UEDA 2015 Awards of Excellence - Leadership & Collaboration - Washington Rural Pathways to Prosperity Conference
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Washington State University Washington Rural Pathways to Prosperity Conference Washington State University’s (WSU) Rural Pathways to Prosperity (P2P) is a statewide economic development leadership conference that uses a unique approach to reach rural communities, revive the economy, and strengthen the entrepreneurial ecosystem. P2P applies the WSU Distributed Conference Model (DCM), which uses technology to connect multiple sites simultaneously to create a groundswell of self-motivated, rural entrepreneurship activity in communities across the state. Only in its second year, this conference has motivated communities to explore co-working spaces, entrepreneur clubs, a collaborative food hub and more, demonstrating WSU Extension’s leadership and convening power for rural economic development. The conference begins with an interactive webinar featuring a national expert who delivers content relevant to all of the geographically dispersed sites. Issues and opportunities introduced by the speaker as well as those identified by regional participants are addressed through well-designed and adaptable activities. Local community and business leaders, who receive DCM training by WSU faculty, serve as facilitators at the sites, guiding participants through work sessions. Monica Babine, Senior Associate, Washington State University Debra Hansen, County Director, Washington State University Extension
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UEDA 2015 Awards of Excellence - Leadership & Collaboration - Washington Rural Pathways to Prosperity Conference
- 1. Bringing entrepreneurial resources to rural communities UEDA Annual Summit Anchorage, AK September 29, 2015
- 3. Traditional Model: Single Destination Conference Conference HERE!
- 4. Single Destination Conference Distance Time Money
- 5. The Distributed Conference Model Using technology to connect experts to multiple sites Moving beyond participation into ACTION through facilitated activities.
- 7. Small Business is Everybody’s Business
- 8. Flow: National Expertise on Webinar
- 11. Discovered: Unknown Resources “Recognize the variety of small businesses and entrepreneurs in the area that one might not otherwise consider.”
- 12. Impact New people with new ideas spurred conversation on doable action items for local economic development.
- 13. P2P Partners
- 14. Value for the Partners “…very successful for my own thought processes and views of rural business but also an excellent opportunity to get USDA Rural Development resources out there in the community and share how we can assist.”
- 15. Program Evaluation: Did they Learn? Very Good 46% Good 42% How did participants rate the on-site activity? Very Good 61% Good 33% How did participants rate the content? Very Good Good Fair Poor Very Poor
- 16. Program Evaluation: Did they like it Local? • Local networking • Less expensive • More can attend • Statewide events are overwhelmingYes 87%
- 17. Program Evaluation Did it save Time? 1 vs. 3 days Images: Veer Did it save Distance? 74 vs. 347miles Comparing the 2013 P2P Conference using the DCM to the 2010 P2P Conference held in one location. Did it save Money? $35 vs. $320
- 18. Replicable
- 19. Scalable • 650+ women farmers • 4 states: Alaska, Idaho, Oregon and Washington • 26 locations
- 20. Sustainable • Flexible topics • Inexpensive • Adaptable exercises • Engaged participants
- 21. Future “This delivery model could help solve many of our other pressing issues.” Carrie Backman, WSU Wahkiakum County Extension Director
- 22. Do it again? You bet! Participants? 96% Sites? 100%
- 23. Contact Us Debra Hansen Monica Babine (509) 684-2588 (425) 827-8015 debra.hansen@wsu.edu babinem@wsu.edu waruralprosperity.wsu.edu
Editor's Notes
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- DH: Traditionally, in Washington, we have held a 2-day rural economic development conference in the middle of the state where 150 leaders and community members met to learn new skills and knowledge. But in planning the 2013 conference… other challenges bubbled up.
- DH: Distance, time, and cost make it difficult for rural leaders and businesses to attend conferences to gain valuable knowledge and skills to improve their communities or their own expertise.
- DH: The UEDA component we’d like to talk about is innovation. At WSU we’ve developed a Distributed Conference Model. DCM is based on two core principles: Connect multiple sites simultaneously with technology and engage local participants into action.
- DH: In addition to innovation, we found that place matters. Our first P2P conference was offered at 11 rural sites across Washington. In 2015, the conference grew to 18 unique rural communities with 301 participants included 10 USDA-RD field staff; over 65 entrepreneurs and over 30 elected officials.
