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Conversations about Creating a Culture of Activity: Profiling the people, places, programs, and policies that help to promote a culture of activity within our communities.
Note: This transcript was exported from the video version of this episode, and it has not been copyedited
00:00:00:08 - 00:00:25:12
Brent Toderian
We are not a self congratulating pat ourself on the back because we came up with good stuff, but nobody is paying attention. Kind of group. We are all people who we literally want to change the world, and you can change the world without changing cities. And so to for that you need attention. I'm very pragmatic about that. If people aren't paying attention to your message, your message doesn't exist.
00:00:25:14 - 00:00:45:27
Brent Toderian
So the more people can help spread our message, the more we thank you for doing this interview with us, because the more people know of what our work is. Go looking for it. Check out our posters. Share them. Check out our bigger campaigns once they're released. That's how you change minds. If campaigns don't have attention, they don't exist.
00:00:45:27 - 00:01:09:19
Brent Toderian
So this organization will succeed or fail based on attention. And that seems strange for people to say, why are you guys so interested in followers or retweets or reposts or what have you? Well, because it doesn't work if people don't see it and and repeat it. You know what professionals tend to say? Oh, just say it once and then don't say it again, or else you'll annoy people.
00:01:09:25 - 00:01:27:02
Brent Toderian
But people like Tom know repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition. Right. So, please help us do that. And in doing that, you're kind of part of the collective because you're part of spreading the word around a more persuasive truth and calling out the lies.
00:01:27:05 - 00:01:34:07
Grant Ennis
We're going to be calling out the liars as well, which will be part of the book, part of this one. Stay open. Stay tuned for more.
00:01:34:10 - 00:01:48:26
Tom Flood
So first of all, thanks, John, for having us on. Awesome to be here and thanks for amplifying the work. And for me, I'm pretty excited to see the kind of work we get into as we kind of bring in different collaborators and contributors to, to the collective. So really looking forward to that.
00:01:48:28 - 00:02:09:22
John Simmerman
Hey everyone, welcome to the Active Towns channel. My name is John Zimmerman and that is Tom flood, Grant Ennis and Brant Tedder. And we are going to be, talking about their new initiative, the Urban Truth Collective. We're going to get into that in just a moment. But before we do that, I just want to say, if you're enjoying this content here on the Active Towns Channel, please consider supporting my efforts by becoming an Active Towns ambassador.
00:02:09:23 - 00:02:28:05
John Simmerman
Hey, super easy to do. Just click on the join button right here in YouTube down below, or navigate over to Active towns.org. Click on the support tab at the top of the page and there's several different options. Okay, let's get right into it with the Urban Truth Collective.
00:02:28:07 - 00:02:34:01
John Simmerman
Tom Grant Brant, thank you so much for joining me on the Active Towns podcast.
00:02:34:03 - 00:02:35:28
Grant Ennis
Our pleasure to be here, John.
00:02:36:00 - 00:02:56:29
John Simmerman
This is going to be fun. I always love having four voices trying to coordinate. Who's going to talk next? But I really do appreciate, you know, making this happen. We've got, the Paris time zone, represented the East coast in the Toronto area and also Vancouver and Hawaii. This is this is fun. Yeah, it's good stuff.
00:02:56:29 - 00:03:13:29
John Simmerman
I'd say good morning, but it's not morning for all of you. So, what I wanted to do here is just really quickly go around the horn and get some quick introductions. Tom. Real quickly, who's Tom flood?
00:03:14:01 - 00:03:34:02
Tom Flood
Tom flood is, apparent first and foremost. Someone that came from advertising originally took the kids out on their bikes, saw the ballots on the streets, and kind of everything changed for me. And now I'm in this space developing, you know, some content, creative and strategies for, various clients.
00:03:34:04 - 00:04:01:23
John Simmerman
Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And, and, Tom, you've been on the channel a couple of times. We, we we had you, most recently in season eight on episode 267. And, you know, the thumbnails for both of your episodes, you know, feature your children and you know that that part of that storyline is that your children really radicalized you into changing your thoughts.
00:04:01:23 - 00:04:09:12
John Simmerman
And we're going to tap into that in just a little bit. Grant, you're up next. Who is Grant Ennis?
00:04:09:14 - 00:04:33:06
Grant Ennis
So I'm the I'm the author of the book dark PR. How Corporate Disinformation Undermines Our Health Environment. And I also, I'm a lecturer at Monash University. I was I've also been on your show, and I've got, I've got the very nice mug. You do. And I'm very happy. I'm very happy to be here talking with you and, my friends about the Urban Truth Collective.
00:04:33:09 - 00:04:33:26
Grant Ennis
Really excited.
00:04:33:26 - 00:04:57:25
John Simmerman
In fact, here's your your landing page right here. For that episode, episode number 201, in season six. And we dove deep into your fabulous book, dark PR. And I know that that's going to come up, again and again and again in the themes, surrounding the Urban Truth Collective. Brant, this is the first time you and I have had a chance to do this.
00:04:57:25 - 00:04:59:01
John Simmerman
You're like the odd man.
00:04:59:08 - 00:05:01:20
Brent Toderian
I'm the nut. I'm a newbie here.
00:05:01:20 - 00:05:02:14
John Simmerman
You're the newbie.
00:05:02:17 - 00:05:03:21
Brent Toderian
Thanks a lot.
00:05:03:23 - 00:05:04:29
John Simmerman
So, yeah, go ahead.
00:05:04:29 - 00:05:24:10
Brent Toderian
Tom, thanks for starting off saying you're pairing first. So if I don't say that I'm a bad parents. And Grant, thanks for pointing out I don't have a cop yet. And so I'm feeling very left out. I'm the city planning practitioner in the group. I'm. I've been a city planner for 34 years. Half private sector, half public sector.
00:05:24:10 - 00:06:06:04
Brent Toderian
I was the chief planner for Vancouver, Canada for six years. And, I was a top planner in Calgary as well. But most of my, certainly for the last 12 years, I've been advising cities all over the world. I have a global practice. But, the interesting thing about me is not that it's that, I came to the conclusion, probably at least 15 to 20 years ago, of my 34 years, that my profession, though incredibly important, is mind numbingly boring and needs to completely rethink the way we do communication because we take this inherently sexy and interesting thing cities, and we manage to talk about them in the least, most interesting way possible.
00:06:06:07 - 00:06:30:03
Brent Toderian
And so, and all of my bosses at an young age, had always said to me, you can't write interesting. You have to write boring. I'm paraphrasing, of course. And, you have to speak that way. And so at a certain point, I rebelled against that and ended up, advancing in my career far faster than anyone else was doing.
00:06:30:06 - 00:06:42:26
Brent Toderian
So, which is sort of proof of concept that that's wrong. And so I've been obsessed with a different way of being more persuasive and more, particularly around communication, which is really what led me to these two fine fellows.
00:06:43:00 - 00:06:56:20
John Simmerman
So the four of the three of you, you know, somehow get together and say, you know what? This is what we need to do. We need to start an urban truth collective. How the heck does that happen?
00:06:56:22 - 00:07:04:26
Brent Toderian
Well, maybe I'll start. And it somehow came together. Nope. Nope. It's by design. I think it's by mutual frustration, perhaps.
00:07:05:03 - 00:07:05:11
Grant Ennis
00:07:06:00 - 00:07:30:23
Brent Toderian
I certainly because I was so I don't like to use the word obsessed because it sounds like I'm unhealthy, but, my, my somewhat obsession with communicating differently certainly led me to observe the people in the world who are talking about the urban space and the city making in a different way, and most of them work professionals like me, practitioners in the actual business of city building.
00:07:30:27 - 00:07:55:20
Brent Toderian
They were other people. And so I ran across this guy, Tom flood, who's using his superpowers, learned through, helping sell cars to now sell the concept of safe streets for kids. And I think that's the coolest thing in the world. And then I read this book, dark PR, which sort of blows my mind open to what I always knew was happening, but I thought nobody had ever explained it that well before in a book.
