Carroll Daily Times Herald:  Rebecca McKinsey, Staff Writer
A business website wasn’t on Dixon and Karie Cole’s radar.
The manager and owner of L&M Bowl in Manning had a mass texting service they used to keep customers updated on specials, and that was about as far as the business’s technology went, Dixon Cole said.
But when a Drake University web development class joined with Manning to create websites for 15 area businesses, as part of a two-year partnership between the city and the university, the Coles got on board.
Now, lmbowlinc.com is the result — along with 14 other websites that Manning businesses were able to have designed for free.
Dixon Cole plans to continue to tweak and work with the website and to use it to further the business down the road — he’d been meaning to figure out the logistics of a business website but hadn’t gotten around to it yet.
“Through Main Street and these students, it was kind of a no-brainer to say yes,” he said.
The class assigned at least three students to each business, and the teams worked with the business owners to track down company information, history, hours and other pertinent details.
“Some of these businesses didn’t have a site, and didn’t have the time, knowledge or skill (to make a website),” said Main Street Manning Board President Ron Reischl, who was involved with the project from Manning’s development side. “What the students provided was the knowledge and ability to build a web page.”
In the end, the business owners paid only to host the sites, with the labor and design offered for free through the class — the students’ payment was a class grade. Each owner also received instructions about how to change information on his or her site.
“It’s kind of invigorating to engage with these students,” Reischl said. “They’re generally excited about what they’re doing.”
Reactions to the sites were mainly positive, he added.
“Most of these small-town businesses are run by one or two people, oftentimes a married couple,” he said. “They’re doing everything and simply didn’t have time to get a web page together, nor did they know how to do it. They very much appreciated having somebody come in to do this.”
The project strengthened the city’s ongoing relationship with Drake University, Reischl said.
And it was a valuable exercise for the students.
“I got my first job offer recently in part because I was able to show a real-world example of a website I designed in this class,” said Aaron Melton, a senior marketing and information systems major at Drake University, according to Drake’s website.
And that was the goal, said Alanah Mitchell, associate professor of information systems at Drake, who taught the class.
“I wanted the students to not only learn how to create websites but to also have the experience of creating them for clients, who had opinions and needs that the students had to learn and then implement,” she said, according to the website. “Now, when the students apply and interview for jobs, they can draw on this project and demonstrate their ability to connect with clients and deliver a final product.”
The final result was a plus for Manning’s business district as well.
“We had a number of businesses who had no (online) visibility — no Facebook page or website,” Reischl said. “This gave them a web presence and gives them an opportunity to move forward to strengthen our social media presence.”
Each site is a bit different and offers photos and details — of physical therapy and chiropractic offices, a café, car repair and service centers, an insurance agency, a veterans organization and more.
They’re tailored to their businesses, with colorful child-sized handprints scattered across the background of Manning Child Care Center’s site, and a rustic wood design backing the site for Spies Furs.
Dixon Cole has a customer rewards kiosk at the bowling alley that invites people to sign up for text-message notifications of specials and events, but the website is the first major online presence the company has, he said.
He spent time on the phone with the students on his website’s team, answering questions about the business, its history and its offerings and sending photos to use on the site. He appreciated the opportunity to have the website designed so that he only had to pay for the web hosting.
“It was an awfully nice service,” he said. “They did a great job, and we appreciate it very much.”


