The Back to the Future 2015 Time Capsule
Rachel Dimery
Planning Manager, The Property Group (MNZPI)
[email protected]
Sue Wells
South Island Planning Manager, The Property Group (Assoc.NZPI),
[email protected]
Twitter and Instagram @b2future
www.b2future.org.nz
Thursday 16th April – 1.30-3.15pm
Keywords: Time Capsule, 2040, Social Media
Abstract
Keywords: Time Capsule, 2040, Social Media
What would it be like to send a Time Capsule from the 2015 Back to the Future Conference
to the 2040 NZPI Planning Conference? What would be the themes, challenges and
opportunities facing planners in 2040? What would they glean from looking back and
reading messages from planners past?
This workshop will use a Time Capsule concept to gather the thoughts of planners from
2015 and send these to the planners of the future. In doing so, we will challenge delegates
to stretch their horizons and look 25 years into the future and predict what the big topics
will be facing our communities and the environment. We will use the workshop to gather
ideas – targeted to key conference themes. A presentation of possible futures will be made
to challenge participants to lift their horizon to look out to 25 years in the future – a sizeable
portion of anyone’s planning career. While the end result will be a Time Capsule to be
opened in 2040, participants will also come away with ideas for what the future of our
world might look like and the profession that helps to shape it.
The workshop will employ other techniques outside of the session itself including social
media to gain ideas from others during and in the build up to the conference. In doing so it
will form a living case study of social media as a vehicle to spark futurist debate, with the
results discussed at the workshop.
Key Takeaways:
1. Future planning themes, challenges and opportunities facing planners in 2040
2. Participation using methods such as social media
3. A fun workshop that challenges planners to look ahead and offers something for our
planners of the future
Paper
Once upon a time, a physical time capsule was a routine part of any major construction.
They would be filled with all manner of up to the minute information; snapshots of the local
dignitaries; pages from the local daily newspaper (featuring the local dignitaries); a
handwritten note from the Mayor (mentioning the ladies who supported the local
dignitaries but hardly ever were the local dignitaries) and then the time capsule would be
installed as part of the foundation of the new creation. At some point in the building’s
lifespan, usually at the time of its eventual demise, the discovery of the time capsule would
provide a glimpse of another world, a piece of social history as memorable for the twee
pictures in the advertisements as the meaningful articles intended to be memorialised.
Planning, which is all about creating foundations, has no single building of its own. As this
mighty intellectual institution has no mighty edifice, we have never had the ritual creation
and installation of its own time capsule. We believe that the physical vehicle of this year’s
B2Future Conference gives us the opportunity to create that time capsule, and do a bit of
time travel on either side of it.
Our plan is to collaboratively create a B2Future Time Capsule which will gather thoughts and
predictions about planning in 2040, together with anecdotes and interesting archival
material about planning today and in days gone by, from the dignitaries of planning. The
B2Future Time Capsule will be sealed up and stored safely in the little known vault at the
New Zealand Planning Institute’s headquarters, to wait to be opened by delegates at the
2040 NZPI Planning Conference. (We will of course have had a good look at it first – because
this is everybody’s time capsule.)
Take a walk down memory lane: in 1990 Sylvia Allan was the President of the NZPI, John
Childs was the Immediate Past President and according to Issue 98 of Planning Quarterly,
Brian Putt had a wardrobe of bow-ties and Jan Crawford had a wardrobe of backless
dresses. What do you think should be captured in the B2Future Time Capsule for posterity?
We have given careful consideration to the question, “who are the dignitaries of planning,
whose insight, observations and opinions merit being enshrined in this way?”
The conclusion we have come to is that opportunity to participate in the B2Future Time
Capsule should be open to all, and by that we mean the public at large as well as planners.
In order to capture a snapshot of planning, both as an occupation, and how it is viewed and
understood at this time in society, we want to record the practical details of who
participates, what they do, how they do it, as well as what they think about what they do
(and how they do it … you get the drift).
We want your thoughts pre-conference, either through our website www.b2future.org.nz or
in hard copy to Rachel Dimery, The Property Group, Level 15, 34 Shortland Street, Auckland
Central, or to Sue Wells, The Property Group, Level 2, 169 Madras Street, Christchurch (wine
and flowers preferred).
The conversation will continue for the duration of the conference, where contributions can
be made via the website, Twitter and Instagram. There will also be an eye catching red post
box stationed at the conference venue to receive handwritten missives.
We don’t want to prescribe (or proscribe) the discussion at the beginning, because great
conversations, like great places, are iterative and evolve over time. Unless we have your
specific permission to use your name, we will keep contributions anonymous.
We do reserve the right not to include all comments in the time capsule, but we don’t want
it to be sanitised. If stuff sucks, write it down. If you hate something, write it down. Send us
a picture, a text, a mashup or a movie. What you want to say, in whatever form you want to
say it, is what we want to capture. There is no right or wrong here.
We will be updating our website and social media channels as other questions come to
mind, but for now here are some starter questions we’d like you to think about;
 What is the biggest planning issue today?
 What will be the biggest planning issue in 2040?
 What will become a horse dung moment? (What is a horse dung moment?)
 If you could give one piece of advice to the planners of 2040, what would it be?
 What single initiative or event could make or break planning?
 What’s the most miserable, the funniest, the strangest or most irritating planning
related experience you’ve had?
 What is the single biggest event that has changed the planning world in your
lifetime?
You may like to think back 25 years to 1990. The Proposed Resource Management Bill was
still waiting to be passed. Headlines about the Bill in the Planning Quarterly included Bold
Initiative or Recipe for Disaster?, Urban Planners in the Dark, Powers, Possibilities and
Problems. Some of the other headlines from 1990 issues of the Planning Quarterly included
The Annual Plan: A cornerstone of good management, Sewers, Snappers and Sustainability,
Wellington Sewage: The saga goes on and Urban Form and Transport Fuel in Auckland.
Even think back just ten years: Facebook had been launched the year before, and its
membership was limited to Harvard students and there was no such thing as Twitter. Fast
forward to 2015 and social media channels are used as a tool to consult, engage and
communicate on projects ranging from the Proposed Auckland Unitary Plan to Christchurch
City Council’s Build Back Smarter programme.
And to talk about the future, we’d love you to come to our workshop. The discussion there
will form part of the B2Future Time Capsule, and post the conference a paper will be
published detailing the project and its findings.
Follow us on Twitter and Instagram @B2Future and check out our website
www.b2future.org.nz to get the conversation going. Please share the link with your
networks, professional and personal.
(Physical attendance at our workshop is limited to registered conference attendees and
seats are limited, so please book your space in our time machine early.)
Bios
Rachel is a Planning Manager based at The Property Group’s Auckland office. Rachel has
held a variety of roles in the private sector and local government since 2000. Rachel was
previously employed at Auckland Council, where she led the development of the
Infrastructure section of Auckland’s first Unitary Plan. She was involved in the enhanced
engagement process, which used innovative techniques to enable Local Boards, key
stakeholders and communities to input into the development of the Unitary Plan prior to its
notification.
Sue has over 18 years’ practical planning experience, gained in local government. For 15
years (pre and post-quake) she was a Christchurch City Councillor, chairing the Planning
Committee and serving as Chair of the Council Hearings Panel and District Plan Review
Subcommittee. Sue is a longstanding RMA Independent Commissioner with Chair’s
Accreditation, having participated in the best part of a thousand hearings (RMA, DLA, LGA,
and many other acronyms). In her spare time she enjoys using her broadcasting background
to perplex Jim Mora on National Radio’s “The Panel” and makes vigorous use of social
media.