Posted by Sustainability Editor

How can branding make a city smart?

Branding done correctly – combining research, strategy, creativity and long-term investment – can create a sense of belonging for a community and deliver long-lasting results and economic benefits. The new city centre for Maroochydore by SunCentral, a corporation set up by the Sunshine Coast Council, shows how such branding can introduce, promote and reinforce a smart city’s status.

People link ‘smart cities’ to infrastructure  that collects, aggregates and uses data to improve quality of life but ‘smart’ also refers to being clever and agile, being able to care for citizens and their descendants and consistently high standards. Maroochydore is set to epitomise such a city.

Lee Valentine

The capital of the Sunshine Coast in terms of size, Maroochydore has historically suffered from a reputation as “God’s waiting room”. Young people leave to pursue jobs and education. Local nightlife stops at 10pm.

Whilst being Australia’s ninth-largest city region, Maroochydore always lacked a true commercial centre. SunCentral’s 21st century CBD will cater to business, residents and visitors, transforming the region’s future. A high-speed fibre-optic network built beneath the city means latest ‘smart city’ technologies can be implemented. Additional infrastructure, including the $2-billion Sunshine Coast University Hospital and health precinct, is also on the way.

Through our exhaustive pre-branding research Hoyne discovered an overriding sentiment that the Sunshine Coast lacked appropriate business focus to attract investors. A successful campaign needed to communicate the region’s evolution as a prosperous, smart, ecosystem and demonstrate the city’s amazing growth potential.

We positioned Maroochydore as one of Australia’s most advanced communities, offering a bright future for residents, businesses and investors alike. With ‘bright’ referring to the new spirit, vision and reality of Maroochydore our ‘THE BRIGHT CITY’ branding was born. Maroochydore’s Mayor took ‘THE BRIGHT CITY’ to potential investors in the USA and a global EOI campaign delivered stellar results.

Maroochydore’s branding will work because it’s real. Like all successful community branding, it galvanises everything positive, exceptional and possible about a place and expresses it in a clear, inspiring and trustworthy way. This in turn affects personal outlooks alongside economic confidence and buoyancy. Now the city just has to deliver!

Lee Valentine
Partner and General Manager, Hoyne.

 

Innovation Tools for Regional Entrepreneurs

By Brian Ruddle, Impact Innovation Group.

Entrepreneurs in regional Australia often don’t have access to the services and support networks of their counterparts in capital cities and major centres.

When starting out, city-based entrepreneurs get information and inspiration from co-working spaces, attending networking and pitch events, and generally participating in ecosystem activities. Over time, they can test their ideas out on others and get assistance with shaping their start-up ventures.

In regional Australia, entrepreneurs have to work a bit smarter to access support.

Let’s look at what a new entrepreneur does. They generally start with an idea they think will be successful. Then they find out if the idea is unique or at least unique for the target market; develop and test prototypes; establish a business model; identify how to manufacture or distribute the product; and develop an associated revenue model. The focus often then moves quickly to capital raising to help the enterprise grow.

Online tools can help regional entrepreneurs stay on track. Here are four platform types to try:

  • Finding/Refining Ideas: As well as Google searches, there are dedicated sites to help find and refine ideas, including Enterprise Access, Springwise, and Yet2.com. These sources offer insights into ideas and technologies that could compete with or enhance your plans. Knowing what’s on the horizon in your industry helps gauge if an idea is worth developing.
  • Raising Capital: In Australia there’s TechFundr for start-up crowdfunding, Pozible for product/service crowdfunding, and Gust, a platform used by many investment Angel groups. Government websites also list funding opportunities, like this one: www.business.gov.au/assistance/results?q=business
  • Collaboration: LinkedIn groups, GitHub, slack and yammer allow you to tap into brain banks, seek help, ask questions and contribute to a community. The key with collaboration tools is that they need some effort to get the most out of them. That’s how active participants build their profiles and networks as well as their knowledge.
  • Innovation Management: For corporates, there are a number of systems for managing innovation and engaging with remote and dispersed workers, including Brightidea, Spigit and Crowdicity.

With tools like these, regional entrepreneurs are no longer subject to the ‘tyranny of distance’.

3D modelling for communicating urban revitalisation

Two years have now passed since City of Launceston finished constructing and began working with the 3D virtual model of Launceston running in Urban Engine software.  The final product has lived up to expectations as a tool for communicating urban revitalisation and more.  Since that time the model has grown in detail with the addition of Aero3DPro building model data, street scape design concepts, building proposals, future development buildings and massing models.

