Building Communities Series 2007-2008

The following programs will be held on
Fridays from 10:00 a.m. —11:00 a.m. (Central Time) at the Crawford County Administration Building, 225 N Beaumont Street in Prairie du Chien, WI:

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DOWNLOAD PDF FILES OF THE PRESENTATIONS AT
http://www.uwex.edu/ces/CCED/communities/ConferencePrograms.cfm

Community Development—The Foundation for a Better Place
September 14, 2007 — UW-Madison/Extension
Professor Gary Green will set the stage for engaging communities and their stakeholders to maximize
positive change. He’ll introduce some of the basic concepts and issues in the community development field. Gary will feature the dilemmas and contradictions of participatory development and discuss the basic features of a development approach based on a community’s strengths and assets.

Community Capacity Building—Engaging and Empowering Them All
October 12, 2007 — UW-Madison/Extension
Associate Professor Randy Stoecker challenges us
to re-think our notions of democratic community
decision making. Who are the right people to engage and have involved? How do we assure that all voices are being heard? Join Randy to learn how to maximize citizen input and design strategies that will address the needs of all those with a stake in our communities.

Community Preparedness—Building on Assets
November 9, 2007 — UW-Extension Professor Andy Lewis and Associate Professor Will Andresen share their work with the Community Economic Tool Box, The Community Economic Preparedness Index and First Impressions. Using these robust tools to
illustrate, this session will focus on the process used to help a community analyze its strengths and
weaknesses prior to developing a plan to improve economic development opportunities in the
community.

Understanding the Community and How It’s Changing—Demographics and More
December 14, 2007 — While a growing number of
economic and demographic information sources provide a wealth of data, community leaders and economic
development professionals still struggle to access this information and understand what it means for their communities. During this session, UW-Extension Professor Bill Pinkovitz and GIS Specialist Matt Kures transform our anxiety about “data” to confidence in using “information” to inform local choices. Learn how to uncover your community’s story—richly mined from available resources and illustrated with everyday tools.

Clusters and Regions—They Both Matter
January 11, 2008 — UW-Extension GIS Specialist Matt Kures and Center Fellow Terry Ludeman (invited) take on the economic development debate—should we focus on clusters or work collaboratively in regions? Terry will detail how to identify regional economic similarities as a first step to creating regional approaches. Matt will
uncover the secrets of identifying industrial/business clusters to target economic development efforts. The magic happens when they show how combining clusters with regions leads to powerful information from which winning regional economic and workforce
development strategies can be formed.

Attraction Strategies—Recruiting the Right Things
February 8, 2008 — UW-Superior/Extension Associate Professor Jerry Hembd and Center Fellow John Ramer, CEcD, FM (invited) take us from the traditional to the nouveau of attraction. Often thought of in terms of landing that large new manufacturer or the branch plant, they’ll discuss how today’s global marketplace has not just changed the rules, but altered the game. Join in as they discuss how the changing economy demands new forms of infrastructure and community assets in order to be attractive to today’s workers, who themselves are key to sustainable businesses and community growth.

Supporting Existing Businesses—The Case for Downtown Business Development
March 14, 2008 — UW-Extension Community Business Development Specialist Bill Ryan and JD Milburn of the Wisconsin Main Street Program have developed tools and resources to help support existing local businesses and create vibrant business districts. This program features an understanding of the changing marketplace and how communities can identify
opportunities that are both realistic and sensible for their downtowns. They’ll share tools and strategies for retaining and growing businesses that can beemployed downtown and across the community.

Entrepreneurship—It’s Good for Business, Government and the Civic Sector
April 11, 2008 — UW-Extension Professor Greg Wise addresses entrepreneurship as a community
development solution to enhancing our communities’ quality of life. How important is entrepreneurship to our communities and what are the essential ingredients of successful entrepreneurship development efforts? Best practice case studies will be shared and the national eXtension Entrepreneurship project will be highlighted as we answer those and other important questions.

Sustainable Development—Is It Going Mainstream?
May 9, 2008 — UW-Superior/Extension Associate Professor Jerry Hembd explores the emerging topic of “sustainable development.” What challenges and lessons does it offer to those of us working to enhance our communities? What does it suggest in terms of new ways of doing business? Join in as Jerry shares his research on the sustainable development movement and how we might employ key elements in our community development efforts.

The Art and Science of Putting It All Together
June 13, 2008 — UW-Extension Emeritus Professor Alan Anderson reflects on over three decades of working with communities to address critical community development issues. He’ll help us understand how and when to support a community’s need to have an early success or take a step back to put a plan in place. Al offers a “real-world tempered” perspective of how to guide a community in making local, sustainable development choices.

Contact Crawford County UW Extension to register:

608-326-0224

FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT: