Preparing a PowerPoint presentation can take more time than you think. There is a simple way to save time by preparing your slide content in Word and then importing it to Powerpoint. Each slide, title and body text will be instantly created and formatted. It's much better than wasting time moving around your slides toContinue reading "Slide Prep Made Easy! Draft in MS Word."
Need maps? Try Power Map for Excel
Including a map in our technical writing and presentations is an easy way to make geographic information more engaging for our audience. With the advanced data visualisation these days it can seem a little intimidating. However generating simple maps is actually really easy and automated with Excel. It includes Power Map a quick and easyContinue reading "Need maps? Try Power Map for Excel"
Top Planning Apps for 2019
Planetizen in the US recently published this article on the best mobile apps to use in planning work. I thought this was a great article to share. Note it builds on an earlier article they published with a long list of "the best planning apps" - link here. This latest article discusses both the lackContinue reading "Top Planning Apps for 2019"
Planning Memes
Memes are one of the universal languages of the internet - using popular cultural /image references to create a shared understanding of a concept, attitude or life experience. I use a Pinterest board to collect planning memes I come across. Check out the board here. While these memes have been made by planners in all sortsContinue reading "Planning Memes"
Tech Terms: Chatbots
The final post in this month's Tech Terms series is Chatbots. This post continues from the post on Natural Language Processing so check out that post if you want some further background. There is a lot of hype about robots taking jobs and chatbots are a good early representation of that possibility. Chatbots are computer programs designedContinue reading "Tech Terms: Chatbots"
Tech Terms: Sentiment Analysis
For most planning processes, it is a real challenge to get engagement and input from the public. It is also common to only hear from certain groups, leaving many communities unheard, especially marginalised groups. It's now possible to capture not only qualitative data from the public as they use and move through urban spaces, weContinue reading "Tech Terms: Sentiment Analysis"
Tech Terms: Natural Language Processing
In the old days, you had to know how to speak the language of computers in order to use one. The dedicated few learnt precise commands in order to get a computer to undertake a task. Jump forward a few decades, and we have moved much further along the continuum of human-computer communication. Computers canContinue reading "Tech Terms: Natural Language Processing"
Tech Terms: AR, VR, MR, XR
These tech terms all refer to technologies which provide immersion into a combined real and virtual environment, but what does each specific term actually mean? And are these technologies just for gaming and entertainment or will they be part of our work toolkit in the future? XR - Extended/Cross Realities XR is the umbrella termContinue reading "Tech Terms: AR, VR, MR, XR"
Local Government Magazine article
My article 'Localism in a hyper-connected, borderless world' appears in this month's (July 2019) Local Government Magazine. link to article This article draws on research I undertook as part of this year's Rodney Davies Research Symposium. My research paper is on 'digital disruption in the planning profession'. I presented my research findings at the NZPI conference thisContinue reading "Local Government Magazine article"
Tech Terms: Digital Twin
A digital twin is a digital representation of a real world physical resource. A digital twin is used to represent a complex real life system, such as a factory's manufacturing plant, an infrastructure network, a building and even a city. The digital twin is more than a model, it is a replica of the originalContinue reading "Tech Terms: Digital Twin"
RMA Digital 