00:07:55:22 - 00:08:19:06
Brent Toderian
And so, became friends with these two folks. I had this stuff that we needed to do something different because this was always a priority. But it's safe to say there's never been a bigger time for disinformation and lies has than there is right now. And so I reached out to the two of them, I think Grant and I, you and I spent the day talking about the idea while walking around Paris this past summer.
00:08:19:08 - 00:08:48:09
Brent Toderian
And then I reached out to Tom and pitched it, and the idea was just a collaboration. Three people from different backgrounds coming to the conversation about being being more persuasive about telling the truth and calling out the lies more fearlessly. From three different directions, and trying to create something brand new that I didn't see anywhere else. And I was worried the folks, the two of them, would think, well, either A that's dumb or b I don't have the time.
00:08:48:12 - 00:09:06:06
Brent Toderian
And luckily, both of them don't have the time, but they didn't think it was dumb. And and none of us have the time. Frankly, we're doing this all off the side of our very busy desks, but we it's exciting. I gotta say, from my perspective, it's always exciting to create something new that doesn't exist, before we do it.
00:09:06:06 - 00:09:14:15
Brent Toderian
And I think it's the, the, the, the, the positive reaction we've gotten from people out there has been really, really gratifying.
00:09:14:18 - 00:09:56:26
John Simmerman
Now I'm going to bring you in, Grant, to talk about the the lies part of it, because this is a key theme in dark PR and gets to the core essence of what you mean by dark PR and, and the, the framing that is used, in motor dumb in the oil and gas industry, that, you know, keeps us addicted to, you know, our cars talk a little bit about that because, I mean, it gets to the heart of what you were talking about in, in terms of these, the framing that is used and the very intentional, playbook that they use.
00:09:56:28 - 00:10:30:03
Grant Ennis
Yeah. And in terms of putting together this urban truth collective also enterprise site. Brant, you know, one of the one of the first people I cite in the book is actually Brant talking about how during the coronavirus, we need to remember we can't like, defund public transportation. We need to remember that, we need to make sure that we're not designing cities, for for cars during an emergency, when we think that it would be better if we're all isolated.
00:10:30:05 - 00:10:51:07
Grant Ennis
And during the same time, like, of course, I was being inspired by the work of Tom, you know, trying to to refund reframe where we put the blame for children who are can't buy cars, for example, you know, Tom's a lot of his earlier work in the space was specifically, making sure we don't blame kids, you know, blaming the victim and that kind of narrative.
00:10:51:10 - 00:11:12:19
Grant Ennis
And I think putting these two, but Tom and Brant together, you know, we're all coming up at this from slightly different angles, but trying to address these same problems of these lives. And when we were talking about what are then we want to focus on, it's really it's not the lies that we want to focus on, it's the truth.
00:11:12:21 - 00:11:33:03
Grant Ennis
And then making sure that people, in this space are more aware of some of this, this basic truth that seems so elusive. And that's what I cover in dark PR quite a lot. But I think, I, and I cover a certain angle of it, road death pretty exhaustively, but we want to talk about much more than just road death.
00:11:33:05 - 00:12:01:00
Grant Ennis
There was a theme, Driven Truth Collective and a lot of that stuff. It's not just that. It's not just that you don't have a lot of people talking about it. It's that you don't have really like a team or a collective of people putting their heads together, thinking about how to communicate these problems better. One of one of the ones we still haven't cracked, for example, that I'm, I'm always pushing and and, Brant and Tom keep telling me we're not able to sell it yet is how to communicate markets constant.
00:12:01:02 - 00:12:11:06
Grant Ennis
I think I'm pretty annoying about it. I think it's very important, but we don't know how to communicate it yet to a mainstream audience, let alone a specialist audience. Well.
00:12:11:08 - 00:12:21:17
John Simmerman
You know what you have to do now. You know what you have to do right now as we're broadcasting this to a mainstream audience, as you have to define what that is.
00:12:21:20 - 00:13:01:16
Grant Ennis
Well, let's see if I can even do it. You guys pick up the slack for me if I. If I don't get it wrong, get it right. So marketing is constant. It's actually some other guy came up with it in marketing. Got the credit. So a researcher came out a paper in the 90s, early 90s. And he found that if you look at human history and people moving around the world, every day for the last three, 3000 years, on a given daily basis, people travel 30 minutes, regardless of how they're doing it on a boat, on, on, a horse on their feet on the metro in a car, helicopter,
00:13:01:16 - 00:13:27:23
Grant Ennis
whatever. It might be 30 minutes. So this this stays constant. So if you think that the amount of time people spend traveling stays constant, then what changes is the land use? As our vehicle speed gets faster, our cities start to spread out. And that creates all these different kinds of problems for human society. It destroys the urban fabric.
00:13:27:23 - 00:13:30:02
Grant Ennis
When we start to reach much higher speeds.
00:13:30:04 - 00:14:06:13
John Simmerman
So to save this in, in, in any less scientific way, what you're saying is that, you know, that acceptable sort of commute time that, that that distance translated into time is like, oh yeah, no, if I can get this done in a 20 to 30 minute commute and oh, that's acceptable to me, regardless of mode, when it starts getting past that, when it gets to 45 minutes, when it gets to an hour, or when it gets to an hour and a half, it starts being less and less acceptable.
00:14:06:16 - 00:14:45:08
John Simmerman
And that's part of the reason why we when we look at the data in terms of what people think about their commutes, there's such dissatisfaction. And because we have super commuters now, especially in really desirable areas, you know, Brant, like in Vancouver, if you look at some of the distances that people are traveling, if they can't afford to live in the city center, and they happen to work in the city center in San Francisco Bay area, we're seeing this Toronto same thing up near where we're Thomas is that we have these super computer commuters because they have to go so far.
00:14:45:08 - 00:15:19:07
John Simmerman
They drive till they qualify to be able to get in, because we've so constrained to building housing. And to your point that you've made earlier thus far is that all of this is interconnected. There's so many different themes now, Tom, you came at this from the same sort of angle that, you know, that Grant talks about in the book of the advertising world and the framing and the techniques that are used in mobilize to shape public opinion.
00:15:19:09 - 00:15:38:04
John Simmerman
And you've taken these evil arts and turned them good. We talk about this in your two episodes, but talk a little bit about that because, you know, being a parent radicalized, you kind of changed your perspective. And then now you're, you're taking these dark hearts. And I love that you love black and you're always in black.
00:15:38:04 - 00:15:57:20
John Simmerman
You know, these dark arts, and you've turned them for good. Talk a little bit about that. And, and in how we're trying to massage and shape the message and counter that disinformation. Because disinformation is a big part of of what we're trying to counter.
00:15:57:23 - 00:16:29:22
Tom Flood
Yeah. I think number one is when you kind of have your moment of clarity or awakening in this space, you really see kind of this absurdity that we've normalized on our streets. And to me, once you see that, you can't unsee it. And it's such a stark contrast, the imbalance that exists for most people on our streets. And for me, it took that kind of moment of going on there with my kids to have that, you know, that perspective and see it through their, their eyes.
00:16:29:25 - 00:17:06:08
Tom Flood
So what I think is that most people just haven't had that moment of clarity yet. They haven't had their awakening to the imbalance on the streets. I think most people are reasonable, and I'm more worried about kind of this middle ground that hasn't had this moment yet. And I think if we can take some of these ideas that Grant and Brant, you know, are so well versed in and really, really, you know, an incredible background and, and take some of these ideas and essentially, you know, sell them in a way that people are used to consuming messages, i.e. consumer marketing, advertising, you know, what do we how do we sell those products?
00:17:06:10 - 00:17:32:28
Tom Flood
Well, we we distill them down to something that's interesting, emotional and relatable to them. You know, what is the benefit that person gets from a consumer product? And we just kind of apply that to what we do in, you know, when we talk about our streets or our shared spaces or housing or whatever it may be, but it's really about the idea of connecting with people with where they're at and what kind of interests them, and how can we connect with them.
