Established in 1912 to encourage new ideas and a free
exchange of thought, The City Club of Cleveland is the oldest continuous free
speech forum in the country, renowned for its tradition of debate and
discussion. The City Club’s mission is to inform, educate and inspire citizens
by presenting significant ideas and providing opportunities for dialogue in a
collegial setting.

Can Nonprofits Rebuild the Trust of Their
Giving Communities? 

United Way Chief Brian Gallagher tackles
this issue at The City Club of Cleveland.

CLEVELAND, OH—Brian A. Gallagher,
president and CEO of United Way of America, will address the topic “Accountability,
Transparency and Results: Calling on the Nonprofit Sector to Rebuild Trust� at noon on Friday, December 17, 2004, at The City Club of Cleveland.

Location

REALNEO will include all City Club of Cleveland events in the calendar and
will post notes from each event in this book, as available - if you attend an event
and would like to add notes, please post them here as comments to the
appropriate activity.

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

Immediately following is Tuesday@REI: "Unique
Value: Cleveland & Northeast Ohio,"
with
Guest Moderator Charles D. Weller, Cleveland Author, Lawyer
and Health Care Entrepreneur. Chuck is Editor and Contributor of the new book
(Released 12/04) "Unique Value:
Competition Based On Innovation Creating Unique
Value

Any questions, please email norm [at] icearth [dot] com

Location

Tuesdays@REI...a
platform for civic engagement and collaboration

12.7.04 "Unique
Value: Cleveland & Northeast Ohio,"
with
Guest Moderator Charles D. Weller, Cleveland Author, Lawyer
and Health Care Entrepreneur. Chuck is Editor and Contributor of the new book
(to be released 12/04) "Unique Value:
Competition Based On Innovation Creating Unique
Value

for
Antitrust, the Economy, Healthcare, Education and Beyond" with chapters by
Michael Porter, Peter Staudhammer and Scott Stern.

Location

The NYTimes has an interesting article on disruptive technology and the new economy - good advance reading for the December 7 Tuesday@REI session "Unique Value: Competition based on Innovation Creating Unique Value".

The 12/6/04 NYTimes article concludes:

Competition has been a spur to innovation, driving companies to find
ways to do things better or cheaper, to gain new markets and reap
higher profits. But competition can also diminish the incentives to
develop new technologies if, as happened with many dot-com initiatives,
innovations are easily replicated by rivals.

"Today, with a
much more competitive and deregulated environment there are very few
companies with the kind of financial cushion to take the 10-to-15-year
long-term view," said Mr. Slywotzky of Mercer Management. "Those
engines of innovation have shut down."

Read the entire article linked here.

ECHO is a Northeast Ohio region-wide initiative to support the leaders, residents and enterprises of East Cleveland who are proactively working to bridge the community's digital divide - ECHO stands for East Cleveland Homes Online. Representatives of the University Collaboration are driving this initiative, with prominent leadership from Case and Cleveland State. These efforts are supported by the Mayor of East Cleveland, and will help him reinvent the great community he serves.

ECHO will bridge East Cleveland's digital divide by compiling donated computers and distributing them and open source software and wifi Internet access and communications devices to insure each household, business and organization in East Cleveland has a computer with Internet access and optimal software and information services. The Intention is for computers and Internet access, training, education and support services to be made affordable for everyone living and working in East Cleveland, so life there is bettered by enhanced Internet and information technology, including Voice over Internet Protocol, social networking, eLearning, eMedicine, eCommerce and eGovernment. As East Clevelanders become experienced using these new economy tools and services, they will become more powerful forces in the local and regional economy, making NEO a stronger and better community for all.

Posted below are timely articles on technical, social and political developments related to deployment of such "socialized" information services via ECHO. The computer donation, processing and distribution initiative will be described in a different document - this write-up addresses providing Internet access. ECHO will deploy WiFi (Wireless Fidelity) as the core technology for Internet access with a "mesh", which you can visualize like a safety net. Also posted here are articles on alternative access technologies: Powerline Carrier, enabling communications via the power transmission infrastructure already interconnecting everything in East Cleveland, and WiMAX, which uses microwave to bring high bandwidth communications to target locations. Technology needed for ECHO is available in the marketplace and is reliable, cost effective, and getting better daily.