- DH: Surveys completed by residents in 22 rural WA communities indicated that “more and better jobs” was most important to improving their quality of life. As economic development professionals we know that “more and better jobs” in rural communities equates to entrepreneurs and small business. This was reinforced when we surveyed community and economic development practioners in our state. So our conference planning team chose enhancing the entrepreneurial ecosystem as our topic because…Small business is everybody’s business!
- MB: So let’s talk about the mechanics of the conference day. It’s an innovative, hybrid delivery model that provides access to national expertise without having to travel to your typical, centrally-located event or sitting alone at your desk watching an online webinar or prerecorded video presentation. The day begins with the keynote presentation via technology. Here’s our speaker, Erik Pages presenting from his home office in Virginia, and the bottom image is one of the conference sites…
- MB: ….and then… we provided small group exercises for the local site hosts. Their role was to facilitate local engagement and action planning. It’s important to note that WSU not only developed the activities but we trained these facilitators, which increased their leadership capacity without having to be the content experts. We managed the technology selection, testing and coordination to ensure that there was seamless information flow to each site during the conference.
- MB: Each conference location had an opportunity to customize the local activities. At one site, a panel of entrepreneurs included the CEO of intelliPaper, a world leader in innovative paper products like this business card with a thumb drive integrated into it to allows customized messaging and interactions. The picture on the right is the CEO sharing information with one of our Senator’s staff, who was also a participant in the conference. Talk about rural talent, innovation and place…. intelliPaper is located in Edwall, with a population of 559!
- MB: During the P2P small group exercises, one of the locations decided to map the newer, small businesses in the county. We plotted these on a county map as indicated by the 114 dots on the map…not counting all the farmers. Interestingly, we also discovered a cottage industry Facebook group with over 200 active members in the county.
- MB: One of the impacts we have already seen from this year’s conference is talent development for NW Applied Marine, an electronics manufacturer. Owner Bob Stevens connected at the conference with Innovate Washington Foundation, a nonprofit organization focused on growing the innovation-based economic sectors of our state. Bob has had five meetings with one of their business consultants who is assisting with talent development for both Bob and his high school employees who would otherwise only be employed in the fast food industry.
- MB: WSU Extension led this effort, but we couldn’t have done it without collaborating with our key partners. These are the federal, state and local organizations that supported the conference. They were on our planning team, some provided funding and all participated during the conference at locations across the state.
- MB: The USDA representative who provided this quote went immediately after the conference with the host community mayor to view a building they hope to renovate in the near future. He also connected with the Inland Empire Railway nonprofit and they are pursuing a USDA Community Facility loan for a railway museum. He believes it will bring a handful of jobs to the rural community.
- DH: Our goal was to provide the bridge to entrepreneurial resources and in the program evaluation participants rated the webinar content and local activities very high.
- DH: When asked about the regional format it was overwhelmingly positive. They liked the local networking, lower cost, allowed more to attend and some thought statewide events were overwhelming. In fact, my favorite quote was: “Having one statewide conference would miss the point that local economic development is local.”
- DH: Here is the comparison between our first P2P conference to a single-destination rural conference – the savings were significant. We nailed it on addressing the challenges.
- DH: Is it replicable? Most definitely! We’ve offered it twice in Washington and it’s been duplicated by South Dakota State University with 6 sites in their first year. We’ve had requests from several more institutions about bringing the program to their regions.
- DH: Is it scalable? For Pathways to Prosperity, we had 18 sites with over 300 participants. The WSU Women in Ag Conference uses the same the Distributed Conference Model. It’s been offered for four years, this year it had over 650 women farmers who learned marketing skills and enjoyed networking opportunities at 26 locations across four states (right here in Alaska, and also in Idaho, Oregon, and Washington.)
- DH: Is it sustainable? Topic and speaker selection can be flexible and evolve as needs change . Our total budget was $5000 which covers the speaker fees, marketing and technology costs and the participant registration fee of $25 covered the food and facilities. The facilitated exercises are adaptable can range from simple to complex. And in our experience, participants continue to be engaged.
- We agree with our colleague – there are many ways Pathways to Prosperity can help rural communities. And given the interest we have received about Pathways to Prosperity, we have begun discussions with the WSU Office of Commercialization about copyright, trademark and licensing options. Stay tuned…..
- Will we do it again? Absolutely! And, based on participant and site facilitator surveys, they will join us.
- Thank you for this opportunity to share information about Rural Pathways to Prosperity. We have two resources – the handout in the back of the room – and if you want to know more about Bob Stevens, check out the blog at the WSU Economic Development Website.