00:17:32:28 - 00:17:56:21
Tom Flood
Because a lot of this kind of middle ground audience, who hasn't had their moment of clarity yet, don't care. They don't they don't necessarily care about bike lanes, you know, data, research, the environment, what's in it for them. And I think that's important to kind of go after. One way to go after them is to figure out what's important to them and highlight that in a way that they can connect with.
00:17:56:24 - 00:18:26:13
John Simmerman
So let's drill down a little bit to the name Urban Truth, collective truth about cities in an age of disinformation. I'm assuming that. What's your meaning here when you say urban is cities? But what? Let's define that. I mean, what is the city in and is is is it any human habitation? Is it a village? Is it a town, is it or is it exclusive to only big cities?
00:18:26:15 - 00:18:33:24
John Simmerman
Let's talk about that, because there's a lot of resistance to the word urban in even the term urbanists.
00:18:33:27 - 00:18:58:00
Brent Toderian
Well, when we were first, when I first pitched the idea, I pitched a name and the first thing we started workshopping was the name. And, boy, three people who are interested in language and branding can have a lot of fun arguing about what three words we should assemble into it. A name for an organization. And the question you asked, we we debated, we didn't say City Truth Collective.
00:18:58:00 - 00:19:18:10
Brent Toderian
We said urban. So it's not just cities because you can have ever been conditions in the suburbs. You can have urban conditions in villages and towns, and you can have the opposite of urban, which is either suburban or rural, which is a very different pattern related to car dependency, etc.. So we wanted to emphasize that we're telling the truth about, yes, cities.
00:19:18:10 - 00:19:39:25
Brent Toderian
And we we decided we weren't going to be ashamed at sort of focusing and using the word cities because we could have said cities, towns and communities. You know, we planners, God help us. We have to put every word into it to make sure we capture every possible audience. Let's no one be left out when. No. Sometimes you're just focusing on the words that resonate.
00:19:39:28 - 00:20:00:17
Brent Toderian
We are. We are thinking particularly about cities, but what we're talking about applies to any kind of context that wants to be less suburban, less sprawling, or a suburban sprawling particular and not particularly rural. You probably won't see much rural content from us, although there might be some from time to time, because there's a better way to do rural to.
00:20:00:19 - 00:20:19:24
Brent Toderian
But we're all urbanists, and we all are urban people. We live in urban places, we experience life in an urban way. And so we were unapologetic about saying, let's lean in on that. But hey, if you're interested in better communities, chances are you will find language, you will find ideas, you will find messaging that will help you hear.
00:20:19:26 - 00:20:40:10
John Simmerman
Yeah. And the and I appreciate that, Brant. And same thing happened with me in terms of, you know, naming active towns. It's like people would say well oh so you don't mean active cities, you only mean towns, you know, only little villages or something like that. No no no no, no, I'm just talking about a human habitation pattern.
00:20:40:11 - 00:21:14:21
John Simmerman
This is where we've come together and this is where or what our domicile is, where we've settled. And in fact, one of the things that one of the fascinating discussions I had recently was with, Diana. Lisa, talking about this concept of villages. And, you know, Grant, you can appreciate this is is that, you know, Paris could be considered like, a massive city with a collection of of villages, urban villages, you know, where, again, you know, we look on screen here, walkable neighbors, you know, aren't scary.
00:21:14:21 - 00:21:38:29
John Simmerman
They're convenient. But we've there's this, you know, there's disinformation out there that. Oh, that 15 minute city concept is a scary, scary thing. We're just talking about villages. And so I grew up in a in a rural town of 4000 people in Northern California. Hop, skip and a jump away from San Francisco. And it was, you know, it was like something I could think about.
00:21:38:29 - 00:22:11:15
John Simmerman
I mean, I lived on a ranch outside. I lived in an urban, in a rural environment and would come into the big city, which was my little 4000 person town. All of the people I went to school with that lived in town, lived in what, a walkable 15 minute community, a village. And so I think that it's so interesting and fascinating how quote unquote, in this age of disinformation and again, this age of disinformation has been happening ever since.
00:22:11:18 - 00:22:44:29
John Simmerman
Well, ever since jaywalking was termed and the wonderful work of Peter Norton of, you know, chronicle ising just how early this started in the, in the era of car dependency. And so this is all fascinating, fascinating stuff. And I think that it is I think an imperative that we address this in a way that is positive, while at the same time calling out the absurdities that are happening now.
00:22:44:29 - 00:23:11:14
John Simmerman
How do you, Tom, when you're working on your creative, how do you do that? How do you get it so that it's a clickable meme but it doesn't get you discounted as being, oh, he's just one of those, you know, urban elites, and he's poking fun at anybody and everybody who's forced to drive. How do you guys navigate that and how do you navigate that as you're trying to, you know, split that hair?
00:23:11:17 - 00:23:37:03
Tom Flood
Well, I can say for me, I mean, there's no one way to, to to to walk that line, but I don't consider myself at all an urban elite. I consider myself the mainstream, you know, boring parent just trying to get on with life, with my kids, that that's how I see myself. Others might see it differently, but that's how I think of things when I take in content and start coming up with ideas.
00:23:37:05 - 00:24:03:17
Tom Flood
That's the framing that I use, you know, what is that kind of common thread? Common ground, that we can kind of hit on with our messaging and that's, that's I look at myself because I am just a parent trying to get through the chaos of raising a couple of kids. And John, as you very well know, why would I want to walk or take why would I want to drive, you know, 20 minutes to go get a pint when I can walk, you know, two minutes down the street.
00:24:03:19 - 00:24:23:25
Brent Toderian
Hey, can I, can I riff on your your language for a minute and just use it as an example of probably how, you know, we're still relatively new, but we've already had fun debates. You mentioned Urban Village and I'll, I'll put my cards on the table. As a practitioner, I've never liked that term because I think village and city are the opposite.
00:24:23:25 - 00:24:45:15
Brent Toderian
I I've done plans in my career for whole regions, whole counties. That's a village. And this is a city. And cities have neighborhoods and communities. They don't have villages. So it's always seemed dis authentic to me. But listen, what I've learned is that as somebody like Tom tells me, well, yeah, Brant, you might be right, you might be wrong.
00:24:45:19 - 00:25:07:09
Brent Toderian
But people, the term resonates with people. And I'm not saying Tom thinks that, you know, I've never had this conversation, Tom. But if it resonates, you know, maybe that's maybe that's more important than being exactly factually correct. But look at our title, Urban Truth Collective. We want to be more persuasive. We want to brand ideas better. But the truth part is really important.
00:25:07:09 - 00:25:30:10
Brent Toderian
So we debate authenticity quite a bit already. And, you know, I, I, I'm worry I've always worried. I've never put Urban Village in my plans because I've thought people say, oh, you're just trying to be kitschy and bring up a vision of something people like. But that's not what you're planning. You're planning taller buildings or whatever. And that's that's a lie.
00:25:30:12 - 00:25:43:12
Brent Toderian
And I've always been somewhat appreciative of that. So how can we be super authentic but also super persuasive? That's the the thread we want to needle or needle we want to thread. Sorry.
00:25:43:14 - 00:26:07:28
John Simmerman
Yeah. All right. So thank you Brant. That's very very helpful. And I want to get into the the gist of what you're trying to do as this collective. And we're leaning in on some of the content. And this is the interface that's happening, the interface that's happening, you know, specifically as I understand it. And you can correct me if I'm wrong.
00:26:08:05 - 00:26:19:07
John Simmerman
A good portion of that interface is happening out in social media and specifically, what are the the main platforms that you guys are active in so far?
00:26:19:07 - 00:26:49:22
Brent Toderian
We're we're we're in we're busiest still blue sky and we're we're also on LinkedIn and, and Instagram. And we've had debates about going into other places. You know, there are some places that I won't mention any names, but you know what they are, that are kind of cesspools of disinformation. And the, the, the debate is do you avoid those because somehow you're empowering disinformation by being there or.
