Becky’s email newsletter

Those stubborn owners of empty buildings in small towns. You tell me about the worst ones everywhere I go. Seems like every town has one or two. They won’t sell. They won’t do repairs. They won’t pay their taxes until they’re about to lose the building, then they pay at the last second. They let…

When I met with the people interested in forming a downtown development group in Pullman, Washington, I shared some basic ideas about the Innovative Rural Business Models, then we all walked through downtown together to spot opportunities. At the end, a reporter asked me why I didn’t start in the usual way. He said he…

Remember how Deb encouraged you to be a ninja and go clean up those local eyesore buildings that need it? I shared that story when I was in Pullman, Washington, and they told me this story of a time that really happened.  In Pullman, they have the National Lentil Festival. Volunteers were going out to…

This is an Idea Friendly story.  In Centerville, South Dakota, a small group of people decided it was time to repaint the picnic tables in the city-owned park. They approached the city council to ask just for the cost of the paint. The volunteer crowd would do all the work. The council declined, but the…

I think it’s time to stop calling things a failure just because they come to an end. This comes up because I asked a friend about a project in her town that rehabbed downtown buildings.  “It’s not really active anymore,” she said with more than a note of failure in her voice.  Let’s check that…

One of the towns I visited recently has a dirty sidewalk problem. It looks like every time it rained, dirt and leaves and stuff wash out of the streets and onto the sidewalks. Pretty messy.  “We did a cleanup project once,” someone said. But dirt, like life, keeps happening.  You’ll have a cleaner town when…

When I was visiting Kendrick, Idaho, we brought together people from across 5 counties. I got to listen to a lot of great ideas as we walked around the downtown and brainstormed. Jessaca really wants to see a brewery open in her town, but she doesn’t want to open it herself. She’s been going around…

I spent the better part of an hour on the phone with a tourism colleague describing my town. I may have learned more than he did.  When we talked about the local tourism assets, I found myself starting with our old standbys: the natural resource assets from nearby areas, things like the state parks, sand…

Long before I arrived in Pullman, Washington, I’d heard of the Mimosa Building. Everyone I talked to mentioned what a wreck it is.  “Just wait until you see it,” one man said. “It’s the first thing everyone notices and mentions.”  “It’s been just like this since the flood in the ’90s,” another man said. “Sitting…

In a couple of conversations lately, entrepreneur courses have come up. I love that people are teaching entrepreneurship, but it’s not enough.  What good is it to teach people how to be good entrepreneurs if you don’t make more places for them to try out tiny business ideas?  Right now, once they finish the class,…

When you’re trying to move from the old formal ways of the past, it can be tough to jump all the way to Idea Friendly in one big leap. I get that. Just don’t stop halfway there. I saw a couple of examples that I thought you’d like, not because they’re wonderful, but because they’re…

A reader wrote to me this week about an influx of low-income people into his town, using subsidized housing and other community services. He said a town council member had talked about them as “a drain on resources” and “dead weight.” I got angry when I read that. But it took me awhile to figure…