Our Hometown: Kansas City As You Have Never Seen It

We are proud to be based in Kansas City, Missouri.
It is truly an overlooked gem of a city that is gaining a lot of momentum as an arts, culture and innovation destination.
Below is a time lapse video in HD that gives you a nice feel for what "America's Creative Crossroads" is all about.

We will share more on our hometown, but for now, enjoy this series of photos that are truly worth millions of words. 

Rockhill Recommends: Googlization

I took the time last night to attend a lecture at the Linda Hall Library on Google's impact on the Internet and our culture. More on that in a second.

First a brief shout out to the Linda Hall Library. It is one of the leading science, engineering and technology libraries in the World. 

The information they have archived, and the role they are playing in current innovation cannot be underestimated.

I would also recommend that you visit their latest exhibit, This Time It's Personal: Innovation In Your Home. From Aspirin to the light switch to Pez Candy, it covers the research, discovery, development and intellectual property of things we use every day.  

The opening speaker in support of the new exhibit was Siva Vaidhyanathan, a professor of media and law at the University of Virginia. His talk was in support of his current book, The Googlization of Everything (And Why We Should Worry). He has a supporting website as well here. This post is not a review of the lecture or a commentary on the book. That will come later after I have had a chance to read the book and do some research. I would however, recommend that everyone take some time and check out a bit more about his thoughts on Google. 

Siva does a nice job of summarizing the incredible role that Google has played in our lives in the 13 years (yes, it has actually been that long) since its founding at Stanford in 1998. Early on the mission was simple, but oh so lofty...

Organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.

He raises the valid question of why we should trust Google with this and how they have delivered.
Why this task shouldn't be entrusted to the academic institutions and librarians of the World.
Google determines how important search results are via their algorithms and he provides examples of Google modifying results for various reasons in spite of their claim that they do not alter search results. Some are for generally altruistic reasons such as a racist website "gaming" the results to get higher placement. He questions why we, as consumers accept this. Generally, it is because we don't know.

It is comforting to know that Google doesn't remove information. In that respect they really do attempt to archive all of the World's information. However, as a writer and researcher, I do find that you need even sharper personal analytical skills when working online.

He also offers a few other tidbits of insight that are worth considering:

• We are not Google's customers. The advertisers are. Google only views us as customers so far as they need us to keep eyeballs on their site to sell to advertisers. 
• As technology consumers we generally are willing to accept technology as magic and not explore how a product or service works. Companies such as Apple and Google benefit from this. 
• Google fundamentally transformed the Internet for the better by working to filter out pornographic results that were served via spam or due to typographical error. This work to make the Internet safer for business and family use helped to also make the consumer feel safer about using the Internet for their financial needs.
• When you use Google you are seeing the world through their lense. It is filtered. 
• Google may be radically different in five years and may not even exist in ten. That is the type of technology world we live in.

Overall, Mr. Vaidhyanathan offered some great perspectives on the good and bad of Google. The questions that he poses are easily applicable to many other communications channels, social media et cetera. 

What he did not discuss is the rapidly expanding technology channels that Google is moving toward. For instance, I am typing this using Google Chrome browser. Google has mobile technology, hardware with Chrome Book and is developing a one-gigabyte Google Fiber technology in Kansas City. It is currently being installed outside my office window.

(Update) Google now has also opened a retail pop up store in London as reported by The London Evening Standard. This could be the direct assault on Apple that many have anticipated. The fundamental difference is, if Google is successful in hardware and retail sales, they will also possess an incredible wealth of content and the means of distribution.  

I look forward to exploring these more and sharing thoughts with my readers here. 

Possibly the most cogent and interesting comment was when he likened Google to Julius Caesar. A benevolent dictator who does indeed improve life for many but at what cost?    

Making Your Escape

Everyone needs to get away sometimes, be it literally or figuratively. 

We escape into a good book, music, sports... But sometimes you need to escape to an actual place. My retreats are usually neighborhood coffee shops and bookstores. There are some great ones here in Kansas City thankfully.

However, the place I envision when I need to really clear my head is 4532 miles from here. It is a place I have visited many times over the years. After each visit I leave inspired and refreshed. It is usually good for at least 10,000 words of creative writing. 

