Thanks a lot to Lucia for her post, and contributing to the discussion! Please let me add three remarks on this very good idea of an “open” workshop for “stakeholders”:
1. Talking about stakeholders: the easiest definition of “stakeholder” is someone who has interest and influence on a certain process and especially its outcome (although it is very common to call anybody “stakeholder” who is just interested). So it must be clear for what they are stakeholders and in relation to whom and what. Should they help with financing, are they customers, future business or research partners, are they subcontractors or cluster managers? Or do we invite them to some kind of brokerage, matchmaking or cooperation event?
2. Concerning the development of a cluster strategy it would maybe lead us a few steps backward just to invite a bunch of people from all sorts of organisations (private, public agencies, clusters, companies). This is how CITT started in 2006, when we invited all interested persons. After discussing these cluster concepts for a while, we should now think about how and where we incorporate such an open workshop within our work in progress. Who do we ask about what, whose opinion is nice to hear, who should be given which responsibility? What can external persons contribute to certain parts of our concepts?
3. Conclusion: I suggest we distinguish between different sorts of contexts and stakeholders. For example we can invite potential customers, when it comes to adapting services to their demands. We can invite public organisations for discussions about their interests and contributions regarding our cluster. We could (in my opinion not yet) invite other clusters regarding their contributions to a “loose” cluster (the first step/ basic level). If we want to bridge several gaps between the countries, public and private organisations etc. this should in my opinion happen not now, but in within a future cluster/network. If we invite all people known to us (business, public org. etc) for a discussion about a cluster strategy the meeting should have a very concrete topic and very structured setting. It should provide opportunity to the guests to articulate their opinions.
So to summarize my statement: If we establish such a working group (or a series), let us define the context, purpose and target group in advance (e.g. one workshop with IT companies, one with sponsors, one with public organisations, etc). Otherwise we have too “many cooks discussing the soup…”
Another practical possibility would be to organize a cooperation/brokerage event together with EEN/FFG as starting point of a cross border network/Centrope cluster at the end of the CITT project. They have a very good online matching tool, mailing lists (of course including other EEN offices) and experience with general cooperation events.
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