Services
Smart City Consulting draws on its experience, its imagination and its international contacts to develop groundbreaking programs that change the future of cities.
The Young and the Restless
The Young and Restless project is a collaboration with Portland economist Joe Cortright that has shaped the national agenda for cities through its breakthrough insights into where educated 25-34 year-olds are moving in America, why they are moving and what a city can do to win in the competition for these workers. Participating cities in the project’s initial phase are Philadelphia, Portland, Providence, Richmond, Tampa, Memphis and Atlanta. With the Young and Restless reports, cities are armed with in-depth research about whether they are attracting and retaining these professionals, comparisons with rival cities, analysis of sales materials for their impact on 25-34 year-olds, current perceptions about the city from this group and specific recommendations for attracting and retaining talented young people. The reports have attracted national media attention, including the New York Times, Washington Post, NPR and USA Today. To find out how your city can participate, contact Sheila Redick.
Things Look Different Here
What's real about your city? How do citizens in your city behave differently from average Americans? And how can your local economy profit from those differences?
Find out more about the latest project from the team who produced the groundbreaking "Young and Restless" reports, economist Joe Cortright and Smart City host Carol Coletta. It's called "Things Look Different Here." The project will provide answers to the urgent economic development questions that cities, faced with global competition and the push toward homogenization, are asking.
Click here to see the audio slide show about this first-of-its-kind study. Questions? Email Carol Coletta at carol@smartcityradio.com or Joe Cortright at jcortright@impresaconsulting.com to find out how your city can benefit from becoming a part of "Things Look Different Here."
Creative Cities Strategies
Drawing on our experience with government, major cultural institutions and artists, marketing and place branding, Smart City Consulting will help your city convert your undervalued arts and culture resources into economic assets and attractors for your community, leverage your city's distinctiveness to build a compelling brand, and make creativity a civic characteristic. The result? Specific recommendations that can be put to work immediately for your city.
The unique Smart City Consulting approach breaks the mold, as our work in Delray Beach, Florida, demonstrates. In recognition of this multi-dimensional, place-centered approach, the national conference, Drawing the Lines: International Perspectives on Urban Renewal Through the Arts, invited Smart City Consulting to present a paper on the Delray Beach Creative City Plan to city leaders, academicians and business leaders.
Click here to read the creative city plan.
Cultural Development in Creative Communities.
The monograph Smart City Consulting founder Carol Coletta co-authored for Americans for the Arts on the role that culture can play in the development of creative communities is the basis for the firm's consulting work with cities on the how cultural development can be used for economic and community development. The monograph reviewed the history of links between arts and place making and economic development; used Portland, Oregon, as a case study for best practices; listed the implications for community cultural development and planning and actions that can be taken by cities; and capturing creative capital to become civic capital.
The monograph for Americans for the Arts was written with Bill Bulick of Creative Planning as principal writer; Andrew Taylor, director of the Bolz Center for Arts Administration; Colin Jackson, president of EPCOR Center for the Performing Arts in Calgary; and Steven A. Wolff, founding principal of AMS Planning & Research Corp..
The Talent Magnet Project
Conceived and developed by Smart City Consulting, the Memphis Talent Magnet Project was the first time Dr. Richard Florida’s groundbreaking research on the “creative class” was applied to a city. Working with the support of Florida, Smart City Consulting produced a report for Memphis that used focus groups, interviews, research and analysis to recommend specific actions for Memphis to attract and retain the young, mobile professionals fueling the Creative Economy.
The report is the definitive document of its kind, and its impact on cities has been featured in the New York Times.
Smart City Consulting was recently commissioned by the City of Huntsville to produce that city’s own Talent Magnet Report. You can read it here. Smart City Consulting uses its unique approach and experience to evaluate your city and recommend actions that will attract and retain the talent needed for your city’s competitiveness. Click here to read the first Talent Magnet Report for Memphis.
Smart City Scenarios
Making good decisions is increasingly challenging. Why? Information overload, a galloping rate of change, rising uncertainty, and few historical precedents are just some of the factors that complicate decision-making.
But some of the biggest organizational failures of our time can be blamed squarely on a failure of imagination. There can be no conception without pre-conception. You see what you expect to see. Assumptions filter what gets through, and weak signals are filtered out because they don't fit expectations or the existing frame of reference.
To imagine possible new futures, organizations must force the creation of new frames of reference. One effective way to do that is with scenarios. Scenarios are not forecasts. Instead, they describe alternative futures relevant to your organization. Scenarios acknowledge developing trends, then use the power of storytelling to challenge assumptions and pose the question of "What if?"
Smart City Consulting can help your organization imagine a broader set of possibilities for the future by developing a set of scenarios tailor-made for you.
Excerpts from recent scenarios developed for local government are available here. Soon, we will post excerpts from our work on "The Future of Cities."
To find out how your organization can use scenarios to help see the future, contact us at info@smartcityconsulting.com or call us at 901.528.0800.
Click here to read the Scenarios For The Future report.
The Memphis Manifesto
Smart City Consulting conceived, organized and co-hosted the first meeting of the “creative class” to develop a call to action for cities of North America.
Convening the Creative 100 from 48 cities in the U.S., Canada and Puerto Rico, and 25 of their Memphis counterparts, Smart City Consulting led development of 10 principles – The Memphis Manifesto -- that should guide the policies and priorities of cities. Drawing on a dozen of our colleagues from academia, economic development, the arts, media, consulting, and more, Smart City Consulting facilitated a process that inspired spirited discussion and the creation of the seminal Memphis Manifesto in just three days.
As creator of the Memphis Manifesto Summit, Smart City Consulting has a deep understanding of the spirit and impact of its principles.
Smart City Consulting can help your city understand and integrate these strategies into its civic fabric. Our unique diagnostic approach and our creative, action-oriented recommendations can instill creativity as a force in your city.
The principles and details about the Summit are available at www.memphismanifesto.com.
Creative Programming for Organizations
Using our vast experience in the use of video conferencing and radio to present expert opinion from places around the globe conveniently and at less expense, Smart City Consulting specializes in developing energizing new programming for organizations. One of the many examples is our work for FedEx. The typical seminar for marketing executives took them away from their offices for 2-3 days, making it a challenge to catch up when they returned and, certainly, to apply what they had learned. Smart City Consulting developed a new monthly, one-hour format that brings the world's best business thinkers to four FedEx campuses simultaneously through the use of video conferencing. Speakers participate from their home locations, and FedEx marketing executives take only a one-hour break to attend. Most recently, Smart City Consulting developed and led a new nine-month program for Leadership Memphis consisting of video conferences with national and world leaders, field trips and live debates.
Peak Experiences
In association with Christopher Reyes at Ninjacat, Smarty City Consulting developed a unique series of interviews with young creatives to promote Memphis on the web, DVD and CD-ROM. The series was designed to deliver the messages researched and developed in the Memphis Talent Magnet Report.