Author Archive

Jason Dorsey on Gen Y and small towns

September 23rd, 2011

Yesterday I sat in on a live chat video interview between Jodi Schwan of the Sioux Falls Business Journal and Gen Y expert Jason Dorsey. It’s been my experience that most Gen Y experts either trash rural communities or show a lack of understanding about what rural communities have to offer.  With that in mind, I didn’t expect much from Dorsey.  But after listening for about fifteen minutes to what seemed like good advice, I decided to use the chat feature to ask:
What advice do you have for small, rural communities who are trying to communicate the value of living of living in their community?"
Rather than bumbling through the question, Dorsey nailed his response. 

Market around lifestyles and relationships

In a nutshell, he said:  Since Gen Y is all about lifestyles and relationships, rural communities need to showcase those aspects of life in their community.  Help people recognize how they can experience outdoor activities and enjoy a more relaxed pace of life.  Make sure they know that your school offers children a great education.   And emphasize the friendships that people build within your community.  And use social media (especially a Facebook Page) to show what makes a small town special.  (Hopefully, regular readers of Reimagine Rural have heard that before.)

Watch and listen yourself

Dorsey offers greater details during the interview.  I’ve embedded the Sioux Falls Business Journal’s recording of the interview below.  (He addresses my question around the 18:00 minute mark.)
Watch live streaming video from sfbusinessjournal at livestream.com
  I think the video has more to offer, however, than just his response to my question.  For instance, Dorsey addresses what small business owners can do help maintain employees when other businesses can offer more money.  That’s definitely a message small town businesses owners should pay special attention to.  I’ve not heard of Jason Dorsey before today, but I’ll pay closer attention in the future.  It’s nice to hear from a Gen Y expert who understands small, rural communities and offers good advice.

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Posted in Community Development, Community Engagement, Gen Y, Rural, Uncategorized | Comments (0)

Training the next generation of farmers

September 22nd, 2011

I hear a lot of talk among my farmer friends about how tough it is for young people to become farmers.  My wife and I have a nephew who was born to be a farmer.  Luckily, his father and grandfather both farm.  Over time, they will provide access to land.  In the meantime, and equally important, they will help him learn the ropes of farming.  Not everyone, however, is so fortunate. If you don’t have access to land and/or mentors, what do you do? Going back to college for a degree in agriculture might be an answer.  But not everyone can afford (in either time or money) to take that option.   That’s why I appreciate the efforts of Dakota Rural Action.  For the last three years, they have offered a new farmer course called Farm Beginnings. It’s geared toward newcomers to the field of sustainable agriculture, and their classes are held on Saturdays during the winter months.  I’ll let you check out the details of the class on the Dakota Rural Action website.  I’d point out that class size is limited and scholarships are available.  The deadline is September 30th.  I’d also recommend that people check out profiles of people who have graduated from the program.  It’s always nice to hear about the impact training programs have on people’s lives.  The Farm Beginnings class is a great opportunity for people who live in eastern South Dakota, northwest Iowa, and southwest Minnesota – but not so great for people in other parts of the country. It’s made me wonder what other options are available around the country to train the next generation of farmers?  Whether traditional or sustainable agriculture, I’d be interested in learning about what other people are doing.   Photo:  Aaron (program graduate) & Kirstin Johnson.  Photo by Kirstin Johnson.

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Posted in Economic Development, Rural, Training and Events | Comments (5)