Link to article, listing of websites and pictures

Carroll Daily Times Herald: Rebecca McKinsey

This week, a Carroll County preservation project is being nationally recognized.
Manning’s historic revitalization of 17 downtown building facades is being recognized by the National Park Service in a year-long celebration of the 50th anniversary of the National Historic Preservation Act.
“The (act) is a cornerstone of American historic preservation,” the National Park Service website states. “It was created in the belief that too many important historic places were being lost to post-World War II development and construction, and that the federal government could (and should) play an important role in protecting places that embody the United States’ cultural heritage.”
The National Park Service has selected a preservation effort to highlight each week — one in each state. The weekly highlights are being featured through a social media campaign, #50for50.
“Features may focus on a particular city with a strong preservation ethic, a Tribe that is associated with a significant place within the state, or a bricks-and-mortar project that saved a building, structure, or object,” the National Park Service website states. “Basically, it could be anything.”
Manning’s downtown revitalization is Iowa’s chosen project and is being recognized this week. The announcement was a surprise to Manning city and economic development officials, said Ron Reischl, Main Street Manning board president.
The project, which has resulted in 17 buildings being remodeled and preserved so far, has been long in the making. The city pledged about eight years ago to undo some of the remodeling of its downtown buildings that had started in the ’70s, returning the city’s Main Street to its historic appearance, according to the State Historic Preservation Office of Iowa.
The city became a Main Street community in 2009 and began seriously looking at restoring Manning’s downtown. The Manning Commercial Historic District was listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and with a $500,000 Community Development Block Grant Downtown Revitalization Grant, supplemented with locally raised money, the city set about rehabilitating 17 downtown building facades.
“Manning is committed to our future by celebrating our past,” Reischl said. “The downtown revitalization spurred numerous building owners to renovate their interiors.”
Deb’s Corner Café, in particular, was drastically renovated after additional needed repairs were discovered.
“The front of that building was literally ready to fall down,” Reischl said. “We probably wouldn’t have a Deb’s Corner Café today.”
The project has spurred additional economic development in Manning, Reischl said, including the opening of The Market Place, a coffee shop and store owned by Manning alumna Jaime England.
A Manning office of Carroll law firm Eich, Van Dyke, Werden & Steger has also opened downtown, as well as One More Rep Fitness.
A fourth new business, BrickHaus Brews, is set to open in March.
“Happily, Manning has few empty storefronts today, and it seems that downtown is once again a place that those original German settlers would truly recognize,” wrote Paula Mohr, an architectural historian with the State Historic Preservation Office of Iowa.
Outside of downtown, the city also has seen additional development with the new Dollar General, Char-Mac Assisted Living and the plans for a Boulders Inn and Suites.
All of the preservation and revitalization work done in Manning was approved by the State Historic Preservation Office of Iowa, Reischl said.
“Manning has been bit by the preservation bug,” said preservation architect Pete Franks, who worked on the revitalization project, according to the State Historic Preservation Office of Iowa.
Although Manning and this project have received extensive statewide recognition, this is the first national nod for the city’s economic development work, Reischl said.
“It’s great to be recognized at a national level,” he said. “It brings visibility to our downtown and our German Hausbarn and encourages visits to Manning.”

Link to article and picture

“I got my first job offer recently in part because I was able to show a real-world example of a website I designed in this class,” said Aaron Melton, a senior marketing and information systems major at Drake University.That class was IS145: Website Technology, offered by Drake’s College of Business and Public Administration during the fall 2015 semester. Melton was one of 66 students in two sections of the class who worked in groups of three to four to develop websites for 15 small businesses. The businesses, all located in the town of Manning, Iowa, included a pharmacy, bowling alley, café, and gas station.
Alanah Mitchell, associate professor of information systems, designed the course to allow the students to combine their growing expertise in website technologies with their creative, research, and problem solving skills—all while meeting the business owners’ needs.
“I wanted the students to not only learn how to create websites but to also have the experience of creating them for clients, who had opinions and needs that the students had to learn and then implement,” said Mitchell. “Now, when the students apply and interview for jobs, they can draw on this project and demonstrate their ability to connect with clients and deliver a final product.”
After learning the basics of web design at the start of the semester, the students’ website projects kicked off with a visit from Ron Reishel, president of Main Street Manning, an organization that strives to revitalize and stimulate the town’s growth.
“Websites were a need we identified for our business community,” Reishel said. “We are a town of 1,500 people with small retail services that haven’t had time or money to develop their own websites. Small towns in Iowa are dying, so we’re always looking for projects and developments that help us stay vibrant.”
Each business wanted an online platform to list business hours, location, services, and other general information.

Manning and Drake University are in the second year of a two-year economic development project through the university’s partnership with the Iowa Economic Development Authority. Drake is also working with the city of Perry.
“[Through this program], the communities receive assistance from students and faculty across several disciplines to address community-identified needs,” said Maria Rohach, coordinator of Drake University’s global learning program. “Students, in return, gain hands-on professional experience while learning about challenges communities face and assets that set them apart.”
Melton, along with Jeremy Price, another student in the class, noted the challenge of developing an understanding of the clients and then choosing the right technology for their specific needs. But both see the long-term benefits of gaining these skills in college.
“This technology is a huge deal and is becoming a necessary skill, especially in the IT world,” Price said. “If you can learn HTML and JavaScript, it will put you way ahead of other students and make you 100 percent more marketable for jobs going forward.”
To cap off the project, the students made final tweaks to the sites after receiving feedback from their clients and then trained the business owners on how to manage and maintain the websites going forward.
“For many of the businesses, this was their initial foray into a website, and they were overall very happy and appreciative of the design work,” Reishel said. “It’s exciting to work with college students. They’re very energetic and bring new ideas to the table.”
Mitchell plans to offer the upper-level Website Technology class once per academic year.


