IBM and the
Next American City publication posed this question online for the
Smarter Cities web challenge: “Tell us why your city is the Next American City.” It was simple: the winner was selected on the amount of submissions received from a city, and Lansing blew everyone out of the water.
According to Tivoni Devor, director of partnerships for
Next American City, there were several cities that tried to organize posting momentum via Twitter and other outlets. “But the
#LoveLansing crew was definitely the most organized and organic team in the competition,” says Devor. “About halfway into the contest they had become clear winners.”
With encouragement online to post onto the Smarter Cities page, and some nudging from
@NextAmCity on Twitter, Lansing posts were consistent. Winning this competition has drawn attention to the Capital region.
“I think it really opened up a lot of eyes as to all the great things happening in Lansing,” adds Devor. “Via twitter alone, probably well over 100,000 people were exposed to Lansing. It will also hopefully inspire other cities to be more active and replicate some of the successful projects that were shared by Lansing.”
Source: Tivoni Devor,
Next American CityWriter: Suban Nur Cooley
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