More inspiration from Odessa in Alberta

September 14th, 2011

If you are like me, you’ve occasionally complained about young people (i.e. – What's that stupid music those kids are playing?).  But more often, they are a source of inspiration.  Such is the case with Odessa Sherbaniuk. A few weeks ago, I wrote about Odessa’s efforts to start a Twitter conversation around the topic of Why Rural Rocks.  The project started as a part of her summer internship with the University of Alberta, Augustana campus.  (The internship program is pretty cool on its own.)  Each week this summer, Odessa offers a recap of the top tweets-of-the-week.  While following this online conversation has been exciting, what I find most inspirational is that Odessa has decided to continue the project even though her internship is over.  She has even created a new blog titled Reasons Rural Rocks to showcase her effort If you haven’t done so already, make sure you check out this new blog.  I’d also highly recommend you add Reasons Rural Rocks to your RSS Feed Reader so that you can stay up-to-date on Odessa’s latest posts. For those who haven’t figured out how using RSS Feed Readers can help save time, I’d encourage you to read this blog post by Michael Hyatt and watch the short video embedded in it.   Feed Readers are really easy to use and can help you stay on top of what’s being posted on your favorite rural community development blogs.  I’d also recommend that you ask yourself, “What can I do to help build stronger rural communities?”  Odessa offers a great example of how a young person can contribute using social media.  Whether young (like Odessa) or old (like me), it’s a question worth answering.

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Posted in Community Development, Rural | Comments (1)

Are cities healthier than rural communities?

September 9th, 2011

Can the report be true? Life in a city is healthier than life in a rural community? That’s the message, we hear from the County Health Rankings study conducted at the University of Wisconsin and reported on yesterday by CBS News.

(source:  "City counties ranked healthier than rural!"   CBS News, Sept. 8, 2011)

So what do you think?  Is your rural community as unhealthy as the headline suggests?  Are cities really healthier? If you are into boosterism (i.e. – my community is better than yours), you are probably thinking of ways to refute the study.  That where my mind first turned. Instead, I‘d recommend you consider the following:

First, take a look at the data for your county and use it to start a conversation in your community. The results of the County Health Rankings are reported on a county-by-county basis online.  When I went online, I discovered that Miner County, SD, where the Rural Learning Center is located, is ranked in the middle of the pack in South Dakota (28th of 54 counties).  More interesting, however, was seeing that Hamlin County, SD with similar demographics ranked #4.  Why are they doing so much better?  Looking closer at the data might facilitate an interesting conversation with your friends at the coffee shop tomorrow.

Second, ask “What can we do to improve the ranking in our community?” Although not universal, cities may have an advantage over their rural counterparts in that they often formulate public policies that encourage healthier lifestyles.  For instance, they make walking and bicycling easier for residents.  And they are concerned with helping residents gain access to healthy foods, rather than frozen meals and junk food.  Not only do these policies help produce healthier residents, but they also help create communities that are more attractive to prospective newcomers.

And finally, formulate a plan to make your community healthier.  I appreciate that the County Health Rankings website has a section dedicated to this subject.  Of particular note is the Guide to Funding, which every community leader is always concerned about.

Many rural communities have already initiated this process.  If you know of one, I hope you will share the ideas here.  Large or small, we can all benefit from making our communities healthier places to live.

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Posted in Community Design, Health Care, Quality of Life, Rural | Comments (3)

Population Decline: a “Main Event”

September 7th, 2011

Population decline is the “main event” and just not a symptom of another problem (i.e. – the lack of jobs).  That’s the message shared by Caleb Pollard in a recent blog post titled “Solving Population Decline in Rural Nebraska.” Caleb is the Executive Director at the Ord Area Chamber of Commerce.  He makes this point while advocating that Nebraskans support a legislative resolution authorizing an interim study on rural population decline.  For some people, this argument may seem like semantics.  After all, economic opportunities and population growth or decline are tightly connected.  I for one agree with Caleb.  It is time that we look at the health of our communities through the lens of why people move to and from rural communities.  Luckily, I see good resources beginning to be developed in this area.  For instance the Center for Applied Rural Innovations has created a section on their website called the Buffalo Commons.  Similarly, the University of Minnesota Extension has begun sharing similar resources on their website in a section titled Brain Gain in Minnesota.  I'm not sure what a legislative study on rural population decline will accomplish, but I think it's a significant step that Nebraska's policy makers are begining to see rural population decline as the "main event."

