Life does not happen in a vacuum. To be successful, we must interact with others, experience life outside of our “little bubble,” and we must be willing to share with others.

It is for these reasons — and so many more — that the recent trip by city government, economic development and tourism leaders to Little Rock, Ark. last week was important and the time invested by these leaders was well-spent.

Contrary to popular belief, we do not know it all. We are not the only city in the country to have a tourism industry and we are not the only city in the country looking for good ideas or ways to make our good ideas better. To be successful, we must seek better ideas and find ways to gain an edge, whether through better ways of accommodating our already flourishing tourism industries or ways to draw even more to our city.

In addition to our city leaders, the trip included those with the Vicksburg Convention Center and the Vicksburg Convention and Visitors Bureau. Those officials understand the importance of networking with other cities, learning from their programs and looking for ideas that in some way could be implemented in Vicksburg.

Those who criticize such networking have the right to do so but need to understand that only through collaboration with others, seeking better ideas and solutions to problems can Vicksburg continue to grow and improve.

Our city would be worse off if we did not look to expand our reach. We would fail to grow as a community and as an economy if all we did was look inwardly for ideas, rather than trying to learn from those who have met similar challenges and found success.

As a community, we expect our leaders to be creative thinkers, but when possible, we expect them to put into place things that have already proven to work. Why try to reinvent the wheel when others already have the ball rolling?

Vicksburg itself has been the destination for other groups wanting ideas. Our city and economic leaders have hosted trips from other areas searching for the very same things our team went to Little Rock this year seeking; ideas.

Little Rock is a much larger city than Vicksburg. Their challenges and their solutions, by scale, are way out of our league.

But the discussions had on finding those solutions or creating those ideas can be implemented anywhere.

We applaud the investment made by the city’s delegation to Little Rock, much in the same way we have applauded similar trips to Las Vegas, and the area’s annual pilgrimage to meet with Congressional leaders in Washington.

This trip will undoubtedly prove beneficial to Vicksburg and Warren County, whether that is experienced today or tomorrow.