Posts Tagged ‘community investment’

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

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

Building Community with Corned Beef Sandwiches

May 19th, 2010

The highlight of the Grassroots and Groundwork 2010 Conference for me, last week, was Paul Saginaw’s keynote speech.  Paul is co-owner and founding partner of Zingerman’s Delicatessen in Ann Arbor, Michigan.  Paul’s speech left me inspired in a number of ways, but one specific piece of advice he gave is still ringing.  He described that as a new business owner, he made community a priority.  He knew he was going to give back from the start, and he has accomplished that in more ways than one. 

It takes money, honey

In the company’s spreadsheet, alongside salaries and wages, benefits, utilities, insurance and a host of other operating expenses was the term “community.”  Money allocated to this line item was used to strengthen community in greater Ann Arbor Michigan along with helping staff when they faced difficulties. Many businesses owners look to give back after they achieve a level of prosperity.  What’s special is that Paul and co-owner Ari Weinzweig built this financial contribution into their business from the start.

Community and opportunity for employees

Paul described that he and Ari’s business mantra from the start wouldn’t allow for reproductions of Zingerman’s Delicatessen.  But, after ten years of successful operation, they realized that expanding the business was necessary so that growth opportunities existed for staff.  They did this by making their staff partners in an expanding business, dubbed Zingerman’s Community of Businesses.  The Zingerman name now includes a total of nine companies with 590 employees and fifteen partners, including a bakehouse, creamery and candy shop. 

Feeding their community

Not many for-profit businesses can say they’ve started a nonprofit, but Zingerman’s can.  In 1988, the company’s philanthropy founded Food Gatherers, a nonprofit that redistributes food from restaurants to those who need it most.  Today, Food Gatherers redistributes more than seven tons of food a day and feeds almost 44,000 people each year. 

 

There are more, but I’ll stop at three.  We often believe that building “community” is the responsibility of nonprofits, economic development groups, and government entities.  Paul Saginaw and Zingerman’s Community of Businesses proves that businesses can contribute to community in powerful ways, if they’re willing to take the challenge. 

 

Photo credit:  Ashley Dinges-Flickr

Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in Community Development, Economic Development | Comments (0)

Winona invests in wind

September 21st, 2009

News comes to us from Minnesota announcing a partnership enabling Winona County to become “the first county in Minnesota to develop renewable energy to benefit taxpayers.” (see “County finalizes wind turbine project,” Winona Daily News)

This sounds very similar to what the City of Howard accomplished back in 2001 when it became the first municipality in the state to own and operate wind turbines. (The two other communities in Miner County–Carthage and Canova–followed suit in 2002.)

Although similar in many ways, the two projects appear to differ in their desired outcome.  Howard’s motivation revolved around assisting a start-up wind energy company and developing a stronger community brand. Winona’s goals, on the other hand, appear to be to provide a model for wind energy development and develop a revenue source for economic development efforts.  (According to the article, the Winona County Economic Development Authority could receive up to $1.12 million from the sale of electricity over the next 20 years.)

The ability of the wind project to deliver over a million dollars in revenue to the Winona Count EDA will only be proven by time.  But I think the community leaders should be congratulated for looking at the wind development as a source of revenue for economic development.

 

Why investments like this are important

It has been the experience of the Rural Learning Center that most rural communities know they need to invest in economic development, but few have or want to use tax dollars to invest in those efforts.  If not tax dollars, then what?

Admittedly Winona’s investment doesn’t come without risks, and questioning public investment in private sector business is a legitimate concern.  But there’s little doubt that the Winona model points the way to one option for funding community development activities.

It also raises the question:  What is your community doing to fund economic and community development for your community? 

Note: Thanks go to Dakota Rural Action for tweeting about this project. (and who says Tweeting is a waste of time?)  And thanks to Linda Grover, Director of the Winona County Economic Development Authority, for answer a few questions.

Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in Economic Development, In the News, Rural | Comments (0)