Cooperatives can play a big role in small towns, providing products and services to fill gaps as well as giving local people a share of ownership. Rural cooperatives go way back Rural areas have a long history with cooperatives through cooperative telephone service, electricity, and agriculture. My husband is a member of the Alva Farmers […]
How one food business keeps adapting, from table to cart to truck, to restaurant and back again
Guest post by Rob Hatch My dear friend John Grossman and his wife Dawn own the Holyoke Hummus Company in Holyoke, Massachusetts. I’ve marveled at how they grew from setting up a small folding table at a local park selling falafel sandwiches to acquiring a cart. Next, they outgrew the cart and bought a food […]
Metaverse business idea: virtual world tour guide
Are you a proficient online gamer or metaworld master based in a rural community? You could make a small business out of being a virtual world tour guide. Years ago, a now-defunct business ideas site profiled Synthtravels, a business that offered guided tours of online virtual worlds. If you’ve heard of the metaverse or […]
More sightings of Small Town Rules fans!
Jill Lagan sharing from Small Town Rules at Western Association of Chamber Executives. Photo by Deb Brown
An embarrassing story about community engagement and dialogue
By Paula Jensen Quite simply, community dialogue is an exchange of ideas and experiences through listening, sharing, and questioning. At its best, community dialogue is created in a safe environment where a diverse group of people gather to talk and understand each other. Community dialogue at its worst looks something like the embarrassing story I […]
Make extra money from extra workspace: co-working and 3rd workplaces in small towns
With more people working remotely, more people are working from places that are neither their offices or their homes. Cue the rise of the Third Workplace. You may remember “third places” as places you hangout that aren’t home and aren’t work. Coffee shops, bars and places like that. “Third workplaces” are places you work […]
Trade show booth design trend: hand drawn visuals
At the recent National Rural Electric Cooperative Association PowerXchange Expo, I noticed one booth that really stood out. In fact, it was so good, people stopped to take pictures of the booth displays. (When was the last time someone took a picture of your booth display?) What made this booth stand out? Hand drawn visuals. […]
Buy Small Town Rules
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Small Town Rules Authors
BARRY J. MOLTZ founded and ran small businesses for more than 15 years. He has since founded angel investor groups and funds and advised the Angel Capital Education Foundation. An Entrepreneurship Hall of Fame member, Moltz’s first book, You Need to Be A Little Crazy, has been translated into four languages worldwide. His second book, Bounce! Failure, Resiliency and the Confidence to Achieve Your Next Great Success, shows how […]
Small Town Rules Media
In their new book Small Town Rules, Barry Moltz and Becky McCray show how the business world is like a global small town, and how even the largest companies must compete for customers as if they were small, local businesses. They reveal the seven “rural-style” solutions that have become invaluable to even the largest companies, most dominant […]
