We want the residents to tell us what is important to them; what resonates with them when they think of their city and how it is portrayed.

In our case, we talk about our city being a growing, vibrant, dynamic City as administration. The residents and community stakeholders will hopefully get excited about this process and their community and partipate fully in the process.

This stage of our branding is about the public engagement. A separate implementation process will follow.

David Olinger, Manager of Marketing and Communications

To address @Lauren Hughes first … no, we didn’t mean others would edit and update our content specifically. But, that being said, we are not thinking of forever excluding people entering content such as profile information or events information & review or blog content. And we wouldn’t reject, out of hand, community contributions to pages. These are all things we are exploring.

The opening of data is aimed at developers who may be able to use it in quite a dynamic and creative way. Mashups are so effective in so many ways, it could be that developers would build all kinds of wonderful and useful applications beginning with our data. The side bar issue with that is whether the core data becomes something that generates profits for others and nothing comes back to City residents. A creative commons vs a profit commons and how that might unfold. Opportunities for partnerships abound here too.

It’s clear none of us want to see a toronto.ca that is a one dimensional/one way presentation of services that disconnects from the very users we hope to reach. And users certainly do include tourists as well as residents. It’s great we are hearing from both on this page.

Taking advantage of a good position
I think Lauren hits a correct philosophical note when she says: “don’t lead them astray”. There is no doubt toronto.ca is a powerful property and we can either maximize it or float along on the fact the site has good positioning.

Well, we don’t want to coast along! We want to maximize satisfaction with the site and make it a worthy and viable resource reflecting Toronto. In that sense there is no escaping we are connected with the “big picture” Toronto.

I posted this on our TOwebrebrand Twitter account during the Stanley Cup finals and it seems just as relevant here:

Occurs to me toronto.ca is to Toronto as Sydney Crosby is to Pittsburgh. Our web has to score to win! That may be “corny” but true.#playoffs

We’ve had some recent blog coverage on a few other blogs around Toronto. Not much discussion ensued from those posts. I’m not sure what is different here but, in truth, we need more of this kind of exchange not less. So, I encourage you and and any new readers to keep going.

Will opening up our data help the community pull what we have and offer up more than the City could possibly do in the first place?

Do you mean opening you website for others to edit and update? If so – to what extent? I’m curious if something like this is on the table

Canada: 1st
US: 1st
China: 2nd (behind U of T)
UK: 1st
France: 2nd (behind wikipedia)
Germany: 2nd (behind wikipedia)
Japan: 2nd (behind Toronto Tourism Japan)
Australia: 1st
Russia: 1st
Brazil: 2nd (behind wikipedia)
South Africa: 1st
India: 1st

AROUND THE WORLD, people who search “toronto” will see the toronto.ca homepage. It didn’t get to #1 (or #2) without any hits! Don’t lead them astray!

But I’d humbly submit that Toronto residents aren’t the only audience for Toronto.ca – and even they would be much better served by a more dynamic Web package. See Vancouver.ca for example.

As for Brand Toronto, my latest post is about the challenges branding the small city of Grande Prairie AB. But I suspect that Toronto has an even bigger “Muskoseepi dilemma” – a tendency to “shop local” when it comes to perceptions of itself.

I’ll duck now while my TO friends sharpen their darts…