Author Archive

Do you have a coach?

August 4th, 2010

I saw a post by Randi Buckley, leadership, partnership and team coach, the other day on Facebook.  She shared a video in which Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, tells about the importance of a coach.  This video is one in series of videos that Fortune magazine put together about the best advice different CEO’s, billionaires, entrepreneurs, NBA stars, etc. have received during their careers. 

One day a board member came up to Eric Schmidt and said, “You need a coach.”  A little taken a-back, Eric replied, “I don’t need a coach!  I’m an established CEO, why would I need a coach? Is something wrong?”   “No,” said the board member, “Everyone needs a coach.”

 

 

Coaches are not just for athletes.  Coaches see what you are working towards and do their very best to help you reach that goal.  Coaches help you stay on track and can see the mistakes you cannot, because they are coming at your goal from another angle.  As Eric says in the video, “The one thing people are not good at is seeing themselves as others see them; a coach really helps with that.”

Do you have a coach?

Can’t view the video?  Click here to view it on the original website.

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Is Your Community Hard to Leave?

July 23rd, 2010

The phrase, “Money can’t buy happiness,” may have just taken on a whole new meaning.  According to a 2007 study done by Nattavudh Powdthavee at the University of London, when a person has less social interaction with neighbors and family members, it takes a much higher income to make him or her as happy as another person who interacts more often.  Powdthavee says in her paper, “There is substantial evidence that social relationships promote happiness for the individual.”  ”This paper explores…the satisfaction with life gained by an increase in the frequency of interaction with friends, relatives, and neighbors.”  

Powdthavee used completed British Household Panel Surveys from 10,000 randomly selected people for this research.  She found the satisfaction level of the average person who is more socially active was equal to the satisfaction level of making an extra £85,000 ($127,500) a year for someone who didn’t interact with friends or family often.  But, “Actual changes in income,” she clarifies, “buy very little happiness.”

Powdthavee goes on to say both a higher income and solid social relationships take a large investment and certain people will place a priority on either money or friendship based upon which one they feel with have a larger impact on their happiness. 

So, what does this mean for small rural communities? 

To me it firstly says that vibrant small towns have a opportunity to gain an advantage over suburbia and large, urban apartment buildings:  we know and interact with our neighbors.  Powdthavee’s study found that happiness took a significant jump when people started talking with their neighbors at least once a week.

Secondly, our communities often have civic or volunteer groups that are always willing to add another member to their board or committee.  Powdthavee also found many other studies have shown that people who socialize often with those outside of their household are the happiest; they have chosen to invest in social capital. 

Lastly, a most importantly to me, this study points out the downfall that occurs in many communities:  If a person cannot connect to his/her neighbors, become part of a group in the community or have family close by, it takes a very large sum of money (found to be a sum up to 9x a person’s annual income in the Powdthavee study) in perceived happiness to keep them in that community.  If they have no one to connect to it is very easy for them to be lured away by a job with more money or the idea of a more welcoming community. 

As we have mentioned before in this blog, connecting new comers to your community is vital.  And I will admit this is probably one of the hardest things for a community to do.  Is your community doing something to welcome and connect new residents?  If so, please share.

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Are You Promoting a Ghost Town?

July 6th, 2010

In Miner County, we are having a photo contest, but this is no ordinary photo contest.  We have some amazing photographers in Miner County, and we want to be able to showcase their talent.  By hosting the contest via Flickr.com and printing winners in the county paper, we are showing off their talent both locally and globally.   But, that is not all.

The goal of our work through the Rural Learning Center and this blog is to give a new image to vibrant, rural communities.  Besides showing off local talent, we want to show to the world what a great community Miner County is to live in.  We want to show that there is more to this place than beautiful prairie vistas and wildlife.

With the help of our local photo club and newspaper, we strategically chose three contest topics that would promote pictures with people enjoying themselves.  Turns out, we are not alone in this strategy.

According to Becky McCray at Small Biz Survival, “Putting people in your pictures gives you instant social proof. It draws your potential visitor into the story.”  She goes on to point out that often times tourism websites post pictures of lots of wonderful things, but the pictures are void of any people.  She warns that these websites start to advertise “ghost towns” instead of vibrant communities.  She gives two examples in her post.  While these photos are not the type of professional photos a community would use for advertising, they illustrate the importance of people in photos.

The first picture is a beautiful hotel lobby, but not a person in sight.  You only see the stained glass skylight and the grand staircase.  Her next picture is of the exact same lobby, but with about 7 people walking and sitting throughout the room.  The difference is huge. 

