Scott Suttell, the managing editor of Crain’s Cleveland Business, throws up a caution sign to convention center proponents. He points to a USA Today article on a new Brookings report.

The report deflates the argument that convention center investments make a lot of sense. The reason: a soft national market and an over-supply of space. The market is not down just a little. It has fallen 30% to 50%, according to the report.

Does residential real estate development play a significant role in economic development? In effect, my question is whether real estate development can serve as a catalyst for the transformation of citzens' economic condition or whether it is merely a lagging indicator of other successful economic development activity such as job creation. Can a builder/developer be a source of added economic vitality to the community, or must the community's value be raised by other means before his/her activities can be supported?

The Salt Lake Chamber of Commerce has the right idea. In a white paper that the chamber published this week, the business leadership calls for a major increase in research funding at the state's research universities.

who works at night excavating? quietly, year after year? Does it really amount to anything, or just early bird food...

It's too bad that Northeast Ohio hasn't recognized what Paul Silas has . . . that "team" effort wins games. Looking at our economic initiatives, Northeast Ohio seeks individual winners. Those seeking individual glory. Not the team's.

From Ed Morrison's always insightful and expert ED Pro website are his predictions for 2005 - feel free to add yours as comments to this posting.

Predictions for 2005 Predictions are always a tricky business, but they're fun to think about. Here's what I expect to see in economic development in the coming year.

An intellectual social reformer from Tribe shared the following posting that will have significant impact across America, because Martha Stewart is speaking out about legal process reform (from prison), and she knows the power of the Internet, uses it well, and is know and loved by untold millions, despite her legal problems. I post this message here because it surfaces issues we need to address to improve our regional economy - many of our unemployed are in fact unemployable for the reasons Martha highlights, and many of our more effective workforce development and reentry programs address this challenge - NEO must become world-class in addressing these issues, and use that distinctive competency to get ahead of the curve with social reform for this region, as America moves toward rebuilding our society as opposed to building prisons. Martha Stewart's Christmas Message: Prison Reform Now!

This just came through the RSS feed from Channel 5 - and is covered more thoroughly on the Medina Gazette site - Medina Judge Kimbler is using the Internet in unique ways, in his courtroom - allowing attorneys and the public to sign up and "Join Judge Kimbler's Court and receive e-mail updates on jury trials, decisions,
sentencings, and much more" - on the site you can see jury instructions, court documents, verdicts, and now it seems view edited, taped recordings of sentencings - really fascinating effort by a clearly tech-savvy and progressive judge.

The handbook for Drupal -- the content management system underlying RealNEO -- is available through a Creative Commons license/ Read more.

Here's another idea for our region to consider: A pilot program to promote immigrant entrepreneurs. A recent article from Inc magazine outlines SmartStart in Maine. The initiative targets the development of micro-enterprises.

I'm not sure whether this release got picked up by the local media. COSE is launching its annual business plan competition. Read more or visit the web site.

Business plan competitions are a good way to stimulate entrepreneurial efforts in a region. Here's a good article from McKinsey on the strategy. Read more.

Investing in business plan competitions would be a good strategy for the Fund for Our Economic Future. Here's how it could work. The Fund would challenge every college campus in Northeast Ohio to co-sponsor a business plan competition. The Fund would put up $50,000 in prize money for each campus electing to participate. That would require a commitment of about $1 million per year.

Each year, we would likely generate twenty to thirty good business proposals across the region. Some of these ideas will be small and focused on local markets. Others will be bolder ideas targeting higher growth businesses.

The competitions would deliver to the door step of other organizations -- JumpStart, GLIDE, COSE -- a promising set of business plans. In addition, the schools could commit to providing guidance and support to those who entered the competition but did not win.

Results would be clearly measurable by additional start-up investment.

Can artists improve civic behavior?

Here's an interesting article from the Harvard University Gazette about the mayor of Bogota, Colombia. He's a former academic and has been using mimes to encourage people not to jaywalk or behave irresponsibly in public.

A recent report by the Pew The Pew Internet & American Life Project explores the attitude of artists to the Internet. The surprising finding: Artists and musicians are enthusiatic Internet users and they believe the Internet helps them make and sell their work.

