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11 Challenges to Jump-Start Your New Year

You're busy, so we're saving you some time. Following are 11 Challenges to make you a better Cool Community leader and jump-start your community's path to progress:

1. Quit talking about it and do it: invite a professional of color to the decision-making table (i.e. your board of directors) to help build a cool, diverse community;

2. As above, invite a young professional (under 35) to the same decision-making table;

3. Buy every single birthday, anniversary, holiday and "just because" gift or card from a local merchant or artist;

4. Have monthly coffee, breakfast or lunch at a funky Third Space. Extra credit for going with someone who looks, smells, or thinks differently than you;

5. Start evaluating your community based on the metrics that matter to the next generation of talent. (Hint: Developers may love strip malls but they're not on the cool community map for young talent. Parks, trails and recreation areas are another matter...)

6. Invite everyone in your office to sign up for our Next Cities newsletter and use it to spark a different dialogue about your community's development;

7. Put these books on your reading list: The Death and Life of Great American Cities (J. Jacobs); Bobos in Paradise (D. Brooks); The Rise of the Creative Class (R. Florida).

8. Listen to some of the great radio interviews archived at http://www.smartcityradio.com/smartcityradio/

9. Attend your local Young Professionals group. This is especially important if you no longer feel like a young professional. If you don't have a YP group, sniff around and start one;

10. Host a Diversity Dinner. Invite 5-10 "diverse" people to your house for dinner. Ask them to bring a dish to pass from their heritage. (I'm doing this in Milwaukee, and it's one of the most enriching personal experiences I've had!)

11. Take a field trip to a start-up company. Take the tour; listen to their story. Let their passion, innovation, and energy drip all over you. Learn the lessons. Be inspired. Start-ups are the gas in the economic development tank of our cities.