Why didn't I just use an alias like everyone else?  I don't like the look that I got tonight from Eugene Sanders at the Cleveland Metropolitan School District meeting tonight. 

Join your neighborhood community ARTS center for costume-making, dance & music that will be presented for thousands at the Cleveland Museum of Art’s Parade the Circle Celebration! Special guest artist, Trinidad Carnaval artist, Michael Guy James, leads the group, and is joined by artists from around the world and around the corner--including the Passport Project Global Dance & Music Collective.

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Vote for Alex Pavloff for USG Arts & Science Representative.  He is a human: not a zombie.

This is where a photo sure would come in handy.  The sign is posted on the Designated Smoker Sign near the Veale Convocation Center and penciled in to the sign in parentheses is the comment (and a smoker).  Apropos.

From Marnie Urso, Audubon Ohio and guest for the April Midtown Brews forum on the Great Lakes Basin Water Compact:

Celebrate knowledge with music, poetry and a wealth of reading choices.  

THIS SATURDAY, May 17th--AFTER SHOPPING FOR BODY FOOD AT THE WEST SIDE MARKET--SHOP FOR MIND FOOD!!!

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Join the nonprofit organization ClevelandBikes on its annual "Bike to Work" rides, everyday May 12-16, now bigger than ever by partnering with other riding organizations in the first Cleveland Bicycle Week.   Ride and you can be elgible for great prizes!  This year, you can also find partners on your own through a "Bike Buddy" system brought to you by NOACA. And remember, join us for our ride on Wednesday May 14th and wear yellow for Lance Armstrong Foundation's LIVESTRONG Day! 

* ClevelandBikes hosts commuting rides downtown to our host, the Greater Cleveland YMCA (2200 Prospect Avenue), every day during Cleveland Bicycle Week, May 12-16.  Join us for coffee, while the YMCA provides free, secure bike parking, showers and free passes for the day.  Join us and share your goals about riding in Northeast Ohio, while riders are eligible for fun prizes.

* ClevelandBikes is also pleased to assist with the Northeast Areawide Coordinating Agency (NOACA), which is offering to match solo riders through th Ohio Ride Share "Bike Buddy" program, matching riders with common starting points,ride times and common destinations (www.ohiorideshare.com).

* ClevelandBikes also supports a major health initiative, with a "Bike to Work"ride for the Lance Armstrong Foundation (www.livestrong.org) and "LIVESTRONG" day on Wednesday May 14.

* ClevelandBikes will host "Bike to Work" rides on the final Friday of every month and special rides for festivals and other activities.

Pick a starting location from the list below and ride along with a ClevelandBikes ride leader, or just meet us between 8:00 and 9:00 AM at our downtown host, the Greater Cleveland YMCA,  which is offering free showers, secure bike parking and free day passes for YMCA activities.

East Side Starting Points

7:45 AM  Arabica at 11300 Juniper in University Circle
7:15 AM  Dewey's Coffee on Shaker Square
7:30 AM  Starbucks at Cedar and Fairmount
7:00 AM  Bus Shelter at E. 222nd and Lakeshore
7:45 AM  McDonald's on E. 159th and Lakeshore

South Side Starting Point
7:15 AM  Arabica at 5615 Turney Rd.

West Side Starting Points
7:45 AM  Civilization Coffee Shop in Tremont at W. 11th and Kenilworth
7:50 AM  Talkies Film and Coffee Bar in Ohio City at 2521 Market Ave.
7:25 AM  Phoenix in Lakewood at 15108 Detroit near Warren Rd.
7:50 AM  Arabica in Lakewood at 11604 Detroit near W. 116th

National "Bike to Work" Week is sponsored by the League of American Bicyclists  (www.bikeleague.org), which offers bicycle advocacy and support programs for more than 125 years.

ClevelandBikes , a 501C3 nonprofit organization, is committed to advancing all forms of bicycling as economical and healthful recreation, sport and transportation.

For More Information, Contact:  Kevin Cronin
216.374.7578; kevin [at] clevelandbikes [dot] org
On the Web: www.clevelandbikes.org
When ClevelandBikes. Cleveland Benefits!

