In October 2004 the personal identity aggregator and broker ChoicePoint was defrauded and gave con-men access to 100,000s of Americans' records - 1,000,000s of records - perhaps your social security number, and financial history, and medical files. You wouldn't know, unless you've experienced irregularities - ChoicePoint chose not to notify their victims, except in California, where state legislators have had the wisdom to require their citizens are notified of such fraud... but even there it took four months for ChoicePoint to mail notice to those 35,000 victims. If this sounds pathetic, it is. More pathetic is that we allow companies like ChoicePoint to aggregate and broker our personal identities. Is this what you want? Read on and realize this is not what you want. Keep visiting REALNEO to learn the alternatives... coming soon.

Honey, those VCs are peeking into the living room again and scaring the
dog: Thanks to the latest edition of the quarterly Mercury News venture
capital survey, we

Today's Tuesdays@REI topic on "The Doan Brook Watershed Partnership" attracted the attention of many people and organizations, as the issues discussed connect to many important initiatives that concern water, as a natural resource and a source of positive economic impact.

[Picture (source) : Fishing in the pond near the former Mount Sinai complex at Rockefeller Park and Doan Brook]

A two-part forum on: The Economics of Early Childhood Development - see NEO Childhood for support site and services

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Open-Source Practices for Biotechnology - New York Times,
February 10, 2005

Researchers from Australia have devised a method of creating genetically modified crops that does not infringe on patents held by big biotechnology companies.

The people behind the new technology-sharing initiative, called the Biological Innovation for Open Society, or BIOS, say that patents covering the basic
tools for genetically engineering plants - which are controlled by
companies like Monsanto, Syngenta and Bayer CropScience - have impeded
the use of biotechnology in developing countries and also in smaller-acreage crops, like vegetables, in the United States.

The Doctor Will See Your Prototype Now - Wired,
February 2005

The Physiome Project is assembling digital models of every system and anatomical feature of the human body - from large organs to tiny cellular and molecular functions.
The system would allows physicians to test various scenarios on your digital model - surgery, radiation, chemotherapy - and watch how your system reacts.

Below is a story about a company in LA that's doing exactly what companies and all medical service providers must do here - using open source VistA medical information management standards to transform healthcare. This is THE realization of the $125 million vision President Bush recently promoted here, and the understanding the Cleveland Clinic has embraced, and the certainty all other healthcare providers in NEO must recognize. Bottom line, if NEO's 100s of hospitals, clinics and medical centers and 1,000s of doctors get up to speed NOW, and collaborate, and turn their attention to excellence outside the operating room, and work strategically with enlightened IT professionals to embrace VistA region-wide, for the 4.4 million patients here, NEO will overnight become the global center of excellence in healthcare and the multi-billion-dollar medical information systems industry - for now, leadership, success, jobs and wealth go to some up-starts and VCs in LA. Read more...

At the 02.08.05 Tuesday@REI on Intergenerational Learning, Catherine Whitehouse gave an exceptional PowerPoint (1.73 Mgs) on the Intergenerational School she directs - this is a globally unique "Charter School" with about 100 students - read more here and by reviewing the meeting transcript and other attendee notes and comments posted to REALNEO - please feel free to add your comments.

Betsy Merkel of REI introduced Peter Whitehouse, who
introduced the panelists and facilitators:

• Dr. Cathy Whitehouse, the wife of Peter Whitehouse, is a
  founder and the Principal of The Intergenerational School, the only such school
  in the world and a charter school serving eastern Cleveland.
• Kirstin Frei-Herrman is the Project Director of Experience
  Corps/RSVP of Greater Cleveland, a program providing an intergenerational
  tutoring program in the Cleveland Public Schools.
• Crystal Davis is from the Office of Family and Community
  Engagement, Cleveland Municipal School District, an office dedicated to
  stimulating family and community involvement in the education of our children
  and implementers of aspects of the No Child Left Behind program.

The facilitators for the panel discussion were Monica
Dumitriu and Betsey Merkel, both Consultants at REI.