00:26:49:25 - 00:27:08:19
Brent Toderian
But that sort of gives up the field to the, to the liars. Or do you try to go into the lion's den and spread truth and in a in a fearless way? There's arguments on either side of that. And so we may or may not expand into other social media, but those are the ones we're in now.
00:27:08:22 - 00:27:34:00
John Simmerman
Yeah, I tend to I have kind of made that shift as well. I got away from, the platforms that we shall not name, and moved my efforts more squarely into the blue sky and the LinkedIn environment. I find them to be, on the LinkedIn side, much more professional and, and almost like adults are out there.
00:27:34:02 - 00:27:50:12
John Simmerman
And then with blue Sky, what I loved about blue Sky specifically. And Brant, you're very active in doing this, is the fact that you're able to create these, these groups, these collectives, and the the name is blanking on me right now. Brant, what's the name of the groups, that you're able to create?
00:27:50:14 - 00:27:51:11
Brent Toderian
Starter packs.
00:27:51:11 - 00:28:16:18
John Simmerman
Starter packs? Thank you so much. Brilliant. A brilliant way for people to really quickly be able to connect with others. And it doesn't mean that we're all, you know, like, quote unquote in the same tribe, but you can very, very quickly connect with folks that are having these conversations and having these debates, and love it. Just fantastic.
00:28:16:18 - 00:28:40:17
Brent Toderian
But but yeah, but it's it goes to the question of who is our audience. And, and and Grant in particular. And our group is really interested in in and being very specific on that. If you, if you it's kind of like trying to change American politics and never going on Fox News when most of the people who probably need to be reached the most are only watching Fox News.
00:28:40:17 - 00:29:06:18
Brent Toderian
So are you getting to the audiences that might need, the information the most? It's it's a reasonable debate. If you really want to change things. But we've said we've said specifically, grant was great at forcing us to answer this question because if we just say we're trying to reach everyone, that's too it's it's frankly weak.
00:29:06:20 - 00:29:36:19
Brent Toderian
What we say is we're particularly trying to influence decision making. I have been in more rooms where decisions are made about cities than most human beings on the planet. And I'll tell you, most of the people on social media who think they know how, how and why decisions are made are wrong. And so the way you actually have to reach the decision makers is, is very different than just getting a lot of likes and, and, and kudos and people who admire you on social media, trust me.
00:29:36:25 - 00:29:55:23
Brent Toderian
As a matter of fact, it's almost inverse. The more attention you get on social media, you may be literally turning off the decision makers, is what I've observed. So, but if we're trying to reach decision makers because we want better decisions for cities, by definition, you have to reach all the people who can influence those decision makers, and that is the public, i.e. the voters.
00:29:55:23 - 00:30:19:12
Brent Toderian
It's certainly the media, social media and mainstream media, because that can influence decision makers. It's also, all the various third sector groups, etc. that can put pressure on politicians to do things differently. So, you know, you're edging back into almost everyone. But not really, because what you're really trying to do is get to the people who will leverage better decisions from the decision makers.
00:30:19:14 - 00:30:26:18
Brent Toderian
Once we have settled on that, I think it helped clarify things a bit. Granted that I covered that all right. Or is there anything you wanted to add?
00:30:26:18 - 00:30:28:16
Grant Ennis
Yeah, I agree.
00:30:28:19 - 00:31:05:08
John Simmerman
So, Grant, I mean, let's dive a little deeper into that because a key essence of dark PR as a tome is that, you know, those parties that are pushing this disinformation want nothing more than for us to be arguing amongst ourselves and taking on the responsibility of the issue on our own shoulders, the victim blaming that takes place, the oh, what's my carbon footprint, you know, and and, you know, that's right into their playbook.
00:31:05:08 - 00:31:31:27
John Simmerman
That's part of one of the, the key factors of the disinformation. And so you and I discussed the fact that one of the biggest problems is that we have allowed so much influence and so much money at the highest levels of our governments, plural, not just the United States, to influence the policies that are in place. I mean, the problem is massive and it's huge.
00:31:31:29 - 00:32:11:05
John Simmerman
And so getting back to what Brent's point is, is how do we educate and enhance awareness of an overall population so that you can change the root of the problem, which is, you know, these parties, these the disinformation and the quote unquote, bad actors that have a product to sell dot, dot, dot fill in what that product is, Tom, whether it's a Toyota pickup truck or its oil and gas or, you know, status quo of keep doing what we've been doing in the happy motor dumb era of the last 80 to 100 years.
00:32:11:07 - 00:32:39:01
Grant Ennis
I think. I think one of the things we, we're working on right now kind of answers this question. We we've got this problem of the 15 minute city, idea of a conspiracy that there's some kind of conspiracy related to a 15 minute city. And we could go about this by trying to debunk that. But what we know from the research on disinformation and framing is that debunking doesn't work.
00:32:39:03 - 00:33:12:24
Grant Ennis
It's that's not how you go about things. You know, George Lakoff wrote this very famous book, Don't Think of an Elephant, but with the title being that point, as soon as I tell you not to think of an elephant, you're thinking of an elephant, right? So what are you, 15 Minute City idea isn't a conspiracy theory. You're thinking, oh, so maybe it's a conspiracy theory, but you're going to tell me why it's not, so you end up priming people for the thing you don't want them to believe when?
00:33:12:24 - 00:33:16:03
Grant Ennis
When you lead with debunking. Yeah. And I.
00:33:16:07 - 00:33:37:26
John Simmerman
Can I get it? Can I jump in real quick, Grant, and and say that that then brings in the brilliance, Tom, of this creative work of we poke a little bit of fun at it and and say, well, wait a minute. What? This is scary. And so we're not just say, we're not outright saying, oh, you don't believe that.
00:33:37:26 - 00:34:26:09
John Simmerman
That's a conspiracy theory. What we're saying is, well, wait a minute. What? This is scary. Why is this scary? And and so I think that that's a brilliant sort of again, we're talking about this line that you all are trying to walk of producing the creative that gets it out there, that isn't outwardly offensive, to the point where you isolate and, and push people away to the point because, Brant, we can't afford to push that overall electorate away, because if, you know, the vast majority of people are living in a car dependent world and living car dependent lives, the last thing in the world that you want to do is to isolate and offend
00:34:26:12 - 00:34:49:18
John Simmerman
people who don't have any other choice, and that's what they're in, they're stuck in. If we insult them to the point where it's like an us versus them, then we're just back in our culture wars. We're not making progress. So I and that's that's what I find brilliant. Tom, you know this. I've told you this before, I'm very effusive about I loving your work.
00:34:49:20 - 00:35:11:27
John Simmerman
But that's the brilliance of this creative. And that, I think, is the brilliance of this partnership that some of you have, you know, pulled together is trying to address some of these things and call them out and, and poke some fun at it, while at the same time doing it very tactfully so that you're not insulting, you know, half of our collective populations or more.
00:35:12:00 - 00:35:15:06
John Simmerman
Who wants to discuss that?
00:35:15:08 - 00:35:32:03
Grant Ennis
But I you said that, John and and I there's this one thing we don't I don't know if we have, a campaign or a still image of it, but Tom says this thing where maybe say it, say it correctly for me, Tom, but it's like I'm lazy. I don't want to get in a car to get a pint.
00:35:32:05 - 00:35:48:14
Grant Ennis
Oh, that's that's the name of the shirt. Yeah. That's excellent for a 15 minute city. You know, you're you're skipping class. The problem of is it a conspiracy theory and you're just going right into it. You're saying why you want access.
00:35:48:17 - 00:36:06:10
Tom Flood
Yeah I think yeah. Grant did exactly that. I think for me, again, it's just being what is what's in it for me as a consumer. Right. That's how I kind of think about all this stuff is what's in it for me and for me. I don't want to go far for things to really basic. These are common things we can all agree on.
