Like a random encounter on the street, sometimes disparate ideas converge in interesting ways. Today, Kentucky Mist Moonshine and the Project for Public Spaces shed some light on municipal branding.
"Every day, social media serves up a seemingly endless stream of content. Raw information, with each item typically reflecting the priorities of its respective poster. If you’ve assembled good curators among your friends and contacts, it adds up to a lot of interesting stuff. But the real interest, at least for me, is when you stumble into curious intersections that seem to exist between disparate content."
"This happened recently with this article from the New York Times detailing a skirmish of sorts between 'poor mountain entrepreneur' Colin Fultz, a start-up distiller of gourmet moonshine, and the University of Kentucky. Fultz’s signature product is called 'Kentucky Mist' and the University considers his promotional merchandise like shirts and hats to be a violation of their trademarked rights to the word 'Kentucky.'"
Scott Doyon goes on to discuss how Kentucky moonshine and college basketball converged to help him understand why city branding efforts always seem to fall flat. It has a lot to do with complexity and PPS's Power of 10:
Source: PPS. Click through for larger view.
FULL STORY: Moonshine, Basketball, and the Power of Place
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City of Albany
UCLA Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies
Mpact (formerly Rail~Volution)
Chaddick Institute at DePaul University
City of Piedmont, CA
Great Falls Development Authority, Inc.
HUDs Office of Policy Development and Research