A New American Town - Bentonville, Arkansas
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A New American Town - Bentonville, Arkansas
Solve for Yes: How Bentonville Inspires Change Worldwide
Get the inside scoop on the "Bentonville Best Practices Lab" Hear from Kalene Griffith, CEO of Visit Bentonville on the vision behind the program, as well as recent attendee, Amy Stearns, executive Director of Project 412 in Minnesota.
From speakers, activities, events, and tours to discovering hidden gems and indulging in unforgettable dining experiences, we plan a unique itinerary that showcases the very best of Bentonville and connects you with the right leaders. Get ready to experience the town like a local and uncover what makes it a top destination for outdoor enthusiasts, art lovers, and foodies alike!
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Welcome to a new American town. I'm Natalie with Visit Bentonville. Today's episode is all about impact, not just the kind we see in our own community, but the kind that sparks real change in towns across the country. The kind that sparks real change in towns across the country. Joining me are two incredible leaders who believe that ripple effect Kayleen Griffith, president and CEO of Visit Bentonville, and Amy Stearns, executive Director of Project 412 in Minnesota.
Speaker 1:In this conversation, we explore how Bentonville is helping shape that vision through the Bentonville Best Practices Lab, an initiative designed to share our city's playbook for building world-class trails, inspiring public art and creating a quality of life that people want to experience and replicate. You'll hear what brought Amy and her team to Bentonville, what surprised and inspired them most during their visit, and how the lessons learned here are already taking root back in Minnesota, plus hear more from Kayleen on how we work with our city to bring this vision to life. Whether you're a city leader, an advocate for trails and public spaces, or just curious about one community, this episode shows the power of collaboration, vision and good ideas in motion. Kayleen and Amy. Welcome to the show.
Speaker 3:Thank you. It's great to be here. I'm excited to get to talk to Amy.
Speaker 2:It's been a few months since we've last spoke it has, but it's always fun to connect with all of you down in Bentonville. I love it.
Speaker 1:So, starting off, amy, I wanted to know, from your perspective as a community leader, how do you define quality of life and how was that definition really brought to Bentonville? What made you want to come here?
Speaker 2:Well, I'm in Detroit Lakes, Minnesota, and we are in northwestern Minnesota. We are the land of 412 lakes, which is what our name, project 412, comes from. We're kind of standing on the history of that and leaning into that and trying to figure out how to make our community shine and make it absolutely the best place for those of us who are lucky enough to get to live here. It absolutely the best place for those of us who are lucky enough to get to live here. And so, from a quality of life standpoint, we are really looking at what do people want in a community? What makes a place be the best place to live? Because people have choices. Now they can live anywhere they want.
Speaker 2:And I'm in northern Minnesota right, we have true winter, which some people absolutely love, and it can be really, really fun, and we also have these dynamic and wonderful lakes. And so how do we make this a place where people can live their best life, that has the amenities and the opportunities that they want to grow their careers? And so when we were starting our organization our organization is young, we're only two and a half years old and so we were really trying to figure out who is doing what we want to do and who is doing it really well, and that's how we found Bentonville.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's amazing. Kayleen, do you have anything to add to why Bentonville is in the position to lead this effort?
Speaker 3:I think we have, I think, the same thing that 412 starting in two and a half years. I think we have visionary people and they have visionary people and I think it's when you look at other communities as best practices to learn from, which is what we've done for years. We look at other cities. When we're talking about trails, who's doing it? Well, how can we take what our assets are and feed from those? And I think Detroit Lakes same thing. I think they're looking at that outdoor amenities and the things that they have, you know really work well with what we have because of the natural state and the outdoors. And I think that's important, as you're looking at comparing yourself or aspiring to be what another city is doing, and I don't think you want to. You don't want to aspire to be that city. You want to aspire to be your city with your best amenities.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's amazing. Amy, do you want to talk a little bit about your experience here? It was last August, correct?
