I just got the following invitation from my favorite economic development leader in NEO, Cleveland Tech Czar Michael DeAloia, and I am intrigued he is not only a technology visionary but a poet. It will certainly be worth checking out the next event where he is reciting his poetry, as this is also a good cause of a group of other great NEO community leaders who operate "Meet the Bloggers". See more about the event below, and more about the poet Michael DeAloia in our feature of him as poet of the day. From poet Michael DeAloia, you are invited...

Location

An especially exciting project 7GEN Canada is undertaking is the transformation of the premier gallery of the glass art of Canada, Material Matters, into a virtual community. In doing this, we are taking a physical gallery at 215 Spadina Avenue, in Toronto (which 7GEN also calls home), and transforming that into a community of all Canada's glass artists, and a global marketplace for their art.

Lisa Wuohela in front of Material Matters, the premier gallery of Canadian glass art in the world.

The August 14, 2006 REALNEO header (included below) has great meaning, as it introduces a new initiative of 7GEN, LLC, the organization formed by Phillip Williams, Evelyn Kiefer and myself following the attempted theft of REALinks, LLC, property by my former partner, Peter Holmes. This header is of a great NEO art collection, of my parents, Doctors Ann and Norman Roulet, which Phillip, Evelyn and I are documenting on-line as a first service of May Show for the NEO community... in the future, my parents and other NEO art collectors and art dealers and artists may show the world the art they create, sell, collect and exhibit here in Northeast Ohio. The May Show portal being developed by 7GEN, LLC, will be the only interface in NEO to so well document art and make it available to the public, far eclipsing capabilities of even our beloved Cleveland Museum of Art. But that is not the most exciting development for 7GEN I have to share with NEO today, as we are basing future operations at the location shown above, on Spadina Avenue in Toronto, Canada. Read a brief introduction of what, how and why 7GEN will operate in Canada below.

Welcome to the home of Material Matters, and now 7GEN Canada, at 215 Spadina Avenue, Toronto, Canada

As real NEO is a huge place, with years of content or every sort on a broad range of subjects from 100s of sources, I thought I'd share some of my experiences navigating this community.

First off, remember you can simply "Search" the site for any keyword... go to SEARCH here.

If I'm browsing rather than searching, the first thing I check out is the center column of recent posts to see what's new - always surprising.

Then, I watch the blocks... in the right margin top are comments - those are always fascinating, and I like to interact with the other members here.

Then we have today's popular content, and below that is especially revealing... "Last Viewed".

It is time for major transformation and transition for REALNEO, and I invite you to help make that happen. REALNEO is a free open source software (FOSS) social computing environment developed by a collaboration of members, and they own their information, and maintain a copyright in all their postings on this site. At this time, there are 100s of members and 1,000s of postings, and 1,0000s of comments, representing significant intellectual property of lasting value  on the Internet and to this community, in every context. I launched REALNEO in October, 2004, and many people have been instrumental in developing value here. It has always been the understanding in this community that REALNEO would reside in the public domain and operate as or within a non-profit entity. At this time the ownership of the tradename REALNEO must be transferred to the public, and it is well past time for REALNEO.US to move to a sustainable technical and social platform.  I am open to all partners interested to lead future development of REALNEO, and there are many reasons this will be an exciting process.

Now that I must waste much of my time and energy preparing to sue Robert "Okihawk"/:NEOhawk" Hawkins I must conduct discovery determining the many ways to diverted business from his employer, REALinks, LLC, and acted against all stakeholders. One place where his record is told is on REALNEO, and so I am preserving his strings of inputs here.

France gets poorest citizens online for €1 ($1.28)  a day.

Why is it that I am reading of the digital divide being closed aggressively every ware but in Cleveland?! I thought maybe it was not that big of deal here in greater Cleveland... I mean everyone has a computer right? WRONG!!! It is pathetic that so many people are without a basic computer and Internet connection. What will it take to make this problem go away? I for one am willing to put forth an effort to help solve this problem.

