Rural Poll

Jamie Bright Author

09/26/2024 Added

3 Plays

Description

Learn about the Rural Poll, hear some highlights from recent reports, and listen to attendees give input on potential future topics for the survey. Recorded 1/10/2024.

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[00:00:00.000]Thank you.
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[00:09:02.080]Good morning, Becky.
[00:09:16.380]Good morning.
[00:09:18.600]Are you feeling better today?
[00:09:20.320]A little bit.
[00:09:21.700]Still working from home.
[00:09:24.260]Mary said she was going to be home.
[00:09:32.060]She's going to be home soon to join.
[00:09:32.520]She's going to be home soon to join.
[00:10:02.500]She's going to be home soon to join.
[00:10:32.480]She's going to be home soon to join.
[00:10:36.480]Let's go around and do quick introductions.
[00:10:40.480]I think we have enough people on we can do them in person.
[00:10:42.480]I think we have enough people on we can do them in person.
[00:10:44.480]Let's see.
[00:10:46.480]I'll leave the presenters until the last.
[00:10:48.480]Jordan, why don't you start?
[00:10:50.480]Perfect.
[00:10:52.480]Thanks, Jamie.
[00:10:54.480]I'm Jordan Dietrich.
[00:10:56.480]I'm the executive director of Twin Cities Development which is an economic development organization in western Nebraska.
[00:10:58.480]I'm Jordan Dietrich.
[00:11:00.480]I'm the executive director of Twin Cities Development which is an economic development organization in western Nebraska.
[00:11:02.480]I'm Jordan Dietrich.
[00:11:04.480]I'm the executive director of Twin Cities Development which is an economic development organization in western Nebraska.
[00:11:06.480]I'm Jordan Dietrich.
[00:11:08.480]I'm the executive director of Twin Cities Development which is an economic development organization in western Nebraska.
[00:11:10.480]I'm Jordan Dietrich.
[00:11:12.480]I'm the executive director of Twin Cities Development which is an economic development organization in western Nebraska.
[00:11:14.480]I'm Jordan Dietrich.
[00:11:16.480]I'm the executive director of Twin Cities Development which is an economic development organization in western Nebraska.
[00:11:18.480]I'm Jordan Dietrich.
[00:11:20.480]I'm the executive director of Twin Cities Development which is an economic development organization in western Nebraska.
[00:11:22.480]I'm Jordan Dietrich.
[00:11:24.480]I'm the executive director of Twin Cities Development which is an economic development organization in western Nebraska.
[00:11:26.480]I'm Jordan Dietrich.
[00:11:28.480]I'm the executive director of Twin Cities Development which is an economic development organization in western Nebraska.
[00:11:30.480]I'm Jordan Dietrich.
[00:11:32.480]I'm the executive director of Twin Cities Development which is an economic development organization in western Nebraska.
[00:11:34.480]I'm Jordan Dietrich.
[00:11:36.480]I'm the executive director of Twin Cities Development which is an economic development organization in western Nebraska.
[00:11:38.480]I'm Jordan Dietrich.
[00:11:40.480]I'm the executive director of Twin Cities Development which is an economic development organization in western Nebraska.
[00:11:42.480]I'm Jordan Dietrich.
[00:11:44.480]I'm the executive director of Twin Cities Development which is an economic development organization in western Nebraska.
[00:11:46.480]I'm Jordan Dietrich.
[00:11:48.480]I'm the executive director of Twin Cities Development which is an economic development organization in western Nebraska.
[00:11:50.480]I'm Jordan Dietrich.
[00:11:52.480]I'm the executive director of Twin Cities Development which is an economic development organization in western Nebraska.
[00:11:54.480]I'm Jordan Dietrich.
[00:11:56.480]I'm the executive director of Twin Cities Development which is an economic development organization in western Nebraska.
[00:11:58.480]I'm Jordan Dietrich.
[00:12:00.480]I'm the executive director of Twin Cities Development which is an economic development organization in western Nebraska.
[00:12:02.480]I'm Jordan Dietrich.
[00:12:04.480]I'm the executive director of Twin Cities Development which is an economic development organization in western Nebraska.
[00:12:06.480]I'm Jordan Dietrich.
[00:12:08.480]I'm the executive director of Twin Cities Development which is an economic development organization in western Nebraska.
[00:12:10.480]I'm Jordan Dietrich.
[00:12:12.480]I'm the executive director of Twin Cities Development which is an economic development organization in western Nebraska.
[00:12:14.480]I'm Jordan Dietrich.
[00:12:16.480]I'm the executive director of Twin Cities Development which is an economic development organization in western Nebraska.
[00:12:18.480]I'm Jordan Dietrich.
[00:12:20.480]I'm the executive director of Twin Cities Development which is an economic development organization in western Nebraska.
[00:12:22.480]I'm Jordan Dietrich.
[00:12:24.480]I'm the executive director of Twin Cities Development which is an economic development organization in western Nebraska.
[00:12:26.480]I'm Jordan Dietrich.
[00:12:28.480]I'm the executive director of Twin Cities Development which is an economic development organization in western Nebraska.
[00:12:30.480]I'm the executive director of Twin Cities Development which is an economic development organization in western Nebraska.
[00:12:32.480]I'm the executive director of Twin Cities Development which is an economic development organization in western Nebraska.
[00:12:34.480]I'm the executive director of Twin Cities Development which is an economic development organization in western Nebraska.
[00:12:36.480]I'm the executive director of Twin Cities Development which is an economic development organization in western Nebraska.
[00:12:38.480]I'm the executive director of Twin Cities Development which is an economic development organization in western Nebraska.
[00:12:40.480]I'm the executive director of Twin Cities Development which is an economic development organization in western Nebraska.
[00:12:42.480]I'm the executive director of Twin Cities Development which is an economic development organization in western Nebraska.
[00:12:44.480]I'm the executive director of Twin Cities Development which is an economic development organization in western Nebraska.
[00:12:46.480]I'm the executive director of Twin Cities Development which is an economic development organization in western Nebraska.
[00:12:48.480]I'm the executive director of Twin Cities Development which is an economic development organization in western Nebraska.
[00:12:50.480]I'm the executive director of Twin Cities Development which is an economic development organization in western Nebraska.
[00:12:52.480]I'm the executive director of Twin Cities Development which is an economic development organization in western Nebraska.
[00:12:54.480]I'm the executive director of Twin Cities Development which is an economic development organization in western Nebraska.
[00:12:56.480]I'm the executive director of Twin Cities Development which is an economic development organization in western Nebraska.
[00:12:58.480]I'm the executive director of Twin Cities Development which is an economic development organization in western Nebraska.
[00:13:00.480]I'm the executive director of Twin Cities Development which is an economic development organization in western Nebraska.
[00:13:02.480]I'm the executive director of Twin Cities Development which is an economic development organization in western Nebraska.
[00:13:04.480]I'm the executive director of Twin Cities Development which is an economic development organization in western Nebraska.
[00:13:06.480]I'm the executive director of Twin Cities Development which is an economic development organization in western Nebraska.
[00:13:08.480]I'm the executive director of Twin Cities Development which is an economic development organization in western Nebraska.
[00:13:10.480]I'm the executive director of Twin Cities Development which is an economic development organization in western Nebraska.
