Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
THE new brand identity for the Borough:—"I am in"
New brand identity strategy for Haringey
"I am in"
Discuss.
CDC
Haringey Councillor
Liberal Democrat Party
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update to mark the 'soft launch' (click to enlarge):—
The £20,000 film, The Haringey Story
Tags for Forum Posts: I am in, Local Government, brand strategy, folly, identity, nonsense, vanity, waste of money
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Clive Carter on
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Good point Pam. The attributes listed :
We ask our customers what they think and listen to what they say. We are aware if our impact on others. We build trusting relationships. We are honest and supportive.
– are indeed, human and not electronic.
However, there may be fewer humans employed, whether or not they have these attributes.
As for do-it-all-online: not everything can be done online. Everything that can be done online is not always accessible to the poor, elderly or disabled (no one matching these descriptions featured in the Council's £20K video. Apparently, those folk aren't "in" and aren't part of the Haringey Story).
The explanation for the airbrushing that was offered to the Ham&High, was:
A council spokesman said: “The Haringey Story is a celebration of the huge variety of people, locations and businesses that help to make Haringey the fantastic place that it is and features people from across the borough who are rightly proud to be a part of Haringey.”
Presumably this official statement was issued by a human. However, the PR function often does a fine line in bland, anodyne, even robotic replies. It may be a step towards the fulfilment of the famous Turing test, but in reverse: when human responses become indistinguishable from artificial intelligence.
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Permalink Reply by StephenBln on
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How long is this fabricated outpouring of the outcast going to go on?
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Permalink Reply by Norah Borough on
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Please make it stop! I've run out of pop corn!
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THE other day, the Haringey Council Cabinet Member responsible for the brand refreshment mounted a defence in the Municipal Journal (here) :
Making your mark
It is never going to be easy for a local authority to rebrand and change its logo. Accusations of vanity exercises, wasting taxpayers money and PR guff are likely to abound, even before you get started on the aesthetics. So why do it and why go for something as progressive and distinct as we have in Haringey?
The answer is relatively simple. Haringey has rebranded for the same reason any organisation chooses to do so – to create value, and to signal change.
I remain unconvinced.
In my opinion, the decision to undertake an identity rebranding has destroyed value (£86,000 of taxes and counting).
If less time and attention was devoted to signalling – change or otherwise (i.e. the Council's bloated Public Relations function): then residents might see more achieved.
The signals sent out include those the Cabinet Member noticed: PR, tax waste and vanity.
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Permalink Reply by Dave on
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I've heard that someone who works for the council has been in discussion with Nick Walkley, the CEO of Haringey Council, on a staff forum arguing that the logo is expensive, child like, unnecessary & that to 'signal change' simply means more commissioning of private companies to run council services. Walkley has now invited this staff member in for a chat.
Most of Barnet Council services are now privatised with the two largest contracts going to Capita. More here in The Guardian. That of course was where Walkley was last CEO. Haringey is going the same way. Will be interesting to see if the public like it.
In the recent offer to council staff of redundancy many have decided to take it. As they leave they're not being replaced leaving those services decimated and unable to fulfil their function. Not only is this cynical it's plainly disingenuous. But if the public want to be Haringey Capita rather than Haringey Council then they join the Tory experiment of the expansion of UK plc. Maybe this is why the word 'council' was dropped from the new logo.
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Permalink Reply by Zena Brabazon on
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I think you've hit the nail firmly on the head.
Services are underfunded, stripped and then staff are criticised for delivering poor quality. An external review could be commissioned to legitimate a decision no doubt reached in advance which recommends the panacea and solution - outsourcing.
One question is -where are the Labour councillors in all this? We know where the Cabinet stand, but what about the rest of them. I don't believe they all support what's going on, and they now need to speak out. Its not like the leadership of the Labour Party nationally is right wing and in love with outsourcing is it?
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Permalink Reply by Michael Anderson on
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It's odd if Haringey are embracing, so late in the day, the outsourcing fanaticism that hit local authorities. A number have finally admitted that outsourcing is not actually good value for money in all cases and does not provide the levels of service they were promised. Bringing services back in house seems to be more of a movement at present.
