Kansas City — Engaging Residents with Art and Avatars
By Chris Hernandez
Director of City Communications for the City of Kansas City, Missouri
Who tells your story?
The musical “Hamilton” is the biggest hit on Broadway right now. Performing hip-hop lyrics while wearing colonial costumes is an audacious twist that has generated critical acclaim and box-office success. It’s an undeniable cultural phenomenon that also provides a lesson in communications.
One of the show’s most important lyric asks “Who tells your story?”
“Hamilton” creator Lin-Manuel Miranda poses that question throughout the musical, and (spoiler alert!) even makes it the closing line of the show. Miranda makes the case that Alexander Hamilton is a forgotten Founding Father, who doesn’t get enough credit for creating the nation’s financial system.
For government communicators, the best answer to the question of “Who tells your story?” comes from another lyric which says “I put myself back in the narrative.” That’s what we must all do every day, and in creative ways. I’d like to share a few examples of how the City of Kansas City, Missouri has created new avenues for citizen engagement — new ways to tell our story.
Art as engagement?
Imagine a beautiful summer night with the streets of the local arts district filled with city residents exploring art galleries on the monthly First Friday art crawl. As they drink wine and greet friends, people wander into a gallery at one of the most crowded corners in the neighborhood. And suddenly they find themselves talking with the city manager or the mayor about city policies.
My friends, this was no ordinary art show. The exhibit called “The Art of Data” — was conceived, organized, and staged by the City of Kansas City, Missouri as a citizen engagement event. In one night, 3,000 people engaged with their city by discussing data. The art was inspired by the actual city graphs and charts used in actual city hall meetings, which were on display side-by-side with the art.
As a result, visitors to the art gallery talked about the city’s murder rate, life expectancy by zip code, economic development along the streetcar route, and even citizen satisfaction scores.
We had a few goals with this event: to celebrate the fifth anniversary of the Office of Performance Management, to have a first event for our new office of Culture and Creatives Services, and to create a new way to engage with the community.
Keep in mind, the most effective part of this exhibit was not the attendance –it was the experience. There were discussions, it was thought-provoking, and it was relevant to residents.
As a citizen engagement tool, organizing an art show is creative, innovative, attracts media attention and engages residents in a time and place they don’t expect. It’s a true example of meeting people where they are.
On the flip side, it’s also staff and time-intensive, and would be difficult to do more than once.
Citizen expectations
Local governments must cover the entire range of options for reaching out to residents to engage on issues, generate feedback on policy questions, and to simply connect with the folks who live in our cities.
In the City of Kansas City, Missouri, our Communications Office is a division of the City Manager’s Office, and we function as a small, full-service strategic communications firm.
We have a couple of staffers specifically charged with handling engagement, but engagement with our residents is the responsibility of the entire office, as well as many other city employees.
Residents have certain expectations of their city. They will tell stories about interactions with their city — for good or for bad. They’ll complain to everyone about waiting for five hours and going department to department just to get that permit they needed. Or, when their problem is solved with a fast response to a phone call or email, they’ll tell that “good” story to their neighbors at the next block party.
Use every tool
Kansas City recently reached an all-time high in citizen satisfaction scores. This record-breaking year was made possible through strategic and innovative engagement with our citizens.
About two years ago we unveiled a new look for the city– a KC moniker for use in marketing and on social media.
And rather than lock down use of the new look, we made it “open source” so that anyone in the community could use it.
As intended, it now shows up all over the place, including on t-shirts and hats produced by other community members. This builds emotional engagement between residents and their city.
We change our Twitter avatar weekly to celebrate holidays and big events, which is another way to increase that connection between our residents and our city.
Citizens love it when they hear directly from the boss. They like quick results. They praise the city when someone listens and answers. For example, when a blizzard hits, the mayor and city manager live-tweet our storm response and answer questions like “When will my street be plowed?”
Over the course of four years, our citizen satisfaction score for snow response increased 14 percentage points. This proves that active social media engagement can move the needle on citizen satisfaction.
Platform party
Sometimes you get better engagement by simply changing the packaging. While building our new streetcar, we unveiled the first platform–or streetcar stop–with a “Platform Party” rather than a news conference or ribbon-cutting. It was a happy hour, with a band and food, and the restaurant next to the station stop served beer in the parking lot.
About 300 people showed up to take selfies with the mayor and the new platform. We handed out flyers highlighting economic development and other city investments along the streetcar route. It was definitely a party, rather than a town hall meeting.
Speaking of town hall meetings, we have a virtual town hall branded as “KC Momentum,”which operates on the mySidewalk software platform. It’s great for getting feedback on proposed policy issues, and budget priorities.
When you build this relationship with residents, as people become more invested in their city they will be more likely to respond when you’re seeking important input on specific projects and policies. And they will love living in your city even more!
Leadership from the top
Some may wonder how we’ve been able to implement new and innovative techniques, and whether we’ve had pushback within the organization or the community.
Fortunately, the bosses, both the city manager and the mayor, have been leading the way on innovation, and both strongly support communications efforts.
As a result, the City of Kansas City has been transforming itself into a more entrepreneurial and innovative organization. Six years ago we established the Office of Performance Management to provide and curate the data to drive decision-making. Four years ago we established the Office of Innovation and hired a Chief Innovation Officer for the first time. Our executive leadership continually seeks new ideas, and our communications team has been given the freedom to think big. We like to say that in Kansas City, it’s not about thinking outside the box. It’s about realizing that there is no box.
That mindset leads to innovation throughout our city government. When the art exhibit attracted such a large crowd, it set the stage for us to pursue even more creative community engagement ideas.
But it’s important to remember that you can’t stage an event just for the fun of it. Audacious ideas must still serve the purpose of engaging your residents and telling your story.
In “Hamilton”, the full lyric is “Who lives, who dies, who tells your story?” Today’s community engagement may not be as life and death as during the American revolution, but it’s still vitally important to our cities.
Go tell your story.
—
About the Author:
Chris Hernandez serves as chief spokesman for the City of Kansas City, Missouri. His office handles media relations, social media, the city’s website and community engagement, while also producing original video programming and graphic design services. Chris also anchors “The Weekly Report” on the city’s cable channel.
Chris was previously known as “that guy on the news” during more than 20 years as a television news journalist. He was a political reporter and analyst, covering human interest stories and disasters as well. Chris worked in cities as diverse as Amarillo, Texas, and Chicago, Illinois. Chris volunteers with and serves as a board member for several local non-profit agencies. His passion for story-telling, adventures, community engagement and innovation make him a favorite emcee and speaker at banquets and awards ceremonies.
Additional Resources:
Paul Taylor, Chief Content Officer at eRepublic, explains How Public Engagement is Evolving
Ed Everett, former City Manager and Nextdoor advisor, asserts Managing Local Government is Tougher than Usual
Nextdoor is a free neighborhood engagement platform used by over 2,000 public agencies across the country. To learn more or to sign up, please visit nextdoor.com/agency.