Have you heard of “soup” events? People pay a small amount, say $5, to attend a local pitch event. Local groups pitch their ideas, everyone votes, and the winner gets the money. The real winner is the community, of course. It boosts activity, gets people talking to each other, builds momentum and rewards people…
The Brag Basket is open! This one is for May 31-June 2, 2019. Bring your good news, big or small, to share with everyone. What can you share in the Brag Basket? introduce yourself share some great news from this week celebrate progress, even baby steps congratulate a friend applaud for each other confess…
Holding an event and want to get people to mix across some divide? Put the drinks and plates on one side, the food and cups on the other. See what you did there? You’ve separated the food from the plates, and the cups from the drinks. This simple trick of making people move around…
Guest Post by Paula Jensen When was the last time you heard someone say, “We tried that before and it didn’t work!” In my early days as a local leader those words spoken by an experienced leader often stopped me in my tracks. Their words indicated to me that they had the experience of knowing…
The Brag Basket is open! This one is for May 24-26, 2019. Bring your good news, big or small, to share with everyone. What can you share in the Brag Basket? introduce yourself share some great news from this week celebrate progress, even baby steps congratulate a friend applaud for each other confess your…
At the Main Street Now conference, I sat in on a session about coffee shops. I wrote down bunches of ideas that the audience shared. I thought you might know a coffee shop person, or you might think of ways to use these with other types of small town businesses. Hold trivia nights or…
The Brag Basket is open! This one is for May 17-19, 2019. Bring your good news, big or small, to share with everyone. What can you share in the Brag Basket? introduce yourself share some great news from this week celebrate progress, even baby steps congratulate a friend applaud for each other confess your…
This one is a simple idea that came up when I was visiting Cathlamet, Washington, population 553: Post your local hashtag where visitors will see it. The Cathlamet Chamber of Commerce does an awesome local photo contest. Most of the photo submissions come from locals. They use these on their annual events calendar and other…
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