Lois Loucks, Director of the Tri-Cities Economic Development (Wheaton-Onaga-Havensville, KS), shared some of her innovative thoughts with me in an email about shopping local. “Shopping Local” as a two way street, with responsibility placed on the business owners to earn “their share of business”. Just because someone decides to be in business, does not automatically…
If I was an economic development professional in a small town, I’d build a local version of the Oklahoma City Co-working Collaborative. Instead of looking for that next big company to recruit, I’d grow my own. And instead of focusing on “big” local businesses for my incubator space, I’d build a co-working incubator, styled after…
Shop local and buy local campaigns can significantly impact your hometown economy, but the instructions available online assume you are a big city. That’s why I decided to create a step by step guide to starting a shop local campaign in a small town, as a downloadable e-book. It includes solid research that shows whether…
Marci Penner, executive director of the Kansas Sampler Foundation, has lots of ideas of how to solve the volunteer shortage. She’s looking at all new ways to involve and engage people in small towns, with the WeKan volunteer program! Apologies for the dark video. It’s really dark in that barn! Marci also has a…
Dave Ivan of Michigan State University Extension rocked the house at the Michigan Small Town and Rural Development Conference with his “Can Small Towns Be Cool?” presentation. He showered us with ideas and examples gathered from 250 community visits, a literature review and the Michigan “Cool Cities Initiative” survey of young professionals. He grouped his…
As you work to promote your small town, you’re looking for your special qualities. Marci Penner, executive director of the Kansas Sampler Foundation, walks us through the eight rural culture elements. Using this framework, any town of any size can answer the question, “what is there to see or do here?” Read more about the…
The old definition of success for rural counties was growth. But growth frequently means more problems, high land prices, loss of shared values, etc. So if you are growing, you aren’t happy. If you aren’t growing, you’re stagnating, so you’re not happy either. So no one is happy. But the new definition of success may…
When I saw what an exciting thing the Third Thursday downtown in Hutchinson, Kansas, was, I grabbed my cell phone, and Jim Seitnater, the Downtown Development Director for Hutchinson, and did a quick interview. I admit, the quality of my cell phone video is awful, but the content is terrific, so there is a…
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