Link to article

Carroll Daily Times Herald:  Rebecca McKinsey
Entrepreneurship ‘boot camp’ targets business-minded women
Although age, residence and experience separated them, the women who crowded into a Manning shelterhouse this past weekend all had a dream in common.
They all visualized themselves as entrepreneurs.
Some who already owned a business and others with simply an image in mind met on two Saturdays in January for Drake University’s Entrepreneurship Boot Camp for Women — the first held in a rural area out of Des Moines. The sessions were geared toward both women who already own a business and those who hope to start one down the road. More than 10 women from Crawford and Carroll counties attended the boot camp.
Those running the boot camp from Drake University included Deb Bishop, director of the Pappajohn Center for Entrepreneurship Outreach; Tom Swartwood, professor of practice in entrepreneurship; Stephanie Cardwell, administrative assistant; and Jaime Grandstaff, assistant professor of practice in accounting.
Ron Reischl, Main Street Manning’s board president, also helped coordinate the event.
“I have wanted for three years to initiate a business incubator,” Reischl said in a news release. “In my mind, a business incubator is a process, a support system, not a building. I am proud to support area women in their efforts to start a business or improve on the businesses they are running.”
Other presenters and participants included Greg Sextro with the Franck and Sextro Law Firm in Denison; Luke Vaughn, brand manager with Bluespace Creative Inc. in Denison; Jayne Armstrong, Iowa district director for the Small Business Administration; and Stefanie Koenig, business counselor with the Small Business Development Center.
During the second session, women offered two-minute pitches for their businesses, some with feedback from participants and leaders after earlier presentations. Their business ideas involved crafts, art, pets, social offerings and more.
“I’m very impressed, and I don’t say that lightly — because usually, I don’t like most pitches,” Swartwood said.
The session leaders from Drake University offered suggestions, including that those with new ideas take them on a smaller scale to local farmers markets or band together with other class participants, and pulled out their phones to look up books or resources for participants as they developed their ideas.
One of the attendees, Kelsey Hipnar, owns an art business in Denison — KASK Painting, originally called “Kelsey’s Art Space for Kids” — and hopes to expand her business and move to a new location in the coming months.
She offers a summer art camp for kids — and with the potbelly pigs, ponies, goats and sheep at her country home, there’s a “petting zoo for city slickers” to go along with the art projects — as well as classes for adults that offer canvas painting, pottery painting, glass-blowing and glass fusion.
The transition to completely running her own business was an unexpected one for Hipnar, who has a background in art therapy. She hoped the boot camp would provide her with practical business advice — for instance, the chance to tweak her business plan.
She also appreciates the fact that the class put her in contact with other business-minded local women.
During the second session, Hipnar offered a revised business pitch to her classmates after receiving feedback on her first. The new presentation included a new business name, Free Spirit Studio.
Her business would offer an affordable option for date nights, birthday celebrations and more, she said.
“People are looking for that connection, that deeper connection, face to face, building lasting memories and creating artwork to hang on your wall,” she said.
Hipnar added that the information she learned during the boot camp and the people she met will be valuable for her business as it expands.
The connections the women built during the class were important, Swartwood said.
“If you get nothing else out of this — (know) that there are a dozen like-minded women in this county,” he said. “That is really cool.”
Main Street Manning plans to work with the attendees to form a support group for female entrepreneurs in the area. Cardwell encouraged the boot camp participants to set up that type of group, referencing similar groups in Des Moines called “Startup Sisters.”
Drake University plans to host other boot camps around the state, including one in Perry in the spring, and organizers said Manning successfully served as a guinea pig for rural-area boot camps.
Reischl encouraged the women in attendance to move forward with their ideas and what they’d learned in the boot camp.
“Two weeks ago, I kicked us off with ‘Give yourself permission to dream,’” he said. “(Swartwood) took that a step further — give yourself permission to do it.”
Compared to previous Drake entrepreneurship boot camps, many more participants in this event were still at the idea stage and didn’t have their own business yet — and that was OK, Swartwood said.
“Life is way too short,” he said. “Why not? I don’t think anybody can give me a reason why you shouldn’t do this. Maybe not tomorrow. But nobody has described a clunker. And I’ve never said that to a group before.”

Link to article and pictures