MP3 download: Deb Brown interview part 2 Small towns have a future. Despite all the negative press, I have a positive view of rural, and I talk to others who share it. Small towns play a key role in our world. Everyone else better get used to us, because we aren’t going away! Deb Brown…
At the 2010 Oklahoma Entrepreneurs Conference, a panel of communities shared how they had become more entrepreneurial. Artists are entrepreneurs, too, and Mangum, Oklahoma, is home to several arts businesses. “If you count every man, woman, child and chicken, we have 2500,” Maxine Thomason said. She was the Mayor of Mangum, a former program manager…
Dina Jackson is with the City of Harriman, in Tennessee, USA. The city government owns 9 vacant properties, including a hospital building and a couple of houses. Rather than hide them, the city decided to show them off. They invited folks to tour the buildings and asked for offers. “We are now in the…
Attention Chambers of Commerce, tourism organizations, economic development groups, and other local organizations: When your website provider offers to make a page for every local business on your website, say no. I know you want to get more of your local businesses online. That makes perfect sense. Adding new pages to your organization website is…
In our weekly newsletter, we have talked quite a bit about what to do with empty buildings in your small town. Ron Hirst replied and offered such good information about incubators that I needed to share them with you, too. –Becky Guest Post by Ron Hirst, Director Quest Center for Entrepreneurs, Inc. Hutchinson, Kansas Becky, I…
Awareness of the world around you has been the start of many businesses. The business world is filled with examples of people who started a busines based on watching, reading and listening to things around them. Being aware may lead in many directions. Sometimes the product is already around, but it just takes the right…
Guest post by Cathy Lloyd, The Village In the summer of 2007, I had an idea to help the state of retail on the square in downtown Washington, Iowa. Since Wal-Mart came to town in the ‘70s, there had been a steady decline in the number of retail businesses in the downtown area. I hoped…
I talked to a small town Chamber of Commerce director. She told me how much she hated their current website. She was eager to get a new one, but replacing it would involve a committee, and bids, and approvals, and a long and expensive process. You don’t have to be a Chamber of Commerce to…
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