Planning for Spring

Rural Diversification On-Line Course Update

There are twenty students well immersed in the Rural Diversification on-line training. They are keen, engaged and keeping their instructors on their toes. Interview notes with innovative rural businesses are flooding in and this week the students participate in a video conference discussion.

Spring Is Coming

Here at the CFNA we are making plans for spring by organizing the following workshop. If you have not signed up, consider doing so. This is the game we are in.

Rural Cluster Development Workshop
April 13 – 15, 2010
Fantasyland Hotel, West Edmonton Mall
17700 - 87 Avenue, Edmonton, Alberta

Workshop is limited to 30 participants
Facilitated by Ifor Ffowcs-Williams of Cluster Navigators


Economic development policies that target individual firms industries are no longer the most viable option for regional growth. It has become increasingly clear that innovation and economic growth are heavily geographically concentrated. Clusters are part of the economic reality. The new economy is about innovation that is supported by dense networking.

Cluster development requires hands-on facilitation, ideally from trained facilitators in the local area. In response to this need, Cluster Navigators has developed an interactive cluster training workshop to introduce the process of cluster development, and equip facilitators with the necessary skills.

The three day program provides an opportunity to take a number of local clusters through the development process. Clusters are selected from those that course participants are familiar with, an provide an opportunity to ‘learn-by-doing’. A comprehensive Cluster Development Manual is provided to each participant to keep.

Welcome to the Rural Diversification blog

This is the first posting to the new rural diversification discussion. Wow, I thought this would be really hard, but thanks go Google, setting up a blog is not as difficult as I thought.

Have you explored the resources on the www.ruraldiversification.com web site yet? Have you seen the project map with mouse over features showing you the great rural diversification projects taking place in Alberta?

In the next couple of weeks each of the Alberta Community Futures office will hear from either myself or Roger Haessel to set up a time for one of us to visit your office. We would like to talk about the type of business clusters that exist in your regions, about exciting clients you are working to support and a whole lot of other topics.

We can hardly wait to see you.