Speak Up Vero Beach Share this page:

Vero Beach, FL

SpeakUpVeroBeach.com was the hub for online community engagement about the future of Three Corners from November 19, 2019 to February 7, 2020 when Andres Duany / DPZ CoDESIGN was hired by the City of Vero Beach, Florida to help envision the future of Three Corners - publicly owned property - with input from the citizenry.  

Engaging the public online at SpeakUpVeroBeach.com was a new concept in Vero Beach.  It was successful because everyone had a voice, even if they couldn't attend meetings and public workshops.   

Here are results from the Three Corners initiative . . .  with a peek into the process. 

Online community engagement for Three Corners has concluded and the SpeakUpVeroBeach. website deactivated.                                                                                      

ABOUT ONLINE COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT

Why is online Community Engagement important and how can it change the pattern of decisions made in our community?

• Nationally, 7% of people attend public meetings where decisions are made and swayed.  93% of citizens are never heard from.
   
• People who give feedback at public meetings don't typically reflect the diversity and fabric of the community.  Feedback tends to be negative and often combative.
   
• Many people want to participate but are too shy to speak at a podium to express their views.  Or they are working, or tired after work, to attend meetings.
   
• Local newspapers strive to fill the role of impartiality and local watchdogs, but with the rise of social media and information overload in general, important issues can get lost in the noise.
   

What is an Online Community Engagement Platform?  Online engagement platforms integrate the best attributes of:
 

• a website = a lot of information but no engagement opportunity, other than email 
   
• social media = high engagement opportunity, with no information, that devolves to misinformation sharing 
  
   
• Website & social media channels are independent and not connected.  There's no mechanism to collect meaningful information & integrated data between the two.

NEW CONCEPT - The online Community Engagement Platform at SpeakUpVeroBeach. was a new concept in our community that provided deep facts about the project with easy ways to repectfully 'speak up' and engage online in discussions and idea sharing.  It provided direct feedback to public officials outside of public meetings and all engagement was documented for public records.  Interactions were transparent to all.  This was a very open and transparent process.

Local Community Partner
VeroBeach.com provided pro bono marketing and online community engagement resources for the Three Corners initiative and contributed 50% to the cost of the engagement platform license.