A Long Way from Home

My mom loved looking at Becky’s iPad.  That’s because whenever Becky visited she showed her pictures of animals in Africa. I believe that we are given a chance to share the world with each other.  Some of us travel just a few miles away from home, yet can share the stories of our farms, the…

Read More

The Ask

You have a business.  You need customers.  If someone were to ask you “how can I refer people to you?” would you have an answer? The right answer is NOT “we want everyone to come here.” Your perfect customer is not everyone.  Take the time to reflect on the products you offer.  Who are your…

Read More

Community Support

Pamela Slim, author of Body of Work and developer of the Indispensable Community Tour  shares these 35 ways to seed and support your community. 35 Ways to seed and support your community Generated by the Sunnyvale Community Tour group 1.     Facilitate a LinkedIn introduction for a community member 2.     Create a YouTube video with helpful content 3.     Follow…

Read More

Start Up Guides to Cities and Rural

I’m going to Lisbon in November for the Web Summit. I was browsing their blog and noticed they’ve posted Start Up Guides to Cities.  I’m going to share a few links here with some comments.  Then I’m going to ask you to think about what Start Up Guides for Rural might look like. Start Up…

Read More

Millennials – A Few Things

What do you know? Millennial’s are now 51% of workforce today.  They will be 75% of workforce by 2025. They entered adulthood sometime around 2000. Do you know how to reach them?  Do you know how to work with them, and soon how to work for them? They want authenticity, environmentally friendly products, real time offers, easy redemption,…

Read More

Kendall Young Park

Webster City has many parks and last Sunday Keri and I went on a drive looking for some of the lesser known tourist parks.  One of my favorite ones is Kendall Young Park at  600 Kendall Young Road in Webster City.  According to http://develop.hamiltoncountyiowa.com/html/parks_-_city.html it is a: Scenic park located one mile north of Webster City.…

Read More

Build Your Community

Here’s a fun thing to do — start building the kind of community you want to live in. But do it online.  by creating a Pinterest board and name it The Kind of Town I Want to Live In. Then invite some of your friends around the world to add links to it. See what…

Read More

Jennifer Drinkwater Came to Town

Her goal was to develop new community partnerships around a cultural community vision incorporating art and natural resources for economic development over a multi-year plan. Simpler put: bring artists, naturalists and businesses together to showcase the Webster City area and improve our economy into the future. Creative Placemaking is an evolving field of practice that…

Read More

Hanging Out with the Pork Queen

Last night I got to hang out with the Pork Queen and the kids from the FFA. It’s just one of the many reasons I love living in a small town.  For the cost of $5 here’s what I received: A pork burger with bacon, chips and a drink great conversation with local FFA boys…

Read More

It’s Never About You

Building Relationships vs. Networking Networking is important, we all know that.  We need to meet people to advance whatever agenda we are working on.  Networking is the buzzword of this century.  You hear it everywhere. It means to interact with each other to exchange information and develop contacts. You’ve been to networking events.  Usually there’s…

Read More