Adding a WiFi router to a cable or DSL Internet access modem (or Powerline or WiMAX access device) allows the wireless transmission of the Internet signal to and from WiFi ready computers within range of the signal, allowing many computers to access a single Internet connection. Range is determined by the WiFi technologies employed ("b", "g" or emerging "n"), and may be enhanced by optimal placement of antennas, amplifiers, and repeaters and diminished by physical obstructions, distance, and other interference. While the least expensive WiFi routers and other devices are "b", the extended range of "g" and "n" may justify using those broader range technologies for the benefit of providing service to more households per access point. It is also possible to add repeaters and amplifiers that extend range further. The deployment schema of these technologies determines the scope of the signal of each access point on the mesh. The objective is to distribute a combination of these technologies so all Internet access areas overlap, forming a mesh providing complete coverage throughout the city.

The greatest technical challenge is determining how loose a mesh is possible - how great a distance may be configured between hard-wire access points. Physical DSL, cable or other Internet access points must be contracted for homes, businesses, churches, schools and other structures distributed throughout the community - the WiFi mesh will radiate from those points. For initial modeling purposes, we'll estimate 1,000 physical Internet access connections must be contracted, for interconnecting all the WiFi technologies needed to provide coverage for 11,000 households in East Cleveland.

Computers in structures with direct access points may connect to the Internet via Ethernet. Unwired computers access the mesh and so wireless Internet by using WiFi cards/devices. By leveraging Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), people may also use WiFi capable telephones and computers for telephone communications throughout the internetworked community and via the Internet world-wide. Costs for computer WiFi cards have become quite low - a "b" card costs under $20 retail - bulk wholesale purchases could drive that cost to around $10. "g" and "n" cards cost somewhat more. The "g" and "n" cards and routers are backwards compatible to connect with "b" devices so a combination of all these WiFi standards will be used, as is most cost effective.

To complete a cost analysis, we must determine the availability of DSL and Cable Internet access in East Cleveland. Areas where households are physically isolated or where there is not any broadband service available will be the most costly and difficult to include in the mesh - perhaps requiring WiMAX and higher strength WiFi deployments. A map must be developed of all addresses in East Cleveland needing Internet access, on which we'll overlay available Internet service options and the optimal mesh of technology solutions. This is not an especially difficult challenge - the data should all be available.

It must still be determine what level of broadband is available in East Cleveland via existing DSL service providers and via cable Internet access. Where available, monthly charges quoted by SBC for DSL in Northeast Ohio range from a minimum of $19.95, if bundled with other SBC telecommunications services (like long distance phone), to an unbundled $29.95, if signing a one year contract. To receive SBC DSL, customers must also subscribe to their POTS - Plain Old Telephone Service - which costs a minimum of $12.67, for those eligible for SBC's low-income "lifeline" program, meaning monthly DSL related access costs/customer total a minimum of $42.62. If available in East Cleveland, cable internet access typically costs around $49/month, after any trial period discounts offered by carriers. With a one year contract, DSL and cable service providers typically provide a DSL or Cable modem at no additional cost - carriers may charge for installation and equipment shipping. These figures are estimates and all this information will be validated by contacting all carriers servicing East Cleveland. Further, pricing may be reduced through strategic planning and negotiation for service in bulk contracts.

For initial modeling purposes, project up-front cost of $50/modem and recurring cost of $20/access point/month X 1,000 access points = $50,000 up front and $20,000 per month for all of East Cleveland. In addition, there will be an up-front cost for the hardware to configure the WiFi transmission mesh for the 10,000 wireless access households projected in this model for East Cleveland - estimate 1,000 routers, at $50/router, and 1,000 amplifiers/repeaters, at $50 each - totaling $100,000 in additional up front hardware costs. The 1,000 households with cable or DSL modems will be able to access the Internet using ethernet, and ethernet cards are preinstalled in enough computers to assume that will not add any costs. The computers accessing the Internet mesh via WiFi will need WiFi cards, which will be estimated at $20/card, adding $200,000 to the up front hardware costs for 10,000 households. Thus, the up-front hardware cost to interconnect 11,000 households will be around $350,000 - about $32/household. Monthly access service costs will then be around $20,000 for the community of 11,000 households, being under $2/month/household. Even if costs are twice those estimated here, they are quite affordable - most households can afford $2-4/month for high speed Internet access, especially as that also enables VoIP (to optimize this capability, some computers may need headsets, which are available for under $10/headset). Households in East Cleveland already contracting for broadband Internet service will be able to participate in this mesh pricing model, allowing those residents to save or be compensated $30-40/month.

