Ideas from Interviews

Below is a list of suggestions gathered in our Three Things interviews. Feel free to comment on your favorite ideas.

1. Increase your education/state needs more residents with more than a high school education
2. Start your own business/create a culture of entrepreneurship
3. Mentor a child
(from the interview with Gov. Jennifer Granholm)

4. Buy local
5. Do something for someone else
6. Take pride in Michigan/remain optimistic about the state
(from the interview with Jeff Daniels)

7. Be proactive/get involved in your community
8. Be a good neighbor
9. Set a good example/be a good role model for the state’s youth
(from the interview with Mike Bishop)

10. Be honest about the state’s problems and offer solutions
11. Get involved in your community
12. Learn about issues affecting the state/become a more well-involved citizen
(from the interview with Rich Studley)

13. Don’t fear failure
14. Embrace creativity/support the arts
15. Think locally: support small business/grassroots efforts
(from the interview with Rick DeVos)

16. Get more involved in children’s education
17. Get the state’s youth population more fit, healthy and active
18. Make teachers more responsible
(from the interview with Freddie McGee)

19. Ensure that kids are safe and in a supported environment
20. Ensure that we have an appropriate safety net for the unemployed
21. Become more involved in ground-level decision-making, advocacy, and reform
(from the interview with Ismael Ahmed)

22. Instead of looking for jobs, be the jobs
23. Invest in young people through mentoring, especially in Southeast Michigan
24. Time Banking, the idea of trading services to put your value to use
(from the interview with Desiree Cooper)

25. Start a collective process to come together with your community, identify important issues, and understand the nuances and causes of those issues
26. Envision alternatives for creative problem solving by thinking artistically
27. Put those visions into practice by building an alternative, community-led institution informed by the first two steps
(from the interview with Invincible, who adapted the suggestions from a process used by Detroit Summer, a community organization in Detroit. She also suggested two upcoming events in Detroit, the Allied Media Conference and the U.S. Social Forum)

28. Count our blessings
29. Preserve and nurture what is valuable to us
30. Celebrate and participate in arts and cultural activities
(from the interview with Neil Woodward)

31. Become better citizens by turning off the TV and going to other sources for news and information
32. Go out of our way to find ways that we are the same, despite ethnic or religious differences
33. Read more, specifically to our children and grandchildren — and write more poetry
(from the interview with Thomas Lynch)

34. Develop a connection to people that are actively involved in their craft and are making a contribution
35. Work with students to keep oral traditions alive
36. Remember to pass important cultural milestones such a jazz music on to future generations
(from the interview with Geri Allen)

37. Consume local culture (at theaters, museums, bookstores, etc) in order to reinvent that culture
38. Support public school systems when the opportunity comes up in an election, to ensure diversity of education
39. Integrate the economy of Detroit into the rest of the state, or the entire state will continue to falter
(from the interview with Keith Taylor)

40. Reignite the entrepreneurial culture in the state
41. Change family expectations for people to finish high school and get some kind of higher education degree
42. Rebuild our public school system so that no one’s education is deterred by geography, race, or economic circumstance
(from the interview with Mary Sue Coleman)

43. Engage the next generation earlier
44. Create creative class cultural exchange program between Grand Rapids and Detroit
45. Encourage individuals to bring their ideas to life by providing mentorship
(from the interview with Tommy Allen)

46. Think about innovative ideas to create or improve something
47. Explore who would pay for the idea through individual market research
48. Take the risk of becoming an entrepreneur by starting your own business
(from the interview with Chris Peterson)

49. Support what we see as distinctive and competitive about Michigan
50. Put the economy in context, remember that we have many strengths and make the best of them
51. Speak for yourself and hold our legislators accountable by asking them to work for specific causes
(from the interview with John Bebow)