In early January of the year 2000, a small group of friends came together to find a better way to gain attendance at the community events they hosted. The reason they worked so hard to hold these events was because they recognized that their hometown of Dubuque, Iowa, was in trouble when it came to keeping talented young people in the community. Yes, they lived in the home of the Little Old Lady from Dubuque.

The friends realized that the city needed to better identify and promote its competitive advantages against other communities if it were to attract and retain more young people like themselves. While very simple in its scope, their “big idea” was that the easier it was for people could communicate the many opportunities that were available in the community, the more likely the community would grow and prosper. More people in the community meant more people at their events.

The called this “big idea” 365, as they knew that to help people connect to more relationships, more social and job opportunities and a better day-to-day living experience in their city would be needed to make this effort an everyday way of life.

Using the Web to spread the word was an obvious choice, but it was long before YouTube and MySpace, and the software this team needed simply didn’t exist on the market. Instead of trying to force their ideas into pre-existing programs, the friends decided to create a set of rules and principles first and then create a software package around what they had learned. They were also young and didn’t have any money, so with the help of a few skeptical sponsors, they bribed a young programmer with unlimited pre-bottled White Russians and Mario's panzerotti's, they created www.dubuque365.com in October of 2000. By November they had about 100 users per day.

By 2005 they had one million users per year.

As their professional careers and graduate studies in other areas grew, so did their understanding that their “rules of community” applied to a lot more than just their hometown. They also recognized that they had inadvertently created their own extensive community of national-caliber experts also interested in ideas relating to creating a competitive advantage. When other communities and companies started asking them for ideas and to use the tools they had created, the friends decided it was time to re-create 365 as a company. Their process of “research, then programming” began the creation cycle of what is today known as the 365Advantage version 5.0 Web platform.

The Little Old Lady from Dubuque is now a Web-surfing maniac. Oh, and by the way, in 2007 Dubuque won the Nobel Prize of Community Development by being named an All-American City by the National Civic League.

Not bad progress in seven years. Stay tuned for more.