[00:13:12.480]I'm the executive director of Twin Cities Development which is an economic development organization in western Nebraska.
[00:13:14.480]I'm the executive director of Twin Cities Development which is an economic development organization in western Nebraska.
[00:13:16.480]I'm the executive director of Twin Cities Development which is an economic development organization in western Nebraska.
[00:13:18.480]I'm the executive director of Twin Cities Development which is an economic development organization in western Nebraska.
[00:13:20.480]I'm the executive director of Twin Cities Development which is an economic development organization in western Nebraska.
[00:13:22.480]I'm the executive director of Twin Cities Development which is an economic development organization in western Nebraska.
[00:13:24.480]I'm the executive director of Twin Cities Development which is an economic development organization in western Nebraska.
[00:13:26.480]I'm the executive director of Twin Cities Development which is an economic development organization in western Nebraska.
[00:13:28.480]I'm the executive director of Twin Cities Development which is an economic development organization in western Nebraska.
[00:13:30.480]I'm the executive director of Twin Cities Development which is an economic development organization in western Nebraska.
[00:13:32.480]I'm the executive director of Twin Cities Development which is an economic development organization in western Nebraska.
[00:13:34.480]I'm the executive director of Twin Cities Development which is an economic development organization in western Nebraska.
[00:13:36.480]I'm the executive director of Twin Cities Development which is an economic development organization in western Nebraska.
[00:13:38.480]I'm the executive director of Twin Cities Development which is an economic development organization in western Nebraska.
[00:13:40.480]I'm the executive director of Twin Cities Development which is an economic development organization in western Nebraska.
[00:13:42.480]I'm the executive director of Twin Cities Development which is an economic development organization in western Nebraska.
[00:13:44.480]I'm the executive director of Twin Cities Development which is an economic development organization in western Nebraska.
[00:13:46.480]I'm the executive director of Twin Cities Development which is an economic development organization in western Nebraska.
[00:13:48.480]I'm the executive director of Twin Cities Development which is an economic development organization in western Nebraska.
[00:13:50.480]I'm the executive director of Twin Cities Development which is an economic development organization in western Nebraska.
[00:13:52.480]I'm the executive director of Twin Cities Development which is an economic development organization in western Nebraska.
[00:13:54.480]I'm the executive director of Twin Cities Development which is an economic development organization in western Nebraska.
[00:13:56.480]I'm the executive director of Twin Cities Development which is an economic development organization in western Nebraska.
[00:13:58.480]I'm the executive director of Twin Cities Development which is an economic development organization in western Nebraska.
[00:14:00.480]I'm the executive director of Twin Cities Development which is an economic development organization in western Nebraska.
[00:14:02.480]I'm the executive director of Twin Cities Development which is an economic development organization in western Nebraska.
[00:14:04.480]I'm the executive director of Twin Cities Development which is an economic development organization in western Nebraska.
[00:14:06.480]I'm the executive director of Twin Cities Development which is an economic development organization in western Nebraska.
[00:14:08.480]Do you think that they are looking ahead for things to be better than they are now or worse than what they are now?
[00:14:18.480]Do you think that they are looking ahead for things to be better than they are now or worse than what they are now?
[00:14:20.480]Do you think that they are looking ahead for things to be better than they are now or worse than what they are now?
[00:14:22.480]What are your thoughts?
[00:14:30.480]I would say hoping for better and maybe expecting to be disappointed.
[00:14:36.480]I would say hoping for better and maybe expecting to be disappointed.
[00:14:38.480]I would say hoping for better and maybe expecting to be disappointed.
[00:14:40.480]I would agree with that.
[00:14:42.480]I would agree with that.
[00:14:44.480]Other folks?
[00:14:46.480]Other folks?
[00:14:48.480]Does that sound like where you think people are?
[00:14:50.480]Does that sound like where you think people are?
[00:14:52.480]I would agree with that.
[00:14:54.480]I think Daniel and I are probably in the same area.
[00:14:56.480]I would agree with that.
[00:14:58.480]I think Daniel and I are probably in the same area.
[00:15:00.480]But I would think that's probably a pretty good feel.
[00:15:02.480]I would think that's probably a pretty good feel.
[00:15:04.480]I would hope that they are hoping for better.
[00:15:06.480]I would hope that they are hoping for better.
[00:15:08.480]I would hope that they are hoping for better.
[00:15:10.480]I would hope that they are hoping for better.
[00:15:12.480]I would hope that they are hoping for better.
[00:15:14.480]I would hope that they are hoping for better.
[00:15:16.480]I would hope that they are hoping for better.
[00:15:18.480]I would hope that they are hoping for better.
[00:15:20.480]I would hope that they are hoping for better.
[00:15:22.480]I would hope that they are hoping for better.
[00:15:24.480]I would hope that they are hoping for better.
[00:15:26.480]I would hope that they are hoping for better.
[00:15:28.480]I would hope that they are hoping for better.
[00:15:30.480]I would hope that they are hoping for better.
[00:15:32.480]I would hope that they are hoping for better.
[00:15:34.480]I would hope that they are hoping for better.
[00:15:36.480]What do you think?
[00:15:37.480]What do you think?
[00:15:38.480]What do you think?
[00:15:40.480]What do you think?
[00:15:42.480]What do you think?
[00:15:44.480]What do you think?
[00:15:46.480]Well, let's find out what people are saying.
[00:15:48.480]Becky, do you want to go ahead?
[00:15:50.480]Becky, do you want to go ahead?
[00:15:52.480]Sure.
[00:15:54.480]So today, yeah, we're -- or my goal here is to provide you an overview of what the rural poll is and kind of give you a sense of some of the data that it provides and that is available from it.
[00:16:07.480]And then hopefully we have -- or we will likely have a lot of time at the end and we can maybe have a discussion about how you can be more involved in the rural poll and maybe how you can better -- we can brainstorm ways where you can better utilize the data in your jobs.
[00:16:25.480]So first of all, the goal of the rural poll is to give local and state leaders a better understanding of the issues, challenges, and concerns of Nebraska's rural citizens.
[00:16:36.480]At the bottom there, we have twice now in the polls 28 years, we have also been fortunate enough to have funding to do a metro poll as well.
[00:16:48.480]So in 2021, the Nebraska Business Development Center provided that funding.
[00:16:53.480]So we were able to do the same survey, the same instrument, everything to the Omaha Lincoln areas as well.
[00:17:00.480]And so then we were able to make some comparisons between metro and Nebraskans in rural Nebraska.
[00:17:05.480]And that's always very interesting. So that's not something we've been able to do often.
[00:17:11.480]But just wanted to mention that as so that you're aware that there is some of that available as well.
[00:17:19.480]There's. Roughly each year, half of the questionnaire is core topics that are able to track some trends that are occurring over time.
[00:17:31.480]So that's around their communities. We ask about their perceptions.
[00:17:34.480]We ask about their perceptions of how their community is changing, their satisfaction with their community, their satisfaction with services within their community, their attachment to their community questions along those lines.
[00:17:46.480]We also have a lot of questions about well-being. And those are things like, are you better or worse off compared to five years ago?
[00:17:52.480]Will you be better or worse off 10 years from now? Your feelings of power, their feelings of powerlessness, satisfaction with a lot of different aspects of their life, like their job, religion, family.
