Think Like an Entrepreneur - Become a Sparkplug

Bill Menner is the founder of The Bill Menner Group, a consulting firm focused on community development, rural partnerships and economic vitality.  His work includes contract executive leadership of the Iowa Rural Health Association and the Iowa Rural Development Council.   

Bill updates us on the work of the Iowa Rural Development Council.   

Since 1992, the Iowa Rural Development Council (IRDC) has been engaging partners and assisting small towns.  

The IRDC was created as part of an Executive Order and ensuing Farm Bill in 1992. It received federal funding for many years and was later housed in the Iowa Department of Economic Development. But both state and federal funding dissolved and the group has operated informally without paid staff since 2005.

Kate Varness, CPO-CD®, COC®, has been helping clients organize their homes and reach their goals for over fifteen years with her company, Green Light Organizing and Coaching.   

Kate has been featured on TheKitchn.com, local television, and in Family Fun, Parents, and Family Circle. A frequent speaker, both locally and nationally, Kate also blogs, has contributed to other organizing books, and edited a professional organizer training book.  

Who Am I Now? Realign Your Home and Life is her first solo publication. Available on Amazon.

Do you know how an entrepreneur thinks? You need to know how they think in order to support them and to create an entrepreneurial economy.   

Entrepreneurs need to be supported in their passion, purpose, vision, and goals, for they are the small-business lifeblood of rural communities.   

Entrepreneurship can be key in revitalizing families and addressing workforce issues.   

Rural communities will find prosperity when they support an entrepreneurial economy.

What is the "mind" of a community? 

Your community's Mind was formed back at the time of settlement. You talk the same talk, think the same thoughts, believe the same beliefs that you have for more than a century.  

Your community growth and transition all depend upon how you handle the "wicked" issues of you citizens. If you don't address their "interests" you won't address their "positions" on the issues that are causing disruption in your environments.   

Taking steps to listen to people's values will attract people to your community, organization, church, and family for generations to come.

She is back!!! Due to weather issues in Texas, Kaitlyn did not have a stable connection when we had her and Nick Castner on the show. Now the power is back on in Austin and so is Kaitlyn Claeys back on the show!!  

Kaitlyn Claeys is a jack-of-all-trades with a variety of passions ranging from voice over all the way to business communication. Not to mention a couple of stops along the way in fine arts administration and sound design for live theatre. 

Who would have thought?  

After achieving 2nd Place for Radio General Entertainment Program by Wisconsin Broadcasters Association as a voice talent, Kaitlyn knew that the audio life was the one for her. She values the importance of creating content that reflects her interests and encourages those around her to do the same.

Do you stop at roadside markers? How about finding the best pie in your state.   

Not every attraction or point of interest is on your state's tourism web site!   

Meet Phillip Anderson. Phil is Founder and Chief ReThinker at ReThink Consulting. He is a teacher, teller, and traveler.   

Anderson teaches Cultural Heritage Tourism at Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis.   

Anderson spent 37 years visiting every city, town, and village on Indiana’s map, all 2,230 of them.  

Join us to here how your region needs to take up Cultural Tourism as an economic development strategy!

What is a community?   

It is a unified body of individuals: such as the people with common interests living in a particular area. It is also a group of people with a common characteristic or interest living together within a larger society.  

What is an entrepreneurial community? 

Tune in and find out what we learned from our guests during National Entrepreneurship Week.

We are so excited today to be able to talk with Amara Kniep from NetWork Kansas!   

Amara Kniep grew up in Wichita, KS and holds a Bachelor's Degree in Marketing, with a minor in Management, from Wichita State University.   

In her current role with NetWork Kansas, Amara oversees statewide programming, including the growth of the Youth Entrepreneurship Challenge (YEC) Series and the development of VentureDash.  

Her professional experience includes both Workforce Development, while working at the Kansas Department of Commerce, and Economic Development, having worked at NetWork Kansas for a total of seven years.   

NetWork Kansas is a state-wide, passionate effort that supports an entrepreneurial economy in every community that embraces growth.

National Entrepreneurship Week continues with Michael P. Libbie. Working from home and broadcasting news and information all around the world has become his business!   

Michael P. Libbie is a marketing expert, broadcaster, writer, public speaker and business owner. He has helped hundreds of non-profit and for-profit corporations better market their products and services through "Insight Advertising, Marketing & Communications."  

Libbie is the founder and host of Insight on Business the News Hour which can be heard daily in podcast form as well as The Business Week in Review on News/Talk 1540 KXEL.

Today we talk with Kaitlyn Claeys and Nick Castner. 

Kaitlyn and Nick team up to talk with entrepreneurs on their podcast, "Ecosystem Builder" through Mug.News.   

What is Mug.News and how does it support Entrepreneurial Ecosystems?  Listen to a great Podcast to find out!  

Building a ecosystem for your community is one of the steps to support a Entrepreneurial Economy across Rural America.