In her second example we see an arching palm tree overlooking blue waters and a lighthouse in the background.  Directly below the first picture we see another palm tree on the same beach, but with a father and son feeding seagulls.  Becky says, “Suddenly, there is a human story, an activity, an interest.  A photo with people is able to tell a story. That’s a story the thing alone could never provide.”

Communities want to show off the “things” that make it great: the park, the stores, the great restaurant.  But, when you ask, people often say that the people themselves are the best part of living there.  All of the “things” are great, but if you can’t showcase the people enjoying those parks, stores, or restaurants, others won’t be able to see it either.

West Central Initiative Foundation of Minnesota had the same idea for their photo contest.  They challenged their photo contest participants, “Show us what YOU think will make a difference to the future of west central Minnesota.”  I’m happy to report that just about half of the pictures submitted so far feature the people of west central Minnesota.

Is your community promoting a ghost town or a vibrant place to live?  If you could enter one of these two contests, what would you say is the future of your community?

 

Photo:  Becky McCray on Flickr

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The Marshmallow Maker

June 23rd, 2010

Context:  Your 4-year-old son loves marshmallows.  He loves marshmallows so much that he wants to make his own, so he can experiment with different flavors.  Your family already makes their own cheese, so you say why not.

What Happens Next:  You make batches upon batches of marshmallows.  You and your son perfect the recipe, giving bags upon bags of marshmallows away for birthdays, holidays, any and every kind of event.  A year later, your son learns how much each batch costs, he designs the label himself and he hires you, your spouse and your 3-year-old son to help make and package the marshmallows for sale.  He then gets a website and a Facebook page and starts selling marshmallows to people all over the country.

Pretty extraordinary, huh? 

Canaan Smith, now 7-years-old, is exactly the type of entrepreneur Mike was thinking about and Cameron Herold was talking about in a May 3rd post.  When a 4-year-old asks you to help him make a batch of marshmallows, you figure it’s pretty harmless and say, “Why not.”  A year of making and selling marshmallows to all your guests passes, and he decides to expand his market and go global.  What do you say?

To be honest, at the beginning of this summer I probably would have thought, “Don’t be silly, who wants to buy marshmallows from a 5-year-old.”  After reading all of Mike’s posts about encouraging young entrepreneurs and giving our children different creative learning opportunities, I would like to think that I would whole-heartedly support it.  In fact, I just bought two bags of marshmallows from Canaan, one each of peppermint and vanilla.  If my office-mates are lucky, I might share.

If your kid, niece, nephew or neighbor kid came up to you asking for help with their own marshmallow company, what would you do?  Do you think you would have to ability, and courage, to help them get started?  Or would you be too afraid of the time commitment and potential let-down that is present in all start-up companies?  A few months ago I probably would have said no.  But now, I see how immense a learning opportunity this is - not only for the child, but for me too. 

I have a 1-year-old niece and 4-year-old nephew and I have started thinking about different ways to help develop their creativity, independent thinking, and a fearless nature.  Not only are these qualities essential for any entrepreneur, but they are also vital life skills in almost any business or profession.  As Canaan’s mother, Megan, puts it, “He is one driven little guy! We love supporting him in his business and love to watch him go for his dreams.”

Whether it is helping with a start-up business or buying a few bags of marshmallows, what are you doing to inspire and support our youngest entrepreneurs?

 

Photo: Thanks to Megan Smith for sending us this great picture of Canaan enjoying his favorite food!

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Archimedes, Daydreaming and You

June 18th, 2010

I have a tendency to daydream.  I will be listening to, or participating in, a conversation and before I realize that instead of listening, I’m in my own little dream world.  I try not to, but sometimes it happens.  As it turns out, my daydreaming might be a good thing.

Many people say their best thinking often comes in the shower.  Archimedes is said to have jumped out of his bath tub, running naked through the streets, yelling “Eureka!  I got it!”  While I don’t recommend running naked through the streets, I will promote taking a break to daydream, leading to your own “Eureka!” moment. 

According to various studies, we spend almost one-third of our time daydreaming.  When we give our brain a “break,” it is actually activating areas of the brain associated with complex problem solving.  Kalina Christoff, a cognitive neuroscientist at the University of British Columbia says, “People assumed that when your mind wandered it was empty. .. mind wandering is a much more active state than we ever imagined, much more active than during reasoning with a complex problem.”  She goes on to say that an unfocused mind connects new ideas and unexpected associations better than analytical reasoning.  

