Introduction and overview of our process

This weblog will keep you informed of the development of a strategy for Commerce Lexington. In July, we started a process to refine Commerce Lexington's approach to business and regional development.

This process started with over forty interviews with Commerce Lexington, board, staff and others.

Next, we conducted a staff workshop in August. The purpose of this workshop was to improve the coordination and communication among the staff. One of the challenges Commerce Lexington faces involves blurring the boundaries among the three constituent organizations that came together to form Commerce Lexinton in the first place: economic development, workforce development, and the chamber of commerce.

We followed the staff workshop with a board workshop. The board size of Commerce Lexington presents another challenge. The combined board includes over sixty people. The first natural impulse is to cut the size of the board down to a more practical size. The workshop explored another hypothesis: What if we deployed the resources of the board in a different way?

In addition, the board workshop started the important process of defining the strategic activities and initiatives we need to achieve the purposes of Commerce Lexington.

Following the staff and board workshop, we conducted a combined workshop. This session drove the inital directions of the board workshop into a greater level of detail. We explored specific outcomes and action plans. We used a first draft of the action plan -- the alpha draft -- to frame our activities.

After the Alpha plan we launched an Internet interview of CLX members to understand more completely their views.

Now, we are working on the Beta plan. We will complete the Beta plan in December and be ready to issue the final plan in early January.