I’ve been involved with the Minnesota GreenStep Cities program, through SRDC‘s staffing the SW Minnesota Clean Energy Resource Teams (CERTs). The League of Minnesota Cities recognized the City of Marshall and others this week at their annual meeting in flood-soaked Duluth for achieving GreenStep goals: League honors 47 Minnesota GreenStep Cities that have completed steps […]
Dr Says: Drink Your Beer, Eat Your Bacon
Worthington’s regional economic development organization WREDC does a bang-up job bringing together an annual conference each spring to address issues in agriculture and bio-sciences. The sessions bring together folks working in agricultural industries and bio-tech in Southwest Minnesota—actually across Greater Minnesota, rural Iowa and South Dakota as well. Previous Biosciences conferences have ranged from life […]
Population 2011: The More Things Change
While the bungled release of the historical 1940 Census records may have overshadowed this, the US Census Bureau this week also released population estimates for 2011. Among the 50 fastest-growing metro areas over the last decade, only 24 of them were also among the 50 fastest growing since the 2010 Census. This is according to […]
An Insanity of Shovel-Ready Projects
When you find your self in a hole, the first thing to do is stop digging. The problem is, continuing worn out euphemisms, when your only tool is a shovel you tend to think every hole needs to be deeper. “Insanity is repeating the same mistakes and expecting different results” – Narcotics Anonymous, 1982 The front page […]
Trading our Future for Pottersvile
[v=IQoXV6oCzsQ] A future Pottersville? February 9, 2012 Marshall Independent To the editor: Many of us enjoy watching Frank Capra’s classic “It’s a Wonderful Life” at least once during the holiday season. Jimmy Stewart’s all-American community of Bedford Falls is starkly contrasted with a Pottersville of saloons, casinos and slums. It seems some Minnesota politicians think […]
Broadband Briefing: LightSquared vs GPS
Cross-posted from Blandin on Broadband blog, originally prepared for Southwest Regional Development Commission. LightSquared vs. GPS A new wireless start-up with Minnesota connections has been in the news lately with plans to provide a unique wireless-satellite communications network that could bring ubiquitous broadband coverage to rural America for a fraction of the cost of existing, […]
Doing Our Broadband Homework
I met Mark Forseth in 1994, when as Chairman of the Traill County Economic Development Commission Mark hired me as Executive Director to help facilitate economic opportunity in the Red River Valley. TCEDC didn’t limit itself to recruiting footloose branch plants, but focused broadly on preparing communities across the county with a seedbed for growth. […]
FourSquare for Your Square
FourSquare for Business webinar, Thurs 10 Nov, Noon CST. The information superhighway was supposed to knock down the barriers of distance, putting rural communities on a level playing field with our urban brethren. And it has… except where it hasn’t. For every web app that lets rural entrepreneurs compete globally it seems another online trend […]
The 1099 Economy
They are out there among us. We see them, but we don’t see them. We know them, but we don’t know them…. No, I’m not talking about zombies, but the “Lone Eagles” and “Free Agents” making their own jobs instead of waiting for someone else to do it for them. eXtension Webinar Series The eXtension […]
Beacon Power Pulls the Plug
It may be darkest just before the dawn, but it doesn’t seem like there’s much of any light shining out of the US Department of Energy’s Energy Policy Act loan guarantee program. First solar energy manufacturer Solyndra went lights out in September. The end of October, now, brought us news that energy storage (back-up power supply) firm Beacon […]
