$millions spent - outside advertising firm brought in - focus groups of kneeling cheerleaders and deer in headlights conducted - press conference in airplane - check, check, check and check. "NEO" leadership did it again. Another Case of mistaken identities, being those who hired those using outdated formulas to decide how to market our city to us and the world. Every identity mistaken, as plusers ask us to believe in them, and Case re-begets CWRU.

 It is very nice to see my favorite real urban planner Joe Stanley featured on Lee Batdorff's very informative University Circle Blog - and thanks to Joe for mentioning us here at realneo! We set up and host his http://neomainstreet.com site, which is one of the best uses of Drupal in this region, and presents excellent work by a talented planner and designer. Joe is working on all the community development projects I'm involved with, including overall East Cleveland planning and the Star Intergenerational Neighborhood planning and The Intergenerational School, along with other work Joe does independently.

While not currently a powerhouse in Free Open Source Software (FOSS), Northeast Ohio is positioned to begin excelling with FOSS in some very strategic ways that may add great value to the regional economy. 

Because of FOSS, we may now bridge the digital divide more quickly and completely here than has any other large urban center in America, we may soon have the highest percentage of workforce properly educated for the new economy, and we may lead the world in some fields of application development and technology innovation with global, open standards, all if the region now embraces FOSS..

About two years ago, the REALNEO team took on the challenge of helping to bridge the digital divide in NEO, in many ways, including recycling "obsolete" corporate computers, wiping the hard drives, and loading them with free versions of Linux and other Free Open Source Software (FOSS). One group of computers, provided by Progressive Insurance and Benesh Friedlander, that we freed from Microsoft-obsolescence, were given to a combination of Shaw High School seniors and senior citizens in East Cleveland. Shaw seniors have since taken their computers off to college, and, a few weeks ago, East Cleveland CIO Abulime Alli and I met with one of the senior citizens who received a desktop PC and now needed some tech support. I was  thrilled to help her out and interested to hear how having a Linux computer at home had changed her life.

 I didn't get my copy of the Plain Dealer, this morning... probably stolen off my porch. So, I thought, I don't like paying for a dirty old paper anyways, and only read some of the content, so why not just read it on-line at their union-busting Cleveland-dot-com website. Unfortunately, that is not a realistic option... every time I load the home page or any main section on the site, a viral pop-up advertisement for some Health Club attacks my computer.

Westside Courts resident Emma Casey sits at home with her refurbished computer. Photo: Sarah Lai Stirland

Derek just sent me a link to this article that should get people here thinking about our local economy, violence, the digital divide and solutions... read about the type of bridges we're building for East Cleveland and Cleveland... from Wired, about 3,000 miles away from NEO....   Sarah Lai Stirland 04.04.07 | 2:00 AM SAN FRANCISCO -- The Westside Courts is a bleak concrete housing project in the city's Western Addition where violence is closer than a high-speed net connection, and one resident's first steps online include plans to create a memorial for the people who've died here. Last month, volunteers turned on a novel broadband network in this 135-unit block, throwing a digital lifeline to Emma Casey and other tenants. Using a refurbished PC she picked up for $100, the 47-year-old mother of two adult children is now going online to help her son find a job, get health information and, she says, pay tribute to neighbors who've met with violent or untimely deaths.

Academic debates about the reality and cost of the so-called digital divide -- and the ability of individuals to fight economic disadvantage with nothing more than a computer and an IP address -- seem to crumble in a place like this. Like water and heat, internet is a clear necessity in the modern world, opening doors to education, employment and engagement.

This week's edition of Dee Perry's arts & culture television program Applause!, on WVIZ, features a segment on REALNEO... so I'd like to invite all the friends of realneo to join us for a screening party for the first broadcast of the program, Thusday, March 29, from 7:30 - 8:00 PM, at the great A.J. Rocco's Cafe, at 816 Huron Road, by East 9th Street. As a special treat, I was pleased to learn that A.J. Rocco's had already planned a very cool and complimentary event for that evening - Cleveland City Councilman Joe Cimperman will be the guest bartender from 6-8 PM.

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I was quite honored to be contacted, a few weeks ago, by the producer of one of my favorite television programs, Dee Perry's "Applause", asking for information about REALNEO. Seems he was doing research on the spectacular Convivium 33 Gallery, which we have featured extensively on REALNEO, covering Christopher Pekoc here and Clarence Van Duzer here (photos from which were featured in Cleveland Magazine), so REALNEO came up in search results. The producer saw REALNEO as in interesting source of insight on arts and culture in NEO and suggested to his staff doing a segment on Applause about REALNEO. Even though we scheduled the interview, this seemed very abstract until I just saw a promotion on WVIZ for the show, featuring a scrolling view of the REALNEO home page.

It is a great pleasure to have our original Drupal developer Derek Arnold back in the server seat for REALNEO and all tech things 7gen (shown here at my favorite wifi and human friendly coffee house in town, Talkies). Besides already cleaning up months of tech messes, less than two weeks back on track, Derek is now in Sunnyvale, California, as probably the only NEO representative at the Yahoo sponsored OSCMS (Open Source Content Management System) conference, the Drupal Performance and Scalability Seminar and the Drupal Hackfest - March 22-25, 2007. We've been touching base while he is there and it is clear he is learning lots of great insight, spreading NEO love in the open source world, and showing all that we are serious about making this a real open source domain (and I mean realneo and this region, in that).

We just got back from Pittsburgh from the beautiful Priory Hotel, visiting my sister and her frenetic family (two hyperactive boys 3 and 5 and her harried husband-hence the hotel stay).  Local innkeeper Henry is coming here soon to stay at the Baricelli Inn and visit the Rock Hall.  So, not all Pittsburghers have a hard time with us Clevelanders.  Visited the Park House in Deutschetown and got raves from an Irish lass from Mayo, too, and also compliments on C-town from a telecommunications expert from Atlanta.  Carnegie Mellon students have set up a free site to promote businesses development MyMave.com.  Check it out.

from the Notacon website:

NOTACON, an annual conference held in Cleveland, Ohio, explores and showcases technologies, philosophy and creativity often overlooked at other "hacker cons".

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 REALNEO members and visitors will have noticed some technical difficulties over the past few months and especially over the last few days, for which I appologize. This has been the result of a combination of too few people doing too much hard, complex work, and the enormous growth of our community and response of the world - we are now supporting dozens of virtual communities world-wide, and 100,000s of hits a month at REALNEO alone. All this with what has been largely a volunteer corp. Well, all that is now changing for the better, and further growth. To insure a stable future for the community, we are pleased to have the great talent of Derek Arnold back on our team - welcome back and thanks, Derek.

CLEVELAND, OH—High school and college-aged panelists will discuss how and why they use and don’t use traditional and newer media at noon on Thursday, March 15, 2007, at The City Club of Cleveland. Richard D. Hendrickson, PhD, assistant professor of communications at John Carroll University, will serve as moderator for this final in a series of four programs.

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I just came accross this video as a post on neonlug.org and though everyone here might get something from it.

Enjoy: