Does your downtown do Small Business Saturday? And you’re like, “Umm, yeah, like EVERY Saturday!” Supporting small business is part and parcel to our missions as place management professionals. From incubating, business training and providing both space and opportunities to nurture nascent entrepreneurs and wannabe-wavemakers, to a core tenet of your content strategy (web, eblast, and social), to streetscape enhancements, public realm perks, and all the activations and events you can shake a stick at (plus our Ops teams make certain we have the clean, green and safe spaces in which to do it) — BIDs are basically small business advocates every day of the year.
Shopping small and supporting independent businesses runs directly down the middle of our orgs and missions, like a reinforcing piece of rebar in the concrete blocks that are our communities. We all endeavor to do our best by our non-chain, locally-owned and operated purveyors of pints & empanadas, broad-ranging retail, and solely local service providers. It’s what we do, and not just one day a year, as AMEX might have us think. As UPMOs, we celebrate place erry dog-gone day, so if you’re looking for ways to give your indies a spin this season, check out this 15-point piece from our “little cousins” at Main Street America. The multi-pronged round-up includes some pragmatic, down-to-earth, and easy-to-execute tips, tricks, and strategies for giving your local biz a boost this year. And most of the recos aren’t time-sensitive, so if you’re not ready to deploy by Saturday, November 30th this year — no sweat! Keep this blog in your back pocket, or post it to the G-drive for when you get around to content strategy again soon. That said, best of luck, and give those indie kids in your district a big “hug and a hullo” from your friends at Bright Brothers Strategy Group!
Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash
We love knowing our work has a meaningful impact. And that’s particularly imperative when you’re strategic consultants. Some clients start as a one-off project and then lead to recurring relationships. And some hire you once, and you’re not sure if all that hard work and output ever gets put to good use. So it’s incredibly satisfying to see the results we make in real-time. Case in point, early this year we wrapped up a signature project with the Alliance for Downtown New York on an exciting and cathartic, custom Placemaking Toolkit project. We teamed up with one of our vetted partners, Jenny with Starkey Strategies, to collectively assess, map, and develop a toolkit that solves issues, avoids wasted time and resources, and creates further cohesion for the team and the district. Probably the most impactful tool we engineered for ADNY empowers them to rate, rank, and evaluate one placemaking initiative over another — in advance of investment, to see what will make the most impact. ADNY now knows how to get the most bang for their buck, and with thoughtful measurement, and a cadre of both qualitative and quantitative metrics, and KPIS — they’re moving forward with confidence, knowing that their efforts will make the intended impacts for the communities they support. That said, we were <insert serotonin-inducing adjective here> over-the-moon, to read a recent interview with Victoria Pennacchio, ADNY’s Placemaking Manager. Pennacchio was part of the team we worked with to forge the custom toolkit, and she even referenced the “four pillars” we developed to guide their efforts. We’re thrilled to see our client putting the great thought leadership to use, and even more excited to see how this year’s “Star Light Star Bright” campaign turns out for them! Need a custom Placemaking Toolkit for your district? Let’s have a kiki!
Photo: Jenny Starkey, Josh Yeager, David Romako
Did you know that European cities are statistically far more likely to meet the criteria of a 15-minute city? It’s primarily because many town plans existed before the advent of the automobile. But that doesn’t mean we should throw out the baby with the bathwater here in North America. In fact, Carlos Moreno, a professor at The Sorbonne in Paris, and special envoy for smart cities for the mayor of Paris, is commonly called the “Father of the 15-Minute City”. Parisian Mayor Anne Hidalgo, is an adamant adherent of Moreno’s urban planning pontifications, which promote a scalable and dynamic approach, customized to each city’s special characteristics. Moreno admits there are challenges. (And every challenge has a solution, right?). Moreno waxes theoretical when considering things stateside, and in particular — he challenges us to consider, “how do you fundamentally transform a city that has already been built – particularly those built around the car?” — and therein lies the major reason we hear “Well, yeah that might work in Europe, but…” Bullpucky, say we. The answer lies within BIGGER thinking about ourselves, our habits, our lifestyles and cities — and even bigger — the impacts of physical infrastructure, public health, and climate change. Moreno dares us to answer the question — is an automobile freedom or a noose? We really enjoyed reading this piece from Cities Today that delves deeper into the ever-evolving concept of an X-minute city, and how that may play out abroad, and here where we sure love our dinosaur juice guzzlers. Read on and ask yourself if you can envision a future where your groceries, doctor, schools, and services are a few-minute jaunt from your doorstep, or if you’d prefer to spend your life sitting in traffic. The answer may surprise you.
