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, . . . . Holly Han,sell Consulting SWOT Exercise Thc second exercise of the afternoon was to identifY "Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT)" that face the NSCC. The facilitator explained that Strengths and Weaknesses are internal to the organization, and Opportunities and Threats are external forces. The proeess used in this exercise was to break into four groups and each group was assigned one of the four charaeteristics. The groups were then asked to brainstorm ideas and to list them on Post-it@ notes, After fifteen minutes, thc groups moved to a new eharacteristic (i.e, if they had been working on Strength, they moved to Weakness), In this phase of the exercise, the seeond group added to the first group's ideas and also grouped similar ideas on the Post-it@ notes together. This process eontinued until each group addressed all four elements, Individuals then received twelve dots they could use to vote for their top three priorities in each area (S,W,O and T); the dots were color coded as they had been in the visioning exercise, A large group discussion was held following the SWOT voting regarding items and eategories that had received the most votes. Due to time constraints, the discussion focused on the most important Strengths and Opportunities. In preparing this report, the author classified the various Post-it@ note groups and gave each group of ideas a theme name, These themes are simply meant to organize the information; the NSCC may change the name of a given theme as it deems appropriate. The top three Strength themes were staff, intergovernmental eooperation, and volunteers. The three Weakness themes that emerged were Comcast, franchise, and commission. It should be noted here that classifying Comcast as a "Threat" rather than a "Weakness" may be more appropriate sinee Comcast is external to the NSCC. If, however, the intent was to address the NSCC's attitude towards Comeast, then the issue is internal to the NSCC and it is classified appropriately. In the Opportunity area the themes reeeiving the most votes were outreach, legislative, and I-Net. And finally, the top three Threat themes were legislative/legal, cable eompany, and competition, Note that the legislative theme was viewed as both an Opportunity and a Threat and that an issue can be viewed from both sides such as in this instance, The eomplete results of the SWOT Exercise appear in Attachment B of this report. Planning Themes and Next Steps A large group discussion was held at the end of the day to compare the results from the SWOT and Visioning exercises and to discuss themes and issues that had been identified as priorities, The results of these discussions are listed below; they were not prioritized at the retreat and appear in the order they were brought forward by the group members at the retreat. Identified Planning Themes: 1, How do we get out from under Comcast? (Cable, Internet, etc., - get control) 2. Shift resources to Governmental and Educational programming (from public) 3. Identify what we can control and maximize control 4. How do we proactively plan for 2013? (franchise expires) 5. Bids for new attorney 6, Continue collaboration, expand partnerships 7, Explore public/private partnerships 2