Abstract

The business world is replete with companies that have successful marketing campaigns, but can the successes of the business world translate into successes for communities? In an era of intensifying place competition, communities, like businesses must not only be superior in some way, they must engage in strategic market planning. But how can they do it? Where do they start? Communities have the need and universities have the means; they have the resources to help communities deal with the place-making dilemma through research, teaching, and outreach programs. This paper explores how a multi-disciplinary collaboration between two institutions of higher learning and a community in Minnesota jumpstarted the connection between service learning for students and a community’s successful public information effort. The result was a win-win situation: the students gained 21st century skills and valuable real world experience while the community gained timely, professional, products to successfully compete for place recognition.