Who are your customers?  Who will use your product or service? What is their age, location, and income level? Knowing your customer will help you better serve them. Today I'm sharing some ideas that Josh at 2nd Wind Music Store in Fostoria, Ohio is using in his business.  Josh was ...

Ah. . . Sunday afternoon. I’m not sure there is any more delicious time of the week. Just by the nature of when it falls during our seven-day week, and the way our culture has evolved, Sunday afternoon is unique. It’s a time to do what we want, to relax, perhaps, to see our friends and ...

When I was a youngster I read everything I could… including signs. I was particularly intrigued by a sign I saw on buildings in some Iowa towns: “Odd Fellows Hall.” I had heard my parents say of someone a bit different, “He’s really odd.” In my limited understanding of the world ...

Is small scale manufacturing even possible in your town?  Just what is small scale manufacturing?  It's the artisan makers, the prototyping to small scale, it's the production at scale, the makerspaces and the shared commercial kitchens and workshops.  You'd be looking for craft ...

Wherever people fish anywhere in North America, and that's almost everywhere, there's an excitement right now about fishing. Fall is a wonderful season to be on the water trying to get a fish to bite. And, if you put your bait in front a fish, chances are good that it will eat that bait. In ...

So here we are in September. The official summer season is almost over. Autumn officially begins on September 23 and then we know that winter isn’t too far away. We Iowans are subjected to the extremes of weather – from beastly hot, humid summers to bone-chilling winter cold ...

Recently I read an article on finding your place, which got me to thinking about the various ways we talk about our place and how that changes during the travel of life. Take the phrase “There’s no place like home.” Does that mean a real, physical place, or is it wherever the ...

Occasionally I read something that really speaks to me. Maybe you’ve had that experience, too, when a piece feels like it’s targeting you individually-- addressing what’s been on your mind, perhaps, or just appealing to your sense of humor or resonating with where you are at the ...

One of the news stories getting air time and ink in Iowa this summer was the report that Iowans are now the fourth most obese people in the United States. According to the study by ConsumerProduct.com, 36.4 percent of Iowa’s adult population struggles with obesity. The study determined that ...

Autumn is in the air! Birds are gathered on power lines, butterflies are getting together to prepare for their southerly journey, there have even been reports of tree leaves changing colors. Summer fishing is different than spring fishing, and fishing in the fall in several very important ...

It seemed a little creepy at first. Reading someone else’s mail just doesn’t feel right. After my mother passed away last November, one of my brothers came upon a stack of letters our father had sent to his parents during his training in the U.S. Army. I read them recently. Dad was ...

So there I was, sitting in my favorite camp dining hall in New Hampshire, with about 30 other central staff as we waited for our mid-summer banquet. The summer session was half over, campers and staff were gone for now, and the rest of us were just relaxing, kicking back before we were soon ...

A few days ago I went to a small gathering to celebrate the birthday of a friend. Keep in mind that the other women there were all about my age, so it was nothing rowdy or boisterous, to say the least. We had a nice time visiting, taking some time to catch up with each other, and, of course, ...

That sweet new baby you adore ̶ he/she is selfish, self-centered and ill-tempered. Just watch that baby when it’s time to eat or have a diaper changed. Or when big sister takes his binkie. We are all born that way but early in life, our parents work to change us. From the time we ...

I grew up on a farm near a town of 141 people. We'd ride our bikes the four miles into town with our dollar bill and head to the little grocery store. My friend's Dad owned the store and he'd watch us with eagle eyes. For that one dollar we could buy a Coke and 25 pieces of candy. There was a ...

How much pop did you drink when you were a kid? For many of my generation the amount consumed was low… very low. The topic came up over lunch with a cousin and her husband recently. In my parental home we never had pop. On a rare occasion when he went to Everett Thompson’s DX gas station ...

It's the time of year that we Iowans do our annual celebrating at local community celebrations, festivals, block parties and county fairs. And we're now about in the middle of the queen of them all: the Iowa state fair. It is quite the phenomenon, this traditional celebration of our state. ...

It was almost a year ago last summer that I got to spend a day on the water chasing largemouth bass with Mike Frisch. Some, maybe much of the time, when we think about late summer fishing for largemouth we think weedlines and crankbaits or jigworms. However, throwing artificial frogs in ...

Until my family moved to Sioux City in 1974 I had never set foot in the state of South Dakota. I knew a few things about the state as a number of East Frisian (my ethnicity) immigrants had moved there in the 19th century. My grandparents and others of their generation would talk about going to ...

In case you aren’t aware, in just a few days we can all celebrate International Cat Day. Thursday is our chance for a full 24 hours of recognition of one of humanity’s oldest and most beloved pets. Even so, it wasn’t until 2002 that the International Fund for Animal Welfare joined ...