Steal This Idea

Friday, April 30th, 2010

Andy Levine, President/Chief Creative Officer of Development Counselors International recently sent me a copy of his presentation entitled “Steal This Idea”. I have to say, I was impressed with the practical nature of the advice it contained. So much so, that I wanted to make the presentation available to you and asked Andy if he would consider sharing the back story on what motivated him to author it and provide a link to the file.

I encourage you to review the presentation and embrace Andy’s advice to share what you know with friends. The better we all become in positioning our communities, regions and states to compete for capital investment, the stronger Brand America will be.

BACKSTORY:

“The usual image of creativity is that it’s some sort of genetic gift, some heroic act.
But creativity is an import-export game. It’s not a creation game.”

Ronald Burt,Sociologist,
University of Chicago

It’s in this spirit that I developed “Steal This Idea: Ten Smart Ideas for Marketing Your Community.” It’s a simple title that I thought would grab attention for a speaking presentation that I recently made in Atlanta.

Some of the ideas are new. Some of the ideas are over a decade old. Some are my ideas. And some I “borrowed” from others. In each case I’ve tried to offer a real world example of the idea in practice.

As always, I welcome the feedback of the economic development community. If you’ve got a good idea don’t squirrel it away…share it with your friends.

LINK:

Steal This Idea: Ten Smart Ideas For Marketing Your Community

If you like Andy’s thoughts, please provide a comment. Your perspective will help everybody have an even better educational experience. Also consider forwarding this blog post to a friend and becoming a fan of Strengthening Brand America on Facebook or joining the LinkedIn Strengthening Brand America Group.

Who Moved My Cheese?

Friday, April 16th, 2010

Remember the bestseller “Who Moved My Cheese“? An Amazing Way to Deal with Change in Your Work & in Your Life” authored by Dr. Spencer Johnson?

I pulled it off my bookshelf recently and gave it a reread. This time though, I read it with a specific purpose. I’ve been thinking about how many communities have developed plans for natural disasters like floods, hurricanes, tornadoes and everything in-between, but have no plan for managing the loss of a major employer to a merger or acquisition.

The National Climactic Data Center reports the U.S. has experienced 96 weather related disasters over the past 30 years with a combined economic impact over $700 billion. In contrast, there were 121 M&A deals reported in the U.S. in 2009 alone.

Preparedness for a natural disaster certainly makes a lot of sense to help ensure a community’s residents are taken care of and the local economy isn’t devastated. But, I think developing a strategic plan for managing your community’s economy should a large local employer be involved in an M&A deal makes even more sense.

What is the downside impact on your local economy if another company acquires or mergers with one of your community’s major employers? Are you prepared to absorb the impact? Would you even see it coming? How can you increase the probability that any rationalization of operations might mean more jobs for your community rather than less? How good are your strategic plans in guiding choices in an M&A “disaster” scenario? Will your community be calm or panicked?

To stimulate dialogue, here is a review Dr. Johnson’s 7 Tips for effectively dealing with change translated into the world of economic development.

