In case you haven’t noticed, I love surveys. Actually surveys are just the means — it’s the data that I’m really after. Data moves the conversation from speculation and assumptions to facts and figures. I recognize that facts and figures can still just be expressions of opinions but they’re opinions focused around an idea or a question — and it is from that focus that insights emerge. A big part of my job is brokering ideas, connecting people, and serving as an agent for progress but what I’ve discovered is that without focus I’m little more than a receptacle for random, disconnected opinions which is futile (not to mention exhausting). That’s where surveys make my day. They push me to ask the right questions and focus the feedback in a way that can then be deployed to do something — and doing something is what good government is all about. So make my day and take my latest survey that focuses on the business climate in Kent.
Kent Business Survey
Conventional wisdom likes to cast government as an impediment to business but that’s actually only half the story. The other half says that when local government get’s it right, it can be a catalyst for economic activity — creating a dynamic business climate, expanding resource networks, brokering growth incentives and collaborating with private sector partners to take advantage of emerging business opportunities.
Successful cities do this because they understand the synergy between economic vitality and quality of life and they have learned how to leverage one with the other to create prosperity.
In the City of Kent we recognize that we don’t run Kent businesses — we just help make Kent businesses possible. And the more successful we are at our job, the more successful jobs will be Kent. So frankly, it’s self serving of us to serve you better.
Figuring out how we do that has to start with you — our business customers in Kent. We need to know what you wish we were doing, what you wish we’d stop doing and what you hope we never do. This survey was put together to start that conversation between you, your business and your city government.
Please take a few minutes to give us your feedback so we can roll up our sleeves and get to work serving you better.
Thanks.