Monthly Archives: August 2011

Research Methods 101: Robust Design

Cartoon from XKCD.com

Guest Article by Efe Sevin

I ended my last post with a cliffhanger. I argued how taking ‘brand’ as a whole is an unforgivable mistake. You cannot measure the brand of a country, give it a number, and rank them. You need to figure out what a country’s brand stands for, and whether the target audience is willing to ‘buy’ what that brand stands for or not. In this post, I want to elaborate on this point, and to take a quick look at some of the measurement scales we have to introduce a couple of discussion points.

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Diseconomies of Scale in Urbanism

Can He Solve the Problem?

By Caspar Lundsgaard-Hansen

The Economist, a weekly news and international affairs publication from England, published an article on the limits of cities in Latin America. The article states that megacities in Latin America risk becoming a constraint on economic growth. Continue reading

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Orestad: Laboratory for the City of the Future?

Residential Buildings in Orestad South as Seen From the South

By Caspar Lundsgaard-Hansen

Orestad is a new borough on the island of Amager in the south of Copenhagen. It represents the first extended public-private partnership in Danish city planning. Furthermore, Orestad was not only conceived as an extension to an ambitious and growing European capital but also as a laboratory for the city of the future. I wonder though if the urban experiments have been successful. Continue reading

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The ‘Gate’ in ‘Gated Communities’

By Renard Teipelke

The network Architects for Architects and Plattenvereinigung hosted a panel discussion (on Wednesday, August 24th, 2011, at the former Tempelhof Airport in Berlin) titled “Gated Communities – Are we heading toward a two-tier society?”

The panel, moderated by an architect, included a researcher, a developer, another architect, and one local politician. The title gave hope to an interesting discussion on gated communities in Germany and specifically in Berlin. However, I could not be satisfied by the outcome. The panelists threw in all the catchwords possible: gentrification, class system, public housing, social exclusion, parallel society, federal funds, upper class elitism, ghettoization, political corruption, profit making, South Africa, retirement homes, rural idyll, Southern Germans, capitalist investors etc. Continue reading

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Announcement: Panel Discussion in Berlin “What Strategy for the North of Neukölln?”

Former 'Kindl' Brewery in Berlin-Neukölln

On August 31st (7 p.m.), INPOLIS GmbH, zuhause e. V. and Vollgut GmbH take the stage at Vollgutlager on the site of the old ‘Kindl’ brewery in Berlin-Neukölln (Werbellinstraße 50, 12053 Berlin) and organise a panel discussion on local city development in the north of Neukölln. Continue reading

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What Happens If You Stop Marketing Established Brands?

By Renard Teipelke

In football stadiums, in TV commercials, in subways stations, on trucks, along streets – you can encounter Coca Cola advertisements everywhere. Coca Cola is an omnipresent brand worldwide – supposedly to be the most widely known expression after “ok.” Every year, the company spends a high three-digit million dollar amount for marketing. If there is one product brand in the world people from West to East and North to South instantly recognize, it is Coca Cola (–similar to McDonald’s as THE corporate brand–). Continue reading

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Announcement: Panel Discussion ‘Quo Vadis Creative Economy?’ Part II

© Agora Berlin

Date: August 23rd, 2011

Time: 7 pm

Location: Radialsystem V

Hosts: Dr. Bastian Lange (Multiplicities Berlin) and Ares Kalandides (INPOLIS) Continue reading

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A Brand Needs more than a Facebook *Like* – but It’s a Good Start

By Renard Teipelke

In the article “Facebook Rankings Reflect National Stereotypes” on SPIEGEL Online International, Alison Kilian writes about the findings of Socialbakers – a statistics portal that counted the ten most popular Facebook pages for each country. It may come with no surprise that Facebook users’ *likes* pretty often resemble the corresponding country stereotypes: US Americans *like* fast food and the Irish root for alcoholic brands, while Germans and the Spanish praise FC Bayern Munich and FC Barcelona as their #1 brand, respectively. Continue reading

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Turkish Brand and Soft Power

Two important men, one and a half mustaches

Guest Article by Efe Sevin

As I portray several other personae in my daily life, I sometimes forget the fact that I am trained as an international relations scholar. The recent talks between Syria and Turkey reminded me that fact, as well as the necessity to discuss a nation brands in terms of global politics and soft power capabilities. What is the Turkish brand in Syria and how does this perception affect Turkey’s role in the region?

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Think Twice Before Naming Places After Famous People

Names of Places and Streets (Picture Taken from the BBC News Article Website)

In her BBC News article, Clare Spencer shows that every act of naming is pregnant with meaning. This is of course also true for public places. One interesting aspect about the naming of places is that attitudes can change over time. Continue reading

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