Published: October 24, 2009 10:34 pm      

Not too late to join ‘Live First’ discussion at DSC

It’s not too late to join the discussion of Rebecca Ryan’s book, “Live First, Work Second” currently under way at Dalton State College.

“Our group has grown, and so we’ve moved to a larger room,” said Pam Partain, director of Continuing Education. “We look forward to resuming the discussion Monday when dialogue will concentrate on young professionals and why they choose to stay — or leave our community.”

“We will focus on the lifestyle attributes that they identify as being most important to them, as well as talk about engaging them in new networking models such as Young Person Organizations (YPOs) which are less structured than Rotary Clubs and Kiwanis for professional networking,” Partain said.

Dalton Public Schools superintendent Jim Hawkins leads the discussion.

In her book, Ryan states that three out of four young professionals under the age of 28 say that living in a “cool community” is more important to them than a good job. As a result, increasing numbers of cities are working to develop their communities to be “talent magnets” for young professionals of the Knowledge Economy who, they hope, will be drawn to their “cool communities” with the hope then that companies will be drawn to those areas where talent tends to collect and accumulate. This model for economic development stands in contrast to the more traditional model in which an industry may be recruited by a community (often with financial incentives) with the belief that jobs will follow.

This Monday, discussion will concentrate on young professionals, and next Monday, Hawkins will lead a “Call to Action” during which “Next Step” ideas will be collected from the group to be presented to community leaders.

Anyone wishing to be part of the dialogue is welcome to join the group; you do not have to have read Ryan’s book to participate in the discussion. To register, visit www.daltonstate.edu/cce or call (706) 272-4454. The registration fee covers lunch this week and next.