The 02.08.04 Tuesday@REI continues an important collaboration exploring unique value in Northeast Ohio child development - today expanding focus to "Intergenerational Learning", which leverages the value of all ages learning together. Here we see notes on presentations and discussions featuring:

An entire section of the daily newspaper and about half of TV news coverage is about NEO sports, while little attention is focused on our real winners. What is more exciting and important to the people of this community: a closing pitcher's saved games or a heart surgeon's saved lives? Attendance at basketball games or patients treated per year? A 30,000 seat stadium or a million square foot heart center? Having the world's best B-ball player or world-class healthcare, adding $ billions to our economy! TIme to focus on the scoreboards that matter. Cleveland sports teams rise and fall but NEO healthcare providers are always global champions, and getting better each year. Not only are "WE" winners at home, but the team Cleveland Clinic is increasingly a winner on the road, most recently being recruited by Scripps Institute in California for an innovative program in Florida. Read recent from the Cleveland Clinic head coach's playbook and more press below on a few other big wins in the past few weeks.

From Today's Crain's, we see the Cleveland Clinic continuing to dominate local news and the world healthcare economy as they attract to this area $5 million in state funding, contributing to a $300 million development budget for a one million square foot project building the world's largest and leading heart center, resulting in 5,000 local jobs and a $1.2 billion annual impact on our economy. At the Cleveland City Club, on January 21, 2005, new Clinic CEO "Toby" Cosgrove laid out his vision for the future of the Clinic, and the Heart Center is an exciting part of their plan for NEO. Read notes from the City Club and related insight to appreciate the scope of opportunties offered ahead!

At the January 21, 2005 City Club forum, Cleveland Clinic CEO Toby Cosgrove ended his presentation with his vision for the Cleveland Clinic leading the inevitable "socialization" of healthcare in America - he declared the age of private and small medical practices and hospitals has ended and large, efficient world-class healthcare providers like the Clinic will create a universal umbrella of coverage. He is correct, and Cleveland is very fortunate to have a world-leader of this movement here - the Clinic is just as able to be a world-hub of socialized healthcare as any other provider, and Cosgrove is clearly capable of leading NEO to the forefront of this global transition - NEO should be center of global healthcare industry and excellence - read the notes from Cosgrove's presentation to better understand how and why!

But the socialized provider aspect of the healthcare revolution is just one opportunity now before NEO - another was surfaced a week later with President Bush's 02.28.05 visit to the Clinic to praise their use of information systems to streamline and automate patient records - featuring before the world the Clinic's successes standardizing how patient records are maintained and communicated. To highlight this transformation, mentioned by Cosgrove the prior week at the City Club, the Clinic was not only able to use excellent medical information management to be the first providers to identify health risks of the pain-killer Vioxx but was then able to notify their 11,000 patients using Vioxx that they must stop taking the medication, literally real-time. Thus, effective medical information systems reduce healthcare problems, saving money and lives.

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. 

The Economics of Early Child Development initiative for Northeast Ohio kicked off February 01, 2005, with a fantastic forum at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, where 11 important community leaders representing organizations ranging from the Gund and Cleveland Foundations, Treu-Mart Fund, CCC, Cleveland Public Schools and Hanna Perkins, were moderated by REI leaders Ed Morrison and Roberta Waxman-Lenz in insightful presentations and Q&A on what NEO will look like in 2010, when we are the world-leaders in Early Child Development - join the over 160 attendees as we plan next steps at a special NEO Childhood Community of Interest Link here!

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.

Here are some useful resources that build the connection between early child development and economic development.

The 1998 Commission on the Future of the South report

The pace of adoption of open source software is accelerating at astounding rates, as we see entire nations officially dumping Microsoft and going free. Recently, Venezuela switched to open source, and plan a university to develop programmers... now, read two great postings about Brazil - developing countries are wising up... developing Ohio is wising up too, as you'll see...

Notes from the first Early Child Development Forum:

Community
of Minds Technology Networking Event

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A two-part forum on: The Economics of Early Childhood Development

 Awareness: Session; One February 1, 2005, 4:00-6:00PM, Cleveland Museum of Natural History on Wade Oval in University Circle

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"Monuments differ in different periods. Each age has its own."

"Maybe, just maybe, we shall at last come to care for the most important, most challenging, surely the most satisfying of all architectural creations: building cities for people to live in."

Philip Cortelyou Johnson: July 8, 1906 - January 25, 2004