00:36:06:12 - 00:36:38:02
Tom Flood
The problem is, and then this kind of auto centric, culture of 100 years, we've overcomplicated everything. And I think it's really important to simplify in this space. So yeah, to me it's about finding those common grounds and elements that some, you know, sometimes do bring up some of those scenarios, but generally just highlight some of the things that we can all agree on that are so obviously clear, but have been complicated over complicated for decades and really change people's perceptions on what what they want.
00:36:38:05 - 00:36:51:15
Tom Flood
And I think for us, it's to kind of pull back the curtains a little bit and just kind of say, hey, this is not a conspiracy. Obviously, this is just really simple, common things that we all would like and make our lives a little bit easier.
00:36:51:17 - 00:37:11:17
John Simmerman
Yeah. This is what you're referencing. Here, grant to Brant real quick. I just want to get that hat tip to what you were talking about there. Grant and Tom again, the 15 minute city. No big conspiracy. I'm just lazy, you know, don't want to go far to get stuff. Whatever that stuff is in life. I love this shirt.
00:37:11:17 - 00:37:34:01
John Simmerman
I have this shirt. I wear this shirt down to the oceanfront, at sunset and have these discussions with my neighbors. And one of them, lives in Santa Cruz and comes out here with her family. And she says, oh, I heard about this. This is like some big conspiracy where they're trying to like, peop keep people in a, in a very short little thing and they won't let you.
00:37:34:01 - 00:38:00:10
John Simmerman
And if you go outside them, you're going to get charged. And so I had to have that discussion and, and so it was a conversation starter. And we what I told her was that, you know, these are the reasons why that quote unquote conspiracy got started. And here's what it really is. And she she got a good chuckle out of it because, Tom, it was brilliantly phrased the way that you phrased it on the shirt.
00:38:00:10 - 00:38:08:09
John Simmerman
And so it got a laugh. And that's exactly that line that you guys are trying to walk. Go ahead Brant. Sorry.
00:38:08:11 - 00:38:28:29
Brent Toderian
Well, while we're on the subject of that kind of content, I appreciate you showing some of the actual posters we've done. Maybe we can get you to show some more because it's it answers the question, what are we going to do? And we're out there spreading a lot of, information. We're looking for any compelling information. People are sending us studies.
00:38:28:29 - 00:38:52:05
Brent Toderian
But I really like when people send us articles that are more mainstream, articles that distill the studies, because most people do not want to read a study. And, so we're trying to get that truth out in more interesting ways. And it's, it's working. We, we use, you know, number of likes, the number of reposts says indication of, are we doing a good job of saying it in a better way.
00:38:52:08 - 00:39:10:04
Brent Toderian
But in terms of our unique content, we're doing Tom and I are working a lot on these posters, and we're putting out a lot of them, and, and they're getting a lot of traction. We really encourage people to take those, attached them, leave our name on it, Urban Truth Collective, but attach them to your own posts, get them out there.
00:39:10:04 - 00:39:27:20
Brent Toderian
We want them all to go viral. We want them to be printed off and put on about people's work desks and things like that, or put on t shirts. Well, wait, you got to give us a kickback on that, I suppose, right, Tom? But, you know, the whole point is for them to be as in many places as possible.
00:39:27:22 - 00:39:51:00
Brent Toderian
And then as Greg sort of hinted, we're working on some bigger campaigns to, things that are more than just an individual one off poster on car dependency or how to solve homelessness, etc.. And, and those are our first one. Maybe Grant can speak to it because it was his idea. Our first one is going to be coming out soon, and those are going to be a lot bigger.
00:39:51:05 - 00:40:11:05
Brent Toderian
And they're we want them to land like meteors and just transform the conversation, you know, no pressure. But that's that's the kind of, ambition we have for some of those bigger campaigns. But in the meantime, for your listeners and such, if you if they've got good ideas, good taglines, good brands, good ways to rethink an idea, send them to us.
00:40:11:05 - 00:40:33:14
Brent Toderian
We'll give you credit for it and we'll get we'll put them out there and help spread the word on them. It's really been fun working with Tom on this, I have to say, and to illustrate his brilliance, you know, I'll I'll pepper him with ideas, which probably annoys him. And he's too nice to say so. But then he will take this thing that I've had this many words, and he will put it in this many words, and it will be better.
00:40:33:16 - 00:40:52:19
Brent Toderian
And, you know, that's the art of it. We've all got to get better. All of us, especially practitioners, especially city planners, architects, engineers, politicians, etc. we've all got to get better at just delivering a line in a more persuasive way that sticks in your brain and changes your perspective.
00:40:52:22 - 00:40:56:12
John Simmerman
Yeah, and I'm just cycling through some of them here.
00:40:56:14 - 00:41:17:17
Brent Toderian
And we tend to we've we've had a bunch of them on traffic. God it's so easy to talk about car dependency and traffic and, and road safety and and and and and and and driver harm etc.. But we want to make the point. Maybe you can put up the one on homelessness. We want to make the point that everything is fair game if it comes to better cities for people.
00:41:17:20 - 00:41:24:07
Brent Toderian
And we don't want it just to be about the car. But it's hard to talk about better cities without talking about the car.
00:41:24:10 - 00:42:00:12
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah, well, because the car and the policies attached to the car and the dominance of car dependency, it's all interrelated. You know, the late, great Donald Trump and I talked about this a couple of different times, on the podcast here of, you know, if, if you're parking policies, you know, incentivize free parking, you know, it's it's like a fertility drug for cars and for driving and for incentives to, to be able to drive in the insidiousness of forcing people to provide free parking.
00:42:00:15 - 00:42:15:08
John Simmerman
It, you know, adds to the cost of housing and adds to the cost of everything that we buy. And and again, it's that hidden cost of the high cost of free parking, which is, you know, his 700 page brilliant tome that he wrote many, you know, years ago.
00:42:15:10 - 00:42:34:11
Brent Toderian
Well, I say as a as a city planning generalist, some people think I'm a transportation specialist. I am not, it's just hard not to talk about cars. As a city planning generalist. I want to talk about ten or 15 or 20 different things. But the elephant in every room is the car. Because the car sucks the oxygen out of the conversation.
00:42:34:14 - 00:42:55:16
Brent Toderian
It sucks the money out of the budget. It sucks the space out of the street. It makes everything else harder to achieve. I actually really like with my clients in cities connecting the dots and say, you pick any issue you're passionate about and I will show you how the how we treat the car is actually holding back progress on that issue that you're passionate about.
00:42:55:23 - 00:43:07:03
Brent Toderian
And I can it's like six degrees, seven degrees of Kevin Bacon. It's it's like one degree away from the car standing in the way of making progress on that issue that you're passionate about.
00:43:07:05 - 00:43:31:28
John Simmerman
Yeah. Yeah. You know, Ross Chapman and I you know, in last week's episode we were talking about pocket neighborhoods. And, you know, a in many municipalities, pocket neighborhoods are illegal. They don't fit into the nice, you know, single family home model and they don't fit into the, the denser, you know, multifamily housing model of the, of, an apartment or a condo complex like this.
00:43:32:01 - 00:43:57:18
John Simmerman
And, and then the death knell of oftentimes a lot of creating more housing is that parking requirement too. And so again, that car, it's insidious. Tom, how do you thread that needle in terms of, you know, these two guys pitching ideas to you and others, you know, coming up with other themes? How do you take that? Well, what's your process, your creative process of like, you know, receiving this, this information and saying, hey, what about this?
00:43:57:18 - 00:44:03:19
John Simmerman
And then how does that do you just kind of go for a run and let this kind of stew and then go.
00:44:03:19 - 00:44:11:14
Brent Toderian
Oh, yeah. He turns off his phone after my third, third message to him. I'm sure.
00:44:11:17 - 00:44:31:06
Tom Flood
No, I'm I'm no, thanks for the question, John. I'm very lucky to be able to work with a couple of people that know this space so, so well. I don't come from transportation or academia or, you know, anything to do with cities. It's not my expertise, which is you know, the worst sales pitch when I go out and actually do talks around cities.
