NYT’s Metrics Sets a Standard

We’ve joked for years that any innovation or information we evolve at DCVB gives us just a 20 minute head start. It is probably 20 seconds now and an even more crucial advantage.

But one place where I’m glad folks are catching on is information or research driven decision making. Especially in Durham, more and more organizations are using benchmarks, performance indicators and other tools to guide decisions. And while Durham is still in some pretty rare company, more and more destination marketing organizations are taking this approach.

But often the usefulness of information is reliant on how it can be displayed or morphed. Especially, if when and how it is displayed can simultaneously mine a variety of databases and morph the results.

The people who are geniuses at this in my opinion do the METRICS column in The New York Times. It is almost worth the price of the paper alone but especially so you can access it on the website.

A great example is this interactive chart on how people spend their day. In the paper it was just two views. But in the interactive version you can in click see it by age, ethnicity, employed or unemployed, etc. You can also click on a strata and see just that one element across all of the criteria.

Very cool! But also extremely useful.

Historic Durham Athletic ParkPublic Grand ReopeningSaturday, August 15, 2009 - 12pm to 5 pm

Nearly 22 years ago, a little-known actor by the name of Kevin Costner spent a couple of weeks in Durham, NC. Much of his time was spent on the field of the Historic Durham Athletic Park. Now, after a year-long, $5 million renovation, the Historic DAP, ranked by ESPN as the #35 All Time Sports Venue, is ready to reopen and reclaim its former splendor.

Built in 1926 as El Toro Stadium, the park will be operated by Minor League Baseball, which will use the stadium as a training center for business and facility operations, including hosting an academy of sports turf management. The park will also serve as home field for the NCCU Eagles Baseball Team, the Bull Durham Blues Festival, and the World Beer Festival.

Visitors and residents are invited to step up to the plate on Saturday, August 15th and enjoy a day of food, festivities, and fun, complete with a celebrity softball game, kids games, food and drink, and other activities.

Parking will be available at businesses and lots around the park, but will be limited. For information on parking, click here for DCVB’s Downtown Durham Dining, Nightlife & Parking Map. Click here for DCVB’s Downtown Durham Walking Tour.

Why Does DCVB Produce the Crime Comparative?

Each year when DCVB produces the crime comparative, I get asked, “Why is the visitors bureau involved?” Others, not so subtly insinuate that DCVB has an agenda because the bureau is Durham's marketing agency.

That’s okay, many people come from a very dated stereotype of marketing as manipulative and use the term almost in the pejorative. They haven’t been exposed to best practice marketing and the ways marketing decisions are made.

First, why DCVB creates the chart is easy to answer:

• DCVB first suggested as part of the Crime Cabinet as a means to put crime in perspective.
  


• Because DCVB is proficient in benchmarking and performing indicators, Durham Police Department reached out to partner on the comparative. The bureau also knows how to present information.

• DCVB is facilitator for the 19 organization Durham Public Information Council, which is in the best the position to utilize the information.
  


• DCVB also directly needed the information for orientations for non-residents working in Durham, human resource executives, real estate professionals and newcomers who predominately experience a community first as a leisure visitor or conventioneer, meeting and events planners and of course visitors in general.

So how are marketing decisions made and why are community marketing organizations a trusted source:

• Marketing is best when its information and customer-driven, not product driven.
  
  
• Marketing is a way to help people make decisions, not do missionary work.
  
  
• Marketing is all about perspective and balance, not promoting/withholding.
  
  
• Marketing is about communications, two-way.
  

So you see, DCVB is a natural choice to pull the information together? Actually, DCVB started the project expecting other messengers to pick it up but it has always fallen back to us. And we’re pleased to do it and glad so many people understand its value.

I'm a fan of Ken Carbone's blog in Fast Company's newsletter. Great photograph too! http://www.fastcompany.com/blog/ken-carbone/yes-less/bill-and-kim

Study Reveals Major Challenges for Marketing by 2020

Understandably, community marketing is fixated on the short-term right now. This too shall pass but even bigger challenges loom 10 years from now.

A study by The Nielsen Company foretells that average annual spending by households will bump up between now and 2020 but then will begin a steep decline, meaning competition will be intensified by a dramatically shrinking pie.

As Baby Boomers age, birth rates remain low and household size decreases overall, the economically disadvantages segments of society will grow resulting in a dramatic drop in per capita spending.

Obviously there could be fewer travelers and much more competition for those who do. Communities will really discover the hard way how important visitors have been.

Destination Marketing Organizations will need dramatic changes in focus, tactics and products. It has taken between 30 and 40 years to come to grips with the changes in business travel including meetings and we certainly won’t have that kind of time.

We’ll also see some changes that impact sense of place. I can see the churn of building reuse spreading quickly beyond fast food and convenience stories to bank branch buildings, etc. It may mean that so-called suburbs will begin to churn the way Downtown’s did a few decades ago, which will create some dynamics in terms of land use that will put pressure on sense of place…or an opportunity to restore it. Judging by how we deal with abandoned housing, we need to noodle this one and quickly.

But at the base of it, as we’re now appearing to do with healthcare, it means we need to intensify efforts to eliminate poverty.