Alexander Crothers

Beyond the initial scope of supporting the Launceston City Heart project, the model has proven to be a practical tool for evaluating designs during planning meetings, allowing exploration of designs issues and scenarios in an iterative manner. It has been useful for exploring massing models of the proposed new University of Tasmania campus buildings, surrounding access roads and the impact on the landscape.   All this is often created on-the-fly in a short space of time, even during a meeting, and this is where the model really proves its worth in galvanising consensus and understanding in a short space of time, often solving perceived problems very quickly.

It the coming weeks  the model will be transitioning from its current hardware platform – a high end gaming Laptop –  to a hosted cloud platform to enable greater access from any computer or meeting room with a good internet connection, thus improving access to the model and simplifying updates and maintenance.

The Paper ‘3D modelling for communicating urban revitalisation – A local government experience’ which was submitted for the 2016 Liveable Cities Conference sets out to clarify that project managing the creating a 3D model is not a simple matter and relies heavily on a small team of people with specialist skills and knowledge as well as coordinating specialist consultancies    Additionally the ongoing maintenance and return on the considerable investment in the model relies on ongoing development and support by these skilled staff.  The author of the paper hopes to present enough detail to assist others, especially in local government, to understand the pitfalls and focus areas to build similar successful 3D model systems.

Alexander Crothers | Spatial & Investigations Manager | City of Launceston
www.launceston.tas.gov.au

The Future of Architects

How we will move between and around our Cities?

I believe Architects in the future need to be more interested in what makes cities work rather than style individual buildings. That is certainly born out by the work of Weston Williamson which recently celebrated its 30th anniversary.

On looking to the future it is sensible to reflect on the past. As Steve Jobs said “You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. “

I am an avid reader on the subject of ancient history, the Persians, the Ancient Greeks, the Egyptians. But I am particularly intrigued by the Roman Empire. A comparison of our cities today and Rome two millennia earlier is interesting to consider. If Tiberius was to return to Rome now he would be astonished by many things. The growth and influence of Christianity for instance and the scale of the buildings dwarfing Augustus’s Pantheon. But also computers, televisions, radio, mobile phones, cameras and other technological advances would amaze the visitor. Building materials and construction techniques unimaginable in ancient Rome allowing much greater possibilities.

But the biggest shock might be the way we move between and around cities. The cars, buses, trains, airplanes, helicopters. This has probably had the biggest affect on our cities as it has dictated land use and planning and will continue to do so. Some of these changes can be predicted but others allow such immense possibilities it is only possible to forecast change without the knowledge of what that change will be.

Whatever the changes are they suggest great possibilities to architects.

The economist Paul Buchanan explains that we have traditionally travelled around 1 hour to work. This would be true in 16 AD as it is now. The workers of Rome might have walked or rode to the fields or construction site or port for an hour to their employment each day. With new technologies that hour increases distances enormously.  Weston Williamson have recently drawn up a scheme for a hyperloop, a vacuum tube with a maglev train travelling at 1000k per hour between Perth, Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane which will change the way people commute and choose to live in the east of Australia. The need to combat climate change will be a spur to these advances. If we want to move people out of their cars we have to make public transport much better. We have also envisaged how new cities based around high speed transport could be car free, green and pleasant environments.

“Look back over the past, with its changing empires that rose and fell, and you can foresee the future, too.” Marcus Aurelius

Chris Williamson
Founding Partner
Weston Williams+Partners

Shoalhaven Tourism: a new perspective

Shoalhaven City Council over the past two years has undertaken and number of initiatives to drive the domestic and international tourism economy in order to stay relevant in a fast changing industry.

• Operator relationships:
– A detailed survey of the local industry, identifying issues and what the community wanted
– Staff spend time out in region visiting business
– Regional forums and training partnerships
• International tourism:
– A joint partnership with a private company and DNSW to target the Chinese and Korean markets. This initiative has resulted in significant increases (40%+) in the number of tourists visiting from these regions, the intuitive involved direct marketing to wholesalers in these markets and developing local product that was market ready
• Visitor Information Services; Shoalhaven undertook a total review of the way in which services where provided, results included a new dynamic and flexible strategy with customer needs the focus:
– Closing of the standalone VIC in Nowra to a multi function venue.
– Increased staff famils
– Upgrades to digital assets
– Satellite centres and increased availably of staff to support operators
– Greater distribution of visitors guides, both digital and hard copy
• Staff Structure:
– The creation of key marketing and events/investment specialist position
• Development of a marketing strategy, including:
– Online assets and content creation.
– Direct employment of a photographer for a 12 month period to capture the heart and soul of the Shoalhaven and provide market ready images for local operators at no cost.
– Contracting journalists to deliver relevant content throughout the year
– PR; achieving amazing results with a PR famil program, targeting key markets to key media to assist in content creation and public perception
– Partnering with strong local businesses to raise the profile of the region, for example the recent ‘our stories’ series produced with Bannisters

Craig Milburn
Director Corporate and Community Services
www.shoalhaven.nsw.gov.au