Archive for the ‘Quality of Life’ Category

Talent attraction: Let’s start a conversation

April 5th, 2012

What makes New York City so successful?  Mayor Michael Bloomberg says NYC’s economic growth is directly connected to its ability to attract talent.
Many newly successful cities on the global stage – such as Shenzhen and Dubai – have sought to make themselves attractive to businesses based on price and infrastructure subsidies. Those competitive advantages can work in the short term, but they tend to be transitory. For cities to have sustained success, they must compete for the grand prize: intellectual capital and talent.” (Source:  “Cities must be cool, creative and in control,” Michael Bloomberg, Financial Times, March 27, 2012)
Competing for talent is a subject many cities are focused on.  The idea is that attracting talented, innovative people will lead to economic development because talented, innovative people are the people who create jobs and economic growth.

So, does the same apply to small towns as well?

There’s been a lot less research conducted on this subject in rural communities, but I think talent attraction applies to rural communities as well.  Just think of Wall, SD.  Where would that small town in Western South Dakota be today if they had not attracted Ted and Dorothy Hustead to start a pharmacy in 1931?  Rather than being a bustling tourism community, I suspect it would have dried up like most other communities in the region.  (Incidentally, the Husteads lived in Miner County, SD prior to moving to Wall.  Our loss was Wall’s gain.) Accepting that economic development is not just about job attraction is a difficult premise for many people here in South Dakota to embrace.  I’m hopeful, however, that the idea will pick up steam because more communities are beginning to think about what they need to do to attract workers to fill their labor shortages.  The two are not totally disassociated.

What does it take to attract talent?

I’m excited to see that Rebecca Ryan of Next Generation Consulting will be making the keynote presentation next week at the SD Governors Office for Economic Development Annual Conference.  I’m hoping her message there offers insights to South Dakotans on what it takes for communities to attract talent.   Ryan has been a leading advocate of the complimentary idea that young people choose the places they live, not because the community offers them a job, but because the community is a great place to live. I first became aware of Ryan’s work after a 2008 presentation helped inspire the residents of Iron County, WI  and Gogebic County, MI to better understand why people move to and live in the region.  From what I’ve read, there were community leaders listening that night who felt Ryan’s ideas applied more to young people in cities than in rural areas. But thanks to research that this project – called the Gogebic Next Generation Initiative – has produced since Ryan’s original presentation, we know that her ideas hold true for rural areas as well.  (Click here to read more about past articles on this initiative and its research.) If you haven’t heard of Rebecca Ryan before, I encourage you to watch the video embedded above.  It’s a bit promotional, but you’ll see she’s a dynamic presenter and offers great insights. Jobs are important to the future of communities across Rural America.  But we also need to think about and develop strategies that attract people.  I’m hoping Ryan can help start that conversation here.

Posted in Economic Development, Gen Y, Quality of Life, Rural | Comments (0)

Agripreneurs Live Here

October 5th, 2011

I’ve been watching farmers for a long time. Growing up as a farmer’s granddaughter and daughter I had no other aspirations than to not spend the rest of my life tied to this land. But being a farmer’s wife, mom to farmers, mother-in-law, sister, friend and now “Grandma” to up and coming young farmers has taught me a deep appreciation of local agriculture here in Miner County, SD where I make my home.

Less than 2% of us

I used to put 100 pennies in a line on the kitchen table and explain that the first penny and about half of the second represented the number of farmers and that these few, in turn, grew the food for all the rest of us.  Today’s farmer feeds an average of 155 people so I need to revise my teaching tool!  We all need to be paying more attention to our young farm families.

Above Average

I also believe really good farmers are well beyond the average. It’s not enough to academically understand all that goes into farming from soil testing to crop planning to machine maintenance and storage. It’s not enough to have the ability to think generations ahead in a breeding program, plan for proper nutrition and health, drive facilities design, construction and management. Today’s agriculture is all of those things and more. You have to be a marketing expert,financial planner, strategic thinker and a resilient soul. You have to consider your neighbors – the wildlife and plant life with which you share space and resources and your human neighbors who look to you for help and assistance.

