Becky’s email newsletter

If you’ve ever had to work as staff to a board, you’ll understand this one. A staff member was having trouble getting people to actually attend the board meetings. She wondered if a smaller board would be easier to gather. This was the discussion in a peer group that I was participating in as a…

When I share the Rural Jobs Creation Strategies, I talk about giving lots of awards for business successes and failures. It’s a great way to show that you value entrepreneurship of all kinds.  Not just one or two awards, but lots of awards. You want lots of entrepreneurship, right? You might give awards for…  Business…

In a couple of towns I’ve visited, locals complained to me about businesses that were using ugly hand scrawled promotional signs. Not attractive hand crafted carefully lettered signs, but the kind of temporary un-artistic and frankly ugly signs we sometimes use “just for now” in our business. Except “just for now” becomes “oh yeah, I…

Every town I’ve visited, you tell me you want more places to eat. I understand. We all get tired of our limited local choices.  Maybe this describes how it is in your town:There are only a few places to eat in town. They’ve been basically the same for a long time. They close early in…

Radio host Michael Libbie sat down for a lunch broadcast with my colleague Deb Brown. Every time he brought up a rural challenge, Deb would bring it back around to the positive, to some action we can take.  “You can’t positive attitude your way out of it,” Michael finally said.  Well you sure aren’t going…

When you hold events downtown, the businesses that aren’t located downtown sometimes feel left out. There’s one bank in Colfax, Washington, that figured out a great way to participate.  Remember I was telling you that the First Thursdays in Colfax are great at mixing the different crowds of people?  One of the local banks wanted…

When Deb Brown and I visited Forest County, Pennsylvania, our host was Julia McCray, who runs a B&B in Tionesta, PA and is not related to me as far as we know. Julia took us to lunch along with the owner of a local lodge. The two of them talked shop a little bit: new work crews staying…

Part of building an idea Friendly town is making it possible for different kinds of people to connect. When you create the events that get different groups to mix, you’re making your community stronger.  Colfax, Washington, has First Thursdays. Stores stay open later with sidewalk sales, booths pop-up on the streets and sidewalks, vendors sell…

Sometimes, when you hear the Idea Friendly Method, you think I’m asking you to do a lot of new things. I’m not. You’re doing plenty now, maybe more than enough. And you have the tools you need, right there in that phone in your hand.  You just need to shift your behaviors. Here’s what I…

You have everything you need. I know it’s really hard to believe, but play along with me for a minute, if you would. When I was in Illinois, people brought up a lot of issues holding them back. The city council is spending money on the wrong priorities. This foundation is giving money to the…

School entrepreneurship classes that don’t involve real businesses aren’t really entrepreneurship, are they? I loved the real-world projects Natalie Clark told me about in Stafford, Kansas, pop 1,200.  Their entrepreneurship classes are held at the SEED Center in a storefront downtown. Actually, it’s in an unused space in the front of the mortuary, a great…

Let’s look at the tale of two small town concerts.  One happened at an agritourism business. They brought in a couple of professional musicians for performances out at the farm. The musicians were reasonably well known, with some previous exposure on TV shows you’ve heard of. But turnout wasn’t that great, and a friend of…