Posts Tagged ‘coffee shop’

Why do I write this stuff

September 16th, 2009

 I have to admit that lately I’ve been questioning why I spend so much time writing stuff about rural communities.  After all, couldn’t I make a bigger impact on the rural communities if I spent my daily efforts working in a rural community like I used to? Could I do more if I were an economic development director in a rural community?

But yesterday at the Rural Housing Playbook Conference, Joe Fiala of the On Hand Development Corp. in Miller, SD reminded me that there is value in having blogs where people can dream out-load, and where we can ask questions that seldom get asked.  Questions like “Does your community need a coffee shop?”

 

What Joe told me

I think Joe and I had only meet once before, so I was surprised when Joe came up to me and said that he was both a regular reader of ReImainge Rural and that he occasionally used a blog post to generate conversation with his board members at meetings. 

Instead of uttering, “Seriously?” (which probably showed on my face), I thanked him and asked how he was using it to generate conversation. 

He explained that he occasionally prints off a post, gives it to board members, and asks them to talk about it.  For instance, a while back he gave them a copy of “Does your community need a coffee shop?” and asked them to think about where new residents and younger people in Miller go to socialize and why having such a place would be important.  I was impressed to hear that they were talking about the role coffee shops play in community development work.  It’s the type of stuff most economic development groups don’t think about. 

 

The coffee shop idea didn’t make the cut

Later in the conversation, Joe somewhat sheepishly admitted that they are not actively working to develop a third place in Miller.  I think Joe didn’t wanted to hurt my feelings, but he was honest in saying it did not make their list of projects to work on.

Far from hurting my feelings, I was ecstatic.  Something I had written had caused an economic development group to “reimagine” their work.   They were digging in, conversing, and rethinking what they wanted their community to be like.  To me that’s incredible.  (By the way, that’s the “U Process” at work.)

Admittedly, I think every community needs a coffee shop that serves as a third place. I think they increase the community’s social capital that will in the long run help the community get more things done.  In other words, community members are less likely to waste their time fighting each other over the projects they are working on, resulting in increased productivity. 

But that doesn’t mean that I think Miller’s economic development group should invest their time and energy into making it a reality.  They may have more important stuff to work on, and should be congratulated for just thinking about it.

 

Ok, I am a little disappointed

If anything disappointed me about our conversation, it was that neither Joe or his board have joined in the conversation on ReImagine Rural. 

When we created the tag line “Building a deep conversation about the future of rural” we did so did so because we believe that generating conversations is key to building a brighter future for rural communities. 

Never have we felt that our experiences at the Rural Learning Center provide us with all the answers.  Nor do we believe that others should be “listening” to us.  Rather it’s about raising issues, asking questions, sharing ideas, and rethinking the future.  And that’s where Joe (and you) come in. 

I could tell from our short talk that Joe can contribute to the conversation.  I asked him if he’d consider posting comments about the importance of third places.  I’m hoping that he’ll even write a guest post or two someday about other subjects.  If he does, I’m confident that his contribution will help someone else who is wrestling with similar issues. 

 

It takes time

I know that it takes time to write comments or guest posts for blogs.  And I know that it can take time away from the more immediate projects that everyone is working on.  

In fact, as I reflect on the questions I posed at the top of this post, I think that’s what I’ve been wrestling with.  Is there value in writing about rural community issues as I do on this blog?  Or should I be spending my time “doing” something as I try to help rural communities. 

Only time will bear an answer, but for now, I’m going to keep plugging away.  The one thing that I am sure of, however, is that rural communities across America will benefit from YOU joining the conversation. 

 

Note:  If you want to join the conversation, feel free to send me an e-mail at mike@ruraltransformations.com

 Photo Credit (top right): limaoscarjuliet - Flickr

 

 

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Posted in Community Development, Economic Development, Housing, Rural, Training and Events | Comments (0)

Higher Grounds at South Dakota Magazine

June 4th, 2009

Although it’s not Wall Drug - at least not yet - Howard’s Higher Ground Coffee is fast becoming famous as a “third place.”  Yesterday, it was featured on South Dakota Magazine’s blog. 

I actually knew the post was coming because Bernie Hunhoff and Paul Higbee had stopped by the office last week, shortly after stopping in at Higher Grounds.  We chatted briefly about the role of third places in “building community” and their importance to community development. It was a fun conversation.

As I read Bernie’s post, I was captivated by his photograph, and a thought popped into my mind:  wouldn’t it be fun to create a photostream of third places in rural communities?  If anyone is interested in this type of collaborative project or has ideas about how to accomplish it, I’d appreciate hearing from you.  I’ll spend some time thinking about how “we” can accomplish this as community of people who are committed to rural communities.

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Posted in Community Development, In the News, Quality of Life, Rural | Comments (0)

Third Places, the workplace, Facebook, and Starbucks

May 19th, 2009

Catherine Bergart gets the value of value of third places.  In an excellent piece written for the New York Times titled “Losing the Income, and the Camaraderie“, Bergart walks the reader through the tribulations of losing her job at a place she considered her third place.  (Read more about third places here.)

While losing her source of income was traumatic, she considers the loss of the camaraderie at her former third place as the real tragedy of her job loss.  Try as she might, Facebook and Starbucks, couldn’t provide the “social nourishment” she craves.

Bergart writes about third places from the perspective of an individual, while much of our writing about third places (at ReImagine Rural) has focused on its community development implications.  What I find relevant to rural communities, however, is that she discerns the weakness of pseudo-third places like Facebook and Starbucks.    Neither offers the richness of the social interaction between people of disparate backgrounds that that a true third place delivers.