More than making a living

I recently learned a new phrase and I think I’m going to love it –“agripreneur”. This is a new phrase and just being developed but I will add that I hope it begins to describe the business, entrepreneurial and comprehensive ability components of today’s successful young farmers. It’s a competitive world pitched against large ag corporations and the number of young farmers is fewer and fewer. You have to be good at what you do. You have to keep learning and growing in your work. You have to love it so much that you attend to it every day, 365 days a year. Hopefully you are so devoted to it that you teach your children to love it just as much as you do. The other 153 plus of us are counting on you!

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Posted in Agriculture, Community Development, Gen Y, Quality of Life, Rural, Youth | Comments (0)

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)

Reasons Rural Rocks

August 5th, 2011

While Rural America has been pummeled lately in the media about the stale, old news of declining population, some new friends in Alberta have been talking up a storm about why life in rural communities “rocks.”  It started last week when Odessa Sherbaniuk  (@sherbani) created the #ReasonsRuralRocks hashtag and asked rural fans to respond.  Twitter users everywhere respond immediately.  After only a couple days, Sherbaniuk had enough responses to write a blog post sharing her top 10 favorites of the week. 

To give you a flavor, I’ve copied the top 5 from her list below.  You’ll have to read her blog post to get the rest or begin following the #ReasonsRuralRocks hashtag yourself.  5. Lower cost of living allowing me to work less and play more! @plind 4. Watching a storm roll in and smelling the scent of rain in the air. @MyRuralRoots 3. Water that tastes like water. @karla_kerrigan 2. Rush minute instead of rush hour. @ARDNpaul 1. Coming back home after years of being gone and hearing people call you by your first name. @onepercentyello  (Source: “#ReasonsRuralRocks Top Ten July 25-29” ). 

I’ve contributed a couple tweets to the list myself.  In fact yesterday, after returning from an interview with a second-year teachers in a rural school as a part of our GoTeachSD project, I felt compelled to tweet:  “Children in rural schools often receive more personal attention from their teachers because of small class sizes. #ReasonsRuralRocks.”   Listening to this passionate young teacher reminded me of the countless stories teachers have shared with me over the last year highlighting the differences they are making in the lives of rural children everywhere.  I’m sure you have your own reasons for loving life in rural communities.  Sometimes, we just need to pause for a moment and remind ourselves of those reasons.  Odessa Sherbaniuk deserves credit for reminding us to do so.  If you don’t have a Twitter account, feel free to share your thoughts here. I’ll post them for you, and give you credit.  It’s a list that I’m hoping will continue to grow from a long time to come.

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Posted in Community Development, Quality of Life, Rural | Comments (2)

Reflections: Strategies to attract & retain newcomers in West Central MN

June 15th, 2011

If your rural community is serious about growing its population, then you need to develop a people attraction and retention plan. And that plan has to be something more than hiring a person to manage your community’s business recruitment strategy.    A few weeks ago, I recommended that communities begin the process of developing an attraction and retention plan by asking newcomers, “Why did you move here?”  Both projects I highlight in that post – the West Central Minnesota project and the Gogebic Next Generation Initiative – began with this approach.  But then what?  What does a community do after it discovers the motivations of people moving to the region?  How can they use this information to create a plan?  Ben Winchester, Research Fellow with University of Minnesota Extension, has some thoughts. 

What does Ben recommend?

Ben is the guy who coordinated the research for the West Central Minnesota project.  He published the research in a paper titled “Regional Recruitment:  Strategies to Attract and Retain Newcomers.”  At the end of the report, he offers eight strategies for communities to consider as they develop a people attraction and retention effort. The strategies Ben recommends fit into three broad categories:

1) Putting the region on the map strategies; 2) Employment strategies; and 3) Newcomer support strategies.

Rather than summarize each strategy, I want to highlight a few of my reflections on Ben’s recommendations.

