On October 15, 2024, Main Street leaders from across the country gathered in Nevada, Iowa, for the first day of the Community Transformation Workshop, an intensive and interactive two-day educational experience offered by the Main Street America Institute.
Informed by participant feedback and current efforts to refresh the Main Street America Institute, this year’s workshop featured many improvements. Notably, new and improved data products were unveiled, giving participants something concrete and personalized to bring back to their communities. At the same time, key components were retained — most importantly, exploring and learning with local Main Streets. I was fortunate to attend this CTW, and I feel both inspired and invigorated by the experience.
New Data Products
For this workshop, Main Street America’s Research team unveiled the Data Snapshot. This new infographic-style data packet is more visual, digestible, and shareable than our previous data presentations. Featuring data specific to Nevada, Iowa, the Data Snapshot compiled demographic, economic, tourism, and survey data from Esri, Placer.ai, U.S. Census, and the Main Street Community Survey. Further, each participant received a personalized mini-Data Snapshot that featured many of the same data points from their communities.
With their community’s data in their hands, participants were able to apply market analysis techniques presented at the workshop and think critically about whether the data in their mini-Data Snapshot reflected what they saw in their communities and how it could shape their transformation strategy.