The George Gund Foundation today annouced major grants including $5 million for the Cleveland Museum of Art's
renovation and expansion project, a very exciting $1 million to Cuyahoga County's Invest in Children (IIC) initiative, and nearly $4 million more for 79 other programs that reflect the Foundation's continuing commitment to the urban
core of the region. This near-$10 million in funding brings their 2004 grant-giving total to nearly $30 million. "Invest in Children" is dedicated to Effective Parents and Families, Safe and Healthy Children, Children
Prepared for School and A Community Committed to Children... exactly what REI Director Ed Morrison and other community leaders recommend for insuring our long term economic development - read more and see links to that program and other related news and information below. Thank you Gund Foundation!

Many universities around the world are focusing on the study of social computing - from technology and application development to man-machine interface. REALNEO is already working with Purdue on a Drupal documentation project and we welcome additional research affiliations, and will explore teaming up with RIT. We are well affiliated with Case's Center for Regional Economic Issues and it seems time to get the IT side of the campus involved - any other Northeast Ohio universities interested to really understand this communications and human interaction revolution that is transforming politics, economics, knowledge management, industry and society? Post your suggestions here, after reading the thoughts of the social network lab director at the exceptional Rochester Institute of Technology...

Download Rev.1 of Drupal Overview. The first blog entry did not implement file attachment correctly and, hence, this second try.

The attached file is a revised version of my Drupal Overview presentation.

There's an article in the Plain Dealer on a fascinating local business development - American Greetings bought into The Hatchery, an innovative Los Angeles company "that produces family entertainment for film, television, home video,
video games and new media." My immediate thought was, what can this hatch for NEO. Our creatives need opportunities in these sectors and insider Los Angeles connections, and The Hatchery could certainly find "product" and talent here - it seems if our hometown powerhouse American Greetings is teaming up with shuch high level folks in LA, they should be able to steer some insight and opportunity from there to here. Reading a press release about The Hatchery, posted below, makes clear their management is influential and top notch - if our leaders ask very nicely, perhaps The Hatchery folks can help bring more new life to NEO than just on American Greetings bottom line. Has anyone bothered to welcome our new celebrity neighbors to town?

Just posted on "The Industry Standard", Yahoo posts timely roadwork, accident and traffic speed overlays on their maps for many cities, including Cleveland - soon to be offered for other wireless devices... one less reason to watch the silly local morning news and listen to lame drive-time radio

Civic Strategies has posted a reference to REALNEO on their directory of "URBLOGS", which the explain as: Urban
blogs are those that are focused on a metro area, provide
interesting commentary about local politics, culture or urban
life and aren't so ideological that they're painful to read. So
how much ideology is too much? Hey, it's our list, so we get to
decide. -

Here's
our list of urblogs worth spending time with:

Most
blogs are the work of individuals. But that's not the case with Cleveland's
REALNEO (it's an acronym standing for Regional Economics Action Links North East Ohio).
REALNEO allows large numbers of people to share resources, news and
ideas about revitalizing the region's economy. Along the way, it
hopes to create a virtual community mirroring the real one. You can
find it at http://realneo.contenthosting.org/.

And REALNEO is not the only URBLOG in Cleveland to be recognized

Bill
Callahan's blog is a jewel. He writes frequently and well, not only
about Cleveland politics but economics. And he does so with
an independent point of view. You can find Callahan's blog at http://cleveland_diary.blogspot.com.

Here is an overview Powerpoint presentation prepared to share with attendees at the REI orientation sessions and for your review by downloading here.

Providing childcare and pre-K advantages to more children cannot be considered only an issue of increasing the quantity of centers. Quality matters. The National Association of School Boards of Educations (NASBE) recently issued a policy update addressing this issue and the need to focus on the manner in which we assess young children. The Association states that “there is actually a fairly broad consensus today about many issues related to early childhood testing. For example, there is general acknowledgement that issues of technical adequacy are more difficult to address with young children, who have shorter attention spans and go through periods of fluctuating development. Experts also agree that…no single assessment should be used to rank, label children, or exclude youngsters from educational experiences.�

Suppose you wanted to expand the reach of preschool to low-income families not able to pay for these benefits. To whom would you turn? A recent article in the Washington Post tells of the Freddie Mac Foundation providing a $450,000 grant for a free preschool program in Alexandria, Virginia. The program, Child and Family Network Centers, enrolls over 170 children whose families earn too much to qualify for Head Start, but not enough to pay for a private preschool. The founder of this program, Barbara Mason, states, "I think every city's going to need a program like ours because there are always going to be kids that fall through the cracks." She started the center twenty years ago in response to the large discrepancy she saw between "the kids coming out of the projects and their middle-class peers." The $2.3 million budget of the center comes from three sources: one-third is from city, state, and federal funds, one-third from foundations, and one-third from fund raising.Â