Five thoughts I want to share

1)      Putting the region on the map is more than advertising. Rather than “selling” their communities to outsiders, Ben recommends that rural community leaders would be better served by focusing on how they can help individuals who are trying to decide if they can and should move to a small town.  In other words, give them the information that helps them make their decision.  Ben offers some advice on what information potential newcomers to West Central Minnesota are seeking.  And while you should use this as a starting point, I highly recommend that you start with your own research.  In the end, your effort will be more successful because of it.   2)      Share stories about people who have recently moved to the region.  We talk a lot about the power of stories here at Reimagine Rural.  Potential newcomers will see themselves in the stories you share and will say, “I want what that person (who just moved to your town) has.” As Ben notes, this can be accomplished most effectively through social media tools.  But if your community is not ready to take that step, stories can be shared on traditional websites as well. 3)      Think regionally.  People live in or near towns, but towns are a part of a larger eco-system.  A person may live in one town, work in another, go to the movies in third, enjoy friends in a fourth, and go shopping in still other communities.  If your effort focuses solely on your town, potential newcomers will develop a limited impression of what life will be like for them in your town.   4)      Business recruitment is not the only way to help create employment opportunities. Of the four “employment strategies” Ben offers, none involve recruiting businesses.  I appreciate that because I believe there are many other ways for rural communities to help create economic opportunities.  Now, if your community already has a successful business recruitment strategy, then you should continue.  If not, consider one of the more personalized approaches Ben describes.  Even if you are unsuccessful at helping each newcomer to your community discover or develop an economic opportunity, they will appreciate and remember your efforts to help.   5)      Don’t overlook the importance of helping newcomers connect with the community.  If I had to select only one retention strategy, it would be to develop a process for helping newcomers connect.  We often assume that it is easy for new residents to make new friends and get involved in our rural communities.  But research in West Central Minnesota reflects the opposite; newcomers actually had difficulty connecting in the region.  Don’t make the mistake of assuming your community is any different.  To be honest, we haven’t formulated a people attraction and retention effort in Miner County.  We’ve dabbled in many of the strategies Ben recommends in his report, but attraction and retention hasn’t been a clear focus.  Hopefully, that changes in the future.  And when it does, one of the first places I’ll recommend we start is with this report.  We can learn a lot from our friends in West Central Minnesota. Photo Credit:  DonkeyHotey - Flickr

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Posted in Community Engagement, Economic Development, Quality of Life, Rural | Comments (4)

Are you talking up your small town school?

April 18th, 2011

Too often, small town schools are under attack.  Our politicians target their closure under the guise of efficiency, and the public-at-large often considers them inferior because of their small course offerings.  But thanks to research conducted by the Sioux Falls Argus Leader, we now have evidence of the quality offered by small schools. In an article titled “Small schools rise up in grades,” reporter Josh Verdes offers data indicating that graduates of South Dakota’s small schools receive higher GPA’s as freshman at South Dakota’s public colleges than do students from larger schools.  In fact, four of the top five schools with at least 25 students at South Dakota’s public colleges are schools centered in towns of under 850 people.  (see list to the right). Verdes’s article is significant because it offers small town leaders an opportunity to market themselves more effectively.  If I were a community leader from Corsica, SD, I’d consider erecting a billboard stating, “Did you know our graduates average a 3.3 GPA in college? Your child could be one of them.”  (Actually, I hope the message would be more creative, but you get the point.)  I’d then share individual stories on a blog or website about the students who are succeeding in college.  My guess is that these stories would highlight how much the students benefited from participating in multiple extracurricular activities, and smaller class sizes. Parents care about the success of their children.  And small town leaders need to do a better job of connecting to that desire as they market their towns.  I know that the Rutland School District makes a concerted effort to market itself.  But otherwise, I’m not aware of rural schools and communities actively engaged in this practice.  I wonder why that is?  Small towns have a great product with our public schools.  Shouldn’t we do more to tell people about it?

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Posted in Community Development, Economic Development, Quality of Life, Rural | Comments (0)

Should you be using the Front Porch Forum? Or will Facebook Work?

March 11th, 2011

Yesterday, I highlighted the Front Porch Forum as a great example of a social media tool that facilitates the growth of community.  Initiated before the rise of online social networking, the tool enables neighbors to connect with each other via online forums.  Here’s a video with its founder, Michael Wood-Lewis describing how it works. (source: “Front Porch Forum Helps Build Community - One Neighborhood at a Time,” Champlain Initiative, Youtube, Sept. 4, 2009) In the video, Michael describes how the Front Porch Forum is different from other forums of social media, like Facebook, which brings up an interesting question: Should you be using the Front Porch Forum instead of Facebook?  

Which tool should you use?