Over the last five years, two researchers at Northwestern University have used brain scanners and EEG sensors to find out what causes that “Eureka!” or “aha” moment.  They studied people who were stumped with a word problem and suddenly came up with a solution they knew to be right.  Turns out the brain sends signals from its right hemisphere, which controls associations and putting things together, a third of a second before the “aha” moment strikes.  That is immediately followed by a set of signals from the visualization part of the brain.  This second set of signals allows you to really solidify the idea in your head.

While we don’t know what kinds of topics or problems can trigger an “aha” moment, researches say a positive mood can increase the chances of coming to an insightful thinking.  As Dr. Jung-Beeman says, “How you are thinking beforehand is going to affect what you do with the problems you get.” 

So, you may now be thinking, what does Arcimedes have to do with rural communities?  Often I think our rural communities think too logically and are too pessimistically about their futures.  It seems like they don’t want to risk getting their collective hope up only to be let down when their dreams don’t come true.  In doing so, they deny the creative juices that work their way to the surface.  When we try too hard to fix a problem, the solution seems harder and harder to grasp. 

Maybe, instead, a community can get together and encourage all members, from the youngest to the oldest, to come up with ideas.  Ask, if we had unlimited resources and visitors and time and volunteers, what could we do?  Encourage the positive, creative thinking that comes from daydreaming about a future.  Maybe then a community can finally see what they have been missing and start working towards a new solution.

To learn more, check out this article by Newsweek magazine and this one from Psychology Today.

 

Photo Credit:  Ashley R. Good

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Posted in Community Development, Community Engagement, In the News, Uncategorized | Comments (0)

Schools: Design Effects Performance

June 9th, 2010

If you remember, last week I wrote a post on the health and learning benefits attributed to green schools.  I asked, is it that unrealistic to build green schools in rural areas, and can it be obtained by those who don’t have a lot of money to throw around?

I wanted to expand the statistics found in my last post.  Air Quality Sciences, Inc interviewed 667 executives involved in green and traditional educational facilities and this is what they had to say.

I think we now all understand the tremendous benefits of green schools for our students, teachers, and administrators, but not every district can afford a new building and I believe that doing something, no matter how small, is better than doing nothing.  This led me to seek out information on what others can do to improve the buildings they already have.

A study found in the book Green Schools: Attributes for Health and Learning focused on rural high schools in Virginia.  School personnel surveyed the building based on topics, ranging from thermal comfort to the condition of the flooring and the color of the walls, in order to rate the building as substandard, standard or above standard.  The study found that there was a significant difference in student performance from students in substandard buildings compared to their peers in above standard buildings.  And, the students said the building’s cosmetics, like the condition of the floors and the color of the walls, were more important than the structure of the building.

Teachers from two similar elementary schools in rural Tennessee reported that students in the modern school had a lower level of discipline and health issues and a higher attendance rate than students in a building from 1939. 

These results are great news for rural schools that are feeling the pinch, but want to do some upgrading.  While more sunlight, better heating and cooling systems, and rain water reuse programs are great, brightly colored walls can make a huge difference on the way people perceive a room.  Nicer furnishings and classrooms also solicit more respect from students. 

I want to leave you with a video I found to be truly inspiring.  Imagine how much happier the world would be if all our students got to study in a place like this, and all of our office and retail buildings had these great characteristics.

Manassas Park Elementary School from Chesapeake Bay Program on Vimeo.

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Building the Case: Greening Our Schools

June 4th, 2010

Going to school at Howard High was pretty good.  The building was built in 1969 and in fairly good shape for a building now in its 40’s; almost every classroom had a window and the library had skylights, but the temperature controls weren’t quite right and often window blinds were shut tight.  I didn’t particularly enjoy the building, but it wasn’t bad and could have been much worse. 

The United States Green Building Council (USGBC) says the average American spends 90% of their day indoors.  Often little thought is put into how the built environment impacts our daily routine.  As a socially minded architecture student, I think good buildings should enhance our daily lives and not only be available to those with a fist full of cash.  I start to wonder if it really is that unrealistic to build green schools in rural areas. 

Currently there are numerous schools being housed in what appear to be tin sheds or leftover trailers.  When I hear that “green” schools improve the health of teachers and students, raise test scores and decrease student absences, I ask myself why our schools aren’t doing more to help our students.

The USGBC defines green schools as, “… a school building or facility that creates a healthy environment that is conducive to learning while saving energy, resources and money.”