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Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on
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Nothing odd at all, Michael. It's another example of "Maslow's Hammer".
Joe Goldberg knows about and makes his living from brand management. Why wouldn't he generously offer the Council - for free of course - expertise from his splendid profession?
Simiarly, with Haringey's ex-Barnet senior management it seems likely that a two-boroughs-one-Barnet "solution" will roll on regardless. If those running the Council - politicians and senior managers - know that privatisation is the correct answer, the actual question becomes irrelevant. Just as policy-based evidence can always be cherry-picked to support whatever conclusion is favoured.
Though I accept that, if the tide is starting to flow in the opposite direction, there have to be attempts to disguise the process. For example, by moving in stages with, say, not-for-profit bodies and "arms-length" companies. Or going further by having joint venture partnerships with private companies.
One feature of such halfway-house arrangements may be contracts extending far longer than the term of an elected Council; with termination or break clauses which incur huge penalties. So changing policy by electing different people becomes impractical. Similarly, selling off land and buildings can restrict or block future options. (Sometimes leading to Councils paying high rents for the use or partial use of buildings once publicly owned.)
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Notes from this evening's Planning Sub-Committee meeting:
As is normal in such meetings, a powerpoint presentation is provided by planners, giving details of Applications before the Committee for Consideration.
This is of course a serious, quasi-legal function, subject to Court oversight.
What is not normal yet (and threatens to become so) is that between Applications – and even while Applications are discussed, an unrelated animated presentation is displayed.
The phrase This is appears at different positions on the screen.
A second to two later the Haringey London logo appears.
Another second or two later Are you In? appears and then it cycles again (and again. And again etc.) each time starting from a different point. It's the now-familiar new logo, with extras and visible to the public, including Applicants and Objectors.
It's like a shouty screen-saver. I found it distracting, occupied too much time and the display might have been put to better use.
It seems possible that the same drivel now appears on the computer screens of all Council staff.
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But the council staff are leaving in their droves with redundancy payoffs because they don't want to end up (as they look at their work computer screens with that same 'drivel' as you suggest & describe it) thinking 'I am not John Hurt' :)
Your meeting tonight Clive sounds like a lesson in 1990s corporate propaganda, today known as slow torture or maybe even high farce.
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It seems that someone in the higher reaches of the Council decided that condescending motivational posters and slogans are a good thing. Or at least that they conveyed an impression of a whizzy up-to-date organisation.
Plainly whoever it was either has no sense of humour or had never seen the website Despair.com. Among other online merchandise it sells spoof demotivational posters. My favourite is the one headlined:
WINNERS - because nothing says 'you're a loser' more than owning a motivational poster about being a winner".
There are several appropriate Haringey posters. Including "CONSULTING - If you're not part of the solution there's good money to be made in prolonging the problem."
However in the context you describe, Clive, a useful poster is: "Multitasking - The art of doing twice as much as you should, half as well as you could".
Because the animation - a pointless waste of time - is probably also a silly distraction from the serious central task in hand.
"... a visual alert in your immediate peripheral vision, it is—really, actually, biologically—impossible to resist. Our visual and emotional systems are faster and more powerful than our intellect; we are given to automatic responses when either system receives stimulus, much less both."
"Why I Just Asked My Students To Put Their Laptops Away" - Clay Shirky
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Alan thanks for the link to the de-motivation posters.
I should perhaps explain for the benefit of those who haven't attended a recent Planning Committee meeting, that the overhead projection screen is visible to the whole Civic Chamber.
Due to the size of "This is", the logo, and "are you In", it's more legible than most of the serious information displayed and it likely visible to the public gallery also.
While trying to discharge a serious task, I did find the kindergarten-like message slightly embarrassing.
Although I wouldn't compare it with the Hearing of a fraud case in a Crown Court while above the judge, a large advertising hoarding flashed "Eat at Chickentown"—it's not a million miles away, either.
(though unrelated, last night a teacher addressing the Committee did get a laugh, when he said I'm usually talking to children!)
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