In what way will this effort different from Colorado Springs 6035 or Dream City 2020 or any of another dozen efforts we’ve wasted money over the last 15 years?

It won’t be… you can’t brand a city with an identity crisis. We may wish we had a thriving business and cultural environment here, but we don’t. We wish UCCS was a destination university, but it’s not. We wish the broader community supported local government, but that’s not the case. We wish we were diverse and eclectic, but we’re mostly white, mostly conservative, and largely Christian..

Stone Mantel will facilitate a process designed to help us discover some secret truth about Colorado Springs that we’ve just never seen before… some magic bullet that will make us feel like the cool kids up in Boulder, bringing a flood of investors, students, artists and entrepreneurs to our doors.

I wish them luck.

$80,000 to come up with an idea about how we should advertise ourselves? Are you KIDDING ME?! And this agency isn’t even going to provide us with the creative after they come up with the “big idea”? For $80,000?! Who’s job will it be to produce the creative in the end? Who’s job will it be to manage this brand in the end?

Listen local government, get your act together, work on presenting this city as the Olympic/sports city! Period. We payed dearly to retain the Olympic committee. Let’s friggin’ use it! Can you imagine what other cities would pay to have what WE ALREADY HAVE? We’re getting smoked by cities like Austin, Albuquerque and Oklahoma City! Those cities understand that they need to invest in their future, in their communities. Apparently we don’t, er… we need to spend $80,000 to let someone else explain the obvious. Who are these numb-skulls on the “branding task force”? And what specific branding experience do they have on their resumes???

And for crying out loud, it would cost $100 to print a banner that says “Welcome to Colorado Springs, home of the USOC” and stick it on our I-25 welcome sign in time for the US Open. The “branding task force” said that this would be too costly and time consuming. I’ll front the cost for the banner and and hang it up myself. C’mon!

One definition of a consultant: A self-proclaimed expert with an empty briefcase, that’ll tell you what you already know, and then charge you for it……..

One definition of branding: The way I can tell my cows, from your cows………

So a branding consultant would be someone who is going to charge me when he tells me what my cows look like.

I’ll like to have a job like that……….

Sport and wellness concept.

As Tim Leigh might say,(although he hasn’t yet), you’re going to get there anyway.

Jack Kerr