Speaker 2:We were actually in Bentonville. I've come twice actually. So our organization started in September of 2022. And right away we hit the ground running and we first visited Bentonville just a small group I think there were six or eight of us who came the first time and that was in October of 2022. And we loved it. And then we then we then we thought, okay, what can we learn from that?
Speaker 2:And we first got connected with Bentonville because of Gary Vernon, because of the work he had done with some trails. He had come up to Detroit Lakes and did some trails at our ski mountain and so then we started learning more. And then Kayleen and I started having some email and phone conversations and so we went in October of 2022. And then in the spring of 2024, we brought about goodness. I think we had about 30 people that came down to Bentonville and we put it out to our community, to some civic leaders, some business leaders, some just passionate people about Detroit Lakes of all different ages, and we said come and see what Bentonville is doing and how they're doing, how they're really leaning into outdoor recreation and public art and what can we learn from them. And that's when I connected with Kayleen and her staff and they put together just an incredible, almost like a mini conference for us. We had speakers and activities and events and it was outstanding.
Speaker 1:Wow, let's talk a little bit more about the range of people that were here. That sounds really awesome 30 people. What range of experiences were they bringing to the table?
Speaker 2:You know, if you were to look at demographics of Detroit Lakes, it really represented that. I mean, we had some young professionals, we had some middle career folks, we had some older folks and we had people in kind of all walks of life in terms of economic demographics, in experience, and people, just people really jumped at the chance to learn more about Bentonville and it was really cool to see the correlation between some of the things that Bentonville is doing that we could take and adapt to Detroit Lakes and just really over all the attitude. That's what I loved almost most of all of this. This, I believe Kayleen, you call it, you're solved for yes, and I actually had some little desk plates made for people that said how do we get to yes?
Speaker 2:Because so many times you are stuck in rules and regulations and whether it's zoning or just this is how we've always done it. You know that kind of mentality and I thought that was. I've never personally really had that mentality, but you know it's very easy for people to fall into that and it was great to see it embodied in all that Kayleen and her organization are doing, what Bentonville is doing, and just to see how that can infuse throughout a community, and so that's what I wanted to really bring back to DL and be like okay, how do we infuse this mentality of let's dream big? How do we get to, yes, how do we solve people's problems that might be smaller or might just be hindered by one little old regulation that's been on the books since 1932 or something?
Speaker 1:Yeah, as a member of the Visit Bentonville team, that is a huge core part of our mission. Kayleen, you want to talk more about that?
Speaker 3:Sure. So I think for years I grew up in a house that my mom and dad were very, very about hey, how do you make it happen? Type of mentality. And I was at a conference and someone was talking about the yes and and the yes, but philosophy. And I just came back and thought I'm always looking for bigger and bold ideas and I thought, how do I make this part of our philosophy within our community?
Speaker 3:So it it's not just you know my team, how do we start talking about that? How do we solve for yes? So it was just really easy for our team to do it on a day-to-day basis of looking at projects and somebody going, oh no, we can't do that. And I'm like, okay, why can't we? And they start going through those processes and then we start going, okay, what if we move it to this area? Or what if we do this?
Speaker 3:I think that sometimes you have to look at it and some people have to compromise, because the software, yes, might not work for everybody in every situation, but if you look at the whole package of an event or the experience, or the buy-in, why are we not solving for yes? If it's going to benefit our community and benefit our citizens. We should be looking at ways to make it happen, not ways to not make it happen. And I think let's not put roadblocks up where they're not roadblocks. Let's create that experience of just a positive solve.
Speaker 3:For, yes, philosophy makes all the difference and I think Amy, you said it just that mindset, when you start getting that mindset, man it, it makes the job so much more fun on a day to day basis because everybody's thinking like let's make it happen, rather than what are we going to do? How do we do this? What are you know? It's all those things. And I always said that it kind of brings your stress level up when you start thinking that way. But if you, if you start thinking the yeses, it really it's the snowball effect of just excitement by everybody and it's super fun to be in that environment when people are looking for the yes rather than looking for the no. 100%.
