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Prairie Cafe 2003
2007-11-04
The third annual Prairie Café sponsored by Northern Great Plains Inc., met at South Dakota State University July 28th, 2003
The primary objective of Prairie Café is to stimulate innovative thinking among the participants on a specific topic. Each year a new topic is discussed. A second objective is to encourage Prairie Café participants to continue the discussion within their organizations and among their friends, peers, civic leaders and colleagues in their home communities and throughout the NGP region. It is not the intent of Prairie Café to move the discussion toward specific conclusions or outcomes.
This year’s Prairie Café was modeled upon the World Café format, changing from previous year’s designs. World Cafés have been held in a variety of settings, in several countries, and on a broad range of topics. The format is intended to resemble street cafés with participants in groups of four to five at each table.
As the 46 participants arrived at the meeting room in the SDSU Student Center for the 2003 Prairie Café they were directed to sit at tables decorated with checkered table cloths and vases of daisies. Soft music played in the background and the atmosphere was that of an informal gathering of interested and interesting people.
Participants came from five states and the province of Manitoba in the NGP region. Many had participated in past Prairie Cafés. This year several newly graduated college students as well as one graduate student were among the 2003 blend. As in the past this year’s group also included several new participants who were also ready to address this year’s topic - Visioning a meaningful and rewarding future for young workers, business owners and families in rural communities on the Northern Great Plains region.
The discussion centered on these four questions:1. What can theNorthern Great Plains region do to make living in rural communities more meaningful and rewarding for young workers, business owners and families?
2. Are policy makers, community leaders and rural community residents willing to take the needed steps to make the changes necessary to become more youth friendly?
3. Several policymakers and rural leaders have suggested that entrepreneurship programs targeted at younger people is one strategy to encourage them to live in rural communities. Can/will youth entrepreneurship programs make a difference and is the Region willing to invest in them?
4. Could steps the Region takes to become more youth friendly and revitalize its entrepreneurial spirit also build bridges to its expanding immigrant population?
Thought provoking questions for the 2003 Prairie Cafe were sent out to the group prior to arriving. Along with the questions, participants were asked to visit with their younger colleagues, peers, and family members about what they see as important elements of building a youth friendly and attractive NGP region and a community where younger people would want to live.
After a short welcome and explanation of the day’s structure by Jerry Nagel the first session began. The day was divided into four sessions, one for each question. Each session was divided into three, 20 to 25 minute discussions. As the group wound their way around the room to different tables after every discussion, a host stayed at each table and noted main thoughts by the group.
A facilitated discussion among all participants was led by Carol Vantine after the morning and afternoon sessions. Carol guided the group to offer insights they gained from the discussions. Before lunch Don Macke from the Center for Rural Entrepreneurship, Lincoln, N.E., gave a presentation on the topic of Youth and Entrepreneurship. The warm summer day drew the group onto SDSU’s outside patio for the afternoon sessions to sit at tables with colorful umbrellas completing the outdoor café atmosphere. Sunshine only enhanced the enthusiasm of participants.
During the two facilitated discussions many of the participants shared a range of thoughts and several noted that they would be returning home with a new outlook regarding the roles of youth in our communities, how they viewed entrepreneurs, and actions they could take to build bridges between young people and the entrepreneurial community.
Some of the strong points that came out were:
- Connections with their peers is very important to young people.
- Are there mechanisms for creating peer groups and help for young people to find them? Are there ways to get people together especially to overcome distance?
- There is a lack of information about ways for younger people to get involved in community activities, especially regarding charitable work.
- As activities are organized to bring young people together, the community needs to approach these efforts with an open mind.
- We need to modernize existing institutional structures such as 4-H, civic groups, or community activities. Today’s youth are not interested in the rhetoric and ritual typical of many of the traditional civic groups.
- Youth don’t need just a place to meet, but also a reason to meet.
- Young people don’t want to be the “lone voice in the wilderness”; they want to be part of a collective voice of themselves and their peers.
- The support of community is important.
- One of the primary needs of young people is to be affirmed and to get some positive feedback
- We need to identify the ‘pied pipers’ in our communities and nurture them as leaders and give them tools to move forward.
- Some (young) change drivers operate below the radar of our communities. We need to find ways to enable them.
- We need to distinguish between non conformity and creativity in our communities.
- We should support an overall creative environment in the community, including art and music as this feeds an entrepreneurial environment.
