The recent announcement that Eurobike is planning a Portland trade show caught many people off guard. Everyone that is, except staff of the Portland Oregon Visitors Association (POVA).
POVA kept the entire thing a secret, despite ongoing, coordinated efforts by the PDC and Commissioner Sam Adams‘ office to promote and develop Portland’s bicycle industry.
Just weeks before the announcement was made, POVA staff sat around a table at City Hall during a meeting of the bicycle industry task force that included Commissioner Sam Adams, PDC’s Jennifer Nolfi, and leaders from the local bicycle industry.
Despite obviously being deep into plans and negotiations, POVA made no mention of their dealings with Messe Friedrichshafen (the company behind Eurobike) at this meeting.
According to Jennifer Nolfi, who addressed members of Portland’s bike industry at a meeting two nights ago, POVA says they had to keep quiet due to strict confidentiality terms and that they feared a leak would get them in legal trouble with Eurobike.
That’s all well and good, but there are ways to suggest at the possibilities of a big announcement without getting yourself in hot water.
The result of POVA’s communication breakdown is some lost credibility and confusion for Portland’s ongoing efforts to establish relationships within the bike industry with an eye toward recruitment of new businesses.
POVA’s surprise announcement also resulted in event promoter Don Walker bolting from negotiations with the PDC and Commissioner Sam’s office to bring his popular North American Handmade Bicycle Show to Portland. Walker was just about to announce Portland as the location of his show in 2008 when the Eurobike announcement was made.
The timing of the attendance at Interbike by the PDC and the Commissioner’s office, combined with POVA’s October surprise, hopefully doesn’t cause industry insiders to assume that Eurobike was courted by Portland “city officials” when in reality it was just POVA.
At the meeting Wednesday night Nolfi announced that POVA plans to have a meeting to debrief Portland officials and bike industry stakeholders about the announcement and give details on ongoing Eurobike plans.
I’m sure we can expect better communication as plans for Eurobike and Portland’s burgeoning bike industry effort moves forward.
Maybe POVA has good reasons for minimizing their involvement with the PDC. The PDC doesn’t have a great reputation anyway, and they managed to win Willamette Week’s Rogue of the Week in the most recent edition.
http://www.wweek.com/editorial/3253/8179/
Maybe someone needs to talk to POVA and get their perspective before judging them harshly and deciding they committed some kind of “communication breakdown”.
Cate,
I’m not trying to judge them harshly. Maybe communication breakdown is the wrong way to put it.
I also realize that POVA has no reason to “involve” the PDC in their dealings with Eurobike.
It’s more about professional courtesy.
I think given the work the PDC, Sam’s office, and others in local industry were doing they should have been given more of an idea of what was going on…and at the least given a heads up about the announcement before it was all over the media.
That was a weird post Jonathan . . .
PDC is another way of taking public things and selling them for no money to rich people. yawwwwwnnnnnnn.
On this note Adan is quite right….
Oh , they also telll you what you can and can not do with your land also , don’t they.
And, they will take property away from you, under the guise of development…if they so choose..
and they killed my doggie!
Well if PDC kills puppies then you can say the POVA killed the NAHMBS which would have actually benefitted the local little guys instead of some pie in the sky global show.
Poor Puppy…
PDC stands for Pulverizing Dog Catcher?
Bike shows, velodromes, a coalition of independent bike builders.
Sheesh, you Portlanders have it rough.
Just sayin’