[00:18:04.400]So a whole gamut of items there as well. And then always the questions about employment and then of course demographics. So those, you know, like I said, that's roughly half of the survey every year.
[00:18:14.520]And then we have rotating topics that we ask people like you about. And we're in the process of doing that right now is figuring out what topics will we include in the next year.
[00:18:25.560]So we usually send out a informal survey asking people to complete it and saying, you know, what topics should we be including?
[00:18:33.920]What information is needed out there about rural Nebraska?
[00:18:36.660]So we've had things I just put the last few years so you can get a kind of an idea of some of the things we've asked.
[00:18:42.860]So in 2020, we had questions about animal agriculture, community resilience, the severe weather events.
[00:18:49.740]So after the flooding and the bomb cyclone and the blizzards that occurred more in your areas, we asked people, you know, how were they impacted by those?
[00:18:58.940]In 2021, we had trust and competence in institutions.
[00:19:03.640]And that was some questions we had asked before.
[00:19:06.080]So we were able to see some changes there and then also impacts from the pandemic.
[00:19:11.000]In 2022, we had more, a lot of questions on, kind of we termed them natural resource management, but there was a lot of questions about water.
[00:19:22.680]And then there was some stuff about climate change.
[00:19:24.720]And there was a multitude of things within that category even.
[00:19:28.680]And we had leadership and volunteering, workplace and the economy.
[00:19:33.360]And then this past year, we just finished up, we had some questions about civil discourse that provided a lot of interesting information out there that a lot of people, you know, seem to be interested in.
[00:19:47.000]And we had, of course, child care is a big issue across many of your communities.
[00:19:50.920]And so we asked some questions about that this past year.
[00:19:54.540]And then just a couple of questions about the Farm Bill, about federal ag policy.
[00:19:59.360]So you can see we really have had a wide range.
[00:20:01.860]And that's just a...
[00:20:03.080]It's a small sample of what we've done because the survey was started in 1996.
[00:20:08.120]So we've had 28 years of data gathering and a whole bunch of topics.
[00:20:13.960]And I'll share at the end, we have our webpage.
[00:20:18.100]There are ways to look at all the past reports.
[00:20:20.720]One is by year and the other one is by topic.
[00:20:23.220]So if you're not sure if we've asked something that looking at that by topic page is really
[00:20:29.060]going to be useful for you because you can look down and say, oh, have they ever asked
[00:20:32.200]questions about this?
[00:20:33.060]Or you can just see all the ones that we have asked about.
[00:20:38.100]A little bit about the methodology.
[00:20:41.300]There are self-administered questionnaires.
[00:20:43.100]We typically mail them in the spring.
[00:20:44.920]It always can vary a little bit depending on how our planning is going or some other
[00:20:49.960]unforeseen circumstances like the year of the flooding.
[00:20:53.740]We kind of postpone things a little bit because we were ready, just ready to mail.
[00:20:56.900]And then all of a sudden everything was hitting and we're like, this probably isn't the best
[00:20:59.500]time to ask people.
[00:21:01.660]Well, some of these questions right now, they're not going to be filling that out right
[00:21:07.980]now when they're dealing with a lot of issues and stuff.
[00:21:10.700]But typically in the spring, we mail out 7,000 randomly selected rural households.
[00:21:17.640]And the next slide will show you the map so we can talk a little bit about what our sample
[00:21:23.900]includes, what we mean by rural households.
[00:21:25.800]We typically, our response rate's been declining a little bit, but we've had
[00:21:30.780]well over 50% in the beginning years, and then it's declined like most survey response
[00:21:36.600]rates have declined, but we usually get over 1,000 responses back at least.
[00:21:41.200]We do a series of four mailings, so we have some follow-ups to really try and get that
[00:21:45.960]response high, so when people aren't responding, they'll get one more reminder about that.
[00:21:53.220]So for our sample, this, it gets a little hard to explain sometimes about what we mean
[00:22:00.500]by rural households, because it's not even just non-metropolitan households, because
[00:22:04.600]you know, in 20, I believe it's 2014, the, those Grand Island metro area, or Grand Island counties
[00:22:11.840]were, were classified as metropolitan counties, and, but we, they make up such a huge sample of
[00:22:19.640]ours over time that we decided to, to continue to include them in our sample, so if, even though
[00:22:25.380]they're in the gold on this slide that Howard Merrick called in Hamilton,
[00:22:30.220]we've continued to, to keep them in our survey, as well as up in the northeast corner, Dixon and
[00:22:36.220]Dakota, that are technically considered part of the Sioux City metropolitan area, but we look at,
[00:22:41.840]we looked at them, and we really felt like they were more similar to the other non-metropolitan
[00:22:46.580]counties in the state, so we've included them as well, so basically, the green counties
[00:22:50.740]are the only ones we do not include in our sample, so basically, the Omaha and Lincoln
[00:22:55.160]metropolitan area, and as I mentioned earlier, though, we've had a couple times where we have
[00:22:59.940]have surveyed them separately as well and been able to make those comparisons,
[00:23:05.280]but this map also does show you how we were able to group some of the counties into multi-county
[00:23:12.280]regions, so we have five, the Panhandle, North Central, South Central, Northeast, and Southeast,
[00:23:18.280]so in all our data and all our reports, we were able to make those comparisons. We can see,
[00:23:23.680]you know, how are different regions of the state doing, and are they feeling differently about
[00:23:29.660]than their counterparts in other regions of the state, so that's always been useful as well,
[00:23:34.560]so this kind of shows you both that, both our sample as well as how we classify those
[00:23:39.940]county groupings. So first of all, as I mentioned with those core questions, those really give us a
[00:23:47.600]good opportunity to do some trend analysis and really see how things are going over time,
[00:23:53.800]so this is that question about do you feel you're better or worse off than you were five years ago,
[00:23:59.380]as you can see, there's kind of been some, a little bit of ups and downs, but it's been kind of
[00:24:05.520]a little bit of an upward trend of the better offs over time, slightly, but you can really
[00:24:20.200]tell how it really seems to be tied to the economy, so when we're seeing good economic times,
[00:24:27.860]then we'll see the
[00:24:29.100]well-being jump up, and if there's times of uncertainty going on with other events across
[00:24:35.300]the nation, then sometimes we'll see that decline happen, but typically, we've seen,
[00:24:40.300]you know, as you can see on here, most of the years, people do, more people feel they're
[00:24:46.100]better off than worse offs over time, so even though the better offs may fluctuate over
[00:24:54.040]time, that we still see that generally outpace those feeling they're worse off.
[00:24:58.820]And then similarly, we're able to look at 10 years out, how do they feel about the future?
[00:25:04.700]Do they feel that they're going to be better or worse off 10 years from now than they are
[00:25:08.260]today?
[00:25:08.780]And again, we see that at times those have narrowed, like in 2013 was a year where the
[00:25:16.020]better off and worse off were almost identical there, but then it widened a little bit, and
[00:25:20.940]now we're starting to see that decline in that gap between the two where they're starting
[00:25:24.940]to get close together again, where we see that about the same time.
