Time to rally the bloggin’ troops. The only person that showed up last time was Chas. I’ll make sure I personally invite the Olsens. If you’re in Northeast Ohio and have a blog, please register and vote. They get cancelled if 5 people don’t vote, and last time I had to beg, borrow, and steal just to make sure it wasn’t cancelled. Even some of you who intend to blog someday are welcome.

I’m not sure why anyone would want my opinions in their inbox, but you can subscribe to my blog through Topica. The URL is http://www.topica.com/lists/brewedfresh. You can also subscribe by sending an email to brewedfresh-subscribe[at]topica[.]com. I’ve got to warn you. Every time I post, you’ll get email of it. I know, scary thought.

I’d like to see this list used as a discussion group for you cool Clevelanders, so you can participate by sending an email to brewedfresh[at]topica[.]com.

I’m sending this one in by email.  Now all I need is a phone that send text messages and I’ll be mobloggin’ in no time.

Frank sent around a great email today. I asked him if I could post an excerpt and he agreed. If you’d like to read the whole thing, send him an email. There’s plenty more good info, including suggestions on implementing the ideas:

When you think of creativity, think Cleveland Water-Works. Three basic elements are required: the faucet, the distribution network, e.g., the pipes, and the source. The world’s best-designed waterworks is of no value to the people it was designed to serve if there is no water. Having an abundance of water is of no value to the community without a way to tap into it and distribute it to our faucets.

Up until now, Cleveland’s discussions on creativity and the Creative Class have been focusing on the faucet, perhaps a little on the pipes, and not at all on the most necessary element of all, the spring.

Creativity theory notes three complementary aspects of creativity: raw, adaptive, and productive. All three are of absolute necessity. However, to borrow again from the water-works motif, as long as the region continues to remain fixed on the faucet, we like California, will forever be looking elsewhere for water, and depending upon someone else to lay the pipes. The analogy is obvious. The faucets are the producers, those who shape the idea into a usable product or service. The pipes are the adapters, those who gather the raw ideas from the source and move the flow toward production, along the way refining the raw idea.

I was at the City Club today for CrainTech’s IT Breakfast. One of the speakers described their business as “Taking raw data, running it through the brains of the architects, and the output are documents”. Very similar to Frank’s point. What goes through your mind? What’s the output?

Lauren Dubick sent me an article about blogging:

In a conference room in Lamont Library, Dave Winer is evangelizing, doing his best to convert to his cause the University’s far-flung Webmasters who’ve come to this monthly meeting of the Harvard’s ABCD committee. Earlier in the week, the Kennedy School of Government’s Institute of Politics was his pulpit, and a few hours after his ABCD sermon, he’ll reel in a few more believers at the Law School. He’s a preacher with a projection screen, and, in his jeans and sneakers looking more like a software developer than a gospel-sayer.

In fact, Winer is a software developer; as founder and CEO of UserLand Software, he created software that facilitates Weblogs. Not coincidentally, it’s the wonder of Weblogs - simple personal Web sites that authors frequently update - that Winer is preaching as a fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School (HLS).

Not only are Weblogs (”blogs” to those in the know) getting a buzz as the Internet’s next big thing, but Winer and the Berkman Center think blogging might change pedagogical practices at the University and create community on Harvard’s famously decentralized campus.

Chris Corrigan is looking forward to a day when:

Open Space would be an ideal way to spawn a whole nest of weblogs in an organization, as each person leaves the meeting and enters the office to begin blogging the outcomes, next steps and results. With comments on each blog, people could begin linking ideas and knowledge and recreating the Open Space environment on a constant basis to share knowledge about whatever the organization is working on.

Maybe that day is sooner than we think.

I know there’s a lot of things going on this Friday night, but I really think you should come out to Painesville for the closing reception for the BK Smith Gallery’s show Beauty Mark. Where else will you get great music, wonderful art, interesting people, and world class poetry by Ray McNiece? The best part is, you get all this AND you’ll be helping the educational outreach of the Gallery. Did I mention the massage available by Bella Donna Spa? That’s reason enough for me to go. But there’s also jewelry from Finestra and a silent auction of paintings by Bridget Ginley. I’m totally jazzed about it. This is probably THE coolest thing to happen in Painesville. I thought I had to go downtown to do this sort of thing. Not anymore!

Jeff Melton is going to the Memphis Manifesto Summit.

Hosted by Richard Florida, The Memphis Manifesto Summit is an unprecedented gathering of the Creative 100, the best and brightest, most active and creative young minds from across the U.S. These 100 young professionals will share their thoughts and insights in the areas of business, culture, design, society, education and science to create the Memphis Manifesto - the definitive report on transforming cities that want to compete for the Creative Class.

He says:

I am getting excited about attending this Summit next week after finally having a chance to read the preliminary messages and ideas being exchanged on the listserv. If you’re going, drop me a line. Bon voyage

Can I get 100 of the most active, creative minds from Cleveland (or Northeast Ohio) to add something to the Cleveland Manifesto Wiki page? Is it that people understand a listserv but not a wiki page?

Chas was concerned that I had trouble making it home. I heard the same news story on the way to the Civ Coffee Klatch. Don’t worry Chas, I made it home OK.