Note from PlannersWeb Editor Wayne Senville:

I’m delighted to announce a new partnership between PlannersWeb and Della Rucker’s Wise Economy Workshop to share interviews with people across the continent who are making interesting and useful improvements in public engagement and participation — improvements that you can use in your community.

We’ll interview people who are improving our understanding of how to do public engagement more effectively; people who are developing online and in-person tools to improve our residents’ ability to engage constructively; and (occasionally) people who have a bright idea they’re working on that hasn’t been fully rolled out!

You can watch and listen on a computer or other device — anything that can show you a YouTube video.

Our first interview, which you can watch below, is with Chris Haller, CEO of Urban Interactive Studios. Chris and Della talked about the new world of planning project web site development (hint: it’s much easier and more powerful than it used to be!), as well as the challenges of engaging our residents in the mobile era … and the importance of bringing online and mobile engagement face to face with real world spaces. Note: Chris starts to describe the Engaging Plans web tool about 10 minutes into the video.

Della Rucker, AICP, CEcD, is the Principal of Wise Economy Workshop, a consulting firm that assists local governments and nonprofit organizations with the information and processes for making wise planning and economic development decisions.

Rucker is also Managing Editor of EngagingCities and author of the recent book The Local Economy Revolution: What’s Changed and How You Can Help — portions of which will be serialized here on PlannersWeb.com during 2014.