[00:25:28.540]The same line's been pretty consistent over time there, but this just gives you a sense
[00:25:34.720]that we're able to really see how things are happening over time and how do people feel
[00:25:40.680]and is that changing, and then again, as I mentioned before, again, that some have been
[00:25:48.860]repeated at various intervals of time, so sometimes we've had repeated questions two
[00:25:54.180]or three times, other times just a couple times, and the intervals have some
[00:25:58.260]typically varied a little bit as well, so this is an example of last year we asked about economic
[00:26:05.140]expectations, and we had also asked about that in 2022, so again, just one year apart, we were able
[00:26:10.940]to look at the changes occurring, so we saw that even though overall this past year people were
[00:26:18.760]still kind of pessimistic about how things were going to be in the following year, they still felt
[00:26:27.980]that all these different costs and prices and economic indicators would get worse, but we did
[00:26:33.900]see that the percent saying much worse declined this past year, so they weren't that extreme
[00:26:40.000]pessimism we analyzed, so overall there was some pessimism, but not that extreme that we saw in
[00:26:46.720]2022, so that's an example of a question that we felt like, all right, the economy is still
[00:26:53.000]really a big, big issue out there for rural Nebraskans, let's ask that again,
[00:26:57.940]and see if there were any changes that happened. Then we have questions like the
[00:27:04.100]confidence in institutions, where we had a four-year gap there, and I know Daniel Bennett's
[00:27:09.380]on the call here, and he, they've used this at Civic Nebraska, they have used some of our data
[00:27:14.660]in their reporting as well, so this is a question I know that they use, and this shows
[00:27:22.260]in that four-year gap what, you know, how did, how did things change that the
[00:27:27.900]bottom, some of the changes were very small, but we did see a increase in the public
[00:27:37.560]safety agencies in their community, there was a slighter one in the voting and election
[00:27:45.580]systems in the county, but otherwise, there, of that extreme on a great deal, which was
[00:27:51.540]just one scale point of five that, you know, there wasn't a ton of change for
[00:27:57.860]most of the items listed.
[00:27:59.160]In addition to the trends over time, even at various intervals, our sample allows us
[00:28:11.340]to do a lot of different subgroup comparisons.
[00:28:14.080]So as I mentioned with the region there, when we asked about, you know, how do you think
[00:28:19.380]housing costs are going to be in the next year?
[00:28:21.220]When we look at that by region, we see both the Panhandle and the South
[00:28:27.820]Central region stood out where they were a little bit more pessimistic about housing
[00:28:31.800]costs in the next year.
[00:28:33.380]So like I said, this really gives us a sense of, you know, are different regions of the
[00:28:37.960]state anticipating things differently than their counterparts?
[00:28:42.040]Are they feeling better or worse off than that?
[00:28:45.540]And it really helps us get a sense of maybe what some, you know, possibly some intervention
[00:28:52.240]is needed or some programming or some more information or what, whatnot.
[00:28:55.920]So it just gives us a really...
[00:28:57.780]Really instead of, you know, Nebraska is a pretty diverse state.
[00:29:00.240]So looking at it by these regions really helps us to see, you know, where is this primarily
[00:29:06.400]occurring at?
[00:29:07.400]Another category that we're able to look at is community size, which is another one that
[00:29:13.600]always has, I think, a lot of interesting differences.
[00:29:16.900]So here when we asked, how do they expect healthcare costs to be in the next year?
[00:29:23.060]And really the anything under 10,000, they were pretty similar.
[00:29:27.740]And their responses, but they were more pessimistic than those in the largest communities
[00:29:32.360]in our sample, which are populations of 10,000 and more.
[00:29:36.520]So we saw quite a bit of difference where they, smaller communities were really expecting
[00:29:41.440]to continue to see healthcare costs get worse.
[00:29:46.280]And the larger communities are a little less likely to, even though the majority of them
[00:29:51.260]still expect to get worse, they didn't have quite the extremes that the smaller communities saw.
[00:29:57.700]And then finally, the last slide that I was going to share is education level.
[00:30:04.820]So again, we have most demographic differences are looked at in each of our reports.
[00:30:11.160]So it's the community size and region that I've already listed, this education level,
[00:30:15.780]but we also have household income, age, gender, marital status, occupation.
[00:30:22.800]And so there's really break the data down to really see what,
[00:30:27.660]what specific groups are saying about this.
[00:30:29.640]So this shows that they're by education level.
[00:30:33.960]When you look at their own personal financial situation,
[00:30:36.740]the most pessimistic are those that have a high school diploma or less education.
[00:30:41.480]We're about happy and just over half of them feel that there'll be worse.
[00:30:46.220]But when we look at the people with the bachelor's degree or higher,
[00:30:49.220]they were a little bit less likely,
[00:30:51.100]or they were definitely a lot less likely to say it'd be worse.
[00:30:53.840]Most of them feel that they'd be about the same.
[00:30:56.420]They didn't see,
[00:30:57.620]a lot of change and same for those who even with at least some college
[00:31:01.120]education as well.
[00:31:02.240]So I just wanted to share some examples of all the different data that we do
[00:31:08.460]have available. Like I said, all our reports are,
[00:31:12.580]I guess I'll go to this slide and then go back just because to show that
[00:31:17.600]again, our website, their real poll.unl.edu,
[00:31:21.840]all of our reports are there again by both topic or year.
[00:31:25.740]So if you wanted to see,
[00:31:27.580]what was asked in a specific year, you can look at that as well.
[00:31:30.320]But what we would like to visit with you guys about today, or, you know,
[00:31:37.540]first, did you have any other, any questions about the poll, what it is,
[00:31:41.960]but there are any data trends that you find interesting or intriguing
[00:31:46.880]that maybe I've shared today,
[00:31:49.760]or maybe those of you that were already familiar with the poll that,
[00:31:52.440]that you've, you've seen that weren't necessarily in this presentation today.
[00:31:57.540]But then more important, not more importantly, but further more,
[00:32:01.800]what topics should we be asking about in 2024 and beyond?
[00:32:05.720]So I guess we're right now beginning the planning process for the 2024 survey.
[00:32:11.660]So we're looking at what topics should we be covered in that?
[00:32:16.320]And what,
[00:32:17.320]what are ways you can see that you would engage with the results from the
[00:32:21.720]role poll?
[00:32:22.160]Can you see where you might use this in your work and your,
[00:32:25.100]your planning for your organization,
[00:32:27.500]or for grant applications,
[00:32:30.720]you know,
[00:32:31.900]what really runs a gamut.
[00:32:33.500]And,
[00:32:34.740]and then before I open that up though,
[00:32:36.320]I just wanted to mention a couple things.
[00:32:38.180]We are kind of in the process of reorganizing the role poll in a lot of
[00:32:45.440]different ways.
[00:32:46.100]But one thing is that we are working with the university Nebraska extension
[00:32:52.640]has,
[00:32:53.260]is currently working on a database,
[00:32:57.460]called all things Nebraska that has all different kinds of data sources in it.
[00:33:01.880]And we're trying to figure out how to get our role poll data added to that.
[00:33:07.760]And so that will really be a lot more user-friendly for people like you.
[00:33:12.060]You'll be able to look up data on your own for certain things that are
[00:33:17.820]included in that. So wanted to mention that.
[00:33:20.180]I'm not sure when that will happen, but just know that that's in the works.
[00:33:23.000]And as far as the reorganization now, we are,
[00:33:27.420]of course with all the budgets constraints and stuff that the university is
[00:33:33.640]facing, we're always trying to figure out ways to generate some income.