1. Change Happens (They keep moving the cheese). M&A is a preferred strategy for foreign direct investment because it minimizes the financial risk of entering the U.S. market. It is also a strategy for companies in distressed industries to spread their investment risk across a broader revenue base. You can’t stop M&A any more than you can stop natural disasters. But, you can control how your community responds. And, you can affect the impact on your local economy with appropriate planning. What would happen if the major employer in your community left? Have you have made future plans based on having this cheese. Dr. Johnson suggests the more you need your cheese, the more you want to hold onto it. That could be a self-limiting behavior longer-term.
2. Anticipate Change (Get ready for the cheese to move). There is a difference between productivity and activity. What would you do different if you were not afraid of losing your cheese? Would you take more control versus simply letting things happen? Would you invest in assets and capabilities that would make it more likely any consolidation assessment following an M&A deal would bring jobs to your community rather than take them away? Would you be investing more time and energy into finding new cheese for your community? The simple fact is that change will happen, and if your community doesn’t change it risks becoming irrelevant.
3. Monitor Change (Smell the cheese often so you know when it is getting old). How strong is your relationship with the major employer CEOs in your community? How often are you meeting with them to discuss the future of your community and what they might need to ensure sustained profitability and growth? Are you investing enough time and attention to winning the Third Moment of Truth (reinvestment)? While many M&A deals are unanticipated and all are highly confidential, a close relationship with the CEOs in your community will provide important insights into how vulnerable your economic portfolio is to company relocation (for whatever reason). Don’t be like the book characters of Hem and Haw who became arrogant and believed their cheese would last forever. You need to have the systems in place to sense potential changes. You don’t want to let your cheese get too moldy when change is on the horizon.
4. Adapt to Change Quickly (The quicker you let go of the old cheese, the sooner you can enjoy the new cheese). You have to let go of the past quickly so you can accept the new reality. It is important to have processes and capabilities in place to help displaced employees cope with change and quickly gain reemployment. How capable are your systems to handle the loss of a major employer? Could you quickly and efficiently address the challenges? What budget choices would need to be made if you lost the tax revenue? What future investment plans would be effected? It is much easier to think through these types of questions ahead of a crisis so you can concentrate on rapid deployment of your response plan when needed. The longer it takes to leave the past behind, the harder it will be for you to find new cheese.
5. Change (Move with the cheese). Old beliefs do not lead you to new cheese. When you embrace change and begin to focus on the new possibilities, your community can make forward progress. Simplicity is an important enabler to facilitating change. When you have plans that are too dependent on a single set of assumptions (e.g. a major source of tax revenue), you will be tempted to focus on recreating the past by attracting a new large employer in a similar industry. But, that can actually be harmful to long-term economic prosperity. The better course of action may be to accept the loss and look to reinvent the community’s economic portfolio. What are the growing industries that could benefit from the recent availability of skilled labor? What changes can you make to strengthen the identity of your community (asset creation, infrastructure improvement, public policy reform) so it is competitive for capital investment? How can your community emerge more relevant and competitive as a result of the change?
6. Enjoy Change (Savor the adventure and the taste of the new cheese). There is always new cheese out there whether you recognize it or not. Your job as an economic development professional isn’t simply to manage the daily problems associated with ensuring today’s economic well-being. It is also to look forward and pay attention to where the economy is headed and then lead your community to sustainable success. Your job is about painting a picture of what the new cheese looks like so your community will want to pursue it and will enjoy the journey.
7. Be Ready to Quickly Change Again and Again (They keep moving the cheese). Change imposed is change opposed. It is important to recognize that change is the constant in economic development just as it is in all parts of life. Don’t feel like it is being done to you. The best thing you can do is accept the fact that change will happen again and again. Once you come to terms with that fact, establish processes that take the fear out of changing and put the fun into the journey. Effective scenario planning is one way to help your community deal with the inevitability of change. How current is your economic disaster plan?

Here are three questions I would encourage you to have a quality discussion about with your EDO Team:

• Any idea how moldy your community’s cheese is right now?
• Are you investing enough in finding new cheese that can sustain your community’s economic prosperity?
• Are you focused only on American cheese, or have you opened your strategic plans to the possibility of International cheese as well?

I hope you enjoyed the post and I hope it stimulated some thoughts on the need for a) an even stronger partnership with the CEOs in your community, b) a contingency plan in case an M&A deal moves your cheese, and c) the creation of a forward looking plan that is constantly sensing and seeking new cheese to drive your community’s economic prosperity.

Leave a comment with your thoughts and stories. If you enjoyed the post, forward it to a friend. Also, consider becoming a Facebook fan, member of our LinkedIn Group, or following Strengthening Brand America on Twitter.

Happy One Year Anniversary

Friday, April 2nd, 2010

It is hard to believe, but the Strengthening Brand America project was introduced 1 year ago in March 2009. The mission of the community of practice is to catalyze the transfer of product and corporate branding knowledge from the private sector to the economic development community for reapplication in place branding. Hopefully, you will feel we have made progress in achieving that goal.

