How can you start a good chain reaction?

Last week’s email apparently looked suspicious to email servers, because it didn’t make it to a lot of readers. So if you missed the “how we welcome newcomers” stories last week, you can read them here.

This week, I’ve been thinking about triggers. What can trigger good changes in your town? 

Remember Deb Brown’s Tour of Empty Buildings? Deb was telling me that so many great things have happened in the year since they did the tour. People are working together, people are taking responsibility and initiative, and people are much more positive than they were before it happened. The tour kicked all that off.

But here’s what I think: it doesn’t have to be a tour. That was the trigger for Webster City, but Deb could have put together a different event, a festival, a big brainstorm, or something else entirely.

Now, I don’t think just any old event can be the kind of trigger you’re looking for. I’m thinking that a good trigger has a few key characteristics:

A good trigger involves a lot of people taking part together. 

So it can’t be just about you. It has to be about the community coming together. So starting your own store probably isn’t a good trigger, but maybe starting a community-run store is. Or gathering a group of fellow store owners for some positive scheming.

A good trigger takes a positive view of what could be a negative. 
The Tour of Empty Buildings took a bunch of empty buildings downtown and treated them as valuable real estate ready for new business. An outside perspective helps here.

A good trigger generates actual improvement.
A meeting only works if it also generates some action. The Big Bennington Brainstorm event Vanessa did in Bennington, Kansas worked because Vanessa helped get people to take action immediately. 

What would you add? The more we can figure out about good triggers, the more we can help you get started on triggering your own positive chain of events in your town.

And if you’ve seen a positive trigger happen, tell me about it! Hit reply. I’m listening.

Keep making your small town better,

Becky

PS – Cheers to the Support Small Business Day happening Oct 4 in the state of Victoria, Australia! It’s a project of the Victorian Government in Australia.

I’d love to think this could spread to all the states in Australia, maybe be an alternative to the USA big-business driven events. Aussies, I’d love to hear more about this event from your point of view. Hit reply and tell me more.