- Our culture has limited tolerance for failure and risk takers are not always welcome. We need to recognize that failure is not necessarily bad, that it in fact can be a learning and growth process that leads to future successes.
- Local newspapers can play an important role in recognizing and encouraging entrepreneurship. They can talk about risk; build understanding about different kinds of risk, or note what a calculated risk is.
- Community entrepreneurship can be an important strategy for building bridges with young people and positively impacting the local economy.
- We need to celebrate the entrepreneur and increase our recognition of the entrepreneur within our communities. We can apply this same celebratory attitude to other cultures living in our communities. We can do this in part by telling the positive stories and identifying consistent attributes within the various stories.
- We should develop ways to get successful entrepreneurs to invest in new or beginning entrepreneurs.
- Entrepreneurial behavior may be predictable behavior.
- We need a better daily language that recognizes and supports entrepreneurs. This context could help emerging entrepreneurs understand that they are one.
- We need to identify young entrepreneurs and support their efforts.
- We need to celebrate the entrepreneurial personality.
- We need to identify what is entrepreneurial behavior and what are entrepreneurial skill sets.
- Our communities and school systems – our culture – does not do enough to recognize youth entrepreneurs. The result is that they often don’t know they are one.
- Strong family support for the difficult times of the entrepreneur is needed and is very important.
- Schools can play an important role in encouraging entrepreneurial development.
- Consideration should be given to starting modest entrepreneurship educational activities at the grade school level. These activities could support and enhance the youth’s understanding of entrepreneurship.
- Mentors can be an important part of an entrepreneurship support strategy.
- There is a need for an openness within our school districts that supports young people with creative ideas and networks them with community resource people.
- Data indicates that for mentoring programs to be successful they need to start as early as the 5th grade.
- We need to recognize the important role that teachers could play in supporting entrepreneurship education in the school system and find ways to assist them in this effort.
- Career counselors should include the idea of owning a business in their career counseling of high school students.
- Maybe we should consider having a Prairie Café for 7th graders.
- We should have the various annual community business person celebrations at the schools instead of in local motels/hotels meeting rooms.
- We need to acknowledge the youth that decided to stay as being valuable to the community instead of always pointing out the ‘brain drain’. Constantly talking about the brain drain sends a very negative message to those that stay.
- There are lessons in nature. Youth dispersal is a natural process of nature. The offspring in many species move away from the place of their birth. A natural activity of young female birds such as wild geese is to return to the place where they were born to raise their offspring.
- Communities have personalities and these personalities can be communicated in a variety of ways.
- The home page/website for a community and the information the site has about the community’s businesses, schools, recreation, etc. communicates a lot about its personality and can affect how a young person makes a decision about a job opportunity in the community.
- When doing a self analysis a community should look at both its assets and its deficits. It should look carefully at what the general attitude of community is.
- Internships could help young people see what a community has to offer. School systems should develop support structures for internships and conduct tours for students to see what is good about their community.
- We can identify groups in our communities that set personality of the community, such as the police or schools systems. A good look at these groups can tell us a lot about our town.
- Diversity is an important part of a vibrant community
- Our rural communities need to be asking themselves if they are open to someone or something different. Or, if they would rather die as a community than change.
- Is a reluctance to change or accept new ideas and cultures a fear of change or a fear of loss of power?
- Encouraging immigration to the region is/can be part of an economic development strategy versus a community building effort.
- We need to expand the idea of reaching out to immigrant populations to also include Native America populations.
- We need to recognize and celebrate diversity within our communities.
- We need to overcome that token ness of our generation. We don’t seem to know how to behave another way.
- There is a natural tension between younger and older population groups
- We need to acknowledge the value 20+ year olds bring to our communities and their future.
- As a population ages the status quo becomes more and more OK. The population becomes culturally comfortable. This can lead to a lack of vibrancy within a community and reluctance to accept new ideas and new cultures.
- At what age do older people begin to listen to younger people?
- Do we need an initiative within the Region to educate the older population about their and the community’s lack of acceptance of youth?
- We need to identify ways to establish dialogue between youth and the older community.
- An antique is antique, including management.
After sharing many ideas, concerns and suggestions for action the 2003 Prairie Café participants left with a renewed enthusiasm to return to their communities and work to make a difference.
The last Monday of July is the date for each Prairie Café and participants were encouraged to add July 26 in their calendars for the 2004 Prairie Café.
