by Joel Burgess

Tucked away on the last page of the Financial Times is an interesting article by Tyler Brule, entitled “Second Homes are Cool – Why Don’t Governments Have Them?” The article argues that countries should build strong secondary capital cities to increase tourism dollars. One of Brule’s supporting points is that capitals with cooler climates are needed to keep people (in this case politicians) both productive and pleasant .

Brule suggests current capitals should have a more temperate place to conduct business when the weather gets hot:

  • Washington to Bangor
  • Tokyo to Sapporo
  • London to Harrogate
  • Rome to Bolzano
  • Berlin to Sylt
  • Madrid to San Sebastian
  • Paris to Quebec City
  • The rest of the world with no cool capital options to Reykjavik, Oslo, or Stockholm

Brule’s suggestion may seem facetious, but he’s got a point. Coolness counts.

In the world of business attraction and recruitment, the game is often not so much about attracting the company, but attracting the one or two individuals at the top of company’s hierarchy. If the CEO likes weather like yours, you might just tempt the company your way.

Of course the role climate plays is hard to gauge quantitatively, as it varies greatly based on the decision-maker’s preference. And if climate is a reasonable factor, other indicators may give additional insight into an individual’s preferences:

  • Birthplace
  • Employment history locations (familiarity with your area may prove attractive)
  • Locations of higher education
  • Hobbies

Part of Whittaker Associate’s scope of services includes profiling the executives of companies. And in fact, one factor we track is climate preference.

The idea is to take information about the decision-maker and begin to match synergies between the individual and both your community and the executives of companies in your community. This approach allows you to find commonalities as a starting point to develop relationships, so when a company is ready to make a move, you already have rapport based on their CEO’s preferences, whether it’s weather or some other factor. How cool is that?