November 1, 2006
On May 11, 2008, Minnesota will celebrate its Sesquicentennial, 150 years of statehood. In preparation for this historic event, the 10th annual Minnesota Rural Summit will host “Thriving by Design! A Minnesota Sesquicentennial Kickoff!” on May 10 & 11, 2007 at Cragun’s Resort & Conference Center in Brainerd, MN. Thriving by Designwould seek to answer 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?
Prior to the Summit, Minnesota Rural Partners, the Minnesota Design Team, and the Summit Planning Team will host a design competition to start to dig into this question. We’ll showcase the resulting ideas at the Summit, followed by a series of regional design workshops, around the state – Minnesota 2058 -- 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.
We seek your financial support in any and/or all of these initiatives.
Why become a sponsor of the competition and 2007 Minnesota Rural Summit?
We want to include you in the group of thoughtful, responsible stewards of Minnesota’s future, as were Minnesota’s leaders 50 years ago for Minnesota’s Centennial. In the years surrounding the Centennial in 1958, their actions and investments propelled Minnesota into the prosperous place it is today. Minnesota leaders planned three years out before the Centennial. 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 the Centennial energy 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. Will you join us in support of these kickoff activities – the design competition, the Summit, and the follow-up regional design and planning sessions?
You may be asking, why design? Because many leading thinkers and business leaders are realizing that design may very well be the competitive edge that Minnesota needs to compete in a global economy, especially as we enter a period of rapid social, demographic, technological and economic change. 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 larger context for the thinking behind the 2007 Summit theme. Here's the link: http://www.minnesotaruralpartners.org/2006summit/JLeonardkeynoteSummit06.pdf
Otherwise, here’s an excerpt:
“The Design Economy: 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
Furthermore, we can use the motivation of the Sesquicentennial, and the 10th annual Rural Summit, to examine the last goal of five (and wrap them all together) that we set back in the 2000 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: 1. Closing the digital divide, 2. energizing entrepreneurs, 3. leveraging the new agriculture, 4. boosting human capital, and 5. 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 -- as we have stressed communications and information technology, innovation, entrepreneurship, and strengthened connections between urban and rural people and communities.
The 10th annual Summit will use the process and context of design to wrap all five elements together, to sustain the rural economic, social and environmental landscape, to help Minnesota Thrive by Design well past our state's 150th anniversary and into the next generation of communities and leaders.
We hope you will consider investing in the Summit and its pre- and post-Summit initiatives as we help kickoff strategies that will position communities and regions to thrive well into the 21st century.
Sponsorship Consideration
We need your support to help run the design competition and keep the Summit affordable to a wide range of citizens and organizations, particularly those of varying age and income levels. I have enclosed a sponsor level description sheet and contributions form for your careful consideration. Please contact me if you have any questions. And thank you in advance!
Sincerely,
Jane Leonard
President
Minnesota Rural Partners, Inc.
651-645-9403
jleonard@minnesotaruralpartners.org
www.minnesotaruralpartners.org