Yesterday, I traveled to Orrrville, OH to meet with a group of librarians from Wayne County. The question we explored: What s the role of libraries in the future of Northeast Ohio's economy.

During the industrial era, our economy generated enormous wealth. One of the legacy assets of this period is our extraordinary library system. (For example, Orville's library ranks sixth in the nation for a community its size.)

A little over a year ago, the Brookings Institution produced a report on Pennsylvania. The basic findings focused on the competitive disabilities created by no-growth sprawl. Learn more about the Brookings report and download the report here.

KeyCorp has made an important investment in the Civic Development Corporation of Ashtabula County. Learn more about what the Civic Development Corporation provides to our region by reading the relea

In 1999, a journalist at the Cleveland Plain Dealer named Tom Brazaitis published an article asking what his readers thought about his paper? I was intrigued - it never occurred to me newspaper journalists cared what readers thought. I called him and left a voice mail message to comment - he called back to discuss my thoughts and he asked me to email them to him - I sent back a lengthy assessment of that Sunday's publication. Not only did he care what I thought, but he published some excerpts of my message, along with other readers' perspectives.

Knowing Tom cared about his readers, I grew to care about his work and paper, and him, and I realized his columns were always right on. He taught me journalists are normal people, doing normal jobs. He taught me being a "socialist" is not a crime. He taught me to speak my mind and write my peace. He
inspired me and changed my life.

On 3/29 there was a town hall style meeting held in the Levin College at CSU. 3 or 4 TV stations covered the event. The topic was American Jobs; the sponsors of this open meeting of local and Ohio leaders and the public were the Council for Excellence in Government and Goldman Sachs along with GS’s Global Marketing Institute. Similar meetings are being held in other cities across the US. The panel included, Ohio’s lieutenant governor, John Ryan of the AFL-CIO, Stephanie Mc Henry, president of Shore Bank, A J Hyland, president of Hyland Software, Myron Robinson president of the Urban League, and Mayor Jane Campbell. The meeting space was full to overflowing (say 400) ; the moderator was lively and the audience kept the questions/comments coming.

Last fall, Lori Vanelli was an enthusiastic early adopter of the livejournal assignment for MGMT 250. This spring for MGMT 251, she found coming up with a topical focus for her blog writing a bit of a challenge, and I'm pleased that her tone of slightly irreverent reflection on herself and others has been retained as she has come to focus on the young of the working world. Over the course of February and March she has written about twixters, boomerang kids, quarterlife crises, and how she and her peers perceive themselves and the challenges that face them. Lori's livejournal is a great introduction to the NEO blogging scene from the point of view of a 20something, and I'm sure she'll stick with it even after the semester ends.

Would you please take a look at Ryan Arlia's class project for MGMT 251? Ryan has chosen to focus on real estate management issues, and would like to get feedback on the posts he made in February and in March. His post about online marketing strategies is particularly interesting. Your comments on any of the posts would be most welcome... part of what Ryan needs to do for his project assignment is to so some experiments with how to build traffic to his blog, so if you have any suggestions for him, I'm sure he would appreciate hearing from you.

The planning department in Summit County is guiding a planning process for the county. The Department of Community and Economic Development is asking questions, such as "How much farmland should Summit County have?"

You can read more about the process here.

This process touches on a deeper set of issues facing our region: No growth sprawl. Like Pennsylvania, Northeast Ohio has developed inefficient patterns of development. You can download the Brookings study from this page. You can also download a reportcompleted in 2000 on the costs of sprawl in Pennsylvania.

It's about more than the nightlife... how can we encourage social entrepreneurs like Joe Akka to make Cleveland one of their hometowns? Joe has a lot in common with Jurgen Faust, I think, with an appreciation for design that is evident at his Panacea, and yet he's not an art school graduate (he's a 29-year-old MD who is running an independent restaurant company based in the UK).

With financial help from the German government, the wind turbine manufacturer REPOWER designed, manufactured, installed, and commissioned this fall the largest capacity wind turbine ever. During the first month of operation the 5 megawatt turbine sent to the grid over 1 million kilowatt hours of electricity (average output of 1.3 mw/hr). Compare that to the production of the turbines in Bowling Green, Ohio where, in approximately 13 months, a 1.8 MW Vestas machine produced apx 1,300,000 kilowatt hours (avg. output of .137 mw/h) See details of the Repower machine at: http://www.repower.de/ and click on the 5MW website in the lower RH corner of the home webpage. The output differences between the two machines are primarily related to the larger size of the Repower machine and the difference in wind energy between the two locations – not differences in blade or generator technology.

Mary Black: Songs for Ireland.  She invites us in with the warmth of her voice and the liveliness of her song.  How lucky we are to have the Cleveland Museum of Art include in their Festival of Performing Arts the talents of Mary Black, a singer from Dublin.  As she comes on stage, she tells us as that she loves the snow we have here in Cleveland and that last night she took the opportunity to romp in this white world and throw some snowballs.  Now she draws us into her world of melodies and Irish rhythms, playfully sharing her stories of Ireland and blending together Celtic and American folk music.  She sings to us of the sadness of a couple parting as a soldier goes off to war; she weaves a melody around the joy of two lovers; she energizes the audience with the drum beats and riffs of her supporting drummer, guitarist, and keyboard player.

