Phil Hardwick

The Mississippi Center for Public Policy just announced a novel service as follows: MStweets .org is a new service that allows the public to see the Twitter postings (or "tweets") of Mississippi legislators. It also allows non-legislators to share their tweets on Mississippi government and politics by using the # MSTWEETS hash tag. MStweets .org is: Easy to use Non-Partisan No cost to you

Admiral William Frederick Halsey is credited with saying, “There are no great men. Just great challenges which ordinary men, out of necessity, are forced by circumstance to meet.” Leadership is often as much about opportunities for leadership as it about leaders. Often great leaders emerge in a crisis. What a person does when Plan A – the strategic plan – goes awry is a real test of leadership. In other words, a leader is someone who manages Plan B. And let use not confuse Plan B with the contingency plan. Plan B in the context I refer to is when there is no alternative plan. NOTE: The above is from the draft of “The ABC’s of Economic Development for Small Town Mayors,” by Phil Hardwick.

There are basically two approaches in the process of creating an economic development strategy for a community. The first approach is to determine what the community needs in order to be successful. It looks at things that the community does not have now, but if it had them would stand a good chance at economic success. For example, one rural community that I worked with last year determined that most citizens had to drive to another county for basic health care. It concluded that it needed a health clinic. Having a health clinic would keep money in the local area, and may even bring in more money. It was something that the community did not have now. Therefore, the strategy was to bring in a health clinic. The other approach does just the opposite. It looks at the resources that the community has now that it can capitalize on. The key phrase here is “that it can capitalize on.” I have found that two of the more common things that communities overlook as asset