Wolverhampton City Centre 2050?

Our town centres – what are they are for?

Fast forward to 2050 and speculate on what a typical British town centre might look like.

You may have two scenarios. At worst an empty centre in search of a suburb. The Mary Portas Report will have been forgotten. We will have a landscape of charity stores, anything for £10 shops, pawn and betting outlets. The retail chains have gone. This is a feral landscape avoided by many fearful to enter. People visit once or twice a month. A business as usual model.

On the other hand a plausible alternative. There will be more housing for those living alone and who may have found house purchase difficult. Open space which was blighted and derelict has been turned back to recreational and ecological use. There will be more cultural attractions. Energy costs have become prohibitive and an ageing or indebted population finds public transport attractive. In spite of some inward investments, the recession may have been longer and deeper than anticipated – an opportunity for those without a job to start some niche-market enterprises. People visit regularly - it is an event to be enjoyed.

If this sounds fanciful, scan the results of a recent town centre 2012 survey by Local Data Company. Nearly a third of city centre shops are closed e.g. Stockport 30% and Wolverhampton 27.3% Sunderland, Stockton, Blackpool, Stoke, Nottingham, Walsall and Grimsby add to the tale of woe.

In the midst of a recession, it is tempting to see this as a short-term phenomenon. The reality is that we visit out-of-town centres or the Internet. City centres face a structural problem now. An acute short-term condition has turned chronic.

Coal, steel, textiles, shipbuilding and other industries withered away. The same processes of decline are now hitting the urbanscape. Even offices are on the wane. It has come as a shock and we flounder for solutions.

The town centre is being hollowed out. It is a doughnut. We need to start creating new paradigms for the centre. We need to rethink how town centre land is owned, rented and used. The renewal of commercial leases may see the exodus from the centre turn into a flood.

However much we improve parking, widening ring roads and improving public transport, the key question remains: what are people coming in for? Answer that one and the land use solutions can be framed. Currently, we seem to be addressing symptoms of decline rather that the causes.

Do we engage in cosmetic improvements to street furniture hoping to get over the short-term difficulty? To take a quote from Charles Dickens’ Mr McCawber are we placing our faith in “Something will turn up”?

The Local Data survey noted that southern towns i.e. Salisbury, Exeter and Cambridge do not seem to be having the same level of retail flight - single digit emptiness. The recession may be having less impact. It may also be that these semi-rural towns already have a centre more balanced to meet the changing patterns of shopping decline.

In medieval and industrial revolution times we had a pretty good idea of what town centres were for. We have not yet worked out their purpose in the 21st century.

Wolverhampton Wanderers and the language of motivation.

A hero of mine is the Second World War General: George Patton. “Blood and Guts” was a larger than life character, controversial and with a tendency to upset people. He delivered results. He was a motivator. Check out the opening scene in the Hollywood film Patton to get a feel. In the World Cup, the Algerian manager took a motivational leaf from his book before the England match.

When things go wrong powerful and persuasive language to motivate others can be a game-changer.

You see this every week in the Premier Football League. Managers come under pressure to give an account of themselves. Media and fans are just waiting for those quotes. Managers must hate the process and cringe at the interrogation.

The pity is that the interviews are not as well prepared and delivered as they ought. What is reported lies in the memory long after the game has been forgotten.

A recent interview by the local Express and Star with the Wolves manager, Mick McCarthy is a case in point. This was after the Villa match. Assuming the report was a fair representation of what was said, the reader was presented with this.

“I still feel we’ll get out of it, with whatever we’ve got and whatever we do, because I think we’ve got good players…. They keep going and they will get us out of it… There’s nothing more that could have gone wrong against Villa…. It has to turn because our lads worked dammed hard and they’re a great bunch…. We just need to play like we did on Saturday, but not give a penalty away, not get one sent off and not get one carried off…. I’ve signed everyone and there’s not one who would let me down intentionally…. They’ve all got a great work ethic. I believe in the same group of players and getting the best out of them, and that’s what myself and Terry Connor will carry on doing….. We might not have beaten Villa but if we get the level of performance we did on Saturday, that’s all I can ask. We’ve got more chance of winning if we play like that…. The way we played, not just against Villa, but against Arsenal, Bolton, Tottenham and Chelsea offers encouragement…. The biggest reason as to how I cope is that I don’t listen to the backdrop of what fans are saying….. I do not go around in a glass cabinet – I am fully aware of what is going on. If you listen to it, you would go off your head anyway. But I cannot question the performances at all….. I would not have done anything differently against Chelsea and Tottenham and I could not have done anything to make us any better….. I am not going to change anything – I’ve not got a magic wand.”

The cumulative impact of the words is a killer. Notice the high frequency of that magic word “Not”. “If”, “But” and “Can’t” add to the mood. These are killjoy words to close you down. Notice how the passive words are often the shortest.They are negative. Everyone involved is an observer hoping that something will turn up. In a difficult situation you can understand why they were uttered but they are not assertive.

Motivational language is about the right choice of words. It is about energy levels. It is about the creation of virtuous circles of optimism. Words are one part of the equation. Delivery and body language complete the threesome.

