for hours. We were happy to find that we can advance operations, continue our projects, and create some sort of adapted normalcy. But as the Commonwealth begins the long and unsure process of re-opening, the world we are stepping back into is not the same from which we retreated. The last three months have proven that we can do better than the (previously) typical evening in-person public meeting. Engagement is now up on projects. Presentations that used to welcome only small groups of ‘meeting regulars’ are attracting nearly a thousand views online. People have been getting COVID briefings on local news and on the Governor’s Instagram. We are collecting feedback on virtual maps instead of hunched over paper in a school cafeteria with pens and post-its. A virtual toolbox can expand your project’s engagement. Together, we can add more seats to the table, ask for and listen to more voices, and improve project outcomes by integrating that feedback into our plans and designs. As we start to return into public spaces, we can combine virtual and in-person techniques to even greater impact. Plant a yard sign along the sidewalk asking people what they’d like to see on the corridor. “Pop-up” at a supermarket or a COVID testing site with tablets (and sanitizing wipes!) to ask people to fill out a survey while they wait. When we go to people where they are — physically or digitally — we make it easier for them to ‘opt in’ to civic engagement. Simple and easy ways for participants to engage. Our engagement and outreach staff are constantly looking at how we can best engage the audience and collect real-time feedback. Whether we’re working with well-established tools we’ve learned over more than three decades of work, or trying something brand new, our best practices are guided by the core principle that public processes should be collaborative, community-centered, and engaging. From design public hearings to social media strategies; the old-reliable phone to state-of-the-art custom websites and interactive maps; regulatory permitting requirements to project branding and logo design; we have the tools, the people, the experience, and the passion to improve your project through public process. Public Informational Meetings Interactive Stakeholder Meetings Marketing and Communications Stakeholder Management Informational Outreach Process Design Online Engagement Visualizations and Renderings In-person Engagement Activities Contact Jeff Dietrich: 617.348.3320 jdietrich@hshassoc.com © Copyright 2021 Howard Stein Hudson Sitemap Privacy Policy Boston 11 Beacon Street, Boston, MA 02108 · Chelmsford 114 Turnpike Road, Chelmsford, MA 01824 · Worcester 370 Main Street, Worcester, MA 01608