00:44:31:06 - 00:44:53:27
Tom Flood
But I, I'm lucky to be able to have people that have a wealth of information and so many different thoughts and, you know, well-informed perspectives that come to me, which is great. And I have no formal process, but when it comes in, it's usually such good information that it's not easy. But there's a lot to work with. It's what I should say.
00:44:53:29 - 00:45:18:18
Tom Flood
But then it takes a bit of time to to hone some of those ideas into something that you can be distilled down to digestible information again, for, you know, always knowing your audience, but specifically thinking about the broader mainstream audience just hadn't had their awakening. How would this information need to connect to them? And it's kind of bridging that gap is my, my part in this, in this collective.
00:45:18:21 - 00:45:51:06
John Simmerman
Well, it's interesting too, because, you know, two of, I think the most brilliant books, you know, sort of in the, especially in the urbanism and transportation realm that have come out recently, Chuck Maron's, you know, book, you know, confessions of a Recovering Engineer and then, Wes Marshall's book killed by a traffic engineer. Both of those in both of those books, they talk about how the fact that we need less of these quote unquote experts, you know, you know, involved in this process.
00:45:51:06 - 00:46:15:10
John Simmerman
And so I think that it's a brilliant aspect of, of this partnership that you all have here, because you know very well how to shape messages and how to get things that are sticky, you know, from that background in, in creating, the content and creating something that is sticky in creating that resonates. And I think that that's brilliant.
00:46:15:10 - 00:46:44:07
John Simmerman
So the fact that you, don't have that area of expertise is an advantage for you because you're able to come out with fresh eyes. Both Chuck and West talk about the fact that, we need less of the engineers and the professional planners controlling the entire message, and more parents and people who understand, sociability and public health and more people being able to influence.
00:46:44:09 - 00:47:07:28
John Simmerman
What about, you know, how is this undermining the actual community and whether the community is a welcoming and safe environment for everybody, including the parents, the the parent that just wants to, you know, the what radicalized you, Tom? You know, just wanting to be able to walk or bike to school with your kids.
00:47:08:00 - 00:47:33:27
Tom Flood
Simple as that. Yeah, yeah. For sure. I mean, that was something that as someone again, not from the space, seeing how kind of absurd it was on the street and then really seeing how divisive it was, was what completely set me off. And for me, when I was called a radical by one of our local councilors years and years ago, that just like just sent me the idea of wanting to get kids to school safely, was considered radical as well.
00:47:33:27 - 00:47:35:27
Tom Flood
Lit a bit of a fire under me for sure.
00:47:35:27 - 00:47:54:04
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah. Well, and and and that's the reason why we named the episode what we did. You know, when we, we looked at, your second episode and we looked at, you know, be beware of these radical cyclists. You can't trust these guys.
00:47:54:07 - 00:48:24:25
Brent Toderian
And can I give credit to these two guys, though? Because the reason why I think this collaboration works, the reason why I reached out to these two people particularly, is this isn't, if you picked the smartest city planner in the world who doesn't understand communication and the smartest marketer in the world who doesn't understand cities and the smartest researcher and writer in the world who doesn't know anything about, the space and said, work together, it would be a disaster.
00:48:24:25 - 00:48:46:18
Brent Toderian
I've actually seen that. I've worked with I've worked with dozens and dozens and dozens of communications experts, and I want to pull my hair out most of the time, honestly, I do. So it's not just as simple. It's not that Tom is good at marketing and doesn't understand the space or grants good to research and writes a great book, but doesn't really understand the space.
00:48:46:20 - 00:49:06:12
Brent Toderian
The reason what I could tell from both of these guys, knowing them for years, is that they do understand the space. They haven't lived it the way I've lived it for 34 years, but they understand the space. They're passionate about the subject matter. It's not accidental, a random subject matter. And then they go on to write a different book next time.
00:49:06:15 - 00:49:26:24
Brent Toderian
This is they've got a deep, passionate in these areas and they're good at it. I said to someone that I could tell that they understood that my practice, my profession well enough to be able to communicate it well so I didn't have to explain anything to them. They already understood it pretty well, and similarly, I give myself credit.
00:49:26:24 - 00:49:49:02
Brent Toderian
I'm very unusual as a city planner because I'm obsessed with communication. And so and most planners are not. I'm sorry, most engineers are really not. And don't get me started on lawyers and fire chiefs, etc.. So, you know, all three of there's a Venn diagram of the three of us. That is the reason why this was the right place to start the organization.
00:49:49:02 - 00:50:16:03
Brent Toderian
We we come from different starting points, but we've overlapped in our obsessions and our passions and our career, and that's why it work. But, I want to really stress this. We said from the beginning were built to to grow. We're designed to grow. We're very aware, aware that we started as three white guys. And I had every intention to say that we wanted to start it so we could show what we thought it was and what it could be.
00:50:16:03 - 00:50:37:13
Brent Toderian
But then we wanted people to to to say, I like that, and here's what I can contribute. So we've already we've already added Reena and Clarence and Sarah and Rick, and we're looking for, all sorts of different perspective, different skill sets. You know, Clarence from Street Films is already going to be working with us on our first video.
00:50:37:13 - 00:50:54:09
Brent Toderian
Obviously, he's probably the best in the world at that. And so it's incredible the different perspectives and communications we can add knowing that it may have started with us, but it was never going to be about us and it was never going to stay. Just us.
00:50:54:11 - 00:51:17:21
John Simmerman
I love that too. And yeah, I definitely wanted to give a hat tip to the fact that on your website about us, you've got the three coordinators here, the three of you, plus lan Rick. He's been on the channel as well. And so it's wonderful to see Clarence here, too. I haven't met Sarah. I need to to reach out to Sarah and get to know her her a bit more there is brilliant.
00:51:17:21 - 00:51:36:12
Brent Toderian
In the in the research around health, public health and city building active transport. But like us, all of these people are not just brilliant in their sphere, they're also good communicators. They've also shown in their practice that they get how to send and sell a better message.
00:51:36:15 - 00:51:54:13
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah, and Reena's been on the channel as well, talking about the work that she'd done down in Uruguay. And at the time she was, in the UAE working on things, and now she's up in Scotland, I believe. And so she comes to the table with some great diversity and some great backgrounds as well. And yeah.
00:51:54:13 - 00:51:56:03
Brent Toderian
And more to come and more.
00:51:56:06 - 00:52:13:23
John Simmerman
More to come. Yeah. So in and I see you here you know question mark more to come. And so yeah I mean how does one become a collaborator in the Urban Truth Collective. Do we just need to, to be part of of this realm of producing content and trying to change the message?
00:52:13:26 - 00:52:37:17
Brent Toderian
We've talked about that a lot. How big do we want the so-called collective to be? Is it is it does. Is it it is it dozens. Is it hundreds? Is it and we've called ourselves coordinators because, you know, we want this to be very not ego driven. We've we've all been part of organizations that are all about the quote unquote founders, and we've got no time or interest for that at all.
00:52:37:19 - 00:52:57:15
Brent Toderian
But, you got to have people who are sort of doing the day to day work, and we're putting in a lot of time and a lot of work, and we're making decisions for which we are accountable for it. You got to be able to say who's accountable, especially if you get something wrong. So, and the particular skill set said the three of us, make that work.
00:52:57:17 - 00:53:26:17
Brent Toderian
But, frankly, the collaborative we've invited some collaborators, some collaborators have reached out to us. What we look for is people who, because we're not just playing this as a numbers game, it isn't a quantity game. It's, What can you bring to the collective? What can you bring to the collaboration that makes that keeps making us more than the sum of the parts that fills our blind spots, that fills our gaps in skill sets, like, like, clearance with videos as a technical example.