This professional sport spends millions on wages, fees, grounds and whatever. It seeks to buy instant success with the acquisition of a new player. What is needed is organic growth stemming from developing communication skills for motivation. Only then will physical, tactical and technical skills have a chance. This is a game where you have to use your voice and mind as well as the feet.

Leveson Inquiry and blogging.

The Leveson Inquiry has thrown up some interesting tit bits as celebrities, journalists and grieved parties come before it. A narrative of the state of our media for those with a genuine interest and an addition to the tapestry of day-time televison. The ultimate soap and an extra episode of “Have I got news…”

The blogosphere has received little coverage, at least until a day ago. Richard Wallace editor at the Daily Mirror came out with this gem when asked about bloggers. "The out and out cowboys – I don't see in the long term they can survive … people want information that is competent and true."

A confection of ideas to feed off here then. People want information that is competent and true but he seems to have side-stepped the irony that the whole point of Leveson is to question the mainstream journalists' application of this in the first place.

Blogs can be amateurish with poor prose, questionable logic and inaccuracies. The fact is that, collectively, they are the grain of sand in the oyster. The number of authors, readers and commentators is itself a set of checks and balances. Something the print media lost track of. The blogosphere has democratised the publication of facts, views and opinions when the mass media was doing the reverse.

Rick Perry's gaffe. We all do it so why was there no plan for when things went wrong?

Republican candidate Rick Perry’s recent lapse of memory in the US Republican Primary debate will join the annals of inept political communication. Endless replays of his gaffe will be played back to aspiring future politicians seeking to hone their own presentation skills. Something to go alongside Nixon and Kennedy or Quayle and Bentsen.

We should stand back a bit and be more measured.

53 seconds of embarrassment may have been the result of tiredness and nerves. Sometimes you just run out of track.

More likely, it is a mixture of over and under-preparation, under-preparation, in the sense of his reported avoidance of interview. He had insulated himself from media and voter scrutiny. Glad-handing and kissing babies are not enough. He had little practice in dealing with real-time questions and what can be thrown up. He delivered the same speech and a monologue at endless stage-managed conversations. He should not have been surprised when confronted with the tighter inquisition in the so-called “televised debates” which are nothing of the sort. Equally, If oratory and rhetoric have disappeared from Parliament in the UK, it is because of the demise of hustings.

Funnily enough, Perry might have come out well if he had adopted the debating strategy seen in the fictional debate in the last series of the West Wing. Candidates threw out the “guidelines” and emerged from behind their lecterns. A fiction but perhaps what the new politics ought to be about.

Perry was probably over-prepared. Candidates use their policy wonks to shape lines of argument and rebuttal. They rehearse detailed responses but the casualties are the sacrifice of spontaneity and character. In their preparations, Perry and his aids forgot to deal with normal human situations when stuff happens: like what to do when you fluff a line.

Who let the cat in? A blinder of a strap line from Wolverhampton City Council celebrating investment from Jaguar Land Rover.

In the competitive advertising and marketing world you really need a splash to catch the eye. Most ads just pass over you.

The private sector has the finance and time to buy in the consultancy necessary.

Councils tend to have a back seat when it comes to the creation of interesting copy for marketing their activities. Not so here.

Came across a startling item in the street today which caught the eye. An in-house creation from Wolverhampton City Council, celebrating the investment of Jaguar Land Rover in its new engine plant on the M54.

This is a city looking for all the good news it can get and the council have come up with a blinder here. "Who let the cat in?" is simple, succinct and savvy.

What makes it good? The initial question-answer device followed by the allusion to the Mafia offer for starters. Company logo and the courage not to use all of the space add a further dynamic.

Finally, the bracketing of the whole ad with the puzzle-solution rhetorical device highlighted in yellow is simplicity itself. This is an ad which really works and someone should be putting it up for an award.

The political election leaflet - time for a makeover.

There is a thud on the floor in the hall. The post has arrived. No it hasn’t, it’s an electoral leaflet from one of the main political parties. Normally, I treat these offerings like the latest pizza outlet blurb.

Just for once and because there is nothing else pressing, I give the offering a tighter look. Things are even worse than I thought. This is a literary genre in real need of a makeover.

So what’s gone wrong? Assume that the voter has a cynical and sceptical view of politics and that the time from posting to binning is seconds. What's in it for the reader?

First impressions count. A strong strapline, imaginative use of graphics, colour and layout are the basics. Beyond that a mass of text is a no no – peoples’ eyes just glaze over. Tight copy with short sentences and paragraphs are the order of the day, if only because the reader may have English as the second language. Contrived grainy photos which make the passport variant look good add to the picture.

Cost is a consideration but handing out A3-sized folded leaflets which look as they have just been duplicated on a standard photocopier, is cost-cutting at its worst. They compare badly against a smaller A5 creation on glossy and heavier paper. Cheap business cards set the tone for your company, so don’t be surprised if the same ethic transfers to politics.

Finally to content. Voters can see through the fatuous leaflets dressed up as “surveys”. Politicians should already have a handle on the issues in their areas. A survey is a bit late in the day. Equally, a photo of the candidate with a broom in the hand comes across as crass. How many residents do we see sweeping up public space?

We want tight rhetoric and choice of words. We want a strong image of the candidates and what they stand for. We want the personality of the candidate to hit us.

Critically, we need to know what makes the candidates different as we lend them our votes.