Speaker 2:I mean, I just love that so much and I come from a background where, for 20 years, I managed a performing arts center and in the world of improv it's always yes and and there's always the trust falls. It's like we can do this. We need to trust each other, we need to bring people together and make it happen. So I love it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's awesome. I love VanVille Best Practices because you guys really bring in so many people from across our community to create a one-of-a-kind experience, almost like a conference. Like Amy said, do you want to walk through the specific experience you created for them?
Speaker 3:Sure, and I don't have exactly what I can do. Let's talk a little bit about the best, just Bentonville's best practices. So one of the things that I love about it is I get to build a relationship with Amy first and foremost. You get to talk to them. You find out what is going well for them, what are their challenges, who are they bringing? Also, even going a little bit more detailed, I said Amy, amy, who's your biggest challenge? That is kind of not working in that.
Speaker 3:How can we support that initiative? How do we help guide that conversation in a positive way of really thinking, solve for? Yes, but I think it's us. Every single person is different, every single city is different. So we're making and if you want to call it a conference or a summit or a lab, we're making it unique for every single city. It's what are their, what are, who are the people they're bringing?
Speaker 3:And I think one of the things that I look at is like I think I loved Amy's group because we didn't only do just trails, because that's a lot of our best practices is our trail experience. What are we doing as a community to really elevate our community as a cycling destination? What I loved about theirs is. She started talking about cycling, she talked about trails, she talked about arts, she talked about economic development, quality of life. So we got to bring in a lot of people and their expertise and that's what we do.
Speaker 3:The best thing we do is I sit down with Amy and I say Amy, tell me about what are your challenges in the economic development world, what are your successes in economic development? And then we talked about what's going well in tourism, what's going well in trails and cycling, what's going well in arts, what are the challenges? So then when we talk to them, I give outlines to every speaker. Here's what their successes are, here's what their successes are, here's what their challenges are.
Speaker 3:So each speaker may have a form PowerPoint, but they know their talking points are gonna be a little bit different for each city. So we really make this unique for them and hopefully support their initiatives so that when they go back they have a success, they can count this as a successful trip, and I think that's important for us. And I think we also try to not just do speakers, we also give them tours within our community of things that they might want to emulate or they may want to showcase. So we make sure that we're showing them the things that they could go back and implement into their city. And, amy, is there anything else that I missed on that or something that maybe you and I talked about?
Speaker 2:No, you absolutely hit it. You know, it was really just great to have that variety because we were trying. Our little organization Project 412, is trying to hit on all these things. We focus on outdoor rec, we focus on public art, we focus on entrepreneurship and nurturing existing businesses as well as the new businesses, and it's been really great to take some of those best practices from Bentonville and see what we can use here. You know, I'm not sure there are too many new ideas anymore in the world and so it's always fun to see what somebody else is doing and then bring it back home and how can we adapt that?
Speaker 2:And I give a lot of presentations and I'm on different interviews fairly often, which is really fun, and I always throw credit back to Bentonville, because I always say so. We've been taking a page out of the book from Bentonville, because I always say so. We've been taking a page out of the book from Bentonville and you know this is their playbook. This is what they've been doing and this is how we've been taking it and making it our own here in Detroit Lakes and it is working. It's so fun to see.
Speaker 2:I mean, we've had a crazy big project with Thomas Dambo. He's a recycled artist out of Denmark. He's giant trolls that he did here and we've had this past year. I'm in a town of only 10,000 people and we had over 100,000 people come to see these trolls last year and we got named in Times List of World's Greatest Places to Visit because of this exhibition that he has here, and so it's one of those things where, like our city administrator said to me, well now we really need to bring it, we really need to elevate what we're doing, and it's great, and a lot of it is due to learnings we had and connections we made in Bentonville, and going out and doing those field trips is so important. I agree with you?
Speaker 1:Was there a particular moment that you can think of maybe a conversation, a walk, a meal where you felt like that light bulb go off and the trajectory of maybe that particular experience start?