On February 21, 2006, Peter Holmes fraudulently received a trademark for my intellectual property REALNEO in his name as an individual, at his home address - see entry below and go here to search yourself. The following day, February 22, 2006, Peter Holmes participated with REALinks, LLC, chief technologist Rob Hawkins in formation of a new company called 315 Caxton, LLC, to compete against REALinks, LLC, functionally diverting the intellectual property of REALNEO and the business opportunity of REALinks, LLC, to a new enterprise and new partners, clearly with intent to bankrupt REALinks, LLC, and harm all staff and stakeholders. Rob Hawkins formed 315 Caxton, LLC, with Peter's long-standing friends Rick Decosky, the Chief Finanical Officer, who personally signed the articles of Incorporation for 315 Caxton, LLC, and February 22, 2006, with William Tuttle designated on the 315 Caxton, LLC, website as CEO, Rob Hawkins designated as COO, and with "Blair Whidden... the penultimate networker, able to bring in further outside expertise when it is identified", whatever that means. Peter has admitted he provided funds to William Tuttle, and Peter funded 315 Caxton, LLC, staff to establish this operation in competition with REALinks, LLC. funding from Peter Holmes, to divert all assets and opportunities from REALinks, LLC, to a new company formed on February 22, 2006 and registered with the Secretary of State of Ohio on February 27, 2006, as 315 Caxton, LLC.

The origins of REALNEO.US live at http://clevelandcause.tribe.net/ where I first organized this revolution, while I was based in Northern California and fighting to help the real NEO economy from afar. Read the manifesto that was the CAUSE for REALNEO.US  below... the very first copy sent to my friend and co-conspirator with REALNEO.US, Louis Carl Edwards, via Tribe.net on December 21, 2003 at 4:19 AM, West Coast time:

 For those who find interesting the issues of newspapers versus internet based news, even when provided by the same organization - like the Cleveland Plain Dealer and Cleveland.com are both owned by Advance Communications - Jones Day was able to arbitrate that the on-line product workers were not covered by union contracts negotiated for the newspaper product - I believe the Plain Dealer if set up the same way...

Voices and Choices is a groundbreaking initiative of the Fund for Our Economic Future to develop a far-reaching, comprehensive regional dialog for setting a course for our region's future that will produce more jobs and create better economic opportunities for our families and businesses. Voices & Choices is also educating hundreds of thousands of people about the realities facing the regional economy.

Just a friendly reminder of the great bash coming up this next Thursday - July 13th at Fat Fish Blue. Thomas Mulready of Cool Cleveland had this fantastic idea of setting an event will help sponsor the Ingenuity Festival. The Ingenuity Festival is the premier event that helps blend (or blur) technology and art together. As part of this event you will get a free ticket to Ingenuity Festival. As always, I am looking to bring people together to celebrate our world class artists and technologists. So please join me!

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Hear the sound of 1,000 Drums. Listen to live jazz, hip-hop, folk, techno, classical, rock, polka, & more. Experience opera, theater, ballet, step dancing, breakdancing, contemporary dance & more. Enjoy exhibits, concerts, poetry slams, stilt walkers, jugglers, parades, food, flowers, & activities for kids, all transformed by technology. That’s Ingenuity 2006 & it’s happening this July in The Festival Village at Prospect Ave. & East 4th St. Seize the dates, at the Ingenuity Festival website and in this book, as the festival comes alive.

I've certainly paid much more attention to my alma mater, Tulane University, and home for many years, New Orleans, Louisiana (NOLA), since hurricane Katrina hit last year, and what I have seen is inspired regional planning combined with collaborative community building, from which we in NEO stand to learn many great lessons.

Opening Ceremonies

Ingenuity 06 will launch with a spectacular Symphony for 1000 Drums on Public Square at 5:00 pm. This Symphony, composed and conducted by internationally acclaimed Halim El-Dabh will feature drums from a rainbow of cultures and ethnicities, as well as individual drummers known in the rock and jazz communities. The goal? As Halim, puts it: “The world is filled with conflict and stress. We need to create a vibration that will change the balance to health and joy." The Symphony will be followed by the all county marching band's parade to the Mainstage. You can’t miss this! Please click here for more details.

