Watch this whole video before you go on. (Yes, I know it’s 18m of TED talk. Stick it out. When he got to the Amsterdam flag, I gasped!)

Now… Rochester… you are SO CLOSE.

Blue. Rochester is its water. The Erie Canal. Lake Ontario. The Genesee River. Our harbor. Irondequoit Bay. Finger Lakes to the south.

And that flower! People who live here and love it here get tattoos of that flower. Jill and I had T-shirts made of that flower for an Ingress event we attended far away. We let it be known: Rochester, representing!

But… we need to lose the writing! The flower/flour pun is beyond old. And we don’t need or want to put the name of the city on the flag. And that ®…. What are we, Pocatello? Come on, Rochester, we are so much bigger and better.

We can make the abstract flower design mean “Rochester NY” everywhere, by getting a well-designed flag into view. I would fly this flag

Wouldn’t you?