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…
Want to add a new level of interest to your downtown? Take advantage of your rooftop spaces. I was on a walk-though of the small town of Kendrick, Idaho, and a young man pointed up to the top of a one-story building and said, “I bet we could make a cool hangout spot up…
Despite the headlines, what we are witnessing is not the death of all retail. Retail is splitting in two. This time, small retailers are the big winners. Future of Retail Webinar Deb Brown and I are making this Future of Retail the subject of our next webinar at SaveYour.Town. We’ll talk about the underlying consumer trend driving this…
Glad you dropped in to the rural and small town business blog, established in 2006.
We want you to feel at home, so please take our guided tour.
Meet our authors on the About page.
Have something to say? You can give us a holler on the contact form.
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