You may be interested to know some fun facts about the community of practice –

• It is truly national – The site gets visits from all 50 states.
• It is gaining in popularity globally – The site has had visits from over 100 countries.
• The most popular section is the blog (53% of visits).
• Guests are investing nearly 2 minutes with the information per visit.
• 40% of guests come directly to the site, 37% are visiting from LinkedIn.
• The community of practice has over 8,000 participants and is growing.
• There is no revenue stream associated with this educational endeavor.

I started this journey with a simple vision – If we could dramatically improve the quality of place branding done by communities, regions and states we could (in aggregate) strengthen the global competitiveness of Brand America and reverse the declining share of global FDI inflow.

The mission is as valid and important today as it was a year ago. There is significant ground to be made up in competing with Brand E.U. and Brand Asia for global FDI inflow share leadership. Smaller EDO budgets are demanding more return on every dollar invested, and effective place branding can be an important enabler in helping accelerate economic recovery. Consequently, while progress has definitely been made there is much more to be accomplished before the mission is achieved.

I was so gratifying in Reno, at the IEDC Annual meeting, to be recognized as “The Brand America Guy”. Ohio had just won its third Site Selection Governor’s Cup in a row (with our 2009 win now four in a row) and I thought more attendees would be asking about the award. Interest in the Strengthening Brand America Project was evident and genuinely appreciated.

I am also grateful for a wonderful anniversary gift from GRIP Technology. In celebration of achieving the 1 year milestone, they have redesigned the Strengthening Brand America website to be even easier to navigate. Here are a few features I’d like to highlight for you –

• Blog – The blog is now available under the tab titled “EXPERT ADVISE” or can be access by clicking on the latest blog post featured prominently on the home page. The blog is focused on translating product and corporate branding principles into the field of place branding. There are practical tips and tactics shared to make your job a little easier and ideally to help you be even more successful.
• Expert Interviews – These interviews with branding experts can now be easily located under the “EXPERT ADVISE” tab as well. These interviews are intended to provide you with important perspective about branding based on the expert’s experience. They help you understand how to effectively implement the principles.
• HOW TO EXECUTE – This new tab includes white papers and downloadable templates to make your local place branding efforts easier and more effective. You can learn the skills of self-branding, sales, marketing and brand building.
• OTHER RESOURCES – This tab contains useful links to websites, papers, videos and a host of other information that will help you better understand how to plan and execute an effective place branding initiative. I am very excited about the “Recommended Feeds” page. Three of my most trusted websites for place branding are featured. It provides you one stop, easy access to some of the most current and cutting edge information from around the world. I genuinely hope you check it out and consider bookmarking it as a favorite page to visit often.
• COLLEGE STUDENT’S CORNER – This tab takes you to a section where college students can ask the community questions about economic development. My vision for this section is mentor relationships will be formed and possible connections for employment will be created. Encouraging the best and brightest minds from our colleges and universities to consider a career in economic development is one more way we can Strengthen Brand America over time.

There are three things you can do to help year 2 be even more successful than year 1.

1. Visit the website frequently and actively participate by sharing your thoughts as a comment on the blog posts. The more we share, the better learning experience we all have.
2. Build awareness of the website as a resource of information on place branding. Share the website with a colleague and encourage them to visit by Forwarding it to a friend. Bookmark the website so you can visit it frequently to get tips and tactics on how to manage your local branding effort.
3. Help create usage of the COLLEGE STUDENT’S CORNER. The more we can get professors and students engaged with the economic development community, the more effective our efforts will be. Encourage students you know to visit the CORNER and help answer questions that get posted. Your real world experience and perspective matters and will help students better understand what the economic development career looks like.

The traditional first year anniversary gift is paper. But that is so 20th century. Let’s make the first year anniversary gift paperless. If you would like to celebrate this Strengthening Brand America Project milestone with me, give the gift of sharing the great news with your network on Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter. Thank you in advance. With your help and continued participation, I am looking forward to an amazing year 2.

I hope you enjoy the updated look and improved visit experience. I would certainly like to get your thoughts about the change. Leave a comment.