One of the great things about the Idea Friendly Method is it is the Easy Way!
The old way of doing things, the piles of paperwork, the endless committee meetings, the heavy decisions that need to be made – is no longer the way to do things.
We’ve got new tools that make our lives easier. No more committee meetings because you’ll actually be doing the work instead of meeting about it.
No more heavy decisions to be made because everyone will be trying their own ideas.
No more piles of paperwork because no one is taking notes, they are doing actionable things around their ideas.
This year the theme at SaveYour.Town is
The Idea Friendly Way is the easy way!
What does the Idea Friendly Way look like in real life?
I was just in Swift County, Minnesota on an Idea Friendly Action Visit. In the town of Clontarf we drove around in a van with Tom and the 2 Amandas (in the second row of the van, pic above.) Tom owns a big white building behind the fire station. It’s in use as a place to warehouse his equipment. They were looking for some ideas of cool things they could do in their town that didn’t cost a lot of money. I suggested they paint a mural on the side of the building. Let the kids help with it. Then we went on to the next topic.
Two days later Amanda shared that she spoke to her daughter, who’s in 4H, and told her about the idea to paint a mural. She loved it! Now the kids in 4H will be putting a mural on Tom’s building.
Easy Peasy.
Their big idea was to paint a mural on a building in town.
They came together as 4H members and gathered their crowd that way.
They’ll figure out a way to get paint. (Grants from paint companies, crowdsourcing, asking for donations – these are smart kids. They’ll figure out how to build connections and get it done.)
They’ll come up with a great mural design. My guess it will have something to do with 4H. (They’ll ask their friends for ideas. They’ll post about it on social media. Those are all small steps they can take.)
Then they’ll come together and paint it.
Now that’s easy. It’s also fun. These kids will have created a project in town that they can claim ownership of. Even 40 years from now they’ll say “I helped do that.”
