When the Quad Cities Community Vitality Scan was released this spring, it marked a welcome collaboration between five community organizations, but it was still easy to dismiss it as yet another study, one more evaluation of where we are.

What's potentially different about the Vitality Scan, though, is how those organizations plan to use it. If the five groups - the United Way of the Quad Cities Area, the Quad City Health Initiative, the Moline Foundation, the Community Foundation of the Great River Bend, and the Amy Helpenstell Foundation - can use the Vitality Scan and related efforts to guide their funding decisions, this is one study that could actually address community needs and shortcomings on a large scale.

When Front Street Brewery became a smoke-free establishment in November, general manager and owner Jennie Ash wasn't sure how the business' revenues would be affected.

The decision to go smoke-free was based on "the health of our employees and our customers," Ash said, but that doesn't mean the brewpub was convinced it was a good business decision.

Kim Findlay, the former director of the United Way of the Quad Cities Area and new president and CEO of Davenport's Putnam Museum & IMAX Theatre, already has several supporters.

Mark Bawden - the Putnam's interim director/CEO before Findlay and its current development director - says, "We think she will be great for the Putnam. She brings a fresh outlook and lots of new ideas."

Myron Scheibe - chairperson of the Putnam's board of trustees - states,"Not only does Kim meet and exceed all the criteria we had ... she also has a true passion for the Putnam."

And Jennifer Nolin - communications administrator for the United Way of the Quad Cities Area - describes Findlay as "one of the most phenomenal women I've ever met," adding, "I think she'll be a great bridge between the community and the museum."

Yet while comments such as these may not be unexpected, Findlay herself is, as evidenced by the analogy she makes in discussing her new role at the Putnam:

Most everybody agrees that spending money on education is a good thing.

But the "good" that education produces remains abstract enough to citizens and politicians that school spending often takes a back seat to more concrete projects, whether they're roads or sports stadiums or tax incentives designed to directly bring new jobs to a community.

Rob Grunewald, an associate economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, used to be one of those people who thought that education was important in a vague, general sense. "Invest in your schools. Invest in your colleges and universities, your workforce-training programs, and there you go," he told an audience at the Bettendorf Public Library last week. "You can all go home."