[00:33:38.700]So there is a possibility if people want to, you know, have questions,
[00:33:43.720]specific questions included, not just give topic suggestions,
[00:33:47.320]but if you have specific questions you would like to have listed on the rule
[00:33:51.340]poll, that that's an option to buy pages of the survey or,
[00:33:57.380]if you are looking at maybe getting data more locally,
[00:34:00.240]we can talk about ways of how maybe if you have the money to oversample in
[00:34:06.840]your region,
[00:34:07.440]then we could use the same questionnaire and do that for you so that you can
[00:34:12.940]have data more, you know,
[00:34:14.840]possibly for your county level or a different multi-county level than what we
[00:34:20.200]have available too.
[00:34:21.100]So there'll be a lot of different options and ways that you can engage and be
[00:34:26.200]involved.
[00:34:27.440]So I guess, first of all, Mary, did I,
[00:34:31.560]is there anything you wanted to add before we get other feedback?
[00:34:36.620]Well, I think it's a great resource and it's just not used enough.
[00:34:41.880]There's a lot of data here people can use in planning.
[00:34:44.960]So data raises some questions that maybe we want to ask.
[00:34:49.120]to dig in to determine more what is behind people feeling worse off even though a lot of the
[00:34:56.500]indicators are we're better off so there's a lot of opportunity to use this data in different ways
[00:35:04.400]and i also want to mention cheryl joined us for her krisel and she's also on the real poll team
[00:35:10.460]cheryl i don't know if you want to add anything i know you've used the poll data quite a bit
[00:35:15.660]yeah and and i've been with the group the faculty group that's been again hashing out
[00:35:21.160]these questions now for i don't know 10 12 years or more something like that becky i kind of forget
[00:35:27.700]um and so i'm really one of the few i would say off campus folks everybody else is um is linked
[00:35:38.020]to the um closer to the lincoln lincoln area so um i think that's kind of a good thing to have um
[00:35:44.060]um kind of
[00:35:45.600]a spread out approach or ideas i they also um a lot of times in the when we're doing the regional
[00:35:54.780]looks at things um for whatever we haven't really figured out whatever reason um we joke about the
[00:36:02.840]panhandle being the grumpy panhandle and they have a tendency to be actually a little a little
[00:36:09.360]more pessimistic um than other regions of the state um even more so than north central which if you
[00:36:15.540]think about being rural super rural um we ought to be comparable but so it's a standing joke that
[00:36:22.380]Cheryl gets to make comments about the rural poll and the grumpy comments so anyhow a little trivia
[00:36:28.280]for the day but thanks Becky I think you did a great uh great overview um some of these questions
[00:36:34.220]um I mean one of the things for instance we've looked at some of the information that's come back
[00:36:38.780]from people and child care and housing just comes over and over again uh um as as huge issues one of
[00:36:45.480]the challenges on the housing side is how to how to frame the questions um that make the most sense
[00:36:53.460]um to really get some good information we've done uh opinions on housing options and a variety of
[00:37:00.160]things like that so sometimes the topic it takes some real hard thought of how do you
[00:37:05.580]you craft the question so that everybody can can ask an opinion or you know respond in the opinion
[00:37:15.420]yeah that's a good point Cheryl that some some topics even though that they're interesting and
[00:37:24.780]they're timely they're there's not always a way to craft some opinion surveys uh questions about
[00:37:30.120]them and um or how to really address that so with child care this year for example though we really
[00:37:37.080]worked hard at reaching out to different organizations that were collecting that
[00:37:41.640]type of data and really asking them what can we ask that would be unique
[00:37:45.360]would be different and would be helpful than what's already being out there we didn't want
[00:37:49.440]to we don't want to duplicate efforts so what can we ask that might clarify some issues as well so
[00:37:55.320]I think housing would be that way too we would definitely have to reach out to organizations
[00:38:00.300]such as yours and be like all right you know that there's housing data out there what's missing
[00:38:04.680]though and and how can we we address that in a unique way Becky I had a question um can
[00:38:15.300]you repeat how you worded that about if someone wanted to get their questions in the poll was
[00:38:23.820]there a financial like you buy a space could you could you explain that just a little more please
[00:38:29.460]um I said we're very early stages of doing that so we don't have it all flushed out but yeah we're
[00:38:35.820]definitely looking at being able to have organizations by questions you know it can be
[00:38:43.140]by question or by
[00:38:45.240]page or you know there's there'll be there would be different options and we would work
[00:38:49.320]work with your group for that but yeah that's that's one of the things we're exploring right now
[00:38:55.840]so I think that oh sorry Mary go ahead Joan I just wanted to say so if that was indeed um
[00:39:03.900]something I think that would be very important would I connect them to you
[00:39:09.380]and specifically I'm thinking at the of the Nebraska Broadband uh new office
[00:39:15.180]that they have uh under Nebraska transportation because we're talking broadband in the state and
[00:39:21.720]that's so vital and so I guess you know I'm I'm not speaking for them I'm just thinking as a
[00:39:27.280]provider that would be a great a great avenue for them uh so would that be to who do they contact
[00:39:35.640]yeah they could they could reach out to to me to start with let's say we have a team and so
[00:39:41.840]you know basically any any one of us um
[00:39:45.120]and we would uh include that in but you know i could be a good good start there
[00:39:50.720]and i just want to follow up and say we as more and more groups have to report on their bottom
[00:40:00.320]line you know if you get funding from a foundation and they say okay what did our money do it's it's
[00:40:09.520]really hard to find data that that tells you what you did that really
[00:40:15.060]made a difference and we can find data on how many activities you did and how
[00:40:19.740]many people participated however did the issue that that you wanted to address
[00:40:27.100]did you move the needle on that and so offering different groups the option to
[00:40:33.960]include questions on the rule poll as a way of helping people find a reasonable
[00:40:39.480]way of collecting some baseline data on the issues and then you know coming back
[00:40:45.000]maybe three years later two years later five years later asking that question
[00:40:50.380]again to see you know are we making a difference so we hope that that'll be
[00:40:57.540]useful to folks who are who really want to try and figure out are we making a
[00:41:02.400]difference and are we addressing the needs that are really out there so what
[00:41:14.940]to find interesting about the what we presented it was funny when Cheryl was
[00:41:22.840]talking about the panhandle that that would made me so sad and I think
[00:41:28.620]sometimes I think about our coffee shop mentality you know and and these are
[00:41:36.000]hard-working people that go to the coffee shop I don't demean that at all
[00:41:40.000]but I would just like to see that attitude right
[00:41:44.880]and and be more positive but I'm not sure Cheryl yeah you representing our
[00:41:51.780]area how is that going to be done I don't know but I was sad about the
[00:41:56.340]panhandle because we are so diverse yet such hard-working people so that one
[00:42:02.320]kind of made me a little sad you know and it frustrates me a little bit too
[00:42:06.940]because one would think to be quite honest that we would be in terms of
[00:42:11.340]being rural you would think the North Central and
[00:42:14.820]us would be then similar but the reality is time and time again the
[00:42:21.720]panhandle is almost always what I would call more pessimistic on some of these
[00:42:27.780]questions and so so that just it kind of bugs me because I it you know we've
[00:42:34.340]looked at it by age we've looked at it by a variety of different ways to slice
