On December 12 and 13, 2007 47 people representing a broad group of stakeholders in the future of the economy and workforce in Nebraska gathered in Lincoln for the second FutureForce Forum. Since the previous Forum one year ago there has been significant work developing four specific streams of work to operationalize the vision established a year ago - a vision in which state agencies, educational institutions and employers from throughout the state would collaborate to address the significant workforce shortages in Nebraska. Participants in this years planning process included State and local workforce development, the Department of Labor, economic development, the Department of Education, k-12 educators, higher education as well as representatives from a cross section of employers around the state.

The first day of this planning session focused on broadening the understanding of the value of the FutureForce streams of work (Think Nebraska!, Career Connections, The Talent Pipeline, and Partnerships for Innovation) while also challenging the participants to develop specific goals, milestones and success measures for each.

On the morning of the second day an additional 30 participants joined the group. The morning was spent in a dialog about the FutureForce initiatives and challenged the participants to articulate some key enabling factors to support these work streams as well as to clearly spell out any obstacles that might need to be overcome in order to achieve the goals articulated by the group.

Later in the afternoon of the second day the group that worked on the first day developed action steps to achieve the milestones.

A complete record of the proceedings can be found here: Strategy & Design website