Project Lead: Brian Brashaw

Contact Information: 218-720-7248

Objectives

The objective of this project was to develop a community of practice through web-based information technologies to support sustainable economic development of the forest products industry in the communities of northeast (NE) Minnesota. The focus of this project is to use this advanced communication technology as a tool for NE Minnesota Forest Industry Action Team that will concentrate on strengthening and growing existing wood products businesses.

The project is aimed at two audiences. The first is the membership of the NE MN Forest Industry Action Team including the Superior National Forest, Cook, Lake and St. Louis Counties, the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources and Iron Range Resources Agency, Minnesota Power, the Arrowhead Regional Development Council, and the University of Minnesota’s Extension Service and the Natural Resources Research Institute. The second audience includes wood product industry businesses in NE Minnesota such as logging companies, primary and secondary wood products manufacturers.

Planning

The project team consulted with technology specialists at Bemidji State University’s Northern Tier High Technology Corridor to identify appropriate Web-based communication packages that would help them meet their project goals. They also conducted face-to-face planning meetings with the membership of the NE MN Forest Action Team to develop the goals and objectives of the original project. Throughout the last 4 months, the project team has conducted monthly meetings between the majority of the project collaborators using the web-based meetings and plan to continue them into the future.

Technology

A secure interactive collaborative based Web platform provided by the Northern Tier High Technology includes instant messaging, team meetings, discussion forums, team calendar, task manager, and a virtual library which allows for the uploading documents, images, graphics, spreadsheets and more. The project team also used Adobe Breeze for on-line meetings and Webinars.

Experience to Date

The primary barrier experienced by the project team were the competing project priorities of its key members. The project lead also had to spent significant amount of time trying to organize and utilize the members of the Action Team. Because it is a newly created entity, it required time to find the best manner for them to interact. Originally the project started with a potential membership of 20+ members from a dozen or so organizations. However, as they struggled to develop a platform for convenient and effective interaction, they scaled down to having 6 organizations as the core group. Going back to a smaller core group proved to be effective and allowed the project team to get back on track and proved easier to manage.

In addition to scaling down the core membership, the project team also decided that their target audience was somewhat small and often lacked access to high speed internet. For that reason, they changed their Webinar concept from live to recorded, on-demand type Webinars. This way, people could access them from various locations at their convenience. They are also exploring the potential for pod casting.

Advice to Others

“It is important for a group to have good functioning dynamics prior to an effort to make the communication electronic. We focused down on just a core group of organizations and individuals who for the most part had a long term cooperative relationship. This helped smooth the transition to electronic meetings.”