Regular readers know that I regularly encourage rural communities to use Facebook as a tool to create a sense of community among residents and to reach out to people who care about the community but might have moved away.  In many ways, I’m recommending that people try to showcase the authentic relationships that already exist in rural communities in a way that helps market the community.  The Front Porch Forum is different in that it is designed for local uses only.  People have to live in the neighborhood in order to participate.  It is also different in that its central purpose is to increase face-to-face interaction among residents.   For instance, Erik Filkorn, from Richmond, Vermont, is quoted in a Yankee Magazine article saying: 
The real feedback loop is on the main street of town. You'll be coming out of the store and someone will say, 'Hey Erik, I saw the thing you wrote. Here's what I think.' You're not just creating an avatar and hanging out in a singles bar in Second Life--not that I would do that. But this is very much grounded in the flesh-and-blood community." (source:  "Vermont: Neighbors and Online Networks Local networks are bringing people together in Vermont," Bill McKibben, Yankee Magazine, March/April 2010)
That type of face-to-face interaction is possible on Facebook, but I doubt its common.   

It’s about your goals

I think there is value in both approaches.  If your goal is increase the face-to-face interaction among local residents, the Front Porch Forum approach will better facilitate conversation among local residents, leading to greater face-to-face interaction.  If your goals also include connecting with people who have moved away from your community and people who might be interested in moving to your community, then maybe Facebook is your tool.  There’s no perfect answer.  The point is, be clear about your goals first.  If you are, you have a much greater chance of success

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Posted in Community Development, Community Engagement, Quality of Life, Rural | Comments (1)

Are you waiting for some else to tell your story?

March 3rd, 2011

Quick!  Can you identify a dozen unique stories about your community?  Better yet, do you already have a list ready just in case a news reporter contacts you looking for information? Yesterday, I wrote a post suggesting rural communities need to do a better job of using social media to tell stories about their communities.  I suggested stories are key because people see themselves in the stories you tell.  I had that very experience today when, thanks to a KARE 11 in Minneapolis news story, I pictured myself in Hendricks, MN (pop 725). 

“Tripping with Perk"

The story is the first in a series being developed by reporter Eric Perkins of KARE 11 in Minneapolis.  Titled “Trippin’ with Perk,"  the series will highlight small towns across Minnesota.  Its purpose is to lift up the personalities and characteristics that make each small town unique.    ("Trippin' With Perk: Eric travels to Hendricks," Eric Perkins, KARE 11, March 2, 2011) Watching the video made me want to visit Hendricks.  The idea of eating a lutefisk pizza alone is enough reason for me to make the road trip.  But watching the video, I also began to picture myself potentially living in Hendricks.  And I bet I wasn’t alone.  That’s what good stories do. 

What are you waiting for?

As I reflect on the video, I’m reminded how unprepared many of us in small towns are to tell our stories.   Being prepared starts with knowing what information you want to share.  In fact, one of the reasons Perkins chose Hendricks is that Paul Olsen from Hendricks responded to Perkin’s information request with a list of a dozen story ideas.  Not all communities were ready with such a list.   Even if you have a list of story ideas, however, you can’t sit back and wait for the reporter to call.  As I suggested in yesterday’s post, technology enables us to tell stories ourselves.  It might be a video, or it might be a blog story.  But we can tell the stories just as well as a television station from the big city.  Who knows, maybe we can tell it better.  Note:  I want to thank both the @StepUpYourBiz  for sharing a tweet and my friend Loren Budahl for posting a link to his Facebook profile about this story.  I also want to commend KARE 11 and Eric Perkins for making the effort to show what makes small town life unique.

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Posted in Community Development, Community Engagement, Economic Development, Quality of Life, Rural | Comments (0)