I attended an outstanding meeting of facilitators on Friday, led by Jack Ricciuto, founder and CEO of Smart Meeting Design.  A group of 35 people met to discuss the value of facilitation and ways that it can be marketed and developed.  During the discussion, we surveyed the collective years of facilitation represented in the group to find that it was just over 400 years.  The discussion began with the idea that communities grow out of conversations.  We start with words that build conversations that develop relationships.  The question is often asked in northeast Ohio as to how to construct a regional plan, how to engage a community that values all this region has to offer.  Certainly part of the answer must lie in the possibilities created by Jack's planting the seeds for a Northern Ohio Facilitator Community of Practice. Check out his website at: http://designinglife.com/index.php/NorthernOhioFacilitation/CommunityofPractice.   

Robert Paterson has shared a draft of a book chapter at his blog which offers a vision of how the generous spirit of the blogosphere might revolutionize our thinking about work and how it fits into our lives.

Check out this site: Vision Downtown -- it sounds like it is reporting on grassroots activism going on to redesign downtown Cleveland into a quality, connected place.

Couple of days ago I went to a Cleveland Barons game in Gund Arena. I am not what you would call a die hard hockey fan, but I had a season pass to OSU hockey games when I was a student there. I was surprised to see attendance as low as it was at the Barons game. Considering the NHL has no games this season I would have guessed there would be more Canadians in the crowd. The arena being so empty gave us the chance after a few minutes into the first period to sit by the ice behind the goal.

I know the farm team for the Sharks is not the best team in its division, but have we actually become a city obsessed with major league teams that minor leagues do not even count. When I mentioned the game to my friends, most of them asked me who the Barons were? It's amazing that we can go to a professional hockey game for the price of a movie, yet the citizens don't even know this team exists.

Norm,

you may want to get to know Hilary Bradbury, who runs the Weatherhead Institute for Sustainable Enterprise... http://weatherhead.cwru.edu/wise/

she is a teleworker now based in LA, but s

You might not think of a public library as the "in" place to be, but some teenagers do! The Chapin Hall Center for Children at the University of Chicago reports on ideas being developed for new roles that public libraries can play in developing our youth. Here's what they say: "With growing numbers of teenagers visiting libraries to socialize, do homework, and use computers as well as the Internet, libraries have found themselves pressed to address the needs of this group. Although nearly a fourth of library patrons are teenagers, libraries traditionally have devoted less of their space, personnel, and financial resources to services for teens than to any other age group. An evaluation of the Public Libraries as Partners in Youth Development, a nine site demonstration project funded by the Wallace Foundation, suggests that communities should take a closer look at the role that public libraries can play in strengthening the skills of teenagers, building the capacity of libraries as institutions, and connecting libraries more closely to communities. The study suggests that library-based youth programs, especially in low- income communities, can teach teens specific job skills at the same time that they make libraries more visible assets in the community." Click to read New on the Shelf: Teens in the Library

If you are interested in developing the brainpower of our next generation of northeast Ohio residents and workers, please come read about the Northeast Ohio Breastfeeding Education and Advocacy Network!

I happened to catch the NOVA program "A Daring Flight" onÂ
Louis Blériot developing the first airplane to cross the English Channel, which in fact revolutionized the airplane industry at its beginning. Lessons Louis learned from Dayton's Wilbur Wright made this possible, and over the years following his Wright "schooling" Louis gained nearly every flight record in existence, with a plane that exceeded the Wright Brothers' accomplishments, becoming the most popular airplane in the world at that time. Understanding that transformation in time, place and industry offers many lessons for NEO now, in our transition.

I wrote an email to a young person interested in a Business-IS career path. I wanted to make them aware of project management resources, since I believe that project management "best practices" are essenial knowledge for any business or technical leader. Rather than benefiting only this one young person, I thought I would publish my advice in a blog.

Ted's Advice to Young People

The “right� to vote, the subject of nonviolent protests, bloody confrontations and solemn pronouncements by Supreme Courts and Congress for centuries, is very much in doubt. Like a desert mirage, the image of an effective election, with widespread, universal voting looms before us, but always out of reach. In a practical manner, the right to vote is defined, not by the United States Constitution or the lives lost to ensure a vote, but by the amount of money legislators, Governors and other state officials are willing to spend to implement fair elections.  The President and Congress should treat the right to vote as a full entitlement, guaranteed by the Constitution, and provide the money needed to ensure accurate elections. 

I attended the panel yesterday at the Natural History museum, and I commend Ed Morrison and Roberta Waxman-Lentz for recruiting such a wonderful variety of speakers. I was impressed with the work that has already been done in Northeast Ohio to begin connecting child development work and economic development work, though there is still much work to be done.

This morning’s PD cited a Michigan research paper that concluded that economic cars, hybrids and the like, will generate a stronger economic return for European manufacturers, who have adapted to meet the more aggressive, European environmental standards and are now poised to reap the economic benefit of this growing market in the US. As a result, the study says, the US government should assist, despite the current $400+ billion budget deficit, in the retrofit/reengineering of the US plants to be able to compete. Of course, the industry could have also asked for assistance in meeting the environmental demands decades ago to seize the leadership mantel now held by European manufacturers, but for decades, US auto industry opposed stronger environmental standards, rather than adapt. Another significant, unmentioned lesson also warrants noting: Sound environmental policy, environmental leadership, can generate economic leadership in a very short time.

All Theme Module development work will be documented in this book.