According to Air Quality Sciences, Inc, Turner Construction, and the USGBC-Green Schools, there are many reasons why schools should be built using “green” practices.

 In our rural school districts, it can be hard to find enough money for textbooks, let alone a new building.  But when given the opportunity, are we providing our students and teachers with the best possible opportunities to succeed?

 If the statistics I found are correct, this means our decision to build schools goes far beyond financial or environmental factors. 

 Stay tuned next week for a post looking at different case studies about rural “green” schools.

 Photo:  Howard High School in Howard, SD

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Posted in Quality of Life, Rural, Rural Life, Uncategorized, education | Comments (0)

Home Again

May 21st, 2010

(Note: It’s Friday, which means this post is a part of our “I Feel Fridays” project.  Our goal is to share stories from the past week that generated an emotional response.  We encourage readers to respond to the post or to share something from their lives in the past week. To learn more about “I Feel Fridays,” check out this post- and then tell us what you’re feeling.)

I came home from college for the summer this week, and nearly everyone I met in my hometown made me feel welcomed back into the community.  That’s something I haven’t felt in a while.

I grew up on a family farm in Howard, SD.  I then decided to travel 788 miles down Interstate-90 to attend the School of Architecture at Montana State University - Bozeman.  I knew I would miss my family and friends, but I was ready to make the change.  What I didn’t think I would miss as much as I do is the community.

Howard is pretty small, and I was ready for bigger things - a bigger town, a bigger school and a sense of “bigger” that would come from me moving there.  I didn’t think I was better than my friends who stayed, but I thought I was on a new adventure to try completely new things.  While this is true, I started to miss the things I once took for granted. 

For instance, the meat that showed up on my dining hall plate was not from our cows or our neighbors pigs.  I couldn’t find any garden fresh kohlrabi in the salad department.  Worst of all, it definitely wasn’t cooked by Mom.

I would drive down to Target and the cashier didn’t ask me about my Grandpa, only if I wanted my receipt with me or in the bag.  My floormates laughed at my hometown newspaper saying, “It’s for the whole county, only comes once a week, and the main story is about a cow?!”   I started to defend my little paper by explaining it was Fair week, and the steer won Best in Show for a local 4-H kid.  They didn’t think it was a big deal.

I truly realized how much I missed the community my first night home from college during Winter Break when I walked into the Cabaret Steakhouse in Carthage, SD with my parents.  As we found a table, friends and neighbors all smiled at me and asked how it felt to be done with my first semester in Montana.  I was caught off guard because these people cared enough to stop eating, talk to me, and remember were I was going to school and what subject I was studying. 

That’s when it hit me: Bozeman may be a very friendly town, but it doesn’t even compare to Miner County.  When I go back to school, only my close friends and professors will welcome me with a smile and genuinely care how my summer went.  When I walk into the restaurants, no one will ask how it’s going in Howard or say how nice it is to have me back in town.

I think a previous post about Tom Bodett’s thoughts on a small town embody why I love Miner County.  The small-town community is hard to explain, but now that I have gone away the pull for me to come back is getting stronger.

I’ve now finished my third year at MSU and I’m no longer caught off guard by people saying, “It’s so good to see you!  How long are you home for this time?”  I happily answer, “The whole summer, and I’m really glad to be home.”

 

Photo: Miner County residents do their best in a pie eating contest to celebrate Straw Bale Days in Carthage, SD, uploaded to Flickr by the Rural Learning Center

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Posted in Gen Y, Quality of Life, Rural, Rural Life | Comments (4)

Quantity-Quality-Cost, Which do you choose?

December 28th, 2009

Note: Morgan Andenas is back with us from Montana State during her winter break.  Many of you will remember her blog posts from this summer when she focused on architectural and design issues.  Welcome back Morgan. 

As an architecture student, we study how the character of a place helps to define and shape the homes, buildings, and businesses surrounding it.  The way the land is formed, whether it is mountains, prairies or woodlands, influences the shapes of buildings.  In the same way, the people’s attitudes about themselves and about a place influence the way buildings are designed.

A friend asked me to design a forever-home for her and her husband on his family’s ranch, one in which they will live, well, forever.  They wanted a house at or under 2200sq. feet with two bedrooms, one maybe two bathrooms, a lofted office, and enough room for a 14 foot dining table and lots of space for entertaining his large family.  I thought to myself, no problem, that’s easy enough.  That was before I tried to design it.  The bedrooms and living room ended up being too big and looked uncomfortable, even though they were average sized rooms. 

