Author: Becky McCray

Every town has that thing, that negative thing, that happened. “Everything was fine until….”  Every town has one. It might be from 5 years before, like Deb ran into when she started at Webster City, Iowa. They had lost a factory. It might be from back in the day. The worst recent example was a summary…

Long time small town friend Dave Quinn asked me what my local economic development people could have done to help me as a local business owner. He sorta stumped me on that one. But the longer I thought about it, I came up with two things.  The first thing would be to ask. Just ask….

Whenever you present a new idea, there’s always someone waiting to say it: “We tried that once!”  There are a million variations of how they can say it, and just as many good ways to respond. Here’s my new favorite of the moment: “We obviously survived!” That would be the less polite version of what…

You’ve heard that before: Start with why. Knowing the real goal can help you decide what’s really important.  What’s the real goal of an arts festival? Why do you even have a car show? What is the goal of the city council? What ever the project, who ever the driver, there’s really one essential underlying…

“I’ve been after the parks people to start an exercise class in the park. Now I realize I just need to go start it.” –participant in one of my workshops She can start now. She doesn’t need permission to use the park. She can just show up and find an area that isn’t busy. She…

After our talk at the RuralX Conference, the second question Mike Knutson asked everyone was what had challenged them or made them feel uncomfortable. One person said, “All ideas are good ideas.”  That is definitely one of the things we said. We even had people practice saying, “That’s a great idea!” even when they didn’t…

At the RuralX Conference last week, Mike Knutson asked the audience what they heard from us that was new to them. One person said, “you don’t need committees.” Amen! People just want to come together for a project and then move on. You don’t need another committee. An audience once came to its feet and…

Resource maps come up occasionally as a recommended project for all small towns. It’s one of those stock answers. It seems like making a resource map would be progress because you’re doing something concrete, creating a resource that will last for a long time and help a lot of people. But it’s a trap.  Map…

Some towns seem to be endlessly positive. It’s always sunny in Castle Rock.  Other towns are a mess. People are fighting. Every issue erupts into conflict. Meetings are just short of knock down, drag out fights.  Sometimes the positive towns get sucked down into the pit. They turn negative, maybe because of one single controversy…

Do you have a lot of negative talk about your town on Facebook? Yeah, you’re not alone. There’s a lot of that going around.  Something about being online makes it too easy to complain. People say things they would never (or should never) say face to face. And that gives a hint of the best…

There’s always more than one way to look at a small town. There’s more than one story or point of view.  This is what gets us in trouble when out of town reporters show up, spend an afternoon or so talking to a few people, then leave. Inevitably, they’ve found, or been steered to, the…

Do you have to do strategic planning? I used to do a lot of it, so I know some good words to use.  Since you’re doing strategic planning, I know that you’re serving in an official role. So your new official role in the Idea Friendly way is the Venture Capitalist of New Ideas. You…