Discussion Forum

Welcome to the RIAN Discussion Forum. This page provides the VDO community an opportunity to dialogue, learn, and grow, allowing practitioners to share best practices, experiences, ideas and opinions. Through this exchange, the community can learn from its members and improve its methods and performance.

Guidelines for Beginning a Topic or Commenting on a Topic

  • Any individual may begin a topic or post a question for comment and discussion by the community.
  • Standard rules of conduct apply: profanity, incendiary remarks, or other libelous comments are strictly verboten. This forum is intended to be an open exchange of ideas in a courteous and collaborative manner.
  • Please stay related to the topic at hand. A demonstration of a point utilizing a personal example is perfectly fine, however, take care as to not turn it into self-promotion. Editorial comments should be limited and negative criticisms of other individuals or organizations are discouraged. Again, this is community-driven, and little is to be gained by bad-mouthing colleagues.
  • Refrain from reposting private emails or other correspondence. If adding a quotation or data, please provide the source.
  • Proprietary information or methodologies are discouraged from being posted. Although people must log-in to post, this is a public forum.
  • Correct spelling and punctuation: just do it. Check for to/too, their/there/they're, your/you're, and please refrain from adverb-ializing "unique" – e.g. "very unique" or "most unique."
  • Most importantly: Because users of this site log in to gain access, it will not be possible to post anonymously. Above all, execute simple common sense, and maintain a high level of professionalism and courtesy. Remember you are not only speaking for yourselves, but also representing your organization and the larger economic development community. Please consider this before commenting or beginning a topic.

The Monthly Question
In addition to the open community forum, this page will also provide the opportunity for users to provide feedback to RIAN, and to respond to questions posed by the RIAN staff. On the last Friday of every month, RIAN will post a question on this page to garner community feedback and to help facilitate and guide discussion.