That place is a famous, if small, bookstore at 37 rue de la Bûcherie on the Left Bank in Paris. 

The wonderful Shakespeare and Company. 

Since most people, myself included, can't just drop in on a Friday, here are a few photos for a virtual escape.  

Enjoy... and remember 

"Be Not Inhospitable to Strangers Lest They be Angels in Disguise"  

 

AMC Not to Blame in KC Metro State Line Battle

Today we diverge a bit from the usual branding and marketing commentary to discuss economic development and civic engagement:

AMC Theatres is the latest in a long line of Kansas City area companies to use the state line that runs down the middle of our metropolitan area to their financial advantage. In May, it was Applebee's jumping to Missouri to take advantage of incentives. Now it is AMC, fleeing downtown Kansas City after 91 years, and taking over 400 employees to Leawood, Kansas. They have every right to choose the location of their company. They are not a public trust and owe the citizens and taxpayers nothing. In fact, the Park Place development they are moving to is a very nice location. AMC has a clear goal of minimizing corporate expenses and maximizing corporate revenue. They are owned by a multi-national investment company, the Carlyle Group, that according to their own media info, "seeks to deliver attractive returns for our fund investors." Pretty clear what AMC CEO Gerry Lopez has been tasked with delivering back to the parent company.  

AMC Theatres current HQ

 Much as they cannot be blamed for their decision, they also cannot be considered good civic citizens. In taking the tax incentive package, worth anywhere between $60-67 million they are certainly returning an attractive return to their investors. However, for the Kansas City metro area, those are tax dollars lost for core investments in our community. The economic development experts are not only shifting tax revenue from one state to the other, and from one municipality to the other, they are taking dollars out of the coffers of the entire metro. Does anyone believe that the Carlyle Group, or AMC for that matter, will invest those dollars back in our city? Will they be generating a bevy of new jobs? Will they create a multi-million dollar education fund? No, that is not the corporate mission of AMC.

Park Place development

The public relations spin placed on this decision is simple. AMC could have moved to any number of cities and taken all of those jobs out of our metro. In fact, by their own words they point out that Kansas City is only the 28th largest AMC market. Thereby hinting at the fact that there were 27 other possibly more attractive markets that they could have taken their headquarters to. I am sure that this is true. Many cities would have loved to have lured a Fortune 1000 company headquarters. So the Kansas City area may have avoided the disaster of losing another large employer. But what have we gained? Nothing.

So if AMC is not to blame for the metro area losing $60 plus million in tax revenue while gaining zilch, who is? The economic development officials on both sides of the state line are to blame. These men and women have done nothing to benefit the citizens of our area with this type of deal. They are fighting for bragging rights at the behest of the narrow geography they represent. They seem to forget that this is a complex metro area that does not exist within any one border. Hundreds of thousands of people cross dozens of political boundaries every day. Their lives are only improved when all of the areas they visit are improved. They don't care whose road it is, they just want it to be nice when they drive on it. Our economic development officials do not seem to get that. They are a myopic bunch at best.

So what can be done to improve our entire city? The Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce recently launched their Five Big Ideas plan. It is an ambitious and worthy roadmap for our future. How does corporate poaching improve entrepreneurship? Translational technology transfer? When was the last time any of the economic development teams in Kansas City lured a Fortune 1000 headquarters from another city to anywhere in the metro area? If we are going to give away $60 million in tax incentives, shouldn't the return on investment be completely new dollars to the area? 

As citizens we musty demand better from all of our elected officials and the people they hire. The civic leaders of our city also need to stand up and work to grow our region, not just one small areas. The Greater Kansas City economy grew at only 1.52% in 2010, according to a report in the Kansas City Business Journal. That is good for 222nd among all metro areas. This does not even take into account our success globally. We are losing the fight, and we are losing it because we continue to let it be lost by fighting among ourselves. This is not unique to Kansas City, but we seem to do it better than most other metro areas. 

We need to understand and accept that businesses will act in their best interest every time. We should leverage that motivation and focus our energy as a metro area and a region on new business creation, employment expansion and new employment recruitment. Continuing to shift headquarters a few miles at the expense of millions in needed tax revenue is a fools game. Consider that the next time your municipality raises your property tax rate, fees and sales tax after granting millions to lure a new business across a street.     

