Run, Rant, or Rebuild Our Communities
December 15, 2009
The next time you catch yourself being average when you feel like quitting, realize that you have only two choices: Quit or be exceptional. Average is for losers.” ~ Seth Godin
Earlier this year, I partook in the well-attended Cultural Economic Development (CED) workshop and forum hosted collectively by the Cities of Lansing and East Lansing, including MSU. A guest consultant, Tom Borrup of Community and Culture, highly-respected for his work in helping rebuild communities around the country, opened the workshop by sharing results of his preliminary interviews with Lansing’s civic and business leaders. He spoke of our community’s history, assets (yes, we have plenty!), policies, challenges, and other issues and factors.
As he spoke, I felt a wave of conflicting emotions, which may mirror some local community members and beyond. I felt fear, frustration, and ultimately relief. Yes, relief.
In this post, I hope to share how we can all embrace a sense of relief during a time when we – as a community – seem largely panic-stricken, unemployed, financially tapped, or worse.
The results of Borrup’s initial interviews in the Lansing/East Lansing community unveiled a reality that most of us rarely admit. Paraphrasing, Borrup said that in Austin, Texas entrepreneurs are viewed as stars. In Lansing, entrepreneurs are viewed as workers out of a job. This statement begged the questions, “Why?” and “What can we do to change this?”
So, with purpose and passion, I set out to find an answer. I polled as many people as I could - from various industries, holding a myriad of positions. After speaking with individuals in the automotive industry, education sector, healthcare, as well as various entrepreneurs, State and City Officials, Civic Leaders, students, and retirees, I recognized quite a few commonalities.
The Lansing/East Lansing community has always been known as cars, campus, and capitol, as Mayor, Virg Bernero often says. With a staggering number of people out of work, embracing change and a ‘new’ economy may seem an unwelcome change at best. New economy means entrepreneurship; new industry(ies), new people, new ways of doing things in a town that has strived and thrived in vastly the same old way for a very long time.
We all know it’s not working anymore. In fact, many of us aren’t working at all. The irony is the vast majority of us are not talking about the proverbial elephant in the room, which is the change we need to make to alter our current state of affairs. Sure, we’re all talking about what has happened, how sad and scary it all feels, but only a small group are talking about and taking initiative to detail and implement the necessary strategies, attitudes, and changes we need to turn it all around.
Some community members are leaving Lansing for apparent brighter opportunities. Many have already have relocated to more thriving cities. If we make the right choices and changes today, we can rebuild Mid-Michigan, and its surrounding regions, into a powerful machine, poised to sustain our future generation.
So, what are the right decisions and changes we can make? We need to work together as a team, get rid of our silos, and admonish redundancy. It may be referred to as “effective regionalization,” “partnering,” “strategic alliances,” or other catchy phrases. Each of these phrases means the same thing: Immediately cease focusing on our own personal – or otherwise self-serving, ego-driven agendas, and replace such thinking and behaviors with creative (new, innovative) solutions, embrace a collective goal, and ultimately move forward – as a cohesive unit – towards that goal.
At the CED Forum, over fifty people pooled their collective creativity to come up with positive views and initiatives to help grow this community – including Lansing, East Lansing, and surrounding towns – into a sustainable economic powerhouse. It was truly inspiring to watch the collaboration and feel the positive energy in the room. The bunch brained up fresh ideas and thoroughly embraced innovation and diversity.
We need to recognize that the union or government is not going to bail us out. The law-makers are not going to grossly alter our livelihoods in a way that will pull us out of debt or put us back to work. We must create and attract new businesses, which will attract and retain creative and intellectual capital. In short, we need to nurture entrepreneurship and diversity. We need to act this out, not just say we will. We need to embrace it, not fight it – or worse – despise it.
Mayor Bernero said it best, “Staying the same is no longer an option. We are being forced into entrepreneurship.” The way I see it, we have three choices: Run, rant, or rebuild this city and our surrounding communities.
Rantings can be good. After all, a lot of terrific ideas come out of frustrated ranting sessions. Run to another city if we must, and understandably some haven’t another choice. I implore each of us to embrace, believe in, and escort the necessary changes to fruition. We have the assets, the tools, the resources, the intellectual – and creative – capital, and the Capitol right here to help entrepreneurship lead the way to a new, vital, sustainable Greater Lansing. We need to embrace this movement. We need to ask ourselves, “What am I prepared to do to make this town sustainable for our next generation?”