Wanted to share this news with our NEO colleague network straight from the I-Open home base ...

Stock Market & Financial News - BusinessWeek: The Institute for Open Economic Networks (I-Open) and Near-Time Announce New Approach to Building Innovative Workforce Development Partnerships

I thought I'd share some reflections after just spending Cinco de Mayo facilitating dialogues around regional economic development in Akron, Ohio.  I, like so many other colleagues who have participated in various phases of the Voices and Choices process had my fair share of reservations and issues with various aspects of the two-year, multi-million dollar investment and experience.  While I found great value in working hard to facilitate regional dialogues with a healthy mix of participants representing diverse demographics, I learned firsthand how difficult it is to drive meaningful outcomes from such activity.  I, like so many others, was very candid about the many difficulties endured and faced during the process - perhaps the most prolific of which was a failure to have the mechanisms in place to capture the heightened energy and activation of the masses in an effective and timely manner to drive meaningful and positive outcomes.  A candid conversation I had today with Advance Northeast Ohio's communications director, Chris Thompson, completely validated my feelings, as he was in complete agreement on this point.  I laud Chris for such candor and really appreciated his astute comments. 

April 10, 2008, Heights Observer Volume 1, Number 1 hit the streets with the lead story "Why Citizen Journalism?". Contributing writer Michael Wellman observes "The interaction of two primary themes has largely been responsible for the growth of citizen based journalism: dissatisfaction with the content of traditional media and advancements in technology", and "“A common goal of citizen journalists is to recapture journalism as a truly democratic practice that is thoroughly rooted in -- and thus directly serves -- the real lives and interests of citizens.” (see mcgillreport.org/largemouth.htm)." Wellman also writes of the emergence of "hyper-local" journalism, enabled by Observer Newspapers and preached by Lakewood Observer founder Jim O'Bryan... for good reason.

You can visit the Pangea Day website here

Or, for details of the May 10 event visit Cat Strat's web site at
http://cat-strat.com/10May2008.html

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Monday, May 5th--what better way to celebrate Cinco de Mayo?  From Lois Moss:

See www.walkandrollcleveland.com

Walk+Roll Benefit - May 5, 2008

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I-Open Leadership Retreat Shares New Practices and Tools for Community and Regional Economic Transformation

By Susan Schaul

Special Presentation: Open Source Economic Development
    Ed Morrison and the Institute for Open Economic Networks (I-Open)

Ed Morrison has a different way of looking at economic development, by using open source thinking and networks to encourage innovation. This approach sounds easy, but it is not.

“We need to shift the conversation,” says Ed Morrison, Director of the Institute for Open Economic Networks (I-Open). Morrison, speaking at the I-Open Leadership Retreat, Punderson State Park in Newbury, Ohio, April 23, 24 and 25 paints a picture of economic expansion by first describing the history behind 20th century business development.

“Our grandfather’s economy, the first curve economy, generated enormous wealth using top-down models created in vertical business silos. But the forces of globalization, started back in the 1960s and accelerated by the Internet in the 1990s, have collapsed costs and integrated markets. In Japan,” he explains, “the automakers organized production differently focusing on flatter organization, networks of suppliers, more flexible production, simpler product design, and faster build cycles. This is an example of networked production. And it proved to be an effective model”

The shift in the economy, declared by economists as moving from manufacturing to services, was too simplistic. Traditional business models based on command and control hierarchies are now being replaced by business models based on more open, porous networks and collaborations. The second curve economy, a new form of capitalism, has emerged based on networks. Morrison uses cell phones as an example. “What value is there if only one person has a cell phone?” he asks. “As the number of people with cell phones increases, the nodes of the network also increase raising the value of the communications network exponentially in a knowledge economy.”

