10th annual Minnesota Rural Summit!
Thriving by Design!
a Minnesota Sesquicentennial Kickoff!
May 10 & 11, 2007 May 11 is statehood day. We will be one year from the 150th anniversary of Minnesota statehood.
(May 11, 1858)
Place: Cragun’s Resort & Conference Center, Brainerd, Minnesota
SUMMIT OVERVIEW
“Thriving by Design” would seek answers to this question:
After 150 years of statehood, if you could start over from scratch, knowing what we know now and the tools we have, combined with the ingenuity of our people, and facing the global pressures around us, how would you "design" Minnesota today to be economically and environmentally sustainable, to carry on with our high quality of life well in the 21st century?
Concept: At the 10th annual Rural Summit, help Minnesota community leaders learn how design and planning can be used to integrate complex development issues into clear strategies that position their communities and regions to thrive well into the 21st century. Use sesquicentennial kickoff year to motivate reflection and action for today and into the future. Implement a three-step strategy to engage citizen involvement and outreach from higher education and private sector design, economic development and planning professionals.
- Pre-Summit design competition (Winter/Spring 2007)
- Minnesota Rural Summit on Thriving by Design (May 10 & 11, 2007)
- Post-Summit regional design, development, and planning charrettes for Minnesota’s Sesquicentennial (Minnesota 2058 - Thriving by Design, Summer 2007 through May 2009)
Rationale: The 2007 Rural Summit and pre- and post-activities takes advantage of an opportunity and responsibility we have to make the most of the upcoming 150th anniversary of Minnesota's statehood (May 11, 1858). And we can use the opportunity to examine the last goal of five (and wrap them all together) that we set back in the 2000 Rural Summit in Rochester, with the help of the 2000 keynote speaker Mark Drabenstott, VP of the Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank and director of the Center for the Study of Rural America. (http://www.kansascityfed.org/ruralcenter/mainstreet/MSE_0300.pdf )
He spoke then on "New Rural Policies for a New Century" -- about the need for us in the rural development world to consider new, integrated policy directions, including:
- closing the digital divide
- energizing entrepreneurs
- leveraging the new agriculture
- boosting human capital
- sustaining the rural landscape.
For the past five summits since, we have tried to stick to those areas -- and included an important tie to health care. We have stressed communications and information technology, innovation, entrepreneurship, and strengthened connections between urban and rural people and communities.
The 10th annual Rural Summit will use the process and context of design to wrap all five elements together, to help Minnesota Thrive by Design well past our state's 150th anniversary and into the next generation of communities and leaders.
Precedence 50 years ago
Minnesota leaders planned three years out before the Centennial of the state in 1958. They made the Centennial a springboard for engaging every county and every citizen who wanted to celebrate our history, but perhaps more importantly, encouraged everyone to help Minnesota plan for future progress comprehensively across industry, agriculture, transportation, education, conservation, science and technology and more. They used it as an opportunity to position Minnesota as a national leader in policy and practice towards a high quality of life -- one that we have enjoyed for many years and need to keep investing in and planning for.
Fifty years later, we have that same extraordinary opportunity. So let's make the most of it. If you have the time and some patience, you can read thru the speech from the 2006 Summit and Small Town Symposium, which lays out the context for the thinking behind the 2007 Summit theme. Here's the link: http://www.minnesotaruralpartners.org/2006summit/JLeonardkeynoteSummit06.pdf
Speech excerpt:
“The Design Economy: The challenge in all of this is that in today’s world, everything relates. We must manage the complexity of factors in such a way as to channel the creative chaos into productive actions. The process of design can help us channel many pieces into a manageable whole.
Roger Martin, the dean of the business school at the University of Toronto writes that, ‘We are seeing the emergence of the design economy – the successor to the information economy, and, before it, the service & manufacturing economies.’ In a global economy, he says, elegant design is becoming a critical competitive advantage.
Dan Pink, author of the book, A Whole New Mind – Moving from the Information Age to the Conceptual Age is quoted in the same article. He says that, ‘The future belongs to the empathizers, pattern recognizers and meaning makers.’
These people – artists, inventors, designers, storytellers, big picture thinkers – help bring design thinking to our current fragmented world to unite pieces into an understandable whole.
Design is central to gaining a competitive advantage. I would argue it is also an essential element for communities to be competitive and sustainable in the 21st century.”
--Jane Leonard, president of Minnesota Rural Partners, June 6, 2006, Morris, MN.
