Victor Vasquez, USDA Deputy Undersecretary for Rural Development, made the keynote presentation at the Midwest Rural Assembly. He started with the story of a road trip with a big city friend. As they reached a particularly empty stretch of land, the friend asked, should we turn back? Turn back? Victor asked, why would we turn…
Dave Holm, executive director, Iowa Institute for Cooperatives led a round table discussion at the Midwest Rural Assembly. Since 2012 is the International Year of the Cooperative, this is an opportune time to share that discussion. The Farmers’ CooperativeAmes, Oklahoma A cooperative is no different than any other business in this respect: you have to follow the same business…
During the recent Midwest Rural Assembly, Nebraska Senator Mike Johanns stopped in South Sioux City for a community coffee. Since it happened to be in the same building we were in, I stopped in to listen, too. Here are my live notes from the senator’s presentation and the question and answer period. This is not intended to be a political…
Our friend Des Walsh from Australia sent me a great email, that I just had to share with all of you. You might not have known but we had a Federal election here on Saturday. The outcome hangs in the balance (although I don’t think there are any hanging chads), with the likelihood of a…
Natural Resources are the center of major entrepreneurialopportunities. Is this the next wave of action for small townentrepreneurs? The broad topic of natural resources was our assignment for a “worldcafe” discussion session at the Midwest Rural Assembly yesterday. Itgot me thinking about just how much of a central role naturalresources play in our opportunities, our…
South by Southwest allows the public to offer input on the choice of topics for the Interactive Festival, coming up in March 2011. (Yest, that’s far away, but SXSW likes to plan ahead.) Any person may register and vote, whether or not they plan to attend the festival. Comments are especially welcome. I cooperated with…
On November 1, 2010, a group of small town advocates and technology geeks will convene at the Fox Theater in Hutchinson, Kansas, for the first 140 Characters Conference Small Town. Entrepreneur Jeff Pulver is the driving force behind the 140 Character Conference, or 140Conf for short. It’s not about Twitter. It’s about the ways real time online communication is…
Last week, I listened in on the National Rural Assembly Webinar Series: Exploring Rural Policy Opportunities. Speaker Anita Brown-Graham, Director of the Institute for Emerging Issues at North Carolina State University, lead us through some of the opportunities for rural issues in the current policy environment. Tuesday, we covered the tourism opportunities. Today, I want to…
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