Portland Gives You the Finger

Portland, Oregon — probably the most livable city in America — gets justly criticized frequently for being unfriendly to business. The City of Roses is routinely blasted for everything from over-taxing business, to failing to give them enough incentives, to not favoring them in litigation issues and losing its sports franchises.

The latest heat came today, from the Overland Agency’s own industry vertical: marketing firms, specifically those who are expert in website design. The complaint: the city’s ill-conceived  “Portland Online Banner Challenge.”

In case you don’t know what a “banner challenge” is (and you probably don’t, it’s such an idiotic idea), let me quote from the city’s own website ballyhooing the challenge (in all capital letters, no less):

“The City of Portland announces a CHALLENGE to submit ideas and concepts for the top banner of PortlandOnline, the City's primary web presence and property. This challenge is part of the City's effort to refresh PortlandOnline.”

I’d be the first to agree the city’s web presence needs a “refresh,” looking, as it does as if it was designed and laid out by bureaucrats. But the public?

To cut to the chase, what the city has done, essentially, is open up an invitation to submit “ideas and concepts” for their main website to the entire population of Portland. Even children (under 18) can submit ideas and concepts for the main banner of the city’s site with “parental consent” to post their entry online. So, roughly, more than 500,000 people have been invited to help do design work on the city’s website. The city’s claiming, in a stream of vomitous public relations psycho babble, this is a way to “crowdsource ... an excellent way to capture the collective, creative energy of Portland’s residents.”

Most of the early criticisms from the hometown web design community —readily visible on Twitter within minutes of the idea’s release — have concerned the outrageousness of turning over what ought to be a professional job to amateurs. Or, as my business partner, Arve Overland said today, “Why don’t they put out a challenge to the whole population to re-plumb all the bathrooms in City Hall and piss off the professional plumbers?” (Yes, and then see how well the toilets flush.)

The city claims that they are hiring “technical contractors” to do the new website’s Information Architecture, handle social media issues, improve content management, make the site more accessible to people with disabilities and so forth. And the city’s FAQ’s goes on to say that whatever “design” a member of the public creates the citywill eventually “ ... use in-house talent or hire a graphic design professional to incorporate the banner concepts into overall site design.”

So, at best some web designer is losing a few bucks in not being able to come up with the original concepts. At worst, the concept will miss the mark of the city’s online business/brand goals (assuming the city knows what those are).

But, I would raise another objection. Portland’s main job in a down economy, with unemployment riding at about 12 percent, is to better use its resources and serve its people. I for one think it’s an enormous waste of money for the city to be pouring what, eventually, will amount to thousands of hours of city paid workers’ time conceiving of, project managing, sifting through countless “ideas and concepts,” doing the choosing, cutting the $1,000 check, issuing press releases and having public announcements around this turkey. Doubtlessly, the bulk of these design ideas will be inappropriate and/or impossible to execute. And just as doubtlessly, some of them may be excellent.

However, I’d like to see a real accounting of how much dough this hair-brained scheme will eventually cost in tax dollars misspent. Then, given that figure, I would like the chance to tell the Mayor how the money could be better spent. Oh, say, on hiring more school teachers, or helping to feed families whose bread winners are currently unemployed (as so many are).

And as far as the design concept goes, I’ve got an idea there, too. How about the city’s official banner showing our official statue, Portlandia, bending down — not to extend a helping hand as she currently does — but to flip off every citizen who depends on our politicos to spend our tax dollars wisely.

In this case, Portland isn’t just being unfriendly to business, it’s cheating everybody with a cheap, but oh so expensive PR stunt.