About the toolkit    Guide    Strategy    Funding sources    Finding examples    Glossary of terms

Follow-up and on-going steps

It is important that eWork and ICT strategies and actions be seen as part of an on-going process of regional development. How can the success and failures of the action be followed up in the future? Achievements which have been made need to be built upon, especially if their long-term sustainability is to be ensured, and failures need to be used positively to ensure that similar mistakes are not repeated in the future.

Consideration can be given to revising the overall vision if necessary, although this is unlikely. More probable is the need to re-assess and re-cast the goals and objectives which are designed to achieve the vision. Again, particular emphasis should be given to integrating these into overall regional development efforts. European society and economy, and eWork and ICT in particular, are in a constant state of flux and dynamic change, so that an on-going proactive strategy is needed for taking advantage of these changes for the region’s benefit.

In order to keep up to date, you should:

1. learn more about eWork and ICT, both in terms of impacts and technical capabilities and what this means for different types of users and different types of regional development strategy. Understand what this means for your region. (See Step 2.)

2. consider:
   • what is distinctive about the region? What are the things the region could do and could not do? (See Step 4.)

   • what can eWork and ICT do for the region: now as well as in the longer term? (See Step 5.)

   • how can an eWork and ICT strategy be integrated into the overall development strategy for the region? (perhaps this overall strategy needs to be adapted to exploit ICT?) (See Step 6.)

   • who is going to pay? (See Step 1 and funding sources.)

   • what are the likely consequences? (See Step 8.)

3. be ambitious, but realistic; think long-term, but act step-by-step. And never forget that the issue is not ultimately about the technology, but how the technology can be used to promote and develop the region.

Most valuable of all is networking with contacts, interest groups and other regions doing similar things, as this can identify not just what is available but also provide favourable gateways and knowledge about how best to obtain and exploit resources, the types of strategies being followed and the success or otherwise of actions.

  Find out what others have done

 top of page
 

© 2002, Institute for Employment Studies