Yesterday, The Groundbreakers and Lethbridge County held a media scrum to discuss our regional economic intelligence partnership. Trevor Lewington, Director, Growth & Engagement with Lethbridge County, and I discussed the partnership, what we’ve been working on, and the recommendations the Ecosystem Navigator produced.
Samples of the ensuing coverage are below, which I think encapsulate what we accomplished very well.
Global News (starts at 7:21):
Municipal Information Network:
My Lethbridge Now (CJOC):
Lethbridge County
About the diagnostic and the results
We ran a diagnostic campaign that asked economic development experts in Lethbridge County a designed series of strategic-economic questions. The results included specific recommendations like:
Procurement-matching or “reverse pitch” approaches in which large employers identify products or specialized services they currently purchase from outside the region.
Encouraging knowledge and capability transfer from companies making major investments in the region, including stronger connections with local suppliers and workforce development.
The opportunity for even more joint research between post-secondary institutions and local agricultural processors.
Exploring mobile precision-agriculture training and workplace-based micro-credentials rather than requiring rural workers to travel to a traditional campus.
Thematically, what links many of the recommendations together is increasing the rate and effectiveness of knowledge transfer among regional actors, which holds the potential to unlock waves of new opportunity and growth.
The recommendations themselves are useful less because the ideas were previously unknown to Trevor and the County but because when experts in the region responded to key questions around innovation, infrastructure, capital, talent etc., these recommendations best fit the data as high-priority actions to consider.
The other key payoff is rather than taking weeks or months to gather data via traditional offline research methods, The Groundbreakers diagnostic takes 10 minutes for respondents to complete, and aggregated results begin to form in real time as reports are produced.
We know that the platform has provided recommendations entirely missed by expensive consulting engagements. Between the time saved and the focus provided by The Groundbreakers Ecosystem Navigator, there are major gains in both quality and efficiency.
All of which is to say things are looking very good. We’re getting great in-market validation in multiple places and beginning to get on people’s radar more widely.
Onward.