The genuine power of physical interaction

EDITOR’S COMMENT I went to my first proper in-real-life property dinner this week. In a grand room in London with more than just a handful of other people. It was lovely. There were laughs, there was clinking of glasses and real-life, valuable networking. EG was co-hosting a dinner with the West Midlands Growth Company to help highlight the many investment opportunities that the region has to offer, and we were treated to a presentation from, and dinner with, West Midlands mayor Andy Street. If you’ve not been in a room when Street is talking about the West Midlands, then you really should find a way to be. His passion is palpable. As he stood before a hungry crowd, flicking through a deck of more than 40 slides, you couldn’t help but focus on him rather than the grumble in your tummy (the grumble might have just been me, to be honest). There is no denying the region is ambitious and has a host of opportunities for public and private sector to come together. Every slide had a different opportunity for investment. And big, place-changing investment. But it wasn’t really the opportunities that Street whizzed through that captured the room’s focus. It was Street’s passion. It was his commitment to making the West Midlands – all of the West Midlands, not just its poster child of Birmingham – better. Actually, not just better, he wants to make it the best. And it was that which touched people in the room. Here was a public sector leader who just wanted to make a place they care for the best it could possibly be. There was very little of Andy Street selling Andy Street in the room. He is clearly ambitious. You have to be to have held all the roles he has held. But, at this dinner at least, he was not politicking. He wasn’t out to have people fall in love with him, to further his standing in the public sector. He was there for the West Midlands and the West Midlands alone. He was there to sell the West Midlands and sell it in a charmingly aggressive way. “Move faster” And the investors in the room loved it. They were grilled at every opportunity by Street on what they were doing in the region. And if they were investing, they were grilled on why they weren’t doing more or why they weren’t moving quickly enough. But with every grilling came the offer of help, the offer of collaboration and an introduction to someone to help. And, importantly, it was genuine. Street didn’t just come to dinner, do a presentation and run. He stayed, he talked, he cajoled, he inspired. Street was one of the last to leave. And that wasn’t because he was pressing the flesh, it was because he wanted to make sure that every developer and investor in that room left the evening with opportunities in the West Midlands front and centre in their minds. Politics and policy weren’t mentioned once. Partnership and pride were. And that’s what I took from the dinner. That and the reminder that this is what real estate does. That is what we’ve been missing for so long. We’ve been missing connection. We’ve been missing inspiration and we’ve been missing doing better, being forced to do better. Someone standing in front of you asking you why, helping you connect with someone, some place or something to accelerate your projects, is how we do better. There is no mute button in real life, there is no bad internet to blame for a faulty connection. It is real, it is genuine, and you can’t escape it. And, frankly, why would you want to? To send feedback, e-mail samantha.mcclary@eg.co.uk or tweet @samanthamcclary or @EGPropertyNews