Have you noticed how crappy Google search results have gotten recently? Oh yeah, it’s not just you. And the SEOs of this world are going bananas trying to make sense of the hot, flaming mess that has now become commonplace SERPs. In an effort to incorporate AI (why, oh why, must every single thing now contain AI?!? Literally cannot wait for AI toilet paper to give me “johnny-on-the-spot” analysis of my biometrics — NOT!), and make continued tweaks to improve their algo and platform, Google has made a major misstep that is leaving many a district, and small business (see above) in the lurch with regard to search volume and traffic. We’ve seen many websites drop precipitously in search, and in our estimation Google is losing a competitive edge at a very precarious time in its own existence. The loss of valid, veritable and useful search results leave the platform vulnerable to even more usurpers and those looking to circumvent the (formerly, near-ubiquitous) platform that put all the knowledge of the Universe at our fingertips, for the past two decades or so. We’ve already explored how other tech and platforms are eating Google’s lunch, along with shifting consumer behaviors (case in point, younger gens have already turned to TikTok and Instagram to do travel planning, product/shopping research (and purchases), and many other revenue-generating activities. Aside from waxing philosophical about things, we’re offering a practical and applicable alternative to Google’s admittedly shitty search results. Gizmodo introduced us to the Konami code, which is guaranteed to “deshittify” search results for you. So if you’re an adventurous early-adopter type, a clever and canny coder, or you’re just so dang exhausted from the AI aspersions of search today — give “&udm=14” a whirl and let us know how ya like it. It could change your world forever (or until the next AI update is released).
Is your placemaking making an economic impact? If not, it should be. And we can tell you from experience, that when we branded and developed the marketing plan for the first-ever “Lets’ Glow SF” event, produced by the Downtown Partnership of San Francisco, none of us knew how big this thing was gonna grow! Think back (since you must) to a scant few years ago, when, during the darkest depths of the pre-vaccine pandemic — when social distancing was the protocol, and most downtowns were shuttered, silent, and not generating revenue — DTSFP had the cajones to pull off an ambitious holiday light show that was designed to bring some warmth and comfort during that dismal holiday season. Since its initial success, and an estimated economic impact of $1.3 million in year one alone, the downtown partnership in conjunction with A-class vendor A3 Productions, now has three successful seasons of Let’s Glow SF under their belts, equating to over $13 million in monetary upside for their ratepayers. And that’s nothing to sneeze at! Lets Glow is now the country’s largest holiday projection event, and with the approval and support of Mayor London Breed (who awarded the CBD an official Certificate of Honor after year one), has been a booster for the event. This year, Let’s Glow will be bigger, brighter and more robust; bleeding into neighboring districts, with jaw-dropping, animated installations from 13 international artists projection-mapped onto seven Downtown buildings. The event’s massive popularity and growth has attracted and secured coveted sponsorship from the likes of Amazon, JPMorgan Chase and Zoox. Once again, Bright Brothers is so proud of the role we play in helping our district clients hit home runs, and we’d love to bring this level of success to your district too! That said, what’s on deck for 2025 and when should we talk FY25/26 planning, so we can solidify a partnership like we have with ADNY (above), The Downtown San Francisco Partnership and many more around the country? Full send, henny, give us a shout!
The 15-minute city has become the X-minute city, because we have a lot of different implementations around the world and each one of these is specific to the local context,” — Carlos Moreno, Father of the 15-Minute City