Speaker 2:to culminate, I don't know if there was just one moment. I mean, we loved the opportunity to ride the trails, to see the coffee shop out in the middle in the park, you know, to stumble upon all the art that is. Every oh my goodness, what is it? Every quarter mile there's something new when you're on the trails. Crystal Bridges is phenomenal. The restaurants were great, the hotels were great, you know, it was kind of all of that.
Speaker 2:And then our last day, kayleen brought in a series of speakers who, who, like that was really cool because they would say something and we're like, well, we were there, we saw that, you know, they referenced something that we had already experienced. And the other part, that's always so good. And you guys know this from when you do your own travels. But you connect with people in a different way because you're not just sitting in a boardroom having a meeting, you are I mean, we're on a bicycle. We're almost running into a tree together. We have to laugh about that because we got going too fast down a hill, you know, and we still joke with different people who are on the trip about different things. That happened, you know, even at night when we're hanging out and visiting and having a shared meal or cocktail and that was the whole thing was so beneficial and just seeing how all of this was interwoven into what explore Bentonville does, what your downtown core is all about, and your trail, your connect, very connected trail system and your arts, it was great, just absolutely great.
Speaker 1:That's awesome, do you? So this is a question for both of you hospitable competitiveness that you can have.
Speaker 3:And I think what we're doing is we're creating opportunities for cities to learn and I think I feel like I value that. I think I've been in this industry for 20 years with Visit Bentonville and I think I still am learning from other cities on what is going well and what we could be doing better. But I think for us is that I think we're making people have aspirations to do big things. In a community that we were in when I started was 20,000 people. It's 67,000 people.
Speaker 3:I would never have thought of the things that we're doing that we could have done, and I think that's the kind of I'm hoping that when these cities come in, they look at our city and understand there's possibilities, there's hope and they can make a change if they come together and make that impact. And I think that's for me super rewarding and I love when I hear stories about how somebody has went back and implemented those experiences, or when they came to our community and I meet them somewhere else and they'll talk about their experience in Bentonville and what their community is doing now and I think those are the things that I see that it's changing and I hope, the mindset in some ways of solving for, yes, but I think it's that change within that community and how it's impacting so many people, because every community you're looking at the residents of those communities and you know they're getting to have a positive experience with that quality of life initiatives.
Speaker 1:Amy, would you like to add anything to that?
Speaker 2:Oh sure, I think that that togetherness is so big, that example that Bentonville set of involving the other regional communities together and thinking as the Northwest Arkansas region is so important. You know, I am by nature a bit of a competitive person when it comes to sports, but when it comes to our community, it is so important that we play with everyone in our region because what's good for the town that's 15 miles away is also good for Detroit lakes and I'm really trying to share that message in in my role with project for 12 to these other surrounding communities, because we can lift each other up, and I think that you guys have set an incredible example of that as well.
Speaker 1:There's definitely enough to go around, and it's really amazing to see how us sharing the information with other cities really does make an impact on real people and it's not just tourists. So it's amazing.
Speaker 2:Just to add to that a little bit. I mean, I just love that mindset of abundance you know that there is enough for everyone to go around rather than an abundance or a mindset of scarcity. But just to think that we can do big things. And some other communities have talked to me about like, how did you do this and what advice do you have? And one of the things I've told them is don't have too many meetings, get going, figure out what you want to do, bring the right people in together and try it, and if you make a little mistake, well, pivot and try something else 100%.
Speaker 1:Because you will make mistakes oh yeah, yes yes, we've made them, but I think that sometimes I think that sometimes our mistakes are our, our biggest learning opportunities.
Speaker 3:I think successes you can keep doing successes, but I think you learn, uh, from your mistakes. Um, they're usually much more impactful of that educational side of the experience.
Speaker 2:Isn't that so true? Even if they kind of you know smart a little bit, you know hurt a little bit, it's still like yeah, we've learned from that and okay, well, it was still like there was a nugget of an idea there. Let's figure out the right way to do it.
Speaker 1:Exactly. Do you have any examples of anything that you've kind of been redeemed from, any challenges that you like to share?