If you are prepared to support this collective movement of rebuilding our region, consider tapping our resources. Contact leaders and entities who want to hear your voice and who can open doors, mentor, and inspire you to achieve your new passion.
A perfect example of inspirational mentors was witnessed by hundreds at last week’s Launched event. Launched, hosted by Live Concepts’ President, Jason Meyers (a tenant of East Lansing’s Technology Innovation Center) celebrated accomplishments of innovators and entrepreneurs in the community. Entrepreneurship evangelists paraded across its sparkling stage, each stopping to share their hopeful insight and strategy.
Among the enthusiastic speakers taking the dais were East Lansing Mayor, Victor Loomis and East Lansing City Manager, Ted Stanton. Amy Cosper, Editor-in-Chief of Entrepreneur magazine, topped the event with dazzling keynote speech and champagne toast.
One guest speaker brought tears of recognition to my eyes, and I believe his words are worth sharing.
“Entrepreneurs are often referred to as ‘risk-takers,’” began Biggby’s CEO and Co-Founder, Bob Fish. “But it’s more about their courage; meaning doing something you’re afraid of – anyway. True entrepreneurs are not gamblers; they calculate their risk. The actual difference between an entrepreneur and everyone else is their ability to overcome their fears – and that takes courage.”
Fish’s view of successful entrepreneurship is widespread for those in the know; those in the trenches who eat, breathe, and sleep our passions; our business, and plow through fears on a daily basis. Entrepreneurs rarely succeed going it alone. Rather, we succeed by collaborating and inspiring a dedicated team to work in unison towards the company’s ultimate goal.
Inspiration, collaboration, and cohesive accountability play vital roles in achieving success. If we embrace and employ these fundamental principles, we will be well on our way to resurrecting our economy – far beyond the boundaries of Mid-Michigan.
Attending meetings and events such as Launched and The Inspiring Women Collaborative (IWC) can spawn cooperation rather than catastrophe.
The IWC is a forward-thinking, expansive, and open-minded group. Its sole purpose is to propel its attendees towards greatness in businesses and life. The IWC, facilitated and founded by Bernadette Johnson and Robin Cleveland, is open to all inspiring women. Men may be welcome at some point, but for now it’s women only. Sorry, men.
Mid-Michigan offers plenty of assets and resources to help us embrace change and implement strategies we need to transform our community into an attractive, economically healthy, sustainable community for our next generation.
A few that come to mind are:
1. Marchelle Smith, City of Lansing and Leslie Donaldson, East Lansing’s Cultural Economic Development Plan
2. Denise Peek, Entrepreneur Institute of Mid-Michigan
3. Carol Steffanni, Business One Stop
4. Michigan Small Business & Technology Development Center
5. Jeff Cassidy, Lansing Regional Chamber of Commerce and its DIBBS program
6. Technology Innovation Center
*The next meeting for the Cultural Economic Development Plan is Tuesday, January 12, 2010 and all community members interested in becoming actively involved with the CED Plan implementation may contact Leslie Donaldson to RSVP to this next event.
In closing, I believe this quote echoes the view we must embrace to flourish: “Optimists tend to see their successes as their own “fault” – they hold themselves accountable by the way of their own talents and effort, as well as their special brand of serendipitous good luck. They see each success as long-lasting and affecting everything in their lives.” ~ Jerry Porras
Tamera Nielsen is a writer and business development consultant (marketing strategist) specializing writing SEO and SEM blogs, web content, articles, press releases, and case studies. As a project partner, she helps you increase revenue, gain recognition, and ultimately achieve ongoing success through inViewLLC, an intuitive business development and professional writing services company.
Very eloquent statement on the current negatively emotive consciousness in Mid-Michigan and an even more insightful and wise solution on how to move forward toward success. Time to move from the antiquated model we have clung to and embrace the new and invigorating ideas and solutions towards a new and prosperous area…one that springs forth hope, germinates new and exciting dreams, and reaps new and more fruitful harvests.
Mike,
Thank you for your positive reinforcement! As a collective minority in this region, I feel grateful to be swimming in the same pond as you. ~ T
Hello, Tamera!