Rural Summit 2007 elements:
The Summit will be an intense, all-community briefing and training time to help bring everyone up-to-speed on the following elements to help communities, regions, and our state Thrive by Design:
- Economic & demographic realities and future trends, including Community Entrepreneurship strategies, impact and opportunities of our Aging population, New Minnesotans and workforce
- Information & Communications Technology realities and future trends
- Health Care realities and future trends
- Education realities and future trends, including the impact of school age population declines on K-12 , higher education, and workforce
- Physical landscape – built & natural environment: land use, transportation, water quality, housing, “Main Street” and more
- Design & Planning tools and processes – to help “figure all this out” and do something to proactively manage the transformative change around us.
The Summit will feature winners of the pre-Summit design competition, to give us inspiration for the future, and we will also start planning for the post-Summit design, development and planning charrettes.
Pre-Summit Design Competition: Prior to the Summit, from January through April 2007, Minnesota Rural Partners, the Minnesota Design Team, and the Summit Planning Team will host a design competition by region and statewide to dig into the Thriving by Design question on page one. We’ll showcase the resulting ideas at the Summit to help carry through its “Thriving by Design” theme to promote interdisciplinary design and planning as integral components of community and economic development. We’ll also incorporate them into the follow-up in-depth regional design and planning charrettes around the state – Minnesota 2058/Thriving by Design -- led by the University of Minnesota Center for Rural Design, to engage more citizens and communities into the Thriving By Design process heading towards the Sesquicentennial celebration.
For the pre-Summit design competition, we seek teams of people working across disciplines (such as landscape architecture alongside economic development and health care) to submit their design ideas addressing Minnesota comprehensively, by region or area, and/or looking at specific systems, such as telecommunications, transportation, land use, health care, education, business, government, etc. They should be inclusive of rural and metro, youth and vital aging, and the diversity of Minnesota today.
Summit Follow-up - Regional Planning, Development, and Design Charrettes – Minnesota 2058-Thriving by Design: The French word, "Charrette" means "cart." It is used to describe the final, intense work effort expended by art and architecture students to meet a project deadline. It comes to us from the 19th century, where instructors circulated a cart, or “charrette”, to collect final drawings while students frantically put finishing touches on their work.
In the 21st century, Minnesota doesn’t have a state planning agency to help communities deal with the increasing complexities of community and economic development. Small communities especially are burdened with planning and economic development issues for which they have little or no staff. The regional design charrettes following the Summit (from late 2007 through early 2009) will provide each region with a blueprint for managing the transformative change in the economic, demographic and physical landscapes. Local communities will be able to participate in these charrettes, with teams of multi-disciplinary design and development professionals organized by the University of Minnesota Center for Rural Design, Minnesota Rural Partners, and the Minnesota Design Team. The design, development and planning charrettes will follow the successful tradition of the Minnesota Design Team’s community design process: it combines up-to-date intelligence on-the-ground and trend data with creative, intense work sessions and community meetings and discussions. The collaborative planning and design process harnesses talents and energies from across disciplines and from local knowledge to create and support a feasible plan to help communities thrive.
Summit organizers will be inviting all of the Minnesota communities who have participated in the Minnesota Design Team process (since 1984 there have been over 100 Minnesota communities) to the Summit and to the follow-up charrettes so they can be recognized for their foresight in integrating design process and economic development strategy. They have already experienced how design not only transforms a sense of place but can also bring together seemingly unrelated community and economic elements in one comprehensive blueprint for the future.
Conclusion: In this regard, all of these activities: the pre-Summit design competition, the Rural Summit on Thriving by Design, and the post-Summit design, planning, development charrettes, will position Minnesota communities, regions, and the state as a whole, united entity, to Thrive by Design as we move into our next 150 years.
Summit Lodging cost: $115.56 single or double (includes sales tax) for one night
Registration fee:
$185 per person early bird (register by April 1), includes meals
$200 April 1 to May 1
$225 After May 1
Contact Information and Registration for Summit, Pre-Summit Design Competition, and Post-Summit Regional Design Charrettes:
Up-to-date information and registration online at: http://www.minnesotaruralpartners.org/2007_summit/index.html
People to contact:
Jane Leonard (sponsors and general information on Competition, Summit, & Charrettes)
651-645-9403
jleonard@minnesotaruralpartners.orgDenise Pfeifer (Summit exhibits, registration questions)
507-828-5559
dpfeifer@minnesotaruralpartners.orgLori Lippert (design competition)
651-645-9403
Lorilippert@comcast.netDewey Thorbeck (Minnesota 2058-Thriving by Design Regional Charrettes)
612-624-9273
thorb001@umn.edu