As Deb Brown and I drove away from the small town we had just visited, we talked about something that the town was missing. It wasn’t one specific business or an amenity. It was a characteristic. It was hustle. We didn’t see that entrepreneurial drive we’d both noticed other places. There were businesses and entrepreneurs…
There have been too many years of disinterest and disinvestment in rural America and at times I grow weary of defending the value of the rural place I call home to a national audience. I have read multiple articles about the rural underclass and the poverty that plagues our landscape from Bloomberg Business, NY…
Brother released their small business trends for 2019, and two struck me as particularly good for small towns and rural businesses. Remote workforces will continue to rise Brother says: “2018 was a pivotal year for remote working and as we head into 2019 that is not going to slow down. Good talent is becoming…
Necessity breeds innovation, and rural people have always been innovative. Working with limited resources makes us more creative thinkers. That’s just one of the reasons that small towns and rural places are the perfect testing grounds for the future. The infrastructure of future technology will be the result of rural testing. Drones and UAVs – perfect…
I often hear jovial stories and stereotypes, in and out of rural places, about how small-town people are stuck in the 1960s and refuse to accept change. They joke that we nostalgically hang on to our traditions, our history, our ways of doing things, and our small-town values. Personally, I choose to live in a…
We all hold different titles, work in different fields or sectors, but we’re all fighting for the future of our towns and rural places. We want to be a place our children and grandchildren and our nieces and nephews can live a good life. Quality of Life, a prosperous future for our towns, these are things…
Rural areas and small towns can tap the rising tourism trend of vacations from our phones. And new research shows ways to take advantage of the trend. Lots of rural areas already have poor cell phone reception and slow broadband, so we might as well take advantage of it, right? Philip Lovell Pearce and Li…
News flash: Rural areas already have autonomous vehicles Surprised? Both farming and mining already use fully or partially autonomous technology. I bet you already know about GPS-guided tractors, and you might know that big mines have big self-driving trucks and equipment. Almost no one mentions these highly-rural industries when talking about autonomous vehicles (AVs) for…
Since 2006, this site has been helping people like you in small towns move forward without waiting on outside experts, big budgets, or perfect plans. You don’t need any of that to get started.
If you care about your business, your downtown, or your community, you’ll find ideas here you can actually use. Take one. Try it out. Let me know how it goes for you.
Want to search our past articles? Catch up with the latest stories? Browse through the categories? All the good stuff is on the Front Page.
We partner with campaigns and organizations that we think best benefit rural small businesses.
Copyright © 2006–2026 Becky McCray • Site by Webdancers