I just read your latest blog and it is truly excellent! I hope that a good, many people check it out and embrace the eminently-practical points that you’d raised within. As stated, the time is at hand for this region to encourage and foster an atmosphere of creativity that will replace the time-worn ideals that were once the bedrock of the area’s financial health and prosperity. The domestic auto industry is still reeling and the State government is struggling to keep from becoming fully-immersed in red ink. Even Michigan State University – generally considered to be relatively immune from lay-offs – has proposed the elimination of 600 employee positions in the not-too-distant future. Overall, the outlook is still rather bleak, despite modest indications that some improvement is being seen within certain sectors. But, I’m certainly not telling you anything you weren’t already aware of with respect to any of this.
You know…I was thinking about something and I wanted to share it with you: I was pondering Bob Fish’s entrepreneurial endeavor as it compares to other ventures that are currently underway – (or are being explored) – within this area. And my over-arching conclusion is that – while Bob should surely be lauded for his obvious success – he wasn’t exactly being particularly innovative compared to others who are trying to establish endeavors that are either ‘leading edge’ or are simply new/unique to this part of the country. In essence, Mr. Fish merely found an appealing, effective way of marketing a product – coffee – that was already a popular, well-entrenched staple within many people’s lives. Obviously, a high-quality product is involved, as is excellent service, strategic storefront placement, skilled management, recognizable advertising/branding, etc. But, from where I stand, he really didn’t bring anything new to the region, he just did something that caught on extremely well with the large coffee-drinking segment of the population. So, while I’d certainly be foolish to scoff at his undeniable success or to dismiss his ‘vision’, initiative and acumen, I’m not all that enthralled by his ‘entrepreneurial innovation’, as was so highly-touted at the recent ‘Launched’ event. So there you go…that’s my $.02! That…and $2.98…will get me a medium latte’ at Biggby.
From my admittedly-narrow perspective and to restate the obvious, this area needs to eschew the old ideals that are no longer relevant and supplant them with ‘new’ ideas and enterprises spawned by ‘out-of-the-box’ thinking; bolstered by the necessary financial capital that will enable entrepreneurs with bold, innovative ideas to develop them and, hopefully, to bring them to fruition; ultimately creating successful ventures that will stop the ‘brain drain’, put people back to work, generate revenue to maintain/upgrade the infrastructure and just generally shine a bright, positive light on this great State of ours once again.
Anyway…your blog definitely got me thinking about this. Unfortunately, by virtue of my particular career path, I’m not in a position to make any measurable difference. However, for those who are in that position, perhaps what you’ve put forth will supply them with the necessary food-for-thought and the subsequent motivation to spur them on to make some significant contributions that will ultimately make a difference.
By communicating and promoting a spirit of creativity and excellence, YOU are truly an asset to this area, and the insight and perspective that you bring to bear within this realm has a depth of value that goes well beyond that which may be easily quantifiable in a purely tangible sense. And that’s exactly what this region needs right now: intelligent, energetic and motivated people like yourself who are willing to be ‘open’ to new and creative ideas and solutions; sharing those intellectual resources within a network of like-minded and equally-committed stakeholders within the business/economic development community.
I look forward to your subsequent postings with much anticipation.
Jack,
I find your insightful, detailed view of this region’s economic and growth issues poignant – especially from an individual in an academic setting such as yourself.
Thank you for the time, energy, and vision you shared on this post.
Your take on Bob “Biggby” Fish is duly noted, and I agree wholeheartedly with all you say. His comments about “courage” and “fear” during the recent Launched event at East Lansing’s Technology Innovation Center strike a familiar chord. Yet, you are right about Biggby’s innovation, or seeming lack thereof. Certainly, he was innovative enough to envision a business opportunity, and for that I applaud him.
It doesn’t take tremendous innovation to succeed as an entrepreneur even in a town as economically crippled as Lansing, Michigan. It takes vision to fill a need, intelligence to map a strategic plan to see that vision through fruition, and courage to execute the plan – no matter the obstacles and fears that present themselves along the way.
Your point about Biggby (and Bob Fish) underscores my point even more: If we get off our La-Z-Boy butts, we can foster rather than flounder – and ultimately rebuild this state, one city at a time.
Thanks for the comments, Jack.
~ T
Your article, Tamera…
…is well-written and thought-provoking. As we move -whether by choice or by chance -towards a more human-scaled, entrepreneurial economy, I would like to see more support via our government and our financial institutions, but I’m not going to hold my breath. For the near future, I think the biggest share of support will more than likely come from groups of like-minded people, taking turns at pulling on each others’ bootstraps.
Thanks for sharing this; looking forward to hearing more from you!
Doc
Nice site and good information. Thanks for covering this topic so in depth.