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New Wine in Old Vessels?
July 23rd, 2009
During a conversation with Terry O’Keefe, founder of Web EG, he commented on how he perceived that large organizations (i.e. banks, auto manufacturers, etc.) are “coming apart at the seams” and we are struggling to “put them back together.” It started me thinking about many of our long standing organizations in small rural towns.
Metaphorically speaking, many of our clubs and organizations have “come apart at the seams.” We are struggling to recapture or restore their former vitality.
Are we attempting to revitalize and restore old structures/organizations that no longer work? Can we or should we be attempting to “put them back together?”
My thoughts are it’s really not about organizations and structures. It is about relationships and community connectedness. If we refocus our thinking and actions, perhaps our rural communities can become a model to move this great country of ours forward.
Tags: change, theory
Posted in Community Development, Leadership, Rural, Uncategorized | Comments (0)
Finding the “micro” in the “macro”
February 24th, 2009
Holy “macro!” How would you like to be President Obama? He is being challenged to operated at a myriad of micro and macro levels at the same time. Well rural development compatriots, so are we. Talk about multi-tasking.
At the macro level, a growing body of research indicates that the millennials are less materialistic and more idealistic than preceding generations. At the same time, with a former community organizer as President and with the collapse of Wall Street and the associated backlash against big bucks financiers, talented young people are re-examining career goals. How about focusing their talents on their communities?
Is it possible that in the face of these macro trends, we might find an opportunity to create a “micro” movement towards engaging young folks in social and economic entrepreneurship at the local level in our rural settings? To date, we have done precious little to intentionally position social and economic entrepreneurship as real, tangible opportunities for our rural young people. Can we find such a transforming “micro” in today’s macro, economic forest?
Tags: economic entreprensuership, macro trends, micro trends, social entreprenuership, young people
Posted in Community Development, Community Engagement, Economic Development, Gen Y, Rural | Comments (0)
Regional Collaboration – Part II
October 24th, 2008
In a prior post, I suggested that we have been experiencing regional consolidation of important services (i.e. education, health care, telecommunications, etc.) but that this consolidation has not resulted in true regional collaboration. Why not?
When you stop to think about, why should we expect communities to collaborate and work together when we have not really learned how to do this effectively in our individual communities. Most communities operate as a collection of lone ranger, silo activities. Someone decides we need housing. Off they go, put some dollars together, buy some land and begin to put together a housing development. Eventually, they realize we are going to need big bucks from the community (i.e. the city) to put in water, sewer, electrical, etc.
Guess what, train wreck. The well intentioned housing advocates should have gotten the city and other players in the game from the git go. I believe that working to align community organizations can bear very significant positive fruit as we seek to help community’s work smarter. Some promising community assessment tools are emerging (more on that in the future) that can point us in the right direction.
Collaboration requires that people & organizations work together.
The key to aligning our project and community organizational silos is developing a community-wide vision for the future. What do we want to do collectively? How do we connect the dots? What is most important? Can we prioritize and sequence our projects in order to leverage and maximize our precious and limited resources? Joe Bartmann’s earlier post about the U-Process offers guidance about how and why communities need to think more deeply and intentionally in this visioning process. Most importantly, the community vision needs to be owned and held by the community at large and not just a small, well intentioned group that assumes it knows what is best.
If a community does not have its act together, it is very difficult to collaborate with other communities and be able to answer the question, “What can we do together with our neighbors that will help us advance our community’s vision while at the same time strengthening our region?” Stated another way, communities are not likely to work together if they cannot answer the question, “What’s in it for us?”
Lastly, even if are communites are motivated to work together regionally, it will be difficult to achieve collaboration until we develop new regional structures. We need an entity (structure) that can capture and articulate a regional perspective. This group can seek to balance the need for both community and regional advancement. They can connect the dots. They can help communities answer the question, “What is in it for us?”
Unhealthy community competition dies hard. Old, and I mean old, grudges based on athletic competitions and who stole the court house have held us back. It is time to rise above that. A vital and viable rural landscape requires both successful regionalization of services and true regional collaboration.
Tags: community develpment, regional collaboration, regional consolidation, ReThink Rural Housing, u process
Posted in Community Development, Community Engagement, Housing, Leadership, Rural | Comments (0)
Regionalization Yes, Regional Collaboration, Not So Much
October 15th, 2008
The topic of regional development has received a lot of attention over the years by all kinds of rural development folks. What has really happen? When we look under the hood, we see very strong regionalization of numerous services including education, healthcare, telecommunications infrastructure development, and public safety among others. In many, if not most cases, this regionalization trend reflects aggregating activity across greater distances. However, quite often this aggregation reflects doing things the same way, but with large numbers, greater mass.
School consolidation is a classic example. We roll school districts together supposedly, and I mean supposedly, to achieve greater efficiency. I have yet to see a serious research project that documents greater efficiency and more importantly improved academic performance. However, we continue to deliver educational services in the same old manner – focusing on facilities and location rather than striving for innovative delivery and programmatic strategies that can leverage an increasingly robust rural telecommunications infrastructure.
As a “recovering academic,” former college professor and president, I have been working on regional development at the community and regional level for over 30 years. In a future post, I will offer my perspective on why we have not been able to move from regionalization to true regional collaboration. I am anxious to hear your perspective on this topic.
Tags: regional development, rural collaboration, rural development, school consolidation
Posted in Community Development, Rural | Comments (0)