While $350,000 may seem like a lot of up-front money to spend in this community, it provides Internet access to 11,000 households and thus comes to around $32/household, which should be a manageable one-time expense for most households. If some East Cleveland households can't afford that cost up front, there should be a way to finance that over a year, as each household can afford $3-4/month for hardware, on top of $2-3/month for access. It is reasonable to project the entire mesh, with financed access hardware and recurring monthly service, is thus viable for less than $10/household/month. Consider, this distributed mesh cost is about 50% the minimum cost for any of these households to contract just local POTS - Plain Old Telephone Service - and 10 - 20% of what it would cost them for either cable or DSL Internet service, if they qualify. As a strategic planning option, each household could be expected to pay $10/month, which would generate $110,000 per month community wide, totaling $1,320,000/year, which would generate around $500,000 for other development and support costs and cover any losses from non-payments, customer hardships, stolen equipment and such.

To make the process as cost-efficient as possible, a not-for-profit organization should be used to deploy the mesh and enabling hardware and support services, as that may accept donated hardware and services - every device donated and service volunteered represents dollars saved from the costs to the people of the community. This 501c3 should be able to contract advantageous Internet access pricing for the entire community as an umbrella service contract, and should be able to acquire all hardware and contract services in bulk buying agreements for everyone, while negotiating every other advantage possible for a charitable organization. Options to pursue are grants, gifts and charitable donations, and collaborative relationships with schools, government, and other charitable organizations.

It is important to realize the mesh will serve East Cleveland businesses, government, and other organizations as well, making all of them more effective. As an example of the value of that, the Director of East Cleveland's largest employer, Huron Hospital, apparently wanted to initiate a buy-in-East Cleveland program but found few East Cleveland businesses are available on-line, so it is functionally impossible for a sophisticated enterprise to buy local. But as local businesses and residents move into the New Economy, it is a minor task to develop directories of their services, and enable eCommerce capabilities. Thus, local businesses and organizations like Huron Hospital can better serve their community, as is their desire. And all other East Cleveland residents will become more employable and be better served by their local business community, and East Cleveland will be a better place to base a business.

Huron Hospital and other service providers will be able to provide better service to an interconnected community. East Cleveland government and schools will be able to better serve their community. Organizations, businesses, and individuals within and outside East Cleveland will be better able to serve East Cleveland residents, and residents will be better prepared to serve their community and the entire region in every way imaginable. All the great benefits will become clearer each day East Cleveland is undivided.

The only obstacles to making this happen would be obstruction by businesses that hope to sell competing information technology and services in East Cleveland. But, as the preponderance of good to come from ECHO far eclipses the self-interests of any businesses hoping to profit off the struggling residents and small businesses of this community, it is safe to assume no socially responsible businesses will obstruct this transformative initiative.

Some related links:

An editorial in this morning's Dayton Daily News makes a good point. The state legislature would be taking the wrong step by eliminating the local government fund. At the same time, the state legislature can use the local government fund as leverage to encourage more regional collaboration.

The Form Group founder Steve Cencula was on recent panels at the Making Change and BizArt forums, where he brought to the attention of attendees the need to merge creative and entrepreneurial instincts, which has made him successful in design and business - his newest enterprise is developing interactive media and games for product development, communication and education. A point that stood out in his BizArt discussion was that he started his previous company, Kaleidoscope, because he wanted to do things he couldn't do or even learn to do at school - he knew by doing his own thing he would provide a product and service unique in NEO. He saw opportunity and he conquered. !00s more Steve Cencula's and NEO will be 100x more innovative - he's now on the Board of the Cleveland Institute of Art and promises they will be driving that level of change in NEO in the future. Posted below is the conclusion of an article Steve wrote on innovation...

About
REI

REI@Weatherhead integrates
high quality economic research and analytic tools to understand
and accelerate regional economic development.

REI@Weatherhead operates as part of a network of
university-based economic development centers in Northeast Ohio.
Each of these centers has its own particular strengths. Together,
we form an important support network to civic entrepreneurs who
want to make change.

In
Memoriam
- Benjamin
R. Stinner, 1954 - 2004

First
holder of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation-endowed chair in ecological management in
Ohio State University's College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental
Sciences.

