🤖Robots, Fab Furniture & A One-Stop Civic Solution

Did we mention robots? Hell yeah! The future is now and the pandemic has pushed our love-hate affair with AI, bots & robots to new limits. From Siri to Alexa to autonomous delivery vehicles, and ordering your next burger – there are big things coming out of California, Chicago and Texas to pique your interest this week. We’ve rounded up inspiring stories with substantial opportunity for downtowns, districts and the like. We hope you like what you read in our twenty-fourth edition of Bright Brothers Strategy Group’s “COVID-19 Cliffs Notes”, y’all.  Now, may I please have some ketchup packets, HAL 9000?

– Your Bright Brothers Team

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is becoming increasingly pervasive in our lives. Customer service bots chat with you on the Verizon app, personal assistants on smart devices and even Facebook customer service bots are pre-programed with conversations and frequently-asked questions  – and now your burger and fries. Last fall, Bright Brothers explored how fast food chains were on the leading edge of consumer design with COVID-friendly redesigns, food lockers and contactless commerce. McDonald’s is taking things one step further and testing AI as an ordering interface in Chicago, as part of its efforts to increase speed of service. We just hope the “broken” ice cream machine and ambient noise from vehicles and traffic don’t impede the progress. How frequently do you argue with your Alexa or Siri when they still can’t play your playlist or find the nearest public restroom? P.S. You still have to specifically ask for ketchup packets if you want them.

Photo credit: Jehyun Sung, Unsplash 

Kisses of springtime are beginning to appear in the northern climates, and before you know it, mask and vax or not – those adorable parklets will soon replace the brown, slushy, snow-plowed mounds that’ve piled up on city streets. If your bars and restaurants are looking for vetted designs that are elevated, sustainable and accessible, look no further than Dallas, TX-based Place Fab. An off-shoot of the local Better Block Foundation, (which we’ve highlighted several times in the past year), Place Fab is a source for street furniture and placemaking tools that are “simple, thoughtful designs to enhance cityscapes”. Featuring “human-centric design built to last”, Place Fab exists to empower activists, city planners, and business proprietors to elevate their outdoor spaces with street furniture designed to engage and unite. With vetted styles that pass the muster, your ratepayers and restaurants can now extend their premises until we’re all safe from infection. And that’s something they can take to the bank. Literally.

Photo credit: Place Fab

Is your district is looking for a simple, easy-to-manage, cost-efficient way to support your ratepayers and small, independent businesses? Rally them around an event or cause; drive digital commerce, or raise funds for community initiatives at the same time. To that end, you may want to consider Bachalaash, a one-stop solution with an intriguing name. This ground-up, Chicago area-based provider offers easy, groundswell options that provide community organizations a solution for creating and managing a digital marketplace for local businesses. The platform offers independent businesses a cost-effective form of multichannel customer acquisition, while providing consumers an elegant, digital commerce experience to shop local and support their community. You’ll pull your hair out trying to recreate the wheel, and there’s no need to, when visually-compelling community marketplaces, virtual events and fundraisers are a click away.

Photo credit: Mike Petrucci, Unsplash

Throughout the pandemic, there has been much discussion, pontification and prediction that our cities will be left in ruin by a diaspora of citizens fleeing for safer ‘burbs. This perception is particularly true of major metros like San Francisco and Manhattan, where one might think these cities now resemble de-peopled, apocalyptic shells à la “Planet of the Apes”. But that’s not the case. Using USPS change-of-address data, the San Francisco Chronicle crunched the numbers, and while it’s true that thousands of residents have left the city itself, it’s only resulted in a net loss of 53,000. That’s not necessarily a death knell, and we all need to be in planning mode for our “welcome back” campaigns once we reach “herd immunity” or acceptable levels of vaccination this year. Doom and gloom may bait clicks, but it’s not always representative of the actual data itself – or what you need to be focused on right now. Do you know what insights your data reveals?

Photo credit: Carolina Marinelli, Unsplash 

In another robot-related piece that grabbed our attention, locals in Downtown Santa Monica may be some of the first in the nation to perambulate the Third Street Promenade alongside AI-driven, autonomous delivery vehicles. Years ago, Amazon sowed the seeds and lit our imaginations afire with “promises and threats” of drone fleets delivering our purchases. The reality is more than a dozen companies are participating in a City of Santa Monica program focused on meeting climate goals. You may be surprised that the local IKEA plans to shift to “100% electric home deliveries globally by 2025,” as reported by Fast Company. The city says its goal is to cut carbon emissions by 80%, which is below 1990 levels, and this pilot is intended to get them to carbon neutral by 2050. Considering sea-level rise and its impending impact on coastal cities, this is a laudable effort locally, and one we’d be curious to see play out in other, more congested municipalities.