As we move towards Xmas and thoughts turn to 2025 why not take on board some inspirational and challenging concepts about ‘place’ from leading thinker in this field Dr Martin Reeves, CEO of Oxfordshire County Council
Take a look at his thoughts here :
And if you want to really get yourself motivated, encouraged and excited about the possibilities for your place watch the full video of Martin at thinkingplace’s Place Pizzazz 2024 event it’s a barnstorming performance!
- The only thing that matters is our place, not organisations, it is everything.
- Currently people feel disconnected with politics and power, it doesn’t reflect how they are leading their lives, that’s our place context and it’s a challenging one.
- Local government has to recognise when others are better suited to promote and develop their place, it always has to be in the car but more often than not sitting in the back seat rather than stubbornly hanging onto the steering wheel.
- In local government we love having boxes as we can put things in them and they’re hard edged but places aren’t like them, they’re fuzzy, awkward and often don’t make sense; don’t try to box in a place!
- We have to connect people to opportunities, in our desire to shape place for success we can’t keep leaving the same people behind, being place led has to work for everyone.
- Place marketing isn’t marketing, slogans, logos it is the DNA of your place and how you collaborate to leverage this.
- Being place led is tough, but given that everyone is in a challenging space it’s even harder and that’s when the leadership of all has to kick in, there is absolutely no substitute for leadership and it’s from everyone not just the usual suspects.
- There’s no difference between being place led in a major city or a small town, in an affluent area or a poor one; they all have assets, communities, stakeholders, commerce and the ability to cut through if they come together behind a shared story.
For further insights check out the full session below;