I had the chance yesterday to meet with the Hanna Perkins Center director, Tom Barrett, and several staff members of the Shaker Heights facility. This is one of several institutions strengthening the fabric of our community. The Center includes four integrated branches: a therapeutic preschool with programming for children from toddlerhood through kindergarten, a psychotherapy clinic, a research center, and a training program for early childhood educators and care givers. It’s exciting to talk with these professionals who seek to utilize their knowledge to reach a broad base of our region’s children with programs that show such a depth of understanding for how children develop.

CoolCleveland mentioned REALNEO in their 12/1/04 issue, and that is appreciated. As a driver behind this effort, I appreciate anything that creates awareness of this virtual community - please know it is not "my site" or owned by anyone - it is provided freely to everyone in the region interested in enhancing our value of economic development and entrepreneurship... everyone in the world is welcome to visit, register and add content.

Jeff gives overview of history of wind power in NEO and of
his effort to reestablish this here

Then he gets into the needs to make this happen. He
stresses need for open model – open communications – to move our efforts
forward. Mentioned Wind Power conference and that no email addresses were
provided for attendees and presenters – old model. New model is open meetings
like at REI and the vision of social networks and analysis.

 If you haven't been to REALNEO recently, you've missed lots of exciting developments in our virtual and real community. For a chance to get up to speed, and become more involved in the REALNEO development process, join folks supporting this effort at Case/REI for a hands on orientation (and can get involved with the developing Wind Power industry right after - see below).

Community of Minds hosted another great forum at Case,
partnering with REI, featuring the energetic and proactive CIO of the
world-class Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA), Len Steinbach, presenting on
innovative technologies, projects and services they’ve developed to best serve
the local community and extend their value, outreach and success around the
world.

The dynamic Community of Minds networking organization now meets at Case - related information and notes post here

Consider what it means to have a community that communicates and collaborates effectively together. REALNEO allows everyone in Northeast Ohio or beyond, as interested, to participate in a free, standardized, open source virtual network, and so share solutions beyond how to invigorate our regional economy. When connected together in such a smart way, we may leverage a wide range of world-class technologies as never before done or even conceived in a physical community. Take VoIP and videoconferencing, as examples.

BizArt is a Weatherhead School of
Management based community dedicated to developing the synergies that exist
between the worlds of business and art. Along with many area development
leaders and professionals, this initiative is exploring the value of the creative
class in this community, and breaking down walls found in traditional economies
and organizations – everyone is creative – everyone has entrepreneurial
instincts – everyone should learn to leverage both sides of the equation. It is
exciting to see this free forum provided to students from both Case and the
Cleveland Institute of Art, allowing for sharing of knowledge and perspectives
among NEO’s emerging economic drivers.

I'll start my insight from the 1st CIA Design Conference with a few quotes from the incredible designer James Victore. To artists in the audience, he encourages them to realize the power of their talent, saying "Our opinion has value." "Learn a skill - get a job... learn to think and have a career." He regrets that these days "no one wants to suffer or give up anything" and he demonstrates how, by being different, by being authentic to himself, he has become one of the most important visual and social voices of our time.

The best concept for regional and global government, public, private, and foundation spending for economic development in this region that I can imagine is driving for a NEO MultiDATA strategy - Multimedia, Design, Architecture, Technology and Art - which fits my understanding of the purpose of our foundations and economic development visions and would revolutionize NEO's global position in many creative class and new economy ways which are not even contemplated in any of the writing and thinking I've seen around town but which are featured in major creative class communities world-wide.

Included in MultiDATA vision is a Philip Johnson conceived School of Architecture (he proposed that for our community around 1996 - perhaps it's not too late), integrating an urban and regional planning institute, featuring an "MIT-inspired" Media Lab, and multimedia production including music, video, gaming and film, and a CIA-rooted TIIMEish graphics center, and a Case-rooted third generation technology RDT center - research, development, transfer (open-source, advanced networking, IPv6, wireless, MEMS, RFID, nanotech, etc.), each and all with the capability to support secondary, vocational/trade/craft, highest education, advanced research, and entrepreneurism - from concepts and designs to production and commercialization.

I find it absurd when people criticize the Plain Dealer for their "Quiet Crisis" series and challenge area residents to look on the sunny side of life. While REALNEO certainly features plenty of progressive developments and people in the region to celebrate, it is essential we all redouble efforts to correct our failings and support solutions, rather than hibernate in denial - things won't be any better in the Spring.