[00:42:39.140]and dice it and we can't can't really figure it out but that course
[00:42:44.760]relates with income like is there just lower income in the panhandle than
[00:42:51.040]other regions whereas like those those indicators that tend to track more
[00:42:57.000]pessimistic with lower incomes would maybe track along with the panhandle
[00:43:00.680]that way just because incomes lower out here Becky can you can you because we
[00:43:07.840]both looked at some of these things over time and if I remember correctly to be
[00:43:14.700]I thought the panhandle actually was even a bit higher or you know or at
[00:43:21.820]least comparable not significantly different you know so but I could be all
[00:43:27.580]wet it's been a while but we've we've looked at this a couple of different
[00:43:31.840]times yeah and unfortunately I can't remember for sure either how that was
[00:43:36.440]but we did look at what Cheryl mentioned to try and see what were the you know
[00:43:40.260]is it demographics differences that are driving this but I remember
[00:43:44.640]like she said basically not feeling that that that seemed to be the case
[00:43:50.760]it was possibly something else there at play the one of the things go ahead no I was just
[00:43:58.980]going to respond to Daniel that one of the things I know to be true looking through some of the
[00:44:05.040]programs that we have tried to work with the low to moderate income I was quite surprised
[00:44:09.900]by the communities how they are doing much better than I really thought they would be
[00:44:14.580]so that kind of surprised me a little bit Daniel when you know when you said that because I would
[00:44:20.680]have thought that too but it didn't appear to be that way when we were doing some of our research
[00:44:25.580]there were a couple of comments in the chat about broadband and maybe it's time to go back and look
[00:44:32.640]at broadband the topic and and Jamie I don't know if you were looking particular in the topic
[00:44:38.880]heading but the reality with broadband or and or technology is sometimes it
[00:44:44.520]sneaks into other areas and so we can talk about like remote work and there's like a connection of
[00:44:54.120]course to internet and high-speed internet to some of those things and it may not show up in
[00:44:59.820]that topic okay and so sometimes you got to do a little sleuthing because because it's so easy to
[00:45:07.980]slip it in there in a variety of different ways yeah I was gonna say that that impacts of a pandemic
[00:45:14.460]um just a few years ago you know as you can expect that really dealt a lot with technology because we
[00:45:21.240]we asked things that people were doing various things remotely or using the internet to to do
[00:45:27.180]those things and and so it was maybe not considered the the overall topic it was definitely included
[00:45:36.420]within some of the more recent things as well but yeah it's always you know broadband is just an
[00:45:43.560]ever-changing
[00:45:44.400]issue and I've actually been in quite a quite involved with different broadband surveys I
[00:45:49.500]when we had the university worked with the Nebraska Information Technology Commission
[00:45:55.120]and the Public Service Commission on planning grant and we did household surveys I I coordinated
[00:46:01.880]those for that that grant so we did them in 2010 and 2014 I believe and so we have a relationship
[00:46:08.520]there as well and so I know you know that's definitely a topic that we can
[00:46:14.340]continue to explore in other ways too I do think it's a good idea though Joni if the
[00:46:23.820]um the current group through the Department of Transportation has funding that they could put
[00:46:28.880]behind that well I I certainly will be in touch just because I I think the most important thing
[00:46:36.280]that we have seen in the industry is it used to be an entertainment piece now it has become
[00:46:44.280]much more important from a medical standpoint um distance to get to doctors for telemedicine
[00:46:51.340]um schooling I mean we and the pandemic certainly um leveled uh our approach on
[00:46:59.220]a need for it much differently than we had early on in 2010 etc so I'll do that Jamie and um Becky
[00:47:08.800]I'll certainly have that become you know an email to maybe CCU on or something
[00:47:14.220]so thank you
[00:47:15.480]I'm curious has anyone on this call besides Cheryl because I know she has um has anyone
[00:47:32.580]um we lost you Jamie
[00:47:35.040]sorry I'll try turning my video off in and out so obviously my broadband is not good today
[00:47:44.160]um I'm curious if anyone on the call has received the poll in the mail
[00:47:52.140]no
[00:47:58.600]I know Cheryl you said you have and Leon had to fill it out right
[00:48:05.680]yeah well um it was funny because I'd been on the poll for years and years and years and all of a
[00:48:14.100]sudden I was like well this is fun and so because I was too close to it uh I let Leon fill it out and
[00:48:20.400]of course he had all kinds of grumpy farmer questions but I that was fun um I told him
[00:48:27.180]just to fill it out you know it's okay our household has received it
[00:48:31.820]thank you Cheryl both Cheryl's
[00:48:44.040]if I did it went to the ranch and my husband didn't bring it to me and he probably threw it
[00:48:49.080]in the trash a different take on that question um I was just curious say other than like I said
[00:48:59.480]I know Daniel has um any other your organizations used or you know have you were you familiar
[00:49:05.020]already with the row pole and have you used that at all in your in your work
[00:49:13.980]Daniel didn't have an as in civic Nebraska you use some of it at some time yes yes yeah definitely
[00:49:27.300]um yeah Becky mentioned that we had um yeah it's really uh I'm really curious I think sometimes
[00:49:35.820]these polls uh can provide an like a conversation starter a launch into having these conversations so
[00:49:43.920]for example I think um Becky mentioned or maybe I just read in the report that
[00:49:49.720]this year uh more people expected to be worse off which is doesn't happen very often
[00:49:56.880]and so it's these can be just interesting conversation starters to put the data on
[00:50:03.760]the table and then say like well what do you think about this why do you think this might be
[00:50:07.260]so um if you're needing to have a tough conversation in your community
[00:50:13.860]um or among a certain group with an interest that this found that this data is really
[00:50:19.860]helpful to as a centerpiece to be able to do that
[00:50:23.400]that's why i was really happy they were able to include some questions on civil discourse
[00:50:33.460]this past year hopefully we can use those as some conversation starters in communities
[00:50:38.780]becky you probably said
[00:50:43.800]this but i wasn't listening very well um i assume you try to sample a similar number of people in
[00:50:50.420]each of those regions each year um well well the the sample is just randomly across those counties
[00:51:01.800]so it would roughly be based on population so if there's okay yes i like the south central
[00:51:09.240]region would probably have more respondents with grand island and kearney and those um
[00:51:13.740]all being in there okay so it's not yeah it's not equal in there so it would be more on population
[00:51:20.940]basis um becky i was curious i feel like they're having questions along these lines in the past but
[00:51:32.080]um just as far as like what people are finding attractive about a community or
[00:51:39.700]about a place that they might move to like what would what's compelling
[00:51:43.680]them to move or what compels them to stay in the community have there been
[00:51:48.140]questions like that in the past or um are there plans for something like that
[00:51:52.640]in the rural poll we we maybe haven't touched on that quite as much we we always have
[00:52:03.300]question we have a question every year that asks if they're planning to move and so we're able to
[00:52:08.360]look use that question to kind of figure out if there's certain groups or if there's
[00:52:13.620]there maybe why we have over time asking questions about new residents and
[00:52:18.240]I was gonna this will be Cheryl's area too because we've done some different you know
[00:52:24.540]we've had some different grants where we've been able to do some surveys of new residents