That’s when I realized “average” size applied to large suburban lifeless McMansions.  This type of house is what Sarah Susanka writes against in her book, The Not So Big House by Sarah Susanka (Taunton Press, 2001).  She describes the early 2000s housing boom as,

So many houses, so big with so little soul.  Our suburbs are filled with houses that are bigger than ever.  But are bigger houses really better?  Are the dreams that build them bigger or is it simply that there seems to be no alternative?  Americans are searching for homes in unprecedented numbers.  Yet when we look, the only tools we seem to have are those we find in the real estate listings.  But a house is more that square footage and the number of beds and baths.  In one of the wealthiest societies ever, many people are deeply dissatisfied with their most expensive purchase. ”

 

Quality vs. Quantity

I started reading her book and it all became clear.  It wasn’t about making a McMansion big enough to house 25 people, it was about providing a home for the two people living there, and an opportunity to host the other 23 several times a year for parties.  It was about deciding that when cost is a set number, quality and quantity are your two variables.  You can choose to have a higher quality house with a smaller footprint that is more responsive to your needs, or you can choose to have more square footage with less quality and spaces that are more generic.  For this couple, it was about quality.

When I start thinking about my forever-home, I want it to be in a rural setting where people are not out to impress, but to welcome.   In both my home and my future children’s hometown, I want it to be a place that will feel cozy, welcoming and comfortable.  I don’t want it feel like a typical McMansion: cold, extra large and built to impress its occupants and visitors.

Susanka says that she is not out to sell everyone a small house, and I’m not out to get everyone to live in a small town.  But, I do want to illustrate that not everyone is happy in that comfortless house or that impersonal city.  Just because you can afford to buy and maintain that massive house, does not mean you are happy.  What does make me happy is attention to detail and feeling like I belong to something bigger than myself.  For me, a small town does just that.  For me, living in a rural community gives me the best ratio of the Quantity-Quality-Cost triangle.  In this specific triangle, cost and quantity may be lower, but the quality is worth the quantity sacrifice. 

This massive house was built to impress, not welcome, with its soaring roof and columns and manicured lawn.

This massive house was built to impress, not welcome, with its soaring roof and columns and manicured lawn.

This home was built on a more human scale with a one story roof line. This, plus the wilderness beyond, makes it much more welcoming.

This home was built on a more human scale with a one story roof line. This, plus the wilderness beyond, makes it much more welcoming.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photo Credit: (left) Carolyn - Flickr & (right) seier+seier+seier - Flickr

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Social Capital through the Front Porch

July 30th, 2009

Like I mentioned in my last post, many people see development possibilities as a good way to invest in, and grow, their towns.  So, what makes a new urbanism neighborhood so much better than your standard subdivision?  (Find out what Hercules, CA has to say here, and what Stapleton residents think here)

The American front porch was a great tool for encouraging socialization.  Families would spend nice evenings on the porch, waving to passing neighbors or offering them a glass of iced tea or lemonade and a chair to sit down in.  Before lives were more hectic and evenings were spent at karate practice, people enjoyed a quiet evening together with friends and family.  The neighborhood kids would play together on a whim, and not a scheduled play-date.

Many new home buyers remember this care-free aspect of their childhood, and want to give their children the same opportunity.  From what I have seen, many members of Gen Y see subdivisions and cul-de-sacs as idealistic and sterile places with no real character.  These subdivisions are based on the car with large garages dominating the streetscape, wide roads to accommodate those cars, and are located far from work and shopping, making the car a necessity in all daily tasks.

New urbanism neighborhoods are no longer based on the car in the garage, and instead are focused on the people in the homes.  Lots are set up “long and skinny,” encouraging homeowners to locate the garage at the back of their property, with access from the shared alley.  Roads are narrower to encourage slower traffic, which in turn encourages people to start utilizing the front yard as a safe place to play and the neighborhood a safe place to walk.  In these neighborhoods the front porch is making a comeback.

One of the great things about rural communities is that people tend to know and care about their neighbors.  When neighborhoods are built in a way that encourages connectivity, neighbors and communities start to reap the benefits.  Communities start to build social capital by connecting neighbors to one another.  And, as I have discussed before, connecting new people to others in your community is essential in keeping those newcomers in your neighborhoods and happy. 

 

Photo courtesy of Seabrook, WA, another very neat town that was created using New Urbanist principles.

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Posted in Community Development, Community Engagement, Housing, Quality of Life, Uncategorized | Comments (3)

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