(~6 minutes to read)
(The mission of this blog is to provide articles that address some facet of the arts and culture. Sometimes the connection is tenuous—occasionally, it’s a-l-m-o-s-t invisible. Although the context of the underlying subject matter is global, this article is geared towards the arts and culture elements of that subject. My support for the entire initiative is, at this point, wholehearted and enthusiastic.)
Oko-whatta?
If you’ve never heard of Okotoks and don’t want to learn about a town that’s in the vanguard of sustainable communities, then fine; surf elsewhere; see if we care; it’s your loss!
Ah! You’re still here! Good choice!
My home town (Okotoks, AB) is in the throes of a re-branding exercise— at least the second one that’s occurred in the 22 years that I’ve lived here. The big difference is that that this one is being facilitated by a charismatic professional named Roger Brooks, whose organization has worked with (according to Roger) over 1500 communities across North America and Western Europe.
Roger’s speaking style and enthusiasm are infectious, and I leave his presentations feeling both pumped about the town’s future and depressed that my world/life-changing potential is miniscule compared with this man’s!
Watching the Video Reruns
I’m probably unique in one tiny respect—I get to watch Roger’s presentations multiple times. I’ve been lucky enough to have been hired by the Town of Okotoks to create videos of his presentations, so not only do I see him live, I get to listen to him again (and again) as I edit the video. This enables me to digest his material more slowly and reflect on it a little more soberly perhaps than the live audience was able to. (It also allows my sloth-like brain to catch up with everyone else’s!)
Brand Announcement
Roger’s latest presentation (2016-01-15) made public the results of work done by a twelve-person Brand Development Team. They had taken the feedback from over 900 survey respondents, the results of interviews with over 40 people, and goodness knows what else, and had distilled it all down to a Brand Promise, Brand Pillars and Brand Promise Shorthand (aka tagline).
That they were able to do so at all is impressive. That they were able to come up with something that has the potential to resonate with a wide cross-section of people is awe-inspiring. That they settled on a brand focus that didn’t mention hockey or baseball was little short of miraculous.
Okotoks has a significant and effective sports lobby in its population. We have many successful teams and individuals. We have a great inventory of hockey, baseball and other sports facilities. Including our curling rink, we have four indoor ice surfaces—another ice surface has been approved for construction. We have the Seaman Stadium, home of the Okotoks Dawgs WMBL team. But available ice time in town is as rare as rocking horse droppings, and ball diamonds are as valued almost as much as their super-compressed carbonic namesakes.
Meanwhile, the arts community is getting by with little more than a converted church and a converted railway station building, and the range of performing and visual arts events that are able to be staged is very limited.
Brand (New) Focus
The Brand Focus that the team came up with was, Innovation, technology, education around the environment and the arts, and health and wellness.
If you know the same Okotoks that I do, you’ll realize how perfectly that focus statement has captured the spirit of how the town wants to portray itself. Yes, we have a significant and vocal sports cohort. Yes, we’re a bedroom community for Calgary. But we also have a solar community (Drake Landing) that has attracted worldwide attention, and we’re among the leaders in innovative (by North American standards) water conservation techniques. We had smoking bylaws before the Province of Alberta made a move in that direction. We have anti-idling bylaws. We have a significant pathway system and a town committee dedicated to promoting and facilitating non-automotive transportation (a difficult sell, given our climate and characteristic North American design sprawl). Some of our municipal buildings have been using solar panels to supplement other forms of energy since well before 2004. The town encourages home-based businesses (the ultimate commute-killer!) As far as I know, we have little or no “dirty” manufacturing activity going on.
Active environmental concern is definitely a prominent feature of “who we are”.
…And the Arts…
The presence of the arts in the very foundation of this branding initiative is indescribably exciting for people like me—it may encourage policymakers to pay due attention to those who have long campaigned for adequate, custom-built arts facilities. Mind you, it might draw friendly(?) fire from proponents of additional sports facilities too. But the narrative that Roger Brooks provided alluded to the use of wind art and water art as ways to integrate environmental stewardship with the arts, so it seems as though the arts might get a fair crack of the whip in the strategic thinking around the brand, which may lead to concrete (and brick and glass) results, arts-facilities-wise.
…And Health and Wellness
In my eyes, this is a master stroke. It shows that the Brand Development Team was thinking about the wider context of a healthy lifestyle instead of focusing narrowly on specific sports. This is so refreshing; it raises the possibility that the needs of the sports-focused community will receive fair treatment rather than the (perceived?) preferential treatment that those outside the sports world have asked be tempered.
The fact that the “s” word isn’t in the Brand Focus doesn’t mean that it won’t figure in the action plans. But it does mean that sport won’t (or shouldn’t) monopolize the available financial resources and brain-cycles of our strategists. Or to put it another way, funding and support for recreation, leisure, arts and culture may become more balanced.
Cave People
As I write this, “Join the Innovation” is only a few days old. It’s vulnerable and fragile. Like all new-borns, it needs its parents to protect it from harm. But it won’t get the respect that most new-born humans enjoy—its birth has taken place in what will turn out to be a savage environment. Narrow-focus groups will attempt to enslave it for their own ends. Those who dislike change will attempt to destroy it. And the CAVE People will be against it purely because that’s what they do.
What are CAVE People? Citizens Against Virtually Everything. These aren’t people with a rational argument in opposition of a given initiative; their opposition is “just because”, unsupported by evidence or logic; they just don’t want to play nice.
It Takes a Village…
The Brand Development Team members may be the proud parents, but it takes a village to raise a child. And it will take the efforts, vigilance, energy and enthusiastic support of the entire town to make this branding initiative successful.
Doctor Janet Gibson was once asked why she and her husband (Doctor Morris Gibson) settled in Okotoks. Her answer was simple. “With two OKs in it, who could go wrong?” Dr. Gibson was surely using “OK” in its original sense of “everything in order”, but that was in 1955; the town has changed almost out of all recognition since then, and it is up to its 28,000+ residents who (presumably) chose to make their home here to ensure that those two OKs continue to mean “everything in order—all correct” and don’t degenerate to “mediocre—nothing special”.
Former Western Wheel publisher Paul Rockley said in a 1992 editorial, “Yes folks, we are fortunate to live in the heart of the jewel.” Let’s all Join the Innovation, and help make Okotoks the Heart of the Jewel again!
Your Turn
Do you live in or near Okotoks? If so, what are your thoughts on what you know about “Join the Innovation”?
Has your community done a large-scale re-branding? If so, what were the challenges, and how successful was it?
Share your thoughts by leaving a comment.