Speaker 3:Amy, do you want to go first? I'm sitting here trying to think of some of our challenges.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, sometimes it's just even in how you word something, whether it's in a press release or on your website or something, and it might be crystal clear to you and then when you take it from somebody who's not so in-depth in your own organization, they read it. You're like, well, that didn't make any sense at all. So sometimes you need to get that 10,000-foot view, need to get that 10,000 foot view. And one thing that's been really helpful to me is a few people have come forward occasionally when we've made a mistake and then I've said would you help me? If we have something, can I send it to you, will you give it a review or will you try this link? I just did this last night.
Speaker 2:I had to send out a link because I need a bunch of volunteers for something and I sent it to a woman who had corrected me one time and she has now become a friend, which is really wonderful and it was great. She checked the link for me and offered a couple of suggestions. And because we can't see or know everything you know, and we need all these other people who are choosing to live in our community to help us raise up the community. And I think one thing we're trying to do is cast a wide net and involve as many people as we can, and in so doing, it really gives people some ownership in what we're doing and in the community. I mean, we've found, like we have a new park we're working on and we've found that people are really taking care of the trash, which is amazing because you know, there's always littering right and we haven't had much of a problem with that, knock on wood, and I think it's because people feel some ownership on it.
Speaker 3:I agree with you. I think the number one I was sitting here trying to think of some things, and I think the major things for me were that things that have had challenges is sometimes making sure everybody has the information they need to be successful. Or we're working on a project and we've we've passed that on to four or five people and we should have passed it on to 10 people and those four were were our biggest cheerleaders and we just miss them. And I think that those mistakes I learned that early on that the more people that knew our plan and initiative, it made us so much more successful. And I think those are things that you know, you you want to.
Speaker 3:Sometimes you think you need to keep it close to the vest because it is going to be like you want it to be, your project. But I think one of the things I learned that the more people I have involved, it becomes our project and that most of those people know where it started or how it started, but it doesn't matter because it's a project that was a huge success. So I think the more people that are involved in it, the bigger the story is going to be, the bigger the success is going to be. So I think the more people that are involved in it, the bigger the story is going to be, the bigger the success is going to be, and I think I learned that early on in my career. Instead of keeping things closed, vested and kind of hiding and then coming out with something thinking it was a big deal, it was much more impactful when we had more people involved and I think that was a huge learning moment early on in my career.
Speaker 2:Oh, absolutely. That helps so much, especially you know just the way like algorithms are on social media, the more people who know what we're doing, they share it and it reaches more people, and it's that's a great thing.
Speaker 1:Absolutely Well. We're pretty much all out of time right now. Do you either have closing remarks that you want our audience to know?
Speaker 2:Well, I'm so grateful to the Explore Bentonville group, to Kayleen, to all the folks in Bentonville who have been making hard decisions and doing some really difficult, challenging things and are setting great examples and best practices for those of us who are coming into this more recently. And I'm really grateful for your open bookness, that you're willing to share your learnings with us so that we can maybe be a step above where we would be without you. It's just been great.
Speaker 3:Amy, I think that's great and we love that we got to. You were one of our nine communities that we did last year and we had one country, austria last year. We've already done two with Japan this year and then we have one with a group from Wyoming and another group from Kansas coming. So at this point we have about four for this year so far, but, like you, sometimes it's a three to six month. Sometimes we have people that say, hey, we're coming in a month. So we have a variety of that, but we're always open to hosting cities and hopefully, I think, as Natalie said, we're impacting communities throughout the world. It used to be just the United States, but now we're the world and it's really exciting to be able to share our story with others and hopefully it impacts those communities in a positive way.
Speaker 2:Thank you, that's fantastic. I love that you are international right in Bentonville.
Speaker 1:I love it. Thank you both so much for joining us Once again to our listeners. If you are new to this channel, don't forget to subscribe and follow us on social media. At Visit Bentonville Check out our website, visitbentonvillecom to learn all the information about how you can come Visit Bentonville. Check out our website, visitbentonvillecom to learn all the information about how you can come to Bentonville and have a fabulous experience. Thanks so much.