[00:52:28.540]specifically and ask them what is driving them there but you know and that's something we've
[00:52:34.880]we've talked about more this year too as we're getting that question or so maybe it's time to
[00:52:38.860]get more information on that of you know why why people are moving or
[00:52:43.560]or staying so cheryl i don't know if you have anything to add since
[00:52:47.320]yeah actually um we worked on a draft question last year and one of the challenges is space in
[00:52:56.300]this survey and there's also an online format too just so that people know so they so there's an
[00:53:01.560]option on the online side as well um but it got axed last year and so we're actually thinking
[00:53:07.340]about looking hard a little bit harder at it this year as as maybe it's time to also pull that one
[00:53:12.980]back
[00:53:13.500]and and get some information um the satisfaction one um we have like a whole list of things how
[00:53:21.780]satisfied are you with the you know the police you know the safety and volunteer fire and retail and
[00:53:27.380]all sorts of things like that and and that's kind of fun to look at over time
[00:53:31.300]um because basically what it tells you is that nobody nobody's satisfied with the restaurants
[00:53:37.860]and they always want more always you know no matter
[00:53:43.440]how big you are how you know or even the trend over time so there's some things that are really
[00:53:49.420]fun to kind of look at with a long view um that you just know will always always kind of come up
[00:53:56.600]and so that's kind of helpful yeah i was going to mention part of that though that i find
[00:54:02.600]interesting is on some of those questions when you look at community size sometimes there's a
[00:54:08.200]there's a break even or not break even there's a point at which because like less than
[00:54:13.380]500 sometimes they are towns of less than 500 their residents might be less likely to express
[00:54:19.860]dissatisfaction with some of those things which would be a little bit counterintuitive
[00:54:23.280]to us sometimes i think we've talked about this as a group right well maybe they just realize that
[00:54:27.280]hey this this is not realistic you know for our a community of our size what do we expect to be
[00:54:33.560]here and so then you know it usually becomes more of that the five thousand or five hundred to you
[00:54:39.920]know five thousand group is is maybe shows more of the
[00:54:43.320]higher dissatisfaction but that's one thing the other thing I want to mention about the
[00:54:49.160]new resident survey too is some of the way we try and approach it is a little different too because
[00:54:55.260]you know we're surveying all Nebraskans so they're not all you know there's not they're
[00:55:01.900]all not all new residents they're all thinking about moving some of them have lived lived where
[00:55:05.760]they are their whole life so you know sometimes we're trying to find questions that will actually
[00:55:09.860]be applicable to the wide widest group of
[00:55:13.260]our constituents so sometimes we that's part of why I said I think we choose not to focus a lot
[00:55:18.960]of questions on specific small subgroups you know that's going to exclude a wide
[00:55:24.880]wide group of our respondents but just remember the other point I want to make
[00:55:31.480]kind of what you said Daniel too though is we do actually look in our community reports every year
[00:55:36.740]we have we do look at our data by people that I think it's lived in their community five years or
[00:55:43.200]compared to those that live there for more than five years and sometimes those do get
[00:55:47.960]interesting differences that are able to tease out a little bit about what how newcomers are
[00:55:53.060]doing things and yeah it can be interesting because sometimes they're sometimes they're
[00:55:56.460]more positive in ways that surprise me that I wouldn't expect you know I'm like well maybe
[00:56:02.140]they're just new and they don't know all the things but in other ways I think they
[00:56:09.140]just have a you know have different experiences maybe they've lived,
[00:56:13.140]lived elsewhere and have some frame of reference that where they can really compare what their
[00:56:17.060]communities like compared to some other places they've been so they have just you know obviously
[00:56:23.220]a lot of a lot of ways you can look at that but so we do have that part where we can at
[00:56:29.100]least look and see how they are viewing their community people that are new new newer there
[00:56:34.220]than people that live there for a lot longer periods of time.
[00:56:43.080]So, what are you guys curious about that you'd like to be able to see what what people's
[00:56:51.480]opinions are on.
[00:56:59.200]I'd like to see along the same lines of what Becky was just talking about to people living
[00:57:07.400]there.
[00:57:08.400]I just we have had a great influx of
[00:57:13.020]young people come back to our community and I guess I would like to have a little bit
[00:57:17.780]of a, you know, little bit, asking that question, what the decision was I think most of it was
[00:57:24.140]for quality of life but just curious.
[00:57:27.400]I do know several that have moved back has been because they've been able to work from
[00:57:31.180]home, raise your children and community they love, but I think that's a curious question.
[00:57:37.160]Any other topic ideas?
[00:58:04.020]Just to kind of snowball off of what Joni just said.
[00:58:07.140]You just mentioned about young people coming into the area.
[00:58:11.040]I'd like to see more about entrepreneurship in small communities and how they can better
[00:58:19.300]be supported or if they decided to start a business in a rural community versus a larger
[00:58:25.920]one and what reasons why.
[00:58:29.320]Joni, thanks for bringing that up.
[00:58:37.120]A new program that's going to be announced maybe in the spring here through Grow Nebraska
[00:58:44.080]that was brought to our attention at one of our regional meetings by Star Lail and that's
[00:58:50.180]for entrepreneurs for new businesses five years and under.
[00:58:55.460]And so kind of keep your eyes open for that for all of your communities because it's a
[00:59:00.160]grant situation with no match and it could provide a new business with an awful lot of
[00:59:07.100]a lot.
[00:59:07.560]So just kind of keep your eyes open on that.
[00:59:10.140]Glad you brought that up, Molly.
[00:59:11.460]Yeah, thank you.
[00:59:12.760]We actually have been working with Star and have had seven recipients already of the Grow
[00:59:18.780]Nebraska grant, six for the $25,000 amount and one for $12,500.
[00:59:25.060]So Keith County's really had a good, I don't know, we had a good advantage there for working
[00:59:36.180]with Star.
[00:59:37.080]So thank you.
[00:59:37.860]Us too.
[00:59:40.480]We're getting a good start.
[00:59:41.640]So that's exciting for you guys.
[00:59:44.220]Doug, can you think of anything that might be helpful to the community colleges?
[00:59:58.440]Sorry, I put you on the spot.
[01:00:02.840]If time would be better.
[01:00:07.060]To have that be something we can discuss, like with Greg Darder, new president,
[01:00:15.300]and kind of getting what information that he would want to glean from some of this.
[01:00:19.860]I've sent him and a few other people in leadership some of these links so that they have access to the knowledge
[01:00:26.200]and can use that as we start making progress forward with our strategic plan from last year.
[01:00:35.920]It feels like it's still there.
[01:00:37.040]It's still there at the same time, but from last year, they'll have access to it.
[01:00:41.000]But I'm not sure how to answer that other than to say it might be something from above me.
[01:00:47.440]Yeah, I was just going to bring up some information that might be useful to your group is,
[01:00:56.100]I don't know that we had any last year, but in 2022, we had some questions about education
[01:01:03.160]and different levels of education and things about apprenticeship
[01:01:07.020]and things like that, that people were really viewing as useful that I think,
[01:01:12.680]yeah, I think you guys would find useful because you guys, obviously that's an area where people
[01:01:19.840]were more optimistic about people, you know, doing things like that, even compared to,
[01:01:26.040]you know, getting a four-year degree or whatever. So for sure.
