Lindsey Fair, MBA, PhD

Scholars have been writing about the marketing and branding of cities for decades. Place-branding, they argue, is not just about logos or advertisements but rather what those logos and advertisements say about the social, cultural, technological, and economic processes that shape and are shaped by a city's character and reputation. In recent years, these processes shaping place-branding have radically changed, especially facilitated by the introduction of the "smart" phone and the ability of everyday actors to quickly generate just-in-time place-branding material known in marketing as "user-generated content makers". This thesis will unpack these new user-generated content processes in the urban landscape and explain what these new processes mean for place-branding in the city. Research questions include: do these new actors and platforms in place branding create and/or influence new growth agendas for cities? What role do they play in directing resources to particular infrastructure over others? Whose voices are included, and who may be excluded? And lastly, is the future of place-branding becoming less about advertising and promotion and more a policy-making apparatus? Using Aaker's (1997) Brand Personality Dimensions framework, I apply a mixed-method, case-study approach using a novel social sensing methodology to answer these questions in three neighbourhoods in Kingston, a small city in Ontario, Canada. This included 25 semistructured interviews with key urban actors in the city, a digital social sensing exercise with online platforms, archival and other non-digital media collection and coding.

Scholars have been writing about the marketing and branding of cities for decades. Place-branding, they argue, is not just about logos or advertisements but rather what those logos and advertisements say about the social, cultural, technological, and economic processes that shape and are shaped by a city’s character and reputation.
In recent years, these processes shaping place-branding have radically changed, especially facilitated by the introduction of the “smart” phone and the ability of everyday actors to quickly generate just-in-time place-branding material known in marketing as “user-generated content makers”. This thesis will unpack these new user-generated content processes in the urban landscape and explain what these new processes mean for place-branding in the city. Research questions include: do these new actors and platforms in place branding create and/or influence new growth agendas for cities? What role do they play in directing resources to particular infrastructure over others? Whose voices are included, and who may be excluded?
And lastly, is the future of place-branding becoming less about advertising and promotion and more a policy-making apparatus?
Using Aaker’s (1997) Brand Personality Dimensions framework, I apply a mixed-method, case-study approach using a novel social sensing methodology to answer these questions in three neighbourhoods in Kingston, a small city in Ontario, Canada. This included 25 semistructured interviews with key urban actors in the city, a digital social sensing exercise with online platforms, archival and other non-digital media collection and coding.
The findings call for a “nested neighbourhoods” approach to place branding, helping city brands absorb and be resilient to external shock factors. Neighbourhoods contribute to a more genuine place brand and are more likely to lead to citizens and residents as brand champions. A new model for place branding assessments, Place Branding Strength Assessment (PBSA) is presented for consideration. The findings recommend policy approaches to place branding instead of using slogans or traditional advertising approaches, again contributing to a more genuine place brand. The thesis explores limitations including drawbacks of using social media data as well as the challenges capturing alternative voices in a still dominate narrative of a pro-growth and pro-development city agenda.

Social capital is not a new term. It is not a new theory, nor is it a new aspect of Community Economic Development (CED). But social capital as we have known it, as it has been explained for many decades, is evolving. The fathers of social capital theory Robert Putnam1, Pierre Bordieu2 and James Coleman3 have spent decades showing where and how social capital exists. They have explained the impact social capital can have, and furthermore the negative impacts of a community with low social capital. They, along with others, have taught us how to measure social capital and how to analyze the impact. And most recently they have talked in depth about the decline of social capital.4 However, instead of looking at all social capital as declining, its time to develop a new definition for it. Traditional social capital has declined, but it doesn't mean that social capital itself is gone. Social capital is alive and well, it just looks different. Putnam defines social capital as “the connections among individuals, social networks and the norms of reciprocity and trustworthiness that arise from them” and “that enable participants to act more effectively to pursue shared objectives”.5 Coleman agrees with Putnam in that social networks are the infrastructure of social capital6, and defines it as “a variety of entities with two characteristics in common: they all consist of some aspect of a social structure and they facilitate certain action of individuals who are within the structure”.7 Along the same lines Bourdieu defines social capital as the “aggregate of the actual or potential resources which are linked to the possession of a durable network ofmore or less institutionalized relationships of mutual acquaintance and recognition.”8 These definitions have not changed; the new social capital is still the connections between people with structures in place based on trust and shared objectives. But how we go about creating these connections, where they are based, what we do with them and the impact of our new connections is drastically different than what it used to be.

Why use truckers' tools?
The responsibilities borne by truckers are very similar to those accepted by entrepreneurs in deciding to start their own business.    Both professionals are charged with overseeing complex machines, with many interdependent components, through busy and uncertain environments.  But perhaps the greatest similarity is in the shared demand for constant attention and focus.  Neither one can allow their concentration to lapse even for an instance, else there be dire consequences for all those around them.  Given these many parallels, there ought to be some inherent transferability in the practices through which each can best fulfill their responsibilities.

To aid a trucker in maintaining that constant attention and successfully reach their destination, they have at their disposal a set of established practices and tools that allow them to efficiently be prepared for each day’s journey, to provide them with constant and relevant information while underway, and to utilize the mechanisms with which to change direction, speed, etc.. Trucker Management similarly allows a small business owner to maintain their focus and achieve success by establishing comparable practices such that entrepreneurs are equally prepared for each day, receive constant and relevant information while operating, and are able to implement change, all in an efficient and understandable manner.

Who should use Trucker Management?
Trucker Management is an approach that can be implemented by any small business owner to aid them in better decisions and operations.  Perhaps the most benefit will accrue to existing entrepreneurs who have been operating for less than two years, and who are at that awkward stage of examining growth, finding operational efficiencies, and ensuring they remain relevant and competitive in the long-term.

Would-be entrepreneurs can also benefit from learning about the tools and practices used by Trucker Management, as they examine the possibilities of entrepreneurship and design the operations of future businesses.  Building a small business management plan to incorporate the elements of Trucker Management can help enhance its chances of success by making the routines and ideas contained here inherent in the operation of their business from day one.