December 2013 - Parks & Recreation - 47

Keynote speaker Jeremy Gutsche fired up a packed assembly hall
during the Opening General Session with his message of making
cultural connections with the local community.
tion, " Why should I choose you or
choose your park? "
Far from being antagonistic, Gutsche was stressing the fact that park
and recreation agencies need to have
a consistent answer to that question.
One important way agencies can
do this is by starting with their culture. " It doesn't matter what your
mission is or what your strategic plan
is, " said Gutsche, " because culture
eats strategy for breakfast. "
Gutsche explained that successful
companies with great culture share
four characteristics. Those are:
* Perspective (every employee has a
sense of purpose)
* A willingness to destroy what has
worked in the past in order to try
something new
* A tolerance of failure
* An obsession with their customers
" When we are good, it can be
easy to do what happened before, "
Gutsche said. " I want you to think
about the ways you can push yourselves in new ways. " One way to do
that is to make a cultural connection to your audience, explained
Gutsche. " You have to know your
audience, and you have to find a

way to be irresistible to influential
people. " To illustrate this point,
Gutsche shared the story of reducing litter in Texas. Instead of trying to craft a message for everyone,
the campaign focused on a small,
influential audience. The result
was the " Don't Mess with Texas "
campaign that helped reduce litter
by 72 percent.
For park and recreation agencies
to realize similar results, Gutsche
said they need to have a viral connection - a service that everyone
wants. Then they need to present
that service in a well-packaged way
and finally deliver an amazing experience. To help, Gutsche offered
these three tips:
* Keep your message simple - don't
overwhelm with facts, figures or
language
* Be direct - answer the question,
" Why should I choose you? "
* Be supercharged! Use awesome
language and be relentless in telling your story
" Parks and recreation have a
good thing going, " said Gutsche.
" But we need to keep reinventing,
keep obsessing about our stories

and customers, and keep finding
the influential audience. "
Speed Sessions a Hit
In addition to the 227 traditional sessions, this year's Congress debuted
36 Speed Sessions, each of which offered a lively 20-minute crash course
on anything from " 10 Top Recreation
Apps for your iPhone " to " How to
Make a Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich " (actually a lesson in communication skills). This new opportunity
was so popular that NRPA is bringing it back for Charlotte in 2014.
Live Learning
For the second year, NRPA livestreamed Congress sessions, and the
Quiz Bowl, for those who were unable to travel to Houston. Congress
LIVE! presented 10 sessions covering
a wide variety of topics. These sessions will be available on-demand until next year's Congress for those who
need a few extra CEUs. Check it out
at
www.nrpa.org/Congress2013/
Live.
Peter Magnuson is NRPA's Director of
Marketing (pmagnuson@nrpa.org).

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Parks & Recreation

December 2013 - Parks & Recreation

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