Paul Martin's Business Update - June 5th, 2014

Paul Martin's Business Update - June 5th, 2014

Community building is one of those endless assignments. We are always looking for that infusion of new ideas, new investment, new facilities.

And it’s not an easy job. But it’s even easier to undermine a community. That’s the premise of a book written by a couple of Albertans who work in the community development field. The book is called 13 Ways to Kill Your Community.

They profile a baker’s dozen things the average citizen or a community as a whole can do to knock the wind out of their town’s sails. Topping their list is…don’t have good quality water. Second is Don’t attract business. Third is to ignore your youth.

Among my favorites on the list is: shop elsewhere.

A lot of the ideas are fairly basic but sometimes we need to be reminded that not painting our properties will devalue the entire community. Or that living in the past and ignoring outsiders who bring new ideas probably means you’ll miss out on some opportunities. As they put it….rejecting everything new – the mantra of the cave dwellers…citizens against virtually everything…is a community killer.

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