Small businesses have to prioritize their resources on the activities that deliver the most impact.  With social media, choices and options can get overwhelming.  It’s easy to feel like you should have a presence on every social media channel.  It’s also easy to get lost in managing too many networks.

Two challenges facing communities are motivating people to get involved, and keeping people involved in a project. So often, in the first phases of a community project people are excited and enthusiastic about the prospects of change. But soon, when the progress of the project slows, people lose interest, feel overwhelmed and eventually quit. Communities rely on volunteers to meet the needs and wants of the community and it is important to foster this important resource.

When planning a community meeting, program or activity that brings a group of strangers together, it is very common for planners to want to jump into the business of the day and not bother with team-building or ice breaker activities.  However, it is these short, easy-to-plan activities that often have a huge impact on the outcome of the group’s actions.

What is in store for your community in the next five years? In the next decade? Communities are constantly changing, and hopefully the changes that are occurring are the best for your town. A good exercise for communities to think about the direction they are headed in is to create a "newspaper of the future."

Are you interested in establishing a community garden in your town?  Do you wonder where to start? It works well to find a team of people to help with such an endeavor.  Look for community members who are passionate about gardening or interested in helping people get access to food. Local garden club members or Master Gardeners, food pantries, churches and other human-service organizations are often interested in helping with these types of projects.

As you sit in a meeting, what are you doing? Planning a grocery list? Doodling in the margins of the agenda? Checking emails on your smartphone? Or are you actively engaged, fully listening, and thinking about what is going on around you?

Different cultures may each have their own slant on the traits and characteristics that add up to effective leadership but despite the differences, some commonalities do emerge. Leadership is typically defined as a process whereby an individual influences a group to achieve a common goal.  Leadership is also commonly acknowledged to be a fluid process.