Putting Relationship Back in PR

Original Building Plan Courtesy of Highwoods

I recently was interviewed in The Kansas City Star about a public relations disaster on the venerable Country Club Plaza shopping district. For those of you not from Kansas City, "The Plaza" is an historic and iconic luxury open-air shopping district just south of the urban core. So what was this disaster you say? In short, Highwoods, the North Carolina-based owner of the center announced haphazardly last August that they would build a new office building for a local law firm on the north edge of the Plaza. They released a preliminary sketch and told of "only needing to demolish a small section of shops and an apartment building." They released it as a simple business development story. But almost overnight, a development project that they assumed would be met with open arms in these tough economic times turned into a media disaster that eventually forced them to withdraw the plan. It spawned lawsuits, public outcry and a very vocal, if not reasonable, "Save OUR Plaza" group. It also harmed the reputation of the shopping center and further distanced the ownership from their customers. they burned a great deal of good will and equity. Good will that would have come in handy as they dealt with recent teen riots, tenant snafus and the lingering perception of being too corporate.

Here is what I had to say, as well as the article from Kevin Collison in it's entirety. 

Protest Group Sign

Anyone involved with commercial real estate needs to be continually engaged with the community, said Jon Stephens, the former manager of the Power & Light District, who now runs his own marketing firm. 

Whether it should or not, the perception is, everybody should have a say, and a company that doesn't understand that is clearly doomed for problems, he said. 

Had Highwoods properly vetted its Polsinelli plan, Stephens said, it would have found that razing the Balcony Building was a nonstarter.  I believe if they came out with the final plan as opposed to the first one wouldn't have been received nearly as negatively. 

Kansas City Star: Lessons from the Balcony Building Mess

The lesson in all of this, is it public relations is not about announcing projects. It is rather about continual community engagement, message management and understanding the customer, the community and the perceptions of your district. It is as much about being engaged in the community, working with your company executives to get involved in the community as it is planning an announcement.

I am not trying to vilify Highwoods. They are by all indications a good steward of their properties and for the most part have improved The Plaza and maintained a nice assortment of high-quality tenants in very tough times. However, they are miserable in their public relations and seem to make the same mistakes time and again. This has harmed them in several ways including people not giving them credit for the great tenants they do bring in.

So, what should they do going forward?

• Identify a few select employees locally that can serve as the day-to-day voice and face of their company.
• Train the Highwoods execs to be on message but also allow them to show some personality. Less corporate, more neighbor.
• Look to a communications professional to assist them in guiding how they engage the community. Create an ongoing plan for reputation management.
• Engage daily on issues big and small. Build communication pathways.
• Realize that the citizens of Kansas City hold the area as part of their "public trust" and speak in that way when discussing the Plaza. 
• Create a program for the 150+ tenants to give them the tools to be pro-Plaza advocates. 
• Identify your true neighborhood and customer brand advocates and offer them previews and perks.
• Push more regional and national media that will build pride in the community that they have a jewel in their own backyard. 
• When big changes are considered, look to a few trusted experts for advice before going public. 

This entire mess may not have been avoided even with all of the above. However; if they had initially launched (with the revised plan that saved the historic building), had already built some equity in the community, and had a known local exec speaking out in a way that people could relate to, they just might have avoided the fight and harm they have done to their reputation.

Bulletproof Art+Copy Pecha Kucha Redux

In April the good people at the AAF-KC hosted an event called Bulletproof. It is the advertising community version of the popular Pecha Kucha. In short you are given little to no direction in creating a 20 slide presentation about most anything. Then the slides advance automatically every 20 seconds. Thank goodness beer is served and cursing encouraged.
This is the result of our first attempt at this. The subject is a recent trip to China.
I am looking forward to taking another stab at this great event in the future and step up my game.
The competition is great here in KC!


Art+Copy Presents BULLETPROOF 2011 // Megan Stephens, Willoughby Design, and Jon Stephens, Rockhill Strategic from AAF - Kansas City on Vimeo.