00:53:26:24 - 00:53:44:27
Brent Toderian
But there's also experience and knowledge examples and diversity of perspective and lived experience perspective. And so there's lots of other ways you can help us fill our gaps, and make the collective more than the sum of the parts, which is what it intends to be. Well, guys, anything you want to add to that?
00:53:44:29 - 00:54:05:15
John Simmerman
I would I would jump in and say Brant and, Grant and Tom, consider active towns a an official or unofficial, Homer for for the Urban Truth Collective. So, I've been doing everything I can to to amplify your message and. Yeah, please tap me. Tap me if there's anything I can do to to help with this.
00:54:05:17 - 00:54:29:01
John Simmerman
You're absolutely right. Brant, Clarence is an absolute brilliant person. In this realm, I think we. I brought him on to celebrate his 1,000th video. And it happened to be on my 100th episode of the podcast. So some time ago, since this one, I think, is episode number 333 or 4 or something like that.
00:54:29:01 - 00:54:33:00
John Simmerman
So some time ago. Yes. Go ahead, Grant and time.
00:54:33:02 - 00:54:52:26
Grant Ennis
Well, maybe, maybe we need to think about putting together an allies section, because I think we see that this space does have a lot of allies. I mean, I saw you, John, and, in Ghent. Right. And we had Doug and, and Clarence there also, we have, how many people could there be in this community that we have?
00:54:52:26 - 00:55:11:16
Grant Ennis
There's pretty tight knit that we're we're all working to communicate better together, and maybe the collective can serve in the form of, you know, bringing these allies together from time to time. We've we've talked a little bit about that. We haven't made any decisions on it yet. But there's definitely there's definitely a space that's more than us.
00:55:11:16 - 00:55:41:03
Grant Ennis
So maybe people don't necessarily need to be collaborators, but we're going to be working with and, bringing together a lot of different people and, and voices that are all we're all working together to improve the amount of truth, about about the urban environment. And you mentioned and you mentioned, Wes, what's what what was the last thing I'm blanking Marshall and, Charles Moon like, one thing we've been talking about a little bit is this concept of road width.
00:55:41:03 - 00:56:00:05
Grant Ennis
I mean, I'm, I'm probably the more wonky of the three of us, and I can be a little annoying about it. But, like, road width is something that makes our cities more spread out. And right now to to your urine. Tom's point, though, we need to make this stuff simple. And for normal people, people often talk about these design codes.
00:56:00:08 - 00:56:24:17
Grant Ennis
You know, these national policies of like the IMU, IMU, TCD or IMU, CT, whatever that act long acronym is as if there's something very technical and complicated, but there's an element on road with which is which is just stupid and we should call it stupid. Roads are legally expressed in terms of minimum width, like minimum parking. It should be maximum width.
00:56:24:19 - 00:56:45:08
Grant Ennis
It's it's terrible that safety is not ever the concern when it comes to road width. If it was, it would be maximum road width loss. And this kind of stuff is something anybody can understand. You walk outside of your street, out of your house, you see the road. That road is not something that needs to be thought of in a technical way.
00:56:45:08 - 00:57:03:04
Grant Ennis
If it's really wide, it's scary. It's dangerous. You don't feel safe. If it's narrow and small and you feel comfortable walking with kids, and your dog will run out there and you're not worried is going to die. Anybody can get that. And I think Wes and, and Charles are our allies in making that kind of stuff simple.
00:57:03:07 - 00:57:13:04
Grant Ennis
Talking about these design codes and this kind of stuff. And I think that's the kind of, truth we need to be to make much more clear to to everybody out there.
00:57:13:06 - 00:57:45:27
John Simmerman
So, Tom, I wanted to ask you this, since you are somebody who's coming at this from not a professional in this particular arena, and, and, you know, to some extent, you to, talk a little bit about the reality of the, how does this get outside of just being messages that are bouncing around in the echo chamber?
00:57:45:29 - 00:58:13:23
Tom Flood
I think for me, if messages are good in, in, in this space, if they start in this space, but if they're powerful enough messages, I think they move out of the space. And if people can connect to ideas in a way that they can relate to and feel passionate about, then I do think that those messages translate out of this kind of echo chamber chamber that we're that we're in in a lot of the social media space.
00:58:13:25 - 00:58:25:13
Tom Flood
So that, to me is why I think it's really important to craft good messaging, because I think it has the opportunity to go outside of the echo chamber and connect with people in a different way.
00:58:25:15 - 00:59:10:01
John Simmerman
I like that too, and I think that that's really important in Grant. So you you get inspired. You write this book about disinformation and how especially money, corporate money is influencing policies and decisions that then result in what's built on the on the ground and, and when when we're looking at the this challenge that we have to try to counter the disinformation, but at the same time have it be messages that resonate outside of the urbanism and active mobility and safer streets echo chamber.
00:59:10:03 - 00:59:38:13
John Simmerman
You know that this is like a huge, huge thing. Can what what kind of wisdom do you have of that challenge, having written a book, you know, and kind of come into and and I think you and I talked about, you know, how you got sucked up into this as well. Again, you're not sitting there with, you know, you know, you don't have a transportation engineering and planning degree necessarily.
00:59:38:16 - 00:59:52:09
John Simmerman
So, yeah, I mean, this is a huge thing to try to be able to create content and create messages that resonate outside of the echo chamber, where these messages tend to be bouncing around a lot.
00:59:52:11 - 01:00:24:16
Grant Ennis
Well, I think I think Tom and Brant and myself have all been quoted and referenced back by policymakers around the world at this point. So we we see this stuff actually, getting traction by the decision makers themselves and by, by their constituents. I think one thing this isn't really, what I would say, there's it's not really like an expert take here, but I think billboards are a wonderful opportunity.
01:00:24:19 - 01:00:32:15
Grant Ennis
I don't know, Tom. Have you done one recently? I haven't been following your work. I think I saw some actual physical billboards in your time. Talk a little.
01:00:32:15 - 01:00:38:28
John Simmerman
Bit about that. I'll see if I can find it. You just did one with these? The bicycling lawyer, I think.
01:00:39:01 - 01:01:01:18
Tom Flood
Yeah, we actually just went up yesterday, in Hamilton, Ontario. It just says these machines bike traffic. And it's for someone, that I work with pretty closely, called the biking lawyer out of Toronto, but we've done it by, did a couple in Vancouver earlier this year as well, which were kind of large format boards, which that was done with, Vision Zero Vancouver.
01:01:01:20 - 01:01:24:11
Tom Flood
Pretty great group out there. But the idea of having those kind of different messages and ideas in, you know, in the real world was, was pretty interesting. And again, there's there's a little bit of cost behind it. But, I mean, the impact is, is fairly high because people aren't used to seeing messages that are not so auto centric and to be honest, kind of going against the grain a little bit.
01:01:24:11 - 01:01:43:29
Grant Ennis
So and I think this is a very, a very powerful medium. Billboards you're definitely offline. And I, I'm not sure what the costs are, but last time I looked, it wasn't nearly as expensive as you would think it would be. And the stuff can really, really take off with, with, with this kind of outdoor medium.
01:01:44:01 - 01:02:07:18
Grant Ennis
The physical press documents isn't it's not as common for people to even read newspapers anymore, but making sure that we are getting at least online newspaper articles out there occasionally. I think it's very important to get the message out. We can, it's a it's a longer form medium that we can have complement some of the, the still ads that we have for video over with if we ever do it.
01:02:07:20 - 01:02:18:08
Grant Ennis
So I think there's a, there's a number of ways that we're, we're trying to get, get stuff offline. And then we have a number of ways of seeing that it's already resonating offline, which I think makes us all really happy.
01:02:18:10 - 01:02:41:00
John Simmerman
It's it's all fine and dandy for us to be passionate about this stuff and to be getting these messages. Nothing satisfies me more than when I get feedback from somebody who's watched one of these episodes, watch one of my videos that I've produced, and it's somebody from outside of the field, because we are bouncing around these messages within our echo chamber.
