Since our founding, in 2004, REALNEO has become a groundbreaking free, open source social network of global interest – recently recognized as one of the top networks of our type in the country, by the Knight Foundation.

In 2008, the members of REALNEO.US formed REAL COOP, an Ohio legal cooperative, which now owns and operates REALNEO.US and REAL.COOP. We are unique in the world of social computing, and a global innovator in the evolution of information systems.

From the REALNEO.US homepage:

Thanks to Laura McShane for posting this morning a comment linking to Will Allen's "Good Food Manifesto" on his Growing Power blog. I, and millions of other people, became aware of Will last Sunday, when he was featured in the New York Times Sunday Magazine article "Street Fighter", but folks who follow local foods best practices surely knew of Will long before.

I was analyzing the lay of the land around the Cleveland Cultural Gardens Sunday and thought I'd visit the region's most valuable real estate, along the blue shores of Lake Erie. Driving down MLK, I went through one of the few ugly mouseholes under the Freeway and traintracks thal block almost all reasonable public access to the lakefront, and chose to not go right, to where millionaires live, in Bratenahl, but left, where lunatic leaders have failed to extract a red cent of real value from our greatest natural resource...

Over the past 20 years, I've spent most of my "professional" time as an entrepreneur, with world-class expertise conducting multi-dimensional, multi-client relational comparative data and best practice analyses of any aspects of the world's largest and best global enterprises, environments and systems, and developing and consulting on innovations and total quality improvement. This work has generated a wealth of knowledge on large general systems, with a unique expertise in information systems and telecommunications. REALNEO is a product of this highest level expertise, drawn from the best practices of the best organizations on Earth. What REALNEO has developed for Cuyahoga County - what has been generated out of the REALNEO-generated Real Cooperative - takes general systems innovation to a whole new level of making us the brightest greenest place on Earth. So, we really do have a purpose to Cuyahoga County owning the Breuer, and the vision is beautifully expressed in this great rendering above, to be REAL COOP citizen headquarters of the open source capital of this brightest greenest state of Earth.

Max Eternity - Two years ago Brian Ross of ABC broke a story about the U.S. Government's C.I.A. plan to destabilize the soveriegn nation of Iran.  It was a plan designed to take a propagandist approach to flooding the media with mis-information, while also attacking the country's currency.

Information technology pioneer and visionary - and Oberlin graduate - Marc Canter helped me launch REALNEO.US, in 2004... from San Francisco. Now, five years of social community and technology building and innovation later, I've convinced Marc to personally return to Northeast Ohio to collaborate with government, citizens and organizations in the community to make the open web a core economic and social strength of our region, at the global level.

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Auguste Perret (1874 – 1954) was a French architect who specialized in reinforced concrete construction, known as Béton Brut.

I was surprised to see a letter to the editor printed and on-line in the Sunday, March 22, 2009, Cleveland Plain Dealer - "A flag of peace is found out of order at the St. Patrick's Day parade", by Lou Pumphrey. It starts: "Being half-Irish (on me mudder's side), off work on St. Patrick's Day and knowing the day would be sunny and warm, I vaguely considered donning my 41-year-old U.S. Army dress uniform and joining the St. Paddy's Day parade downtown, carrying my flag." But there was no accompanying picture of Lou or the Flag of Peace.

In the print edition, there was a file photo of a parade, but it was hardly relevant.

Irish Eyes were smiling across downtown Cleveland for a beautiful St. Patrick's Day parade 2009... 67 in the shade! Please enjoy my favorite photos below, and from the annual St. Patrick's Day St. Baldrick's head shaving here...

A buddy of mine – I'll call him DC - just had a rough couple of weeks. One of DC's friends had his house invaded by gunmen... another friend went ballistic and killed five family members, and himself... and DC was denied a job because he is “colored”. This last problem is the most serious, because it causes the first two, a million times over each year in America, and seems all too commonplace here in real NEO.

The Cleveland Public Library welcomes the Year of the Ox with two Lunar New Year celebrations at the Louis Stokes Wing Auditorium, FREE and open to the public, the event will take place at the Main Library, Louis Stokes Wing Auditorium, E. 6th Street and Superior Avenue, on Saturday, February 7 at 1:00 p.m. and Sunday, February 8 at 2:00 p.m.

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Northeast Ohio has the opportunity to rebuild our neighborhoods and by offering healthier and more active transportation choices, we can create thriving neighborhoods where people want to live. However, the current transportation network leaves us way behind the curve. New investment to support walking and biking will create pedestrian-friendly neighborhoods, an important step to get the nation back on track. Fortunately, it's a cost-effective step we can take in these tight financial times.

EDWARD J. "CITIZEN" HAUSER, beloved son of Walter and Theresia; dearest brother of Harold, Sylvia, Thomas, and Caroline Widemann (husband Reiner); dear uncle of Nicole and Erik; dear friend of Cathy Stahurski; dear nephew, cousin and friend to many.

Ed Hauser died suddenly November 14, 2008. Northeast Ohio has lost its most ardent, studied and tenacious citizen activist.

I've been waiting to see how the Cleveland Plain Dealer is going to attempt to escape the shame of having endorsed for Cuyahoga County commissioner the highly unqualified and now under fire Bay Village mayor Debbie Sutherland, before she even debated the highly qualified and well respected incumbent, Peter Lawson Jones. Sutherland lost her first debate... and she lost her second debate... and, I understand, she lost four debates against Jones organized by the League of Women Voters for high school children... and she will lose the City Club debate (for Sutherland, losing has meant being obviously unprepared, unqualified, flustered, angry, embarrassed and even booed, in past cases). There was no excuse for the PD endorsing Sutherland, and now they must report 32 Cuyahoga County mayors endorse Peter Lawson Jones for commissioner. The PD editors are surely embarrassed over Sutherland, by now, so they are certainly looking for excuses, including attempting to make the race about race. I expect we'll see lots of this racist behavior in the coming months, years, and decades, in various death spirals, as the last generations of real American racists die away.

I received the following from NEO's champion of immigration reform, Richard Herman, which sounds exciting. I am certainly for opening up national borders - I think any of us should be able to go and live wherever we want, whenever we want. I haven't read the policy recommendations, beyond what Richard provided, and I'm not sure a merit based point system and ""High-Skill" focus are right, but anything that opens up borders, rather than building walls, is a good thing.

Cleveland – Cuyahoga County Commissioner Peter Lawson Jones will host a
fourth public forum to discuss the proposed Medical Mart/Convention Center
project.

The purpose of the forum is to share as much information as possible about
the Medical Mart and Convention Center projects with the public.

The forum will be:

That is the question? With so many voices shouting in cyberspace, what's the point?

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