For one roadmap to a better future, in the 11/28/04 Plain Dealer Forum Section the insightful Joe Frolik offers a blueprint for significant improvement for NEO, taken from lessons learned in our regional diamond Chicago, which not inconsequentially was able to lure away one of our leaders of our sustainability movement because our community leaders were not as supportive and promising as those of the Windy City. For another roadmap, look to Boston, and just down the road to NEO's most progressive suburb, Shaker Heights.

In another new economy domain, the OneCleveland initiative has been nationally recognized at the top of the community bandwidth spectrum but, for lack of concerted comprehension of the connection between connectivity and economic development, we are lagging Philadelphia in visioning on becoming the wired city of the future. Worse, the City of Cleveland has failed to leverage information technology as a foundation for economic development and we're now recognized as the worst of 70 large city virtual communities in the Country. Worse, those who allowed us to become the worst are slamming the barn door and pledging away $30,000,000+ to out-of-state contractors to put us right.

As a more sane strategy, I suggest leaders for the future of Cleveland speak up about this crisis and take ownership to find solutions. I started speaking up on this issues in 2001, writing a "Quiet Crisis" op/ed on our failing virtual community and the digital divide, and I am working with a group of Case and Cleveland State leaders to solve those problems in East Cleveland, where city government is receptive to outside support. I reprint below my op/ed from 2001, which remains true today, and I encourage others to post their thoughts on these issues as comments here, or email me on these matters at norm [at] icearth [dot] com.

Today I noticed Pennsylvania's license plates feature the catch phrase "WWW.STATE.PA.US" (home of PA's excellent PowerPort - a stark contrast to Ohio's silly little state site). PA is surfacing as a true new economy powerhouse, as highlighted by Philadelphia's struggle to become the world's most wifi'ed city and a recent presentation at the Ohio Wind Power Conference by Kathleen McGinty, Secretary, Pennsylvania Environmental Protection Dept., who drove home the point that PA's effective leadership is putting them a generation ahead of OH with alternative energy generation and manufacturing.

But seeing PA drivers educating America about WWW.STATE.PA.US really made me think about our mindset as "Birthplace of aviation", the truly inept tag-line of our license plates. A feature in Scene Magazine chronicles how OH leaders blew the opportunity to develop the aviation industry here. Scene quotes NEO legacy-powerhouse Frederick Crawford: "You know, there was a time when we had working in Cleveland the men who would later create the greatest aircraft companies in the world. The problem was, the fools running the city did not understand what they had and lost it."

It's bad enough we can't think of anything intelligent to put on our license plates to promote Ohio, but it is far worse we find glory in our failure. For more to think about this subject, read the excellent article "A Century of Bumbling" from Scene, excerpted and linked below. And, what would you like to promote to the world on your license plate? I vote for "New Economy Leadership" - post your thoughts as comments to this post.

In his ED Pro Blog, Ed Morrison surfaces important issues for Northeast Ohio that we can address with effective economic development planning - we have a skills gap, where students and adults are not learning what is needed to function in the new economy - as demonstrated by lack of open source programmers in this region.

Fund for Our Economic Future to hold
regional minority forum
The Fund for Our Economic Future will hold its first regional Minority Forum,
featuring presentations about regional economic development initiatives with
direct relevance to minority populations, on Tuesday, Nov. 30 from 4-6:30 p.m.
at the Clarion Hotel and Conference Center in Independence. The session also
will feature Dr. john a. powell, executive director, Kirwan Institute for Race
and Ethnicity in the Americas at the Ohio State University Moritz Law School,
as keynote speaker. The Fund is a multiyear collaboration of organized
philanthropy in Northeast Ohio formed to encourage and advance a highly focused
regional economic development agenda leading to long-term economic
transformation. To attend the forum, RVSP to Maggie McGrath at mmcgrath [at] clevefdn [dot] org.

Location

How can Northeast Ohio attract and retain educated and skilled employees?  How can businesses in Northeast Ohio gain an increased pool of qualified workers?  A survey conducted by Starting Point, northeast Ohio's child care resource and referral agency, examines family friendly policies in northeast Ohio businesses and institutions.  Read the 2002 Northeast Ohio Work and Family Survey to learn about the results of their work.  Here are some highlights from the executive summary: