Future Economy Council discusses the Greater Hickory Metro's Branding Initiative

This was the 11th monthly meeting of the Future Economy Council and it was held on Wednesday, January 20, 2010. Click the link at the beginning of each segment to go to audio download site.

Intro - Terry Bledsoe opened the meeting by welcoming everyone, then Danny Hearn addressed everyone. Danny talked about the Town Hall event that will be taking place next Tuesday at the SALT block. The U.S. Chamber is spending money to educate people about free enterprise. The Chamber is talking about the need to create 20 million jobs in the next decade (7 million to make up for the recession + 13 million for growth). Scott Millar will be giving a forecast of what he sees happening in 2010. Danny will be making a presentation about the economic stability package, and Patrick McHenry will be there.

Photos copyright: ©2010 Pat Appleson Studios, Inc. All Rights Reserved, Used By Permission

Danny next addressed everyone about the Master Capacity Builder series before turning the floor back over to Terry. Terry talked about various projects members of the group are working on. Houston Harris is working on the Creative Molecular Economy, Bill Parrish is working on the Future Forward Workforce, Thom Shell (myself) working on the Global Rural Network, John Brzorad on Master Capacity Builder training, Dewey Harris with Mobile Governance, and Jay Adams with National Commercial Real Estate Network.

Houston, Bill, Dewey and myself gave a topical overview of the beginning stages of each one of these efforts. Simply stated, the common threads are that we are defining concepts, sharing ideas, and assessing assets.

Rick went over the reasoning of these projects. What is being developed is to get one person behind each of these emerging ideas representing 10 to 15 States. They will come together around a set of ideas. By having these nodes, we can interchange ideas through various regions, thereby empowering each region.

Part 2 - Terry talked about an experience he had recently in which he had made a connection with a group in California. The participants were IT directors from Billion dollar companies. The discussions revolved around Pattern Based Strategy; which looks at Weak Signals and Trends, moving forward with it and adjusting paths as you go through. Catawba County has been doing this, without knowing it, for years.

Rick stated that connections with other places are at the heart of helping bring back ideas to the local community and be a part of a large idea, this is an important part of leadership.

Terry introduced Houston Harris for a discussion about a Branding Campaign. Danny Hearn stated that we've got to make the stability plan simple so that the community will understand it. The itinerary is 1) Jobs 2) Branding/Marketing and 3) Workforce Development. Danny believes that Houston has a wonderful concept. He also stated that we have assets like Pat Appleson who has a studio that rivals any Radio-Television studio he has ever seen that can do filming and so on for the website.

Part 3 - Houston gave a metaphor for the area comparing it to someone who is lonely and needs a companion. We need jobs. We need a reason for people to come here and work. We don't have enough people living in the area. People are moving away from here and leaving us behind. He compares what we need to do to someone that is visiting a dating website. The people in this room have decided to stay here. What do we do to expand our network?

This Branding is about defining our personality (profile). If we put our profile online, what are we trying to attract? This is much like what is done on a site like match.com. Decisions have to be made. What image are we looking to project? We should be honest. What are our political slants? What is our ethnic origin? We need to think, not only what is going to attract someone in the region. There are many people out there and we want to get them into the relationship so we can find out what we like and what we don't like and adjust our message accordingly. To be able to adjust our message accordingly, we need a system that allows us to have quick and speedy responses. Some people might only be attracted to the area for one reason (low taxes or ready/trainable workforce). We don't know what is going to create an attraction. We have to put the message out there. We will have people in charge of each of the signals to say what we stand for.


So what is the Greater Hickory Metro? What is the personality? What are we trying to say to make that connection. Houston displayed the graphic below. Each swirl can develop its own swirl and nodes. The connecting nodes allow us to interconnect. What do we do with the crossroads to allow that to happen (find the common ground). The more overlaps, the more energy.



We need to stop thinking regionally. We want the effect to be regional, but we can't be thinking just regional. We need to think outside of the region with the benefit being that the results are inside the region. We are empowering the region through National (and International) connections.

Below is a paper that demonstrates the theoretical implementation and structure of the Branding Entity and the body of people they will answer to. This body needs representatives of the major players in the area. That will allow these groups to connect in the best, most efficient, ways possible. This allows everyone to create a tactical map as well.

Below is page 2 of Houston's presentation. The silos represent live, work, and play industries. These representatives will be people who have the time, energy, and sphere of influence to represent these interests. This will mostly be a review team. We need action. This needs to be a working body. They will pass the goals off to a development team to develop the tactics. Think about people you know that can be effective in developing these pieces.
Part4 - Danny asked about there possibly being more components than live, work, and play. Houston stated that there are subcomponents. What he doesn't want to do is create so many buckets that the visitor will be overwhelmed. We need to make it simple for them, so that they can see it and get it without thinking, because the minute a visitor thinks we have lost them.

I asked about the definitions and paradigms of each one of these. I work in the restaurant/ hospitality industry; so what I consider work, someone else would consider play. Maybe if we can list some words topically to define live, work, and play, people would understand it better and it wouldn't be an arbitrary process where one person considers live to be one of the other two or a combination. Houston stated that we need to think about it from not our own position, but from the position of the person we are trying to attract. If we are trying to attract someone else, what do we try to say that will help attract that person. If an individual doesn't like what we are projecting, then we move on to the next target. What are we trying to attract? who are we looking for?

We are going to have a limited budget, so where do we put our energy. The work silo should probably get the most budgeted emphasis, because it will help the other processes. It creates jobs, which creates demand, which creates the need for people to move here, which creates the need to build more restaurants and attractions (play). Jobs will be the drive.

Houston described a portal website that will be one of the major cornerstones of this initiative. People will see it and be directed to Live, Work, and Play. It will help get you to information that is already available. It will not replace information (he doesn't want to take ownership or replace information). He hopes that this will inspire entities that are linked to it, to better organize their information. Everyone will have a logo (button) that will be a unifying thread. This gives you a membership to a larger group, while still respecting the individual brand. This creates a force and energy. You don't have to explain as much. It keeps people from having to think too much. This is about one-on-one dialogue.

This site will not convert sales or guarantee a relationship. It just starts the conversation. This gives you the opportunity to decide the level of bandwidth appropriate to your conversation (interaction).
Photos copyright: ©2010 Pat Appleson Studios, Inc. All Rights Reserved, Used By Permission

Part 5 - This will help entities to front-end load the relationship. The flow is Suspect > Prospects > Full Relationship. This is a contact funnel. John Bates brought up points about the networking graphic Houston introduced. The strings won't have the activity islands where they are intersecting yet, as you put the council together, you need to have people that are synthesizers who can see where the strings intersect that are potential islands. Houston responded that that is why this is bigger than one person. Mr. Bates stated that there is a tendency that when a person represents a string that they focus on their own interests. A third party will say, "you two are talking about the same thing."

Houston stated that that is a component of transparency, which allows connections. That doesn't mean they are always valid. These are all puzzle pieces. These are three dimensional functions where all of the pieces are connected like a star chart. This is a cluster.

Taylor Dellinger said he had two thoughts. One, do we know what people (or industry) outside of the area think about us? Houston answered that he doesn't think we do know that. Taylor stated that to have an effective marketing campaign, we need to do some research to see what people from other communities think about us. What do they like and what do they not like. A perception survey. Houston stated that from a marketing campaign that you can paralyze yourself by worrying too much about what they think about us, because your real energy should be focused on what you want them to think about us. At the end of the day it is about our profile (persona). It is our job to get that out. It may conflict with what they think, but it doesn't matter as much that they link together.

John Bates stated that if they conflict, then we will have (to dedicate) some energy to overcome that preconception. His preconception before he moved here was furniture and Nascar. Houston said, while the knee-jerk might be to think about how to change that, maybe we should focus on how to enhance them. The energy to tear down the house might be wasted. I stated that this is about positive self-esteem and we can't talk about what we don't want to be, because that puts us into a negative context and we spend all of energy focusing on what we don't want to be and we never get around to what we want to be. That is what we are trying to project to these other people. We are trying to attract somebody so that we can become more complex.

Ken Elliott stated that we need to look at Nascar and furniture like facets. We need to bring the other facets (of the community) up. Once people look at us more intensely, then the other facets come forward.

Terry stated that we have been quick to limit ourselves to labels. He talked about his teleconference from the other day. When he stated he was from Hickory, these people (who were from a very technical background) were like "who, what, where." When he mentioned Commscope, they knew exactly what he was talking about. When he mentioned Catawba County they said they had heard of it before. When he mentioned Apple, they were like, "Oh Yeah." Terry stated that he wasn't sure we could pick a label. Houston stated that we shouldn't. Houston talked about the last City Council meeting and that they were talking about creating another group (Hickory Small Business Task Force) to report to the EDC, that is doing the same thing as the FEC, he couldn't recall the name. He was asking himself why do we need to keep creating all of these groups?

I mentioned that when I look at my web log from my blog, I start thinking about why is this person looking at my blog?

Part 6 - We need a contact to find out why this entity is looking at the site. Does it have to be the business or government entity, that because of natural curiosity tries to find out why this person is looking at our site? Or can we have a connection to go to to ask why this entity is looking at our site? Sort of like a Private investigator.

Houston stated that there will be a component like that. The Chamber is an Authorized visitor center, more people visit us from online that by any other method, if you get here and you fill out this form, then it comes right into the Chamber's network as a visitor's center. This becomes a filter or controller to direct the question to the right person. This gives the Chamber a reason to help with that. That can help with Customer Relations Management or Visitor Relationship to where everyone will have access to it. This will help create connections through Business Intelligence and queries to show who may have visited certain pages. The tools are there. We just don't want the technology to drive it. We want to drive the technology.

Taylor asked about the funding for this sort of project and hours and time. This has been attempted before and we still don't have it. The city and county managers stated that they would grant seed money for this. Businesses will also be need to help fund it. Houston stated that the structure needs to be planned, before we go forward. He is worried that the plan will come together, but no action will be taken on it.

I asked if businesses were going to have a button on the site. Houston stated that he believes that it will be more like an online directory where the business can purchase a listing, but he doesn't want that to be the only funding source. I stated that you don't want buttons cluttering up the site. Houston stated that this is not for the purpose of being a Yellow Pages. He envisions it more like being a Rotary Soccer Event donation. The business isn't doing it with the intent to generate business. It is a donation (method) to facilitate this function -- doing something good. The entry fee will be so low that it will help pay the hosting cost. The business goes in with the idea that this will not generate business. It is about showing that we are all on the same team. It is about the bigger picture.

Part 7 - Danny talked about some money coming from the Tourism Authority, because of a hotel-motel one-cent tax increase, which states that a certain percentage has to go marketing. It was stated that the decision makers believe that their only concern is putting heads in beds. I asked if they (the decision makers) don't understand that people aren't going to make a choice to move here based on a website. They are going to have to actually come here to make that decision -- that puts heads in beds.

Pat Appleson stated that someone has to tell them that the website exists before they can do anything. Have we addressed that? Houston stated not in this. That is on the fourth page. This site is about search engines and cross-linking. Pat talked about the State of Michigan's marketing plan. That is similar to what we need to do. Pat also wanted to address our new brand, "Greater Hickory Area," are we still going to call it that? Steve Ivester stated that we are calling it Greater Hickory, but it is clearly just Catawba County. No conversation here has gone beyond Catawba County. We have converted people in the Unifour to focusing on what Greater Hickory is the better brand, but we are clearly just focusing on Hickory. What about the people in Caldwell and Burke? What is the plan here?

Pat stated that he doesn't care about them. He then talked about why he moved here from Miami. He stated that we need to get out of the state and ask why they would want to move here. He talked about the lack of coordination of local governmental websites. He then talked about the problems he had with licensing his business. He was impressed with this material, because he believes that this proposal will address the issues that affect small business.

Houston stated that yes this will address Pat's issue, but we (the FEC) can't address it here. It will take the Council that runs the Branding entity to do that. Pat stated that the EDC doesn't come to him and he understands that. Houston stated that as part of the plan we can't make a determination here. Should it be radio spots, he doesn't know enough to say yes or no. The Branding entity will look at the budget and determine how they get the most traction to get the most people looking at us.

Terry closed out the session.