X-Cell Theme Group Meeting

Overview:

Limited human resources, knowledge and time are few of the key factors that stop many organizations from innovating. X-Cell is the link between such organizations and the solutions that social media can provide.
This 1 year project was based in the Suupohja region in Finland. This region has one of the highest rates of small and mid size companies in Finland. The project aimed at piloting, presenting and implementing new communications technologies and social media to respond to the needs of SMEs, educational system and local government.

Objectives:

• Project promotion.
• Creation of an advisory committee.
• Get 5 organizations involved in the project.
• Ensure implementation and use of social media in such organizations.

Actions:

• The project was promoted on & offline via press conferences, news/press releases and social media.
• The advisory committee was created by selecting representatives of different clusters (SMEs, educational system and local government). Their role was to monitor the X-Cell activities providing feedback and becoming part of the decision making process.
• We performed an environment research to spot and connect with potential organizations that could have joined the program.
• Organized 3 ‘info-events’ on the state of the art of the project. Each event was recorded an made available on-demand via Adobe Connect Pro server.
• Analysis of the organizations that joined the project and implementation of social media at different level in internal and external communication.

Results:

• 6 organizations officially joined X-Cell. In the closing phase/period of X-Cell, 2 additional organizations expressed the desire of joining a second edition of the project.
• Participation and support from G.ho.st a 2.0 company that offers virtual computer accessible via web browser. The company is based in Israel and its virtual computers were implemented and utilized in the different regional clusters (SMEs, educational system and local government).
• The project received financing from private financers and Finnish Government.