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March 28, 2008

Austin looks to keep their 'Live Music Capital of the World' reputation

How important is live music to the city of Austin? How many cities do you know of that have a Live Music Task Force? Not only that, the city-funded group won't consist of the usual suspect government bureaucrats, but local musicians, music venue owners and regular music-loving Austin residents - all deciding how to spend the government's money to keep Austin's Live Music Capital of the World reputation thriving.

The final report will come in October, but here are the four areas they're looking at investing in. Cities looking to initiate or grow a music scene should take note:

1. The possible creation of an entertainment district;
2. Establishing building requirements to mitigate sound issues;
3. Providing incentives to redevelop local venues;
4. Developing current and potential programs to assist musicians.

The city's mayor even recently proclaimed February as Love Austin Music Month, encouraging people to visit their favorite live music venue.

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March 27, 2008

How do you crowdsource the evolution of a retail district?

This is a question I'm often asked - how can crowdsourcing help develop and/or revitalize a commercial district, especially a natural cultural district?

It starts with preparation, understanding crowdsourcing as a solution to a 'cloud problem', and recognizing the importance of third places, scenes and events. Read more about their roles here.

The first action step involves establishing a creative community, which will then crowdsource the scene for the district, such as as arts and entertainment, fashion, music, high-tech, multimedia, green/triple bottom line businesses...

The second step results in having the group, now known as a beta community, identify ten third places that they feel are both missing/needed and necessary to establish the scene. This is followed by identifying VIBEs to run each of these businesses, and crowdsourcing a loyal customer base to ensure success from opening day.

The third step has the group crowdsourcing events at both the business and district scale that attract that critical mass of people essential to ongoing economic and cultural prosperity, filling the venues and establishing not only a scene, but a community and a heritage.

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March 26, 2008

Crowd- sourced place- making illustrated

This diagram illustrates how crowdsourcing is used to solve a cloud problem, that diffuse, difficult to pin down dilemma such as how to establish a creative scene in a designated district.

In the graphic, note how creatives and 'sponsors' (those who contribute significant investment dollars or buildings) work from the 'clouds' (via a physical and virtual social network), collaborating on a specific problem with a common vision - a clock problem; a clearly definable situation, like how to codevelop a third place in a natural cultural district.

In the process the creatives transform themselves into crowdsourcing placemakers, which in turn transforms the cloud they're in into a creative scene, thus solving the aforementioned cloud problem.

This is an excerpt from the CoolTown visual crowdsourced placemaking guide. It may help to read about this within the full context of the document.

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March 25, 2008

Reader experience: Each cup 'made from scratch' coffeehouse

My favorite category on this website is Reader Experiences. What better way to profile inspiring places than to have readers relive such moments. Today's such person is Christian MacAuley, CEO of FabApps. Her experience:

"Philz Coffee in San Francisco makes your coffee one cup at a time. It feels special and tastes awesome. After waiting in line to be served, a staff member makes your coffee with you one-on-one, asking for your exact preferences so you're getting very individualized attention [then literally grinding the beans from scratch]. When the coffee's done, it's typically topped with a fresh mint leave or two (if you want it), and then your staff person asks you to try it right there to make sure you like it. It's a winner.

Particularly, I like how the service is personal and unique without feeling forced or exaggerated. The intimate service is authentic because their product - customized coffee - demands individual service. It may be a gimmick, but it totally works (because the coffee is top notch) and feels right."

Christian also happens to be a proactive member of a beta community that's crowdsourcing a green, vegetarian restaurant in downtown DC, aka Elements. She provided this profile as inspiration for the restaurant, "I definitely see some "elements" of Elements looking at this photo of the interior I took last year, such as the live music, the community, and all the green and sunshine."

Check out more reader experiences here - keep them coming!

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March 24, 2008

How local indies can compete with national chains

As stated in a previous entry, the primary reason why an overwhelming majority of new retail developments lease to national chains rather than local independent businesses is that chains can pay higher rents. They're able to do so because they already have an established customer base before they open. This makes it extremely difficult to establish a natural cultural district, which is why we have 'Anywhere USA' instead.

How can local indie shops and restaurants compete with such a crippling disadvantage? They can tap into the same power behind branding that chains do, except instead of a national brand they need to crowdsource a community brand that ensures a loyal following on opening day.

How much easier it would be to compete with a loyal following of several hundred customers already eagerly awaiting the business's opening day. Check out the process here.

This is an excerpt from the CoolTown visual crowdsourced placemaking guide.

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