And that’s why I’m both excited and skeptical about social media at the same time.  While I firmly believe rural communities need to develop a social media strategy to connect to people — especially to those people whose lives have taken them outside of the community - I’m not convinced that it can generate the deep relationships that will move our rural communities towards the transformation they need.   

But maybe that’s ok.  We probably shouldn’t think of Web 2.0 technologies like Facebook as the end-all tool.  Like physical third places, they are probably just one piece of the complex puzzle to creating vibrant rural communities.

Other Resources:

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Cafe au Play - A Third Place with children

February 4th, 2009

Not all coffee houses that set out to become third places succeed.  Here’s one, however, that I think has great potential.

 

 

 The Café au Play plan excites me.   Too often businesses attempt to achieve the features of third places, but exclude children.  Not only does this defeat the “leveling” functions of third places, but it also deprives our children of an opportunity to learn how to act and interact with adults. 

That doesn’t mean that Café au Play has a free ride to success.  Lots of adults visit third places to avoid kids.  I suspect the venture’s success will rest on its ability to create positive social interaction between adults and children - the opposite of a McDonald’s Playland where kids often run wild while parents relax and eat.

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Posted in Community Development, In the News, Quality of Life, Rural, Uncategorized | Comments (4)

Helping tourists develop a sense of place

January 26th, 2009

Karen Wylie over at Backroads Business picked up on our story about coffee shops and “third places.” She described how a local coffee shop (DT’s Blue Ridge Java) enticed her to join a bridge class at their establishment.

Although intended to bring in customers during a slow time of year, it also contributes to the coffee shop’s “third place” status by encouraging locals to interact with each other.

From what Karen writes, DT Blue Ridge Coffee does a nice job of building community in the town of Spruce Pine, NC where it’s located.  But I wonder if it goes a step further:  does it also serve as a place that helps introduce tourists into the community?

Ireland has become a tourist destination in part because their pubs and other establishments successfully help tourists connect with locals.  In the process, the visitors develop a better sense of place.   They get a chance to feel the uniqueness of each community.

That process is vital to any rural community implementing a tourism strategy.  After all, it’s unlikely that small towns will develop big museums or event centers that larger communities use to attract visitors.  But a lot of people just want to experience a unique place where they can meet special people.   Small towns can fulfill that wish by developing good third places.

Later this morning, I’m going to join a webcast with John Delcante from Smallwander.com.  The subject will be “Third Places”, and I’m sure tourism will be a part of that conversation.

It’s sort of a last minute thing, but we’ll be live at 9:00 am Central.  Feel free to call in or listen live via the link below.

EVENT:  Third Places
DATE & TIME: Monday, January 26th at 10:00am Eastern
FORMAT: Simulcast! (Attend via Phone or Webcast - it’s your choice)
TO ATTEND THIS EVENT, CLICK THIS LINK NOW…
http://instantTeleseminar.com/?eventid=5847438

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

Does your community need a coffee shop and other Third Places?

January 14th, 2009

During an economic development planning meeting in 2004, several high school students claimed our community (Howard, SD) needed a coffee shop.  That statement confounded most of the adults in attendance.  “What do you mean? We’ve already got two,” a community leader retorted, referring to the town’s two small cafés. 

Beyond the obvious differences between a coffee shop and a small town café, most of the adults in the room missed the point the students were making:  Younger people enjoyed going to larger communities to hang out in coffee shops.  If we wanted our community to be a place for their generation, we needed a coffee shop. 

To my disappointment, the coffee shop idea didn’t make the final cut on our prioritized list of projects, deferring instead to more traditional “job creation” strategies. At the time, I thought a coffee shop would serve as an excellent “amenity”, making our community more attractive to both Gen Y and newcomers.  I’ve since learned that there’s a lot more going on in coffee houses than coffee and conversation.  And I have sociologist Ray Oldenburg to thank for this discovery.

 

Coffee Houses are “Third Places”

It has been two decades since Oldenburg invented the name “third places” in his influential book The Great Good Place to describe informal gathering places like cafés, pubs, bookstores, community centers and main streets.

To Oldenburg, third places carry out important community building functions that cannot be fulfilled by “first places” (our homes) and “second places” (our places of work).  They become the places where people develop personal relationships and a sense of community.  Without them, families are left to sit at home and watch television by themselves. 

Oldenburg goes into great depth explaining the community building functions carried out by third places.  We’ll talk about them more in later posts, but for now I’d like to focus on helping readers recognize third places in their own communities– not all cafés, pubs, bookstores and community centers meet the qualifications of third places. 

 

Characteristics of Third Places

Third places come in many forms, but Oldenburg identifies eight characteristics that third places share:

 

Howard’s new Third Place

Last summer (2008), three entrepreneurial ladies opened a coffee shop in Howard called Higher Grounds.  I’ve been watching it ever since and have concluded that it is developing into an outstanding third place.  It really seems to be filling the need people have to experience a sense of community, which may explain why it’s a success. 

So, what about your rural community?  Do you have any good examples that you can share?  I’d really like to create a list of unique third places.  Hopefully, these examples can serve as an inspiration to residents in rural communities that currently lack strong third places.

 

Other resources on coffee shops and third places

Note:  Photo courtesy of Elisa Sand of the Madison Daily Leader

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Posted in Community Development, Gen Y, Quality of Life, Rural | Comments (7)