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Posted in Community Development, Economic Development, Rural | Comments (5)

Rural Education: Get your questions ready

August 31st, 2011

As a former teacher turned rural economic development professional, I have some questions about education in rural schools. Top on my list is “Do rural schools have a responsibility to help build rural economies?” Today, I have an opportunity to pose that question in a Twitter chat to the U.S. Department of Education’s point person for rural outreach, John White. According to information on the ED.gov blog, here’s how it works. Deputy Assistant Secretary White will host the forum today between 3:00 – 3:30 EDT on Twitter. You can begin submitting your questions right now using the #EDRuralChat hashtag. Others have already started. In fact, I was pleased to see Dakota State University President Doug Knowlton ask:
#EDRuralChat How might partnerships with regional universities improve college access for students from rural settings?” (source)
From what I understand, White will begin addressing these questions at 3:00 EDT. I hope we also see some follow-up on the ED.gov blog because 140 characters simply doesn’t facilitate serious conversation. If you are looking for a little inspiration before participating, I highly encourage you to read Zach Wilson’s “Speak Your Piece: Rural Education Reform” blog post from yesterday’s Daily Yonder. It is one of the best succinct essays on rural education that I have read! And if you are looking for a crash course in how a “Twitter chat” works, here are some resources: Hope to see you there. Note: Thanks to John McChesneyl from the Rural West Initiative for making me aware of this opportunity. And yes, I learned about it from Twitter.

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Posted in Economic Development, education, Rural | Comments (4)

Yes, size does matter in community development

August 30th, 2011

What is your small town’s competitive advantage?  If you are uncertain, you need to listen to DeLon Mork’s commentary in the following video.  He believes that being small has its advantages. DeLon owns a Dairy Queen in Madison, SD (pop. 6474).  For the past six years running, his store has sold more Blizzards as a part of the Miracle Treat Day than any other Dairy Queen in North America.  (source: "Small Town Dairy Queen Smashes Blizzard Record,"  Daryn Kagen, DarynKagen.com, )  Although DeLon is talking about the competitive advantage of his business, the same holds true for small towns.  But being small doesn’t guarantee success.   It’s how you use this competitive advantage that matters most.  For DeLon that means building relationships.  He makes a concerted effort to get to know people in his community. Helping people in your small town is a great way to take advantage of your community’s small size.  But it’s probably not the only way. What’s happening in your small town?  How are you using your small size to your advantage?   Note:  Thanks to Linda Salmonson from the REED Fund for passing along this video.

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Posted in Community Development, Rural | Comments (0)

Maroney Commons & 3 Reasons Rural Rocks

August 22nd, 2011

During the Grand Opening for the Maroney Commons last week, I was reminded of numerous #ReasonsRuralRocks.  (Read “Reasons Rural Rocks” to learn the #ReasonsRuralRocks project.) Before reading my list, I would encourage you to watch the recording of the ribbon cutting ceremony, which I’ve embedded below.  Perhaps some of the dignitaries will inspire you to add your own #ReasonsRuralRocks to the list.

Video of the Grand Opening Celebration

  (click here if you are having trouble viewing the video in the browser. )  

3 Reasons Rural Rocks

Because time is short, I’ll highlight only three of my reasons #ReasonsRuralRocks.  Feel free to add yours. 1) Rural people are great at help you clean up following an event. After the ceremony ended, everyone was invited to tour the new facility and enjoy some refreshments. Rather than partake in the refreshments, however, many audience members jumped in to help staff members who were clearing the chairs from Main Street so that it be reopened. Their help saved us a ton of time. Maybe this same volunteerism happens in urban areas as well, but it is always refreshing to receive unsolicited help. 2) Life in rural communities is rich in community life. I often tell people that I love homecoming parades in small towns because they epitomize the strong social bonds that exist in rural communities. Events like the Maroney Commons grand opening are very similar. People from all over the region joined local residents in the celebration and rekindle old friendships. There’s nothing better. 3) Where else can city dwellers go to enjoy a beautiful, starry evening in a cornfield?  Later in the evening, I met some visitors from a city on the East Coast who were in town for the event. None of them had ever walked through a cornfield. And as strange as it may sound, one of the guys explained that it was on his “bucket list.” In an effort to accommodate him, a friend helped us get permission from a landowner to walk through his field. I then joined the group on their walk through the cornfield, presumably to make sure they didn’t get lost. I probably didn’t enjoy the walk as much as they did, but meeting new friends was awesome.  