Punderson State Park in Newbury, Ohio, was a beautiful venue for 18 workshop participants from Indiana, southern Ohio, the Mt. Pleasant Community, Akron, and the greater Cleveland area, to share ideas, brainstorm, and learn new concepts to grow their own programs. “We need to build new habits of thinking together,” Morrison advises. “This is not about who needs to be at the table, but who is at the table and what can we do?” He is a firm believer in the value of civic forums, creating the civic space where people can convene and talk together, developing trust and forming collaborations. Linking and leveraging together - these are the tools for the open source economic development process. With people linked together in clustered networks, they are in a collaborative position where they can conduct strategic doing, a disciplined approach to taking action toward economic revitalization. Even though the workshop participants came from non-profits, universities, and businesses, they were all eager to learn about these economic development tools realizing this approach made sense and could be applied to any situation.

Many people talk about economic development, but few people have actually worked in the field, plumbed the depths and shaped new strategies. Borrowing from the open source software developers, Morrison has created a new economic development paradigm called Open Source Economic Development harnessing the strength of open participation and network clusters. Morrison has spent close to 20 years in economic development, starting his career in Washington as a legislative assistant, taking on an analyst position with the American car manufacturers, then working in economically depressed areas in Oklahoma, Louisiana, and Kentucky. After a three-year stint at the Case Western Reserve University Center for Regional Economic Initiatives (REI), he started his own business, I-Open, along with three former colleagues. Presently, he serves as the economic policy advisor to the Purdue Center for Regional Development at Purdue University and coordinates the federally funded WIRED (Workforce Innovation for Regional Economic Development) grant for North Central Indiana.

Thanks Everyone for your comments and support...on last week's I-Open Retreat..

Here is an initial followup. More information will be posted soon by retreat participant and writer, Susan Schaul...

The Leadership Retreat was a productive experience for everyone who participated last Wednesday, Thursday and Friday in the beautiful surroundings of Punderson State Park in Newburry, Ohio. We enjoyed brilliant weather in addition to meeting and spending time with great people and learning about assets, passions, and next steps toward regional transformation.

Ed Morrison guiding participants on the new practices and tools for Open Source Economic Development.

Gathering for dinner and conversation and learning.

Jeff Miller, Exec. Dir., Innovative Leadership Solutions joined us from Indiana, specializes in curriculum development.

Tom Stone, Exec. Dir., Mt. Pleasant NOW and Debra Lewis-Curlee, Mt. Pleasant Community Zone.

Here's an outline of the material we worked on together guided by workshop leader, Ed Morrison (below) and You can view the Live Show broadcast (just click "On Demand" at the lower bar and the selections will display) on the iopeneducation channel.

Agenda:

Wednesday

As part of its mission of conservation and preservation, Cleveland Metroparks should be a leader in promoting sustainability. Documenting and then decreasing utility and fuel use, cutting back on herbicides and pesticides, recycling beyond paper goods or state mandates - showing the way to greener lifestyles. Except for water conservation at the zoo and the purchase of a few hybrid SUVs (while still maintaining a huge stable of on and off road vehicles) there has been little effort to change.

Here are some images of the neighborhoods known as Old Brooklyn and Brooklyn Centre.

This will segue nicely to my next post on Romanian cinema, but in the meantime, pay close attention to the future star/campaigner pictured below:
 

Three year old Owen clinches Pittsburgh as the site for the 2009 G-20 summit with a high five. 
 

Corsair, a private pot of money and investors that seems poised to bail out National City, is an interesting development, but if you're concerned about housing and local investment, where is the encouragement for the future in a bank that got into this mess, at least in part, through poor lending practices and weak management oversight on home lending?

(If you haven't visited a REAL library in a while--please drop in this week.  We promise to be nice, because it is library week and all.  Next week, it's back to being our crusty, old selves :)

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One of my neighbors  builds ROBOTS (I won't out you Michael). 

So, what does the future look like for me?  Homeland Security just stopped by to check me out.  I would rather have the REAL agent, who showed up for our interrogation and relocated here from LA with his family to live next to me (he chose Olmsted Falls).

Winner of the 2006 TED [Technology, Entertainment Design] Prize, the motto of Sinclair’s group, Architecture for Humanity, "design like you give a damn" sums up his design vision. With projects ranging from designing mobile health clinics combating HIV/AIDS in Sub-Saharan Africa to establishing mine clearance programs and building playgrounds in the Balkans his mission is to create sustainable and innovative living standards for the masses.

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