eZiNFOmgmt

The 4th session was held in Waynesboro, TN, on September 10 at Bradleys Restaurant.

Key Concept.

We need to refocus on community development, especially in the empowering of leaders.  As professional workers, the power is not ours to give.  The power is there for our local leaders to embrace.  As they embrace the power that is rightfully there, the power within communities is multi-dimensional, adaptable, and self adjusting to local needs.  It can be transforming.

Community development and growth starts at a very low level--lower than most formal programs acknowledge.  We need to reconnect with with our local communities  in places where as few as two or three people meet to share ideas and news.  Martha Pile with UT Extension in Clarksville models this kind of process in what she calls "The Gathering."

We need to redefine what is "community."  It is not a place with physical boundaries.  It is a collection of people interacting within any number of boundary types.  With the Internet, the physical boundaries are without limits.

Avoids Common Traps. By building local leadership in small groups the "Gathering" model avoids the trap professional workers make of solving problems for local leaders rather than helping leaders to solve their problems.  The short-term pressures for professional workers to "produce"  numbers that cost accountants use to justify program expenditures is counter productive.  The unintended consequences of public servants doing the work of local leaders lead to breakdowns in local leadership as local leaders become overly dependent upon professional assistance.  When public servants assume the roles of decision makers and community leaders, they impose a narrow view of issues defined through their much smaller organizational lens; networking with other organizations is time-consuming in an atmosphere driven by their needs to produce results quickly. Stove-piped, one-dimensional solutions are the result.

Nurturing.  By fostering the emergence of local leadership, the "Gathering" process generates a multi-dimensional network of action points in the community.  Solutions are more complex, take longer to implement, and fit perfectly to the needs of the local community.  The "Gathering" approach is a nurturing posture guided by an intuitive social monitoring of the readiness of leaders.  Unfortunately, this process fits poorly with typical assistance programs from government and educational institutions because of the push to generate "progress."

Similar to "Watercooler Talk." A few years ago, progressive managers discovered that conversations around the "watercooler" were not distractions in the workplace.  These informal conversations instead were primary points for conversations that communicated real values and alternatives, often more effectively than formal meetings.  In a similar sense, the Internet's social media, often called Web 2.0, allows a broader range of information sharing in the community than are designed into our more tightly wound educational and government assistance programs.  The arts have languished because pragmatic, results-oriented managers have trouble establishing quantifiable values for the arts.  Professional workers have not found ways to justify spending time in the social worlds of Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace.

Perhaps in the unquantifiable realms of sociology and the arts the answers for community development lie.

Realizations.

The dialogue that preceded this realization covered these points:

• Our public talk of the need for change is betrayed by our internal resistance to change.  Perhaps we're comfortable enough with our situation; we can continue what we are doing.  Our coping methods protect us from our fears of change.
• We often make assumptions about what we need to do without verifying the needs of our clients and customers.  Our most dangerous assumption is that we know the answers without having to ask questions.
• Many of our residents live comfortably within a very small radius.  As a result, they do not know the attractions and history of the area.  Their perceived need for change is marginal; their assumptions give rise to apathy in the community.
• We have a rapidly increasing base of new leadership that comes from people relocating to our area--people without the apathy.  They often move here with appreciations of our natural resources that exceed that of long-term residents.
• We do create surveys for clients and customers, but return rates are quite low (apathy).  Unless our clients and customers stand to gain something, they are reluctant to tell us what they think.   Workshops are seldom attended well and new tools like webinars have marginal success.
• Our region and people have many stories that people would love to hear or re-experience.  It may be that the best way to promote our attractions, resources, and culture is through the stories that we have to tell.  Often, our newly transplanted neighbors have very interesting "stories" and perspectives that are very relevant to futures planning.  Through small communities, these stories have outlets.
• Our local agencies and organizations have not engaged the Web 2.0 social media like Facebook or Twitter because the media appear to be a "time waster." There are few examples of productive uses of the tools.
• Web technologies can produce inventory maps of attractions and other resources by using simple text files that can be emailed or linked to in webpages that can be targeted to specific user communities.
• Widely available web tools can extract headlines of local web articles and create news feeds for subscribing organizations--like local newspapers that publish local event calendars based upon content of local websites.  These tools can serve specific communities.
• We have sufficient expertise to train local organizations to use readily available online tools and website development systems.  Technology becomes a tool to help address the needs of communities.
• While our area is blessed with many natural attractions, the attractions are often inaccessible to visitors, especially when "bad" communities or groups create a public nuisance or destroy property.
• As pointed out in earlier posts on this site and in prior meetings, it is difficult to get people involved in community and economic development, tourism, sustainable agriculture, or similar issues.
• The Buffalo-Duck RC&D faces two major hurtles:  1)Reduced funding of RC&D at the national and state levels 2) The loss of technical assistance to the area by the retirement of Larry Lofton, NRCS Project Coordinator.  Will the efforts of Buffalo-Duck fade with the departure of professional assistance?
• RC&D has been a valuable program for the 4 county area despite the conflicted objectives of NRCS, e.g. the emergence of local leadership in communities vs. the need for NRCS control to support agency progress reporting requirements (requirements imposed by OMB and other entities that control the agency's budget).