Katowice: City of Commerce and Culture

I’ve been back from Poland now for a week, but I haven’t had a chance to blog on our final recommendations. Overall, it was an amazing experience and a great learning opportunity. I think every IBM executive should complete one of these assignments every few years. It really grounds you in the problems that the world is facing.

We wrapped up our final recommendations during our final week, and presented them in a half-day marathon to the Mayor, his staff, and various constituents of the metropoly, and then the next day to the local media in a press conference. Our final recommendations and deliverables included three work streams: City of Commerce & Culture, A Well-Planned City, and City of Digital Innovation. In the spirit of brief blogging, I’ll summarize one area in each of my next three blogs.

City of Commerce & Culture

This work stream was focused on answering the question, “How can Economic Development and Marketing Strategy be strengthened to improve quality of life (economic and social) and attract increased investment?”

Our recommendations included:

1. Align long-term economic development plan with existing city development plan and marketing plan
2. Build a clear and compelling city brand and value proposition across the city ecosystem
3. Tailor investor messages to targeted audiences, highlighting the business infrastructure of the city and the human and capital benefits
4. Foster local citizen confidence in the progress and new development that is happening

To support these recommendations, we provided a large set of deliverables to the City and Voivodeship. These deliverables included:

• Guiding principles on selection and engagement of investor promotions firm and marketing agency
• Strategic planning models
• Samples of city economic development plans from similar sized cities
• Management system infrastructure recommendations
• Ecosystem map and constituent personas
• Brand guidance and marketing interactions
• Feedback on the existing investor presentation
• Value selling framework template
• Communications framework recommendations
• Best practices for social media strategy
• Social media usage examples from similar cities

The team working on this work stream also did a fantastic job of documenting some of the key constituent personas for the city, including videotaping and profiling some citizens who represented those personas. They also made some key connections with local youth forums and recommended that the mayor engage these groups in the planning and marketing process, particularly to help address specific areas like nightlife development.

This work stream is obviously critical to Katowice. They need to establish their brand in order to draw the investments and economic development they are seeking.  They also need to market themselves to their own citizens in order to increase their regional pride and retain the people they want to remain in the city.

The reaction to this set of recommendations was very positive. The mayor started on the path immediately to pursue many of the recommendations. I believe that these actions will have a strong effect on the city’s ability to attract new investment and market itself.

Slide 6

How can Economic Development and Marketing Strategy be strengthened to improve quality of life (economic and social) and attract increased investment??

Century of the City

As former mayor of Denver, Wellington Webb once said:

“The 19th century was a century of empires. The 20th century was a century of nation states. The 21st century will be a century of cities”

A lot of our Smarter Cities messages focus on the massive growth in cities. There are statistics like:

• In 2007, over half the world’s population lived in cities, and by 2050, that number will be 70%
• and 30 people each minute migrate into cities from the countryside in India
• and “to keep pace with the rural-to-city migration trends (and natural population growth in urban areas), the world will have to build one city of 1 million people every five days for the next 42 years“.

While it is true that the migration to cities is happening at an unprecedented rate, there is also an opposing phenomenon. Some cities are experiencing declining populations. This is the situation we are finding here in Poland.

Many of the cities we are working with are actually on the decline, even though the Polish economy was the only growth economy in Europe in 2009. The issue is that the cities are associated with the stigma of an older economy, based on mining and steel production. Many of their younger generation want to move away to cities more associated with the “new” economy. The industrial-heritage cities lack many of the amenities that attract the younger generation to want to stay and work there. As a result, the younger generation is choosing not to stay, and there is a significant skills gap. Poland has the most significant such skills gap in all of Europe, primarily in skilled trades.

Katowice is experiencing this phenomenon, though in truth the positives far outweigh the negatives. In fact, Katowice and Upper Silesia are undergoing amazing levels of growth and investment, but the history and psyche of the region is so entrenched in the historical industrial perception, that very few residents actually recognize what their city really has to offer.

Katowice does have its issues… its infrastructure is a bit old, particularly its public transportation, there is not enough collaboration between business, government, and academia to drive the right kinds of skills investment, and it lacks some of the historical beauty of many other European cities. However, it does have an enviable location in Poland, with a sizable hard-working population, proximity to beautiful mountains, and easy access to several very large European cities. It also has the best roads in Poland, excellent local universities (including the best medical school in Poland), and some very impressive basic architecture. It has also seen some great recent investment from the EU and some major international companies.

So, why do the citizens act surprised when you mention its strengths?

Well, part of the reason is the history and relatively humble culture of the people of Silesia, but also it is the fact that Katowice and the surrounding cities have only ever known an industrial identity. Much like Pittsburgh or Cleveland in the U.S.,  these cities need to progress beyond their heritage and embrace a new economy, while not losing their identity.

It is a difficult challenge, and one with which we’re trying to assist.

Designing a Smarter City

Today is day three of my assignment here in Poland. We have been meeting with the Mayor and his team, and have a really good sense of the city now. Katowice is a city of around 320,000 people, but it is the center of a larger agglomeration of cities in Upper Silesia, with a combined population of around 3 million. The city has a strong heritage in the mining and steel industries, but has been transforming itself to embrace new opportunities in high technology industries. That transformation is what we’re here to assist.

We started today acting like investors, and the Mayor and city officials presented their investment pitch to us. It was extremely eye-opening for us.

My first impressions are that the city has a huge amount of potential. It is much nicer than I imagined coming in. The architecture and city layout are very nice. It still shows signs of its industrial heritage, and needs a few finishing touches in its appearance, but overall it is a very nice European city. What has truly amazed me, however, is the level of investment that this relatively small city has received from the EU, and from private business. There are an enormous number of building projects ongoing, and many more planned in the near future. This is a great foundation upon which to build, and which most cities do not have going for them.

I have one more meeting this evening with the Mayors of some of the other cities in the Agglomeration, so I’ll get more information on the broader region there. We’ll also be sharing with them our vision and experiences with Smarter Cities.

Three weeks in Poland

I’m heading off to Poland for three weeks for an IBM Corporate Service Corps assignment. It should be interesting since I’ll be working on a smarter city initiative there. I’m heading to a city called Katowice in Upper Silesia, and my part of the project will focus on communications tools and infrastructure.

Programs like this are something you find only at IBM. They offer a unique opportunity for employees, while giving something back to the countries in which we work. I’m very excited about the opportunity, though I have to say it is intimidating.

The Smarter Cities concept has really taken off, and so I’m eager to get involved in some of the detailed planning for one. I think this will be a great opportunity to witness the Smarter Planet ideas in action. I’ll try to keep up the blog while I’m gone to inform you on my progress.