Alan, Grea to hear from you and welcome!
You project sounds ambitious and unprecedented. It sounds like you'll be encountering some unique challenges, or at least some common challenges on a different scale. The biggest challenge I foresee is in successfully fostering healthy, organic communities in each of the areas where spaces are planned. You would do well to reach out to local communities and individuals and empower them to help plan and build each of the spaces, so they have strong local roots. I'd love to speak with you further and learn more; please feel free to email me off-list. Best of luck and keep us posted! Cheers, Tony On Aug 2, 2009, at 5:08 PM, "alan.pruitt" <[email protected]> wrote: > > Hello Coworking Community: > > I am the Director of a non-profit economic development agency called > Western Arizona Economic Development District (WAEDD) that represents > 23,502 square miles in La Paz, Mohave, and Yuma counties in Arizona. > WAEDD is the pubic liaison portal for the U.S. Economic Development > Administration (EDA) and receives all of its funding from the federal > government and community membership fees. > > I am forming a Rural Enterprise Accelerator Program (REAP) that will > incorporate Coworking in several rural communities as the second tier > of a business incubator program for under-served rural economic > communities. > > I am fortunate to have higher education support from three different > colleges and the Arizona Small Business Development Center (SBDC) > network. I also have some heavy lift from other non-profit and > workforce development agencies. Public held well-known corporations > are also pledging their support for rural Coworking spaces. > > I am open to suggestions from any Coworking site and input from more > experienced Coworking mentors in the group. > > I have been lurking for about a year in the Coworking world and its > now time for next steps. > > I look forward to any and all input -- and I would like to "pay > forward" any of my lessons learned in this process. > > Cheers! > > Alan Pruitt > Yuma AZ > alan.pruitt AT waedd DOT info > http://www.waeddblog.info > > > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Coworking" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/coworking?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