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Maroney Commons Celebration: In case you can’t make it

August 18th, 2011

It’s a big day at the Rural Learning Center. It’s the grand opening of the Maroney Commons. The idea for building this conference-training center emerged when Randy Parry began dreaming about building a conference training center for rural communities.  That was over a decade ago.  The dream has endured many starts and stops. And the end product is very different from its beginnings. We’ve neglected to keep people informed about the facility and the grand opening. Our excuse? Time. I just got back from a 3-day Native American cultural learning experience with our GoTeachSD partners.  And the RLC Staff? Well, they have the real excuse; they’ve been working day-and-night to make sure the facility opens on time.

Come Join Us

The celebration begins today at 1:00 pm central time. If you can’t make it, feel free to join us online. We’ll be livestreaming the event from the Commons’ website, beginning at 1:00 pm. (Update a recording of the even can be found here.) And you can follow the Twitter conversation using the #maroneycommons hashtag. And if you miss both the livestream and the Twitter conversation, you can watch the sneak peak video below.  

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Posted in Rural | Comments (1)

Maroney Commons: What is it?

August 17th, 2011

“What is that huge, new building being built on Howard’s Main Street?” That’s a question I’ve fielded more than once in the last year. I usually respond by telling people “It’s the Maroney Commons (or a previous iteration of the name), and it’s the culmination of a decade-long effort to build a place where rural community leaders can gather to work on the future of their communities.  It’s also a place that will offer workforce development training for people looking to enter the renewable energy fields." If no questions immediately emerge, I follow up saying, “It  will house a restaurant, hotel, and conference training facility, and cost over $6.5 million to build.” Unfortunately, this description is inadequate, but it usually starts a conversation. Joe Bartmann, President of the Rural Learning Center, does a much better job of explaining.  For that reason, I asked him to flesh out the details of the project in the video below.    

A bold vision

Joe’s right.  It is a bold vision.  But that type of thinking is not new to Howard and Miner County.  It was just ten years ago this October that Howard launched its efforts in the wind energy field by becoming the first municipality in South Dakota to own and operate wind turbines. Sitting on the edge of Howard on Hwy 34, passerbiers will see two wind turbines that helped launched a growth in jobs for the region.  They also serve as a symbol for how the community is attempting to reimagine its future. In many ways, the construction of the Maroney Commons is a continuation of that effort.

Why is that important?

Last June, Karl Stauber penned two articles in the Daily Yonder calling for a New Rural America.  In these articles, he cited Miner County as one of the communities working towards that goal.  (read them here and here.) While there’s a lot to learn from Karl’s comments, what struck me was his belief that rural communities need to continually reinvent their competitive advantage.  Agriculture alone cannot provide a future for our small towns.  Equally important, he goes on to say that the speed at which communities need to reinvent themselves is accelerating.  He writes:
Historically, communities had to create a new competitive advantage every 50 to 70 years….  Today the cycle is every 10 to 15 years, which, in reality, means that communities must be continually reinventing their economies.”
Building the Maroney Commons is a bold vision for the Miner County community and not without its risks.  But rural communities everywhere have to dream big.  They have to find ways to reinvent themselves.  And if Karl is correct, they must do it every 10 to 15 years. As I wrote the other day, Howard will celebrate the opening of the Maroney Commons on Thursday at 1:00 pm. More information can be found here.  We hope you will join us.

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