[01:01:30.520]That would probably benefit the Career Connections of Western Nebraska group because, you know, we do
[01:01:37.000]our career cabs or we've done our first round of career cabs and working through the internship and
[01:01:43.720]helping some of those smaller schools with their school to work programs if they don't already have
[01:01:49.240]them. The other thing I would add is child care. Sorry, I know I had to step away for a phone call.
[01:01:57.000]So if that was addressed, but I know that housing and child care are hot topics and
[01:02:01.560]entrepreneurship and yeah, so all the things.
[01:02:06.980]Just thinking back, Doug, a couple years ago, when we did the rural poll and the metro poll,
[01:02:20.400]there are a whole series of questions about sort of the world of work. And that might be a place
[01:02:27.440]where there might be bits and pieces embedded in that, that could be a value. But it might not show
[01:02:35.660]up on the list. I don't know.
[01:02:36.960]So that might be one where you might have to dig a little bit.
[01:02:40.260]Yeah.
[01:02:41.360]I was thinking I like along the lines of the like professional development, but just also like
[01:02:51.880]general goals, like what, what aspirations do you have in the next 10 years, whether that's
[01:02:59.420]like buying a house, like buying a second house, I don't know.
[01:03:06.940]You know, retiring, having, I don't know, I don't know, this is not a fully formed thought,
[01:03:12.980]but just some kind of asking about like, what aspirations do you have for what goals and
[01:03:18.300]something like that.
[01:03:19.020]And here's an idea that I don't know if this will apply or not.
[01:03:22.440]I know I have career connections with, they've done some really great work with the high
[01:03:27.020]schools and kind of pre-graduate individuals and how we serve them.
[01:03:32.660]An area that's been harder for, for us to serve.
[01:03:36.920]But we need to, is that, you know, post-high school individual and re-training, you know,
[01:03:44.640]I know, I know we've got some AI stuff going on here with individuals that are using AI
[01:03:48.780]and I'm very curious about how it's going and if it's working for taking notes.
[01:03:52.480]Lauren, you'll probably get an email from me to figure out how, how this can make my
[01:03:56.880]life better, but how the world's going to be changing and how do we, as a community
[01:04:03.380]college, start to figure out how do we better serve the person that's
[01:04:06.900]in career one or they're in, you know, job four after they've been out of high
[01:04:12.600]school, move up into a more desirable career.
[01:04:17.540]We'll wait to do that.
[01:04:19.660]And the college here is not, we've not done that yet.
[01:04:24.460]It's on the, it's on the strategic plan.
[01:04:27.180]It's what something we want to do, but how do we get, get in there and better
[01:04:30.020]serve, get better serve individuals that are already working, that are already in
[01:04:34.200]the workforce, doing their advanced career.
[01:04:36.880]Like move up the ladder, those types of things.
[01:04:39.520]Doug, I've been considering doing a session for rural rendezvous on AI and
[01:04:51.000]maybe chat GPT in particular, but is that something more of you on the call
[01:04:56.180]would be interested in if we did host that?
[01:04:58.380]I know I sat through by accident because we are, well, you, you were there too.
[01:05:05.100]Even the career connections.
[01:05:06.860]We went and presented to ESU, the superintendent's meeting or one of them,
[01:05:10.380]you know, so talking through that, I mean, it was, it was brief,
[01:05:14.580]but informative and it's on the rise.
[01:05:17.440]So we're also possibly thinking about a session at the CEC conference,
[01:05:22.960]if there's enough interest.
[01:05:24.700]I know it would probably help a lot of my people that we meet with that you
[01:05:31.220]say business plan and they turn and run.
[01:05:33.120]Yes.
[01:05:36.840]We get a lot of coverage here on how it's impacting education,
[01:05:40.980]especially like in the curriculum side of things and how faculty can,
[01:05:46.740]it started out as being something that was horrifying and this is how they
[01:05:52.600]achieved and they're never going to,
[01:05:53.620]we're never going to have students learn how to think.
[01:05:55.920]And now it's turning into, this is a tool.
[01:05:57.920]How do we use this to help processing and thinking and analyzing?
[01:06:02.960]And so it's gone from being super scary and the end of the end of the
[01:06:06.820]world to a tool that I think is going to be used effectively, I hope.
[01:06:11.360]But the work, the rest of us, I don't have any,
[01:06:15.420]I get tons of emails that I never get through about how this is going to
[01:06:18.920]impact the workforce and anything along those lines,
[01:06:21.520]I think would be fantastic because it's here, it's not going away.
[01:06:26.140]It's not going to get smaller.
[01:06:27.200]And maybe we can make the panhandle less grumpy with some AI.
[01:06:36.800]If I don't have to write a grant because of AI, I will be less grumpy.
[01:06:42.180]I will just, I'm just going to say, I will be less grumpy.
[01:06:44.820]There are some funders who are saying that they want to use the software to,
[01:06:52.900]to sort out the people who use chat GP, GPT for their, their grants.
[01:06:59.640]Oh, really Mary?
[01:07:01.000]Yeah.
[01:07:02.100]Cause we were, we were talking about, wouldn't it be,
[01:07:06.780]useful for particularly the people in the smaller towns to learn how to use
[01:07:11.820]chat GPT to write some of those grant applications.
[01:07:15.180]And then we started getting this stuff from different funding organizations
[01:07:19.360]said, we don't want you to do that.
[01:07:20.920]I don't know why they don't want us to do that.
[01:07:23.500]That doesn't make sense. That seems to me to be a good use,
[01:07:29.020]but I think that the other piece of it is really helping people understand
[01:07:36.760]what the limitations are of the data that they use to train the algorithm.
[01:07:43.680]So for example, we learned that on a project I was on,
[01:07:49.340]we learned that a lot of the data that they use to train self-driving cars is
[01:07:54.960]from Chinese cities.
[01:07:56.720]So how would you use that data to train somebody to drive through a snowstorm
[01:08:03.280]in Western Nebraska on a gravel road?
[01:08:06.740]You couldn't, but how would you know that?
[01:08:11.280]I think really where I see it being helpful in some of our rural,
[01:08:17.520]especially the villages or with small volunteer organizations is people who
[01:08:24.360]just don't feel that comfortable with their writing skills.
[01:08:27.000]They have all of the information they need for the grant.
[01:08:29.820]They just don't know how to put it in the right format.
[01:08:32.080]And I think that's where it would really be useful.
[01:08:36.720]Okay, we are almost out of time,
[01:08:41.220]but thank you all for a great discussion.
[01:08:43.140]Any final topic ideas or announcements for the group?
[01:08:48.160]I would just say, please make sure you have Becky,
[01:08:54.060]Cheryl's and my email and anything you come up with
[01:08:58.340]when you're trying to fall asleep tonight about,
[01:09:00.680]oh, gee, this is what I really want to know.
[01:09:02.520]We want to hear it.
[01:09:06.700]For sure.
[01:09:10.900]Thank you very much for letting us share about the real poll.
[01:09:14.620]And I said, well, hopefully we can be better engaged
[01:09:18.540]with all of you on it.
[01:09:19.920]Thank you, Becky.
[01:09:23.780]Thank you, Mary and Cheryl.
[01:09:25.780]All right, everyone.
[01:09:28.720]Hope your 2024 is off to a good start
[01:09:31.920]and we will see you next month.
[01:09:34.300]Have a good one.
[01:09:36.680]day.
[01:09:36.960]Thank you.
[01:09:37.020]Thank you.

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