Monthly Archives: December 2011

My neighbo’hood has what it takes!

by Valentin Schipfer

For six years now I’ve been living in Vienna’s 15th district, but nothing has changed since. People still behave the same when they find out where I live. Once I was even told not to worry or that it did not matter! Most of them have never even been here, but still bear primarily negative images in their mind – similar to the ones described in that link . The sad thing is that these images aren’t completely far from reality. Before introducing you to my two place branding concepts, some words about the district’s history. Continue reading

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Call it the Tracey Emin effect: art overcoming austerity outside London | by John Kampfner | The Guardian

The Turner Contemporary gallery in Margate

 

Culture-led regeneration and Darwinian (s. dog-eat-dog) logic in John Kampfner’s article:

Call it the Tracey Emin effect: art overcoming austerity outside London | John Kampfner | Comment is free | The Guardian.

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“Santa’s Office is a place where dreams come true.”

Santa Claus Office, Finland

by Hans Pul

Where does Santa Claus live? This question circulates in the minds of millions of children around the world around this time of the year. According to a poem by George Walker in 1870, his home is situated near the North Pole:

“In a nice little city called Santa Clausville, with its houses and church at the foot of the hill, lives jolly old Santa Claus.

His home through the long summer months, you must know, is near the North Pole, in the ice and snow.”
Continue reading

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Place Branding for Cyprus: An Interview

Through the Nicosia Wall © photo Ares Kalandides

by Ares Kalandides

In the last days of October I was in Nicosia for a two-day seminar on Place Branding. I had the opportunity to talk to a journalist from the paper Cyprus Weekly, who asked me several questions about the practice of Place Branding. Here is a part of this interview

Q: As Managing Director of INPOLIS with an expertise in place branding worldwide, what is your position on place branding in Cyprus, and how it relates to place identity?  What factors contribute to the perception of a place, and why is it essential to define them through branding? E.g. architecture, economic and cultural planning, contemporary marketing techniques, urban design? What influences place branding, or the perception/ image of a place? Continue reading

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Alternative Mapping

Worldmapper: Absolute Poverty (up to $2 a day) (Territory size shows the proportion of all people living on less than or equal to US$2 in purchasing power parity a day.)


by Renard Teipelke

This article is about maps. If you are thinking back to geography classes in school or your last trip with a roadmap, you will be misled. There has always been more to maps, more in maps, and more about maps than ‘standard map bureaucrats’ would ever want to admit. Let us start with a simple question:

What do maps show? Continue reading

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Me, myself and I: Germans vs. Greeks or the tale of the cicada and the ant

The Grasshopper and the Antby Ares Kalandides

It sometimes happens in the middle of the night. I am woken up by a horrible racket and find myself fighting – with myself. “You are a lazy bastard” my German self is shouting to my Greek self. “You dirty Nazi” retorts my Greek self to my German one. Going in-between is useless. I even risk being beaten up by both of them at the same time. Now, how did all that start? Continue reading

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Smartphone applications augmenting city realities

by Valentin Schipfer

A recent post (see here) by Brendan Colgan opened the topic of smartphones and the city. He posed questions such as: Are smartphones leveling the playing field for citizens so they can engage more directly and better identify with their city? Do they make cities more attractive? Can they be a mechanism of city re-branding? Do I like my city more because of my phone? Even if I am a local, am I really learning or exploring my city if the only reason I am at the “local hotspot” is because of my phone? Do smartphones provide an opportunity to change how we organize, structure our cities – both socially and physically?

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Greece Deserves Better Than Placemats and Paper Cups, Mister Minister

Article by Gregory C. Pappas in the Huffington Post

“Yes, you’ve read the headline correctly. Greece’s brilliant marketers — the very agency responsible for promoting Greece’s image abroad — have resorted to adding the “visit Greece” slogan on seven million placemats that will grace the tables of thousands of diners up and down the Northeast corridor of the United States…”

Read the full article here:

Gregory C. Pappas: Greece Deserves Better Than Placemats and Paper Cups, Mister Minister.

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Utrecht Update | Final Programme Now Online

Dear Colleagues,

We are happy to announce that the finalized programme is now online for the International Place Branding Conference «Roots – Politics – Methods» to be held in Utrecht, Netherlands, between 20th and 21st January 2012.

Please visit the official conference website (http://de.amiando.com/FNFBVAT.html?page=594081) and click on the “programme tab”. Also, please note that papers written by multiple authors will be presented by the author with a “*” appearing next to their name.

If you have any questions about the programme, do not hesitate to contact Verena Röber at (conference@inprojectis.com)

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Creative Cities International — The Vitality Index (VI)

by Brendan Colgan

Last summer Creative Cities International (CCI) launched a new cultural impact study in the U.S.  entitled the Vitality Index (VI) [click here for the report]. The study aims to model the “human experience of the city at its heart.” In practice, it is a ranking and assessment which applies the same level of rigor to qualitative factors as it does quantitative ones. It brings to life a city’s human strengths as it respects its complexities: a vibrant downtown, an engaged populace, educational opportunity, economic sustainability, good transport, diversity of population and opportunity, and a citizenry that embraces its history and culture. I was fortunate enough to be able to interview Linda Lees, director of CCI, about their recent study: Continue reading

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