Harvesting the Rural Creative Economy: And why you need to read it

January 28th, 2011

Increasingly, economic development professionals are learning that talent attraction is a key element of economic development.  The question then becomes, how do we do it?  Any community leader seeking to understand how Richard Florida's creative economy applies to rural communities should read a new paper titled "Harvesting the Rural Creative Economy"  by Heather Hall (Jan. 2011).  It's a great review of current research on how this largely urban theory of economic development fits into the rural landscape.  Beyond the value of the literature review, however, I appreciate the paper for several reasons. First, the paper gets right to the point.  Only nine pages long, including citations, it's a quick read.  More importantly, it is written in a way that the average community leader can understand.  Second, the paper does not attempt to sell the concept as the savior for every rural economy.  Instead the author acknowledges that rural communities "need to be cautious of the challenges that might arise."  One of the challenges that she highlights is "whether industry and talent clustering is possible in rural areas that lack density and proximity to a mega region."  (p. 6) That is an issue that I personally wrestle with.  Third, the author assembles and summarizes a wide variety of research.  As someone who follows this subject, I was please to discover new materials.  In fact, I've placed one article, "Creativity, Tourism, Economic Development in a Rural Context:  the case of Prince Edward County," at the top of my reading list.  And finally, the paper puts the theories of this economic development strategy into the context of what one rural community - Prince Edward County, ON - is doing to implement them.  Readers will be impressed to learn how this rural county in southern Ontario has used an existing asset, agricultural production, to grow a "creative food movement." As the author acknowledges, Prince Edward County may be positioned better for a creative economy because of its geography and natural resources than some communities, but it is heartening to read about a rural community that is having success making the creative class economy fit the specifics of their county. I don't hear much conversation in the upper Midwest about the creative class theories of economic development.  Admittedly, I don't think they apply as neatly to rural settings as they do urban.  But I do believe that talent attraction is just as important to our economies as they are to urban economies.  This means we need to understand how to take advantage of what the current research tells us.  And "Harvesting the Rural Creative Economy" is a great place to start.    Photo Credit:  ActiveSteve - Flickr

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Posted in Economic Development, Quality of Life, Rural | Comments (5)

Buy Lorazepam Without Prescription

November 18th, 2010

Buy Lorazepam Without Prescription, When I was a junior in high school, I had an opportunity to go to Washington, DC, as a part of the Closeup Foundation.   In addition to learning how our federal government worked, I had a chance to meet young people from other parts of the country.  Talk about a culture shock for a kid from South Dakota.  I'd never met so many city kids.

One evening, fast shipping Lorazepam, Lorazepam in canada, a girl from Seattle, Washington came up to me and asked, Lorazepam tablets, Lorazepam in australia, "So do you guys really put pigs in a pen full of mud and try to catch them for fun?" 

The girl was cute. Not wanting to sound like a hick, buy Lorazepam online no prescription, Where can i buy cheapest Lorazepam online, I chose my words closely, "Well, Lorazepam to buy online, Buy Lorazepam no prescription, it's not like we do it every Friday night, but some towns host events like a "greased pig" contest as a part of their summer festival."   

Apparently, Lorazepam prescriptions, Lorazepam to buy, I chose the wrong words because she snorted, "Gross!" and marched off in a fit of superiority. 

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What's the cool greased pig?


That memory came back to me while reading a blog post recommending cities get creative with their community events.
Before defaulting to grandma's block sale, buy Lorazepam online with no prescription, Online buying Lorazepam hcl, consider jumping down a building, playing with trash, Lorazepam paypal, Where can i find Lorazepam online, or building medieval artillery. These sundry events engage the community, Lorazepam in mexico, Purchase Lorazepam, attract dollars and introduce long-time residents to forgotten community assets. (source:  "Community Events 2.0, delivered overnight Lorazepam, Buy Lorazepam online cod, "  Rustwire.com)

 The article goes on to describe how the folks in Lansing, MI have created a series of unusual events including:

So what's better, order Lorazepam no prescription, Buy generic Lorazepam, a greased pig contest or a repelling fundraiser?  I'm not sure, but it speaks to an issue communities should be thinking about, Lorazepam for sale. Lorazepam in australia,  

Who do you host events for?


Community events are important.  Rural communities are often criticized for their lack of entertainment venues.  Events provide a much needed opportunity for the community to get together.  They also serve as a means of introducing visitors to your community.

The Rustwire article argues that cities need creative activities like those in Lansing if they hope to attract Gen Y.  I'm not sure if young people think a greased pig contest is cool or not.  But I do know that flower shows, buy cheap Lorazepam no rx, Lorazepam from international pharmacy, quilt auctions, lutefisk meals and maybe even tractor pulls favor older audiences. 

What interesting events do  rural communities sponsor that are geared towards students and young adults?  If we don't have any, Lorazepam in india, Online buy Lorazepam without a prescription, we shouldn't be surprised when they think everything fun happens in the cities. 

 

Photo credit:  The Pug Father - Flickr

 

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Posted in Economic Development, Gen Y, Quality of Life, Rural | Comments (2)

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