01:02:41:03 - 01:03:11:13
John Simmerman
And so getting out to the overall population is absolutely essential. Grant, to your point, it's it's neat that we're getting to elected officials and senior level people that are making decisions. But we all know that just because, you know, you convince, a dot director or a, a, you know, somebody inspired in the city to, you know, to try to do, make a change to the street.
01:03:11:15 - 01:03:33:17
John Simmerman
If the community's not on board, you can have bike lash, you can have this backlash that takes place where it's like suddenly the city council members in the mayors is getting inundated with, you know, voices that are saying, what are you doing? You're destroying my life. You're destroying my livelihood. Dot dot dot, fill in the blank.
01:03:33:19 - 01:04:03:21
John Simmerman
And oftentimes it's it's a very, very small percentage of the population, but it's a very loud voice and, and, and group. And so if in my mind, in the, in the mantra that I keep having with the active Towns channel is we do need to enhance awareness across the entire electorate because we have to have community support, so that you can have a situation like just played out in Paris.
01:04:03:24 - 01:04:31:19
John Simmerman
I grant I know you're not, a, registered voter in Paris and not, a French citizen, but you just witnessed, you know, the continuation from a political perspective of the type of changes that, you know, have taken place in the city there. And it's strong leadership. Yes. But you also have an electorate that has, you know, continued to support and endorse that through Reelections.
01:04:31:22 - 01:05:12:17
John Simmerman
And so, you know, Mayor Heel Doggo decided not to run again. The next person who was voted in is probably going to keep that momentum going. And so my, my long, drawn out sort of, monologue here comes to this final thing of we need to increase the awareness of the overall population and the electorate so that those leaders can have that political will to continue going forward and will anticipate that, there will be haters, but they know that they've got a community that says no creating more livable places is what we want and need.
01:05:12:24 - 01:05:42:29
Tom Flood
Yeah. The exactly that John is, which is why I think it's really important when we're talking to the broader base that we use the language that they can understand, and then most more importantly, that they can connect to and relate to, because if they don't relate to it, it's just it's a lot. It's gone. So how do we talk about these things in the way that regular folks, understand and can connect to and what what are the benefits to them of all these different elements that we've talked to today about cities, why is it important to them and how do they benefit?
01:05:42:29 - 01:05:48:26
Tom Flood
What's the selfish benefit? Like we I mean, we do this with consumer products. Why can't we do it in this space?
01:05:48:28 - 01:06:04:03
Grant Ennis
Yeah. At the at the very least, softening the ground as as you said, John, we want to make sure that we're not getting in the kind of opposition after the fact that we passed the policy.
01:06:04:05 - 01:06:47:19
John Simmerman
He's back to what you've missed. Brant is is really my sort of person overrating over creating content and messages that just don't bounce around in our echo chamber. And so we were sort of talking and riffing on this concept of how do we create, messages that get outside of our bubble and can start, you know, helping to influence, you know, the electorate we referenced, you know, the most recent Paris elections and, hopefully keep our fingers crossed, you know, a continuation of the progress that's being made in the city there.
01:06:47:21 - 01:07:04:11
John Simmerman
So, yeah. Any thoughts that you have? You know, about how we get outside of our bubbles and be able to create traction within the overall population in the electorate?
01:07:04:13 - 01:07:25:29
Brent Toderian
Well, two thoughts come to mind. One, we're not there yet. If you look at the posters that we have, we only launched a month ago. And we've tried to get fast content out there to sort of give people a sense of, of the kinds of messages we have. And I would put it in the context of low hanging fruit that the stuff that most of these are not new things.
01:07:25:29 - 01:07:46:07
Brent Toderian
These are things that one or 2 or 3 of us have been saying for years. And so we thought about how to, how to package them quickly just to get a give a sense to those out there looking at us of the kind of thing we want to do. But, you know, if you if you go through those, you'll be thinking to yourself, well, will this get past the usual suspects?
01:07:46:07 - 01:08:07:16
Brent Toderian
Will this break through the noise to new people? Some might, some might not. And probably not, because there's a next level of thinking that we all want to get to. Frankly, when we have more time to calm down after we've done our launch, which was a lot of work, to say, to ask that exact question of ourselves.
01:08:07:16 - 01:08:19:05
Brent Toderian
And that's probably going to be more in the context of the big, the big, the bigger campaigns. Grant, have you had a chance to talk you out about, the bigger campaign yet?
01:08:19:08 - 01:08:23:04
Grant Ennis
As a little bit of a teaser, but we haven't gone into the details.
01:08:23:06 - 01:08:53:23
Brent Toderian
Yeah. So we don't want to give away too much. But I think in the bigger campaigns, we're expecting more from ourself. You know, the pressure is on us with the bigger campaigns to make more of a dent. The second thing I will say is from my own experience, it's funny how a, an idea suddenly goes, you know, if you've ever read, Gladwell's The Tipping Point or something like that, it can go from just being in the background forever to suddenly it's just everywhere because it reaches that tipping point.
01:08:53:25 - 01:09:12:02
Brent Toderian
And an example is the 15 minute City. We planning. We boring planner types have been talking about proximity forever. It's one of the oldest ideas in cities. And you know, I myself used to call it when I was chief planner in Vancouver. I call it the power of nearness. I'd say when everything's near, you don't have to debate.
01:09:12:02 - 01:09:41:08
Brent Toderian
Do I take the car or transit to go far because more is near. People have called it the City of Short Distances, hyper proximity there, you know, and, and and for a decade, for a few decades, Melbourne had in their plan the 20 minute neighborhoods. And we in Vancouver had five minute neighborhoods. So it's a very old idea, what what Paris did was through Carlos, they put a lot of science to it, and he deserves credit for that.
01:09:41:11 - 01:10:12:04
Brent Toderian
But particularly a mayor making it, being so inspired by it and the relationship between Anne Hidalgo and Carlos Moreno, that she would make it a a dominant part of her reelection platform. That's what made it break free from containment. Right? So a relatively old idea, new pack and very good packaging. Paris did exceptionally good packaging and visuals of the idea, so more science to it.
01:10:12:04 - 01:10:36:18
Brent Toderian
So it had a credible background, and some excellent marketing and branding and the profile of a high profile mayor. And suddenly an old idea is everywhere. So what I learned from that is, if we may put out a poster that we think is not that big a deal and there's a mayor or, or would like to be mayor out there that sees it and thinks that could be part of my election platform.
01:10:36:19 - 01:10:50:13
Brent Toderian
You just never know. What I've learned is you never know where these things land. When you put them out there in the universe. And it so it can be a lot of small landings, or it can be a really big landing, like an Hidalgo in Paris.
01:10:50:20 - 01:11:00:20
John Simmerman
Hey guys, this has been an absolute joy and pleasure having you on the Active Towns Channel. Tom, Grant and Brant, thank you so much for joining me on the Active Towns podcast.
01:11:00:23 - 01:11:02:02
Tom Flood
Thank you. Thanks for having us.
01:11:02:05 - 01:11:02:22
Brent Toderian
Pleasure.
01:11:02:24 - 01:11:03:16
Grant Ennis
Good to be.
01:11:03:18 - 01:11:19:14
John Simmerman
Here. Thank you so much for tuning in. I hope you enjoyed this conversation with Tom Grant and Brant. And if you did, please give it a thumbs up. Leave a comment down below and share it with a friend. And if you haven't done so already, be honored to have you subscribed to the channel. Just click on that subscription button down below and ring that notification bell.
01:11:19:22 - 01:11:39:16
John Simmerman
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01:11:39:22 - 01:12:00:22
John Simmerman
Patrons do get early and ad free access to all this video content. Again, thank you so much for tuning in. I really do appreciate it. And until next time, this is John signing off by wishing you much activity, health and happiness. Cheers and aloha and I just want to also say thank you all so much to all my Active Towns ambassadors supporting the channel financially via YouTube super.
01:12:00:22 - 01:12:10:19
John Simmerman
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