Hope you can join us online for this week's workshop on new practices and tools for Open Source Economic Development. The retreat is lead by Ed Morrison, I-Open, Director, and Policy Analyst and Director of the WIRED initiative in North Central Indiana, Purdue Center for Regional Development, Purdue University. 

Ed will be sharing updates from his work across the country and we will be joined by leaders from Northeast Ohio and the nation.

We're getting ready to head out to Punderson Manor and Conference Center for this evening's Kick Off dinner. Just have to say the environment is beautiful and offers a great place to soak up knowledge. Tomorrow we'll work a full day schedule and on into Friday morning closing mid-day with a Next Steps and wrap up.

• You can refer to the workshop schedule posted here.

• I've posted information to the community space, I-Open Education, with the purpose of providing information for anyone who is interested. If you Join the community space you can contribute at higher levels and help us all build content and value around the work you do. The space is free..I-Open sponsors the platform as an economic development tool much like REALNEO.

• You may also like to review the Workshop Slides Ed has prepared here.

• We're hoping to broadcast live as much as possible for those who can't make it face-to-face. Consider bookmarking the I-Open Education Channel page to view live and archived sessions as you have time in the day. You can contribute your questions and comments via the chat tool located at the lower portion of the player. All sessions will be archived and accessible immediately from the Channel's Video On Demand (VOD) tool.

Our next Leadership Retreat is scheduled this fall for September 10, 11 and 12, 2008 at Punderson. If you're available you can reserve a seat with Susan Altshuler at susanaltshuler [at] gmail [dot] com or call at 216-577-9957.