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“We cannot apply the same approach for both.”

As UTC’s Sisson put it, “When we see cities stepping up and making policies and strategies in support of energy efficiency, that is a clear signal to us.” He also pointed out that city visions can vary dramatically, so it’s important to understand their objectives.

Just like in corporations, setting goals and having a vision proves to be an essential start for cities that want to engage business.

Matthew Lynch, the project lead, said one of the main success factors is the opportunity for direct and open dialogue. “

The experiment found that on an apples-to-apples basis, posting local content drove stronger levels of shares, likes and comments than global content. 

We found that during the first four months of this experiment, the average engagement rate across all geo-focused posts was six times higher than all global posts.

They identified nine different types of story that drove higher levels of engagement as shown in this infographic.  

Another strong example of the commitment phase of employee engagement is being demonstrated in Cleveland, Ohio, through a community-wide economic development initiative called Sustainable Cleveland 2019 (SC2019).The SC2019 initiative focuses on the strengths of the region and levera

To date, however, the industry has yet todevelop standards to evaluate ESG datathat compare to its traditional evaluation o portolio perormance.

  5 Responsible Property Investment [RPI] is anemerging investment strategy and disciplineconcerned with integrating environmental,social, and governance [ESG] data intoinvestment decision-making

Real estate investment plays a undamentalrole in determining how society usesresources, how the built environmentshapes social lie, how economic activitycan be sustainable over time. As an assetclass, real estate oers especially tangibledemonstrations o the importance o ESGanalysis in creating value or investors andsociety alike. We believe that a robustmetrics system can help shape the marketto better create sustainable outcomes or allstakeholders

Similarly, Intel has achieved global market leadership in the growing global technology education market through its rigorous approach to measuring shared value. Key to Intel’s success, says Barbara McAllister, is understanding “what works” for students and teachers and to incorporate that knowledge into product design and deployment. Ongoing tracking of product performance in the classroom, as well as post-sales measurement of educational outcomes, provides insights to improve the product design and delivery, which ultimately improves the effectiveness of Intel’s education technology solutions and leads to additional sales and greater market share.

Threadless also carries over important functionality from its core website, allowing users to vote for t-shirt designs and enter design contests. Threadless does a great job of creating a fantastic user experience that doesn't require the user to leave Facebook

The company also shares a ton of great images on its wall that generate a huge amount of engagement.

Zappos has an amazing like gate that sits next to a featured photo submitted by one of its fans. Users can also easily join the company's VIP program from the page.

There’s a new era of social networking that’s taking shape around charitable giving. Younger people are rapidly adopting these new tools, and learning to use them in more and more substantive ways, to go beyond mere socializing and make these tools extremely productive. We’re seeing the sphere of social networking mature in a way that’s very exciting. People who continue to dismiss these social platforms as "a waste of time" or "just social chatter" are missing the boat. This is how people interact with each other and get things done. They share their personal and professional lives online. It should be no different when it comes to their philanthropic lives. More and more, we’re seeing the Crowdrise community share their charitable efforts with their social networks, both as a way to highlight their own commitment to a cause and as a very efficient way to turn their friends and family into new supporters.

They say “time is money,” but time is also an irreplaceable and personal connection to a cause.

webinars can be a profitable platform

Those who are on the fence about producing webinars, ask yourself this, "Would my business benefit by educating prospects on the benefits and necessity of my product or service?" If the answer is yes, hosting webinars is a must. 

engage an audience and convert someone's interest into action

For me the biggest challenge is that you are just getting your first visitors. I would go out and comment on other blogs and comment in forums to try and get people to visit my blog. When it came time to launch a new blog, we would harness traffic from the first blog to promote the second.

Digg during its second week of existence. That was a potent source of traffic back in the day. We have concentrated a lot of social media ever since. To do well in social media you have to build up a genuine profile. You have to get on sites and interact on sites as a real contributing user. You need to establish a network and feed in content. We did a lot of that.

We joined Twitter fairly early on. We built up profiles for the company as well as ourselves. I tried to think of Twitter using a 90/10 rule, meaning 10% might be something involving Envato and 90% of the time I wanted to be engaging followers with engaging content based on the topic itself.

connected to many other movements - like new urbanism, slow city, slow food, and eco-cities.

it is genuine engagement and connectedness with individual community members - to a point where they themselves become place-makers of their own making.

It is about creating a culture of participatory and grassroots democracy where the community has direct ownership of the processes and outcomes. This is a huge difference from our current engagement and planning framework, which does the opposite.

Place Capital can be defined as the shared wealth (built and natural) of the public realm – and it is increasingly becoming society’s most important means of generating sustainable economic growth for communities.

Where Place Capital is strongest people actually compete to contribute to this shared wealth, often changing their behavior in ways that ultimately support the value the place gives to others.

Public markets, town commons, and communal wells are early examples of human efforts to create these ‘shared value generators’ in physical places. Today, public places receive relatively little focus and investment above the necessary infrastructure and facilities to support production and distribution.

local and city governments play an increasingly influential role.

‘A ‘local developmental state’ model appears to have emerged in many of the most successful countries and regions, most notably in post-war northern Italy, Southern Germany and in several Scandinavian countries…. The core idea is that sub-national levels of government can, and should, be pro-active in building the institutional and organisational infrastructures required for growth-ori¬ented micro-, small and medium enterprises to emerge and succeed.’

They are also at a scale where it is much easier for relatively small organizations to engage at the city level

The WBCSD's Urban Infrastructure Initiative (UII) brings together a diverse group of companies: ACCIONA, AECOM, AGC, CEMEX, EDF, GDF SUEZ, Honda, Nissan, Philips, Siemens, TNT, Toyota and UTC. The UII Co-chairs are CEMEX, GDF SUEZ, Schneider Electric and Siemens; WBCSD is also actively involved as Co-chair. These companies from sectors including energy, buildings, materials, transport, engineering, water, equipment, and support services are collaborating to help urban authorities develop realistic, practical and cost-effective sustainability action plans. The project draws on the expertise of individual companies who already work with urban planners and engineers to provide services and solutions to sustainability challenges in cities.

For cities, the case for action is compelling: A sustainable city is more competitive and offers its citizens better lives. It uses resources more efficiently, thrives economically, and creates an inclusive community. For companies, the case for action is also compelling:  the urban market offers companies the opportunity to provide systems solutions, products and services in support of sustainable development in cities (buildings, energy, infrastructure, waste collection and recycling, etc.)

Each city faces different challenges. Tailor-made solutions are required, as challenges and opportunities vary from country to country and city to city. Some cities can capitalize on expanding populations. Others need to deal with aging and declining numbers. City governments must therefore find systemic solutions to address the interlinked social and environmental challenges and create the right framework conditions to make them competitive in order to attract investments.

It is my pleasure to introduce you to Michigan Impact. The University of Michigan is having tremendous impact throughout our communities. From the downtowns of Detroit and Grand Rapids and the shorelines of Traverse City and Muskegon, to the community colleges of the Upper Peninsula and the medical clinics in mid-Michigan, U-M is committed to improving the quality of life in the Great Lakes State.

A new $9 million U-M Great Lakes research and education center will guide efforts to protect and restore the world's largest group of freshwater lakes by reducing toxic contamination, combating invasive species, protecting wildlife habitat and promoting coastal health.

Nearly $1.7 billion in support for the U-M comes from donors and gifts from every county across Michigan. Support also comes from alums, and that happened in a significant way this year in the arts at U-M.