Today's Tuesday@REI session was organized and moderated by James Harris, Partner with H/L Communications, who brought together an innovative panel of proactive experts addressing workforce development issues, challenges and successes in NEO. For context, James starts the discussion by illustrating that between 2000-2004 Cuyahoga County has had a 22% drop in manufacturing jobs and a 8.1% in all sectors - a report on the state of poverty in Ohio is attached. In talking about eliminating impoverishment in a context like that, it is clear it is very difficult actually having measurable impacts - you need innovative approaches to create work opportunities providing a living wage, to get people thinking about employment in sophisticated ways, and helping employees to keep their jobs once they are placed in them. James starts the discussion on innovative approaches to workforce development with Walter Ginn.

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...

<>Celebrate Holiday Jingle Bells at REI! - Join us Tuesday for a Network Celebration!

We would like to show our appreciation for the wonderful
work that everyone has devoted to REI. Stay and join us for a REALNEO orientation around 3 and an important Tuesdays@REI
following at 4:00PM.

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· 12.21.04 "Eliminating Impoverishment: Innovative Models to
Improving Job Placement and Retention" with Walter Ginn, Executive
Director, Towards Employment and its new national model ACHIEVE; Yvonne Tufts
Jeans, Workforce Manager, ShoreBank Cleveland/Jobs Partnership in Cleveland, an
innovative faith-based model first developed in North Carolina with Moderator,
James Harris, HL/Communications

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In his ED Pro, Ed Morrison highlighted important observations about the importance of broadband internet access... in this case highlighting a foundation initiative to improve access for rural regions of Minnesota, but the same thinking must be applied to underserved, disconnected urban populations, like in inner-city Cleveland and East Cleveland. Note, in the grand spectrum of Internet access, dial-up is the minimum need of every citizen of the new economy, the level of broadband discussed here (e.g. DSL or Cable, via wires or wifi) is a valuable step beyond dial-up, and beyond that is ultra-broadband, like with OneCleveland, which provides even higher speed communications for large institutions. Toi consider what action is needed here, read the insightbelow, inserting "urban NEO" for "rural MN" and replacing "Blandin" with "Cleveland", "Gund" or any other area or national foundation.

CrainTech published a story about two graduates of CIA's TIME
- The Integrated Media Environment - program, which fits perfectly with a recent development announced at American Greetings: AG invested in a
children-oriented film and television production, marketing and brand
development company named The Hatchery, in LA, and the CIA TIME grads have
formed an animation production company called Flipline
Interactive Design Studios that has an animation product they want to take to market (and lots more in the works, as you'll see at their website).
What better dots could we have waiting to connect for a local success story?

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?

TransTech originator Herb Crowther assembled a powerful group of panelists to address a fascinating, opportune set of transportation related topics of interest to this region - developing ferry service for vehicles and people between Port of Cleveland and Canada, expanding other water-based freight service in Ohio, developing high speed rail service in Ohio, and future concepts in rail transportation. The theme was sustainable transportation.

Thanks to REI for hosting this session, and Peter Holmes for leading the discussion. Our focus was to "collaborate on unique services provided in connection with application for service mark registration". In attendance was a range of community leaders with varied interests - entrepreneurship, consulting, change management and technology, so the discssion was lively, rich and diverse. And, it seems one of the greatest areas of unique value of REALNEO is the bottom-up, diverse interaction it enables, as represented by this physical community today.

Ted Takacs will post his detailed notes from the orientation, and we'll link in Peter Holmes' discussion documents and notes as soon as they are available - I'll limit my comments today to saying thank you to the scores of people in NEO who have embraced this environment as an enabler for change, and who are now contributing content and value in ways not possible before - to me, that is a greatest realization of the unique value of REALNEO, being empowering the unique value of great individuals here.

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.

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.�

REI has scheduled a REALNEO orientation session from 2 - 4 PM for
anyone interested in becoming more familiar with our Regional Economy
Action Links for North East Ohio. We'll walk through basic site
administration, like setting up a user account and adding content, and
setting up a Drupal site from scratch. We'll discuss how to best use
this transformational technology to transform the NEO economy. This is
of course free and open to the public - when you sign in with the
security desk at the PBL building (the Gehry) the guard will tell you
how to find the session... room 401

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Topic for
tomorrow, December 14th: "Sustainable Transportation: An Important Driver of Economic Development"

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Civic entrepreneur Herb Crowther, and representatives and
entrepreneurs from private companies, port authorities and other transportation
oriented economic development organizations come together during a 90
minute interactive discussion about freight-related sustainable
transportation opportunities. Shifting freight transport to rail and water can
improve freight mobility and reduce transportation costs while using cleaner
transportation modes. The purpose of the conversation is to raise the
community's consciousness of how much activity related to sustainable
transportation and freight mobility is already going on in Northeast Ohio, and
brainstorm strategies for leveraging collaboration and integrating
transportation initiatives to drive job creation and economic development.

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Our
Commitment to Building a
Sustainable Economy

<>Tuesday,
January 18, 2005

5:30
- 6:15 P.M. Networking
6:15 - 7:30 P.M. Presentation
7:30 - 8:00 P.M. Networking

Great
Lakes Brewing Company - Tasting Room (entrance
on Carroll Avenue)

events [at] e4sustainability [dot] org">Registration
is required, RSVP for this free event today!
Please
include your name, the names of any guests, your organization or business
and your contact information when you RSVP.

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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

Friday in NEO
- where's our unique value today? Start at the City Club for lunch with
Ambassador Ross, speaking on the what’s next for

After the Death of Yasser Arafat, What’s
Next for Israel and Palestine?

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Chuck is an attorney focused on anti-trust, and it is his interest in that
which drove him to write and edit this book, featuring five chapters by Porter.

Imagine it is 1895 and there are no automobiles - just horse and buggies.
Chuck sees life here like that, and that "unique value economics"
offers unique new opportunity here now.

 Dialogues on Leadership - Thomas Mulready - Editor, Cool Cleveland

New Leaders - Members Only - learn about joining here 

As
creator of the Cool Cleveland.com e-mail newsletter, which goes out
weekly to tens of thousands of people around the country, Thomas
Mulready has lead the development of a multi-media network dedicated to
economic development and the promotion of arts, culture and technology.
He is a writer, a multi-media performance artist, and director and
founder of Performance Art Festival+Archives, the largest festival of
performance art in the world.

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"Strong Schools = Strong Communities" emphasized a workshop held at the Enterprise Foundation Annual Network Conference in October. Lessons learned from the Baltimore Education Project are relevant to education issues faced in Cleveland. "Intervene with the youngest ages possible," urge the practitioners of this initiative. "Because standardized testing usually begins in the very early years of formal public education..., it is important to equip students with the skills, tools, attitudes, and behaviors that will make them successful at learning before they arrive in First Grade." The list of lessons also speaks to a long-term approach and establishing formal partnerships among community stakeholders.  To learn more about the Baltimore Education Initiative process, click here.

The City Club of Cleveland held a gracious holiday party and annual meeting
for the community it has served so well, since 1912, and it appeared well over
100 of today's community leaders turned out to enjoy this great institution and
each other, and learn plans for the future.