Diving deep into what entails community management team’s work at Planet Smart City

Community development approach at Planet Smart City

The Community Development team at Planet Smart City believes in a bottom-up approach where the needs of the community are at the centre while designing any intervention. We include the community at every step in our way while planning and implementing any activities or projects. The first point of conduct for us is the Housing Society Committees which consists of elected representatives of the residents. The Society Committee entrust us with their issues and pain points, and we work along with them to mitigate those and find innovative ways with them to better manage the society and enhance the living experience of residents.
We believe that it is pertinent to comprehend the internal dynamics, the temperament, and the needs of different focussed groups amongst the residents within a society. The Community Managers (CMs) of Planet act as a bridge here between the company and the residents who work towards enhancing the existing social fabric of the community by facilitating various interventions based on the needs of the community. The Community Managers especially help the residents in adopting and accessing the Smart Solutions in the most optimum way. The mere presence of the Community Managers helps them to observe and interact with the residents which help to build a bond of trust and confidence amongst the residents.

Community development activities conducted at housing societies

Our community development team conducts focused group discussions (FGDs), interviews active residents and groups within a society and brainstorm with them to find the best community solutions. For instance, at one of the Housing Societies in Pune, we had a very playful and interactive session with the children which began with team sports like tug of wars and other games and ended with a group activity of the children where they were asked to answer the question: “Imagine you have a magic wand, what would you wish to have for yourself and your fellow neighbourhood friends in the society?”. The answers varied from cricket ground, science lab, library, plant more trees and gardens to go-karting arenas! This brainstorming fun activity with the children helped us to understand what solutions would interest the kids and also, helped us to identify the kids with leadership skills amongst the lot that we could align with and work with to gather more kids for future activities. Our Community Managers also get to interact with the guardians of these kids who share their expectations of what they would wish to have for their children in the society and give us feedbacks on the activities that are conducted.

The Community Team at Planet Smart City is currently working with the Society Committee holding our first project in Pune in the following areas:

• Implement different Smart Solutions like the Library of Things, Co-Working Space, Book Crossing, etc. which are new additions there.
• Framing the modus operandi and the guest & user policies for these spaces as well as finding new ways for the society committee to generate revenues.
• Working with the Cultural Committee of the housing society in Pune to organise and facilitate the celebrations in the society starting from Independence Day, Ganesh Chaturthi and so on.

All in all, the work dedicatedly executed by Planet Smart City’s Community Development Team is for the holistic betterment of the housing society’s community and we look forward to spreading this idea to every society that we touch.