Location

I am really appreciative, this morning. After posting what was certainly the saddest news I can imagine, about the hardship my staff has suffered as a result of a lack of appreciation from my former business associate, Peter Holmes, I opened up this week's CoolCleveland and found that their crew had featured TWO postings from REALNEO. I am very touched and thankful to Thomas and his team for noticing REALNEO and taking an interest in the thoughts posted here - thank you. Please show appreciation back to CoolCleveland... if you are not a member, see what you've been missing... subscribe at CoolCleveland - all free - this is a real NEO must,  and send feedback to CoolCleveland letters at the links below, and supporting the upcoming CoolCleveland/Tech/Ingenuity party at Fat Fish Blue, July 13, and the Ingenuity Festival, as described below... but first, here's the nice write-up about REALNEO from CoolCleveland today, July 5, 2006:

The Ohio LinuxFest 2006 will take place on September 30, 2006 at the Greater Columbus Convention Center. The event is free to attend. We are accepting submissions for presentations, and sponsors who wish to exhibit and show their and support for the community may sign up now as well.

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While at a meeting in the City Hall Red Room last year, among portraits of many past Cleveland mayors, I asked then Cleveland Mayor Jane Campbell's Chief of Staff Chris Ronayne who was Cleveland's best mayor ever, and he said without hesitation Tom Loftin Johnson (b. July 18, 1854 - d. April 10, 1911), who was mayor from 1901 to 1909. I didn't know much about Johnson nor think much more about him until I grew completely disgusted with the inane puffery in the Cleveland Plain Dealer demanding we the public bend over and take ODOT's obliteration of downtown Cleveland, Wolstein's destruction of the Flats, Stark's WalMarting of the Warehouse District, Carney's corruption of the Port Authority, and now Volpe's Disneyfication of Public Square, driving me to stand up and seek reality at the roots of this one-paper-chase misplanting of bad planning seeds into our social subconsciousness, so greedy developers may destroy our civic  mind, heart, and soul. So, I ask you the public to consider, will any of these corrupt land-grab developments serve the masses. or have we strayed so far from the world Tom Johnson left us that we are again just a low-class, groping, leaderless, blind, selfish, forsaken party to few, as Tom Johnson found and fought at the beginning of the last century? For the answers, join me at Public Square below...

I was astounded to receive the following email today from investment brokerage firm Raymond James in response to a message I sent one of their brokers...

Your email has been detected by an automated system at Raymond James as possibly
containing inappropriate wording and/or phrases. This system has deemed your email
to be inappropriate for business communication; therefore it will not be delivered
to the intended recipient as per the Raymond James corporate email policy.

If you wish to resend the message, please review it for any questionable wording to
be sure it isn't rejected again. If you feel you have received this message in
error, please contact (withheld)@RaymondJames.com. Please do not include the
original message, as it may also be rejected.

Read more...

 The following story with its links ran in CASE Daily (Case's online newpaper) today. Do feel like you have entrepreneurial genes? I think I do! Please post your thoughts
"Do genes influence who will be entrepreneurs?"

ABC News (Reuters), June 5, 2006
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=2041245

 A while back this issue came up on Realneo. Over at Bytes from Lev, he has a good explanation of what is at stake:

http://blog.case.edu/lsg8/2006/05/28/why_netneutrality_matters_to_cleveland_and_the_nation

For so many reasons, University Circle and its institutions and the surrounding neighborhood are core to what I value in NEO, and I look forward to seeing all that continually expand in significance to me, the region and world. But, University Circle is a small geographic domain, which must be optimized for 21 organizational stakeholders, and their 1,000,000s of stakeholders, including everyone associated with Case, University Hospitals, the VA, CIA, Cleveland Museum(s), Institute of Music, Orchestra, etc., and all others in the community.

In visioning for a better region and future here, consider a broader interpretation of University Circle from the small cultural, healthcare and university center of Cleveland to the center of the entire University Community of NEO.