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When I fired up my email this morning I shouted WOOHOO at the following news I got via an email from Andrew Kavanaugh. Great news to start off the pending New Year!

I know I’ll be getting involved and I hope Cleveland, Akron, Youngstown and the general NEO area will rally around this. Done right this could be the tipping point for the region from a tech standpoint. If CSU and Case Western Reserve University are smart they’ll lend full resources to Startup Weekend Cleveland.

Startup Weekend is an intense 54 hour event that brings together developers, graphic artists, business & marketing, legal and more for a fun filled weekend of pitching ideas and bringing the popular ideas to life.  There have been nearly 30 Startup Weekend Events in the United States, Canada and, most recently, in Greece – including an event in our backyard (Columbus).  After a great run of votes on http://startupweekend.com/cityvote/ – I’m happy to announce that we’re bringing the party to Cleveland.

If you’d like to read Andrew’s full email and find out how you can get involved and help, click here to visit my blog techbytes.biz.

Rob Pitingolo is a local college senior planning to graduate in December 2009. He is the author of the blog, Extraordinary Observations, which explores topics from progressive politics to economics to urbanism

In the next few weeks, thousands of young people will arrive in Cleveland from dozens of states and a handful of countries. No, there isn’t anything out of the ordinary happening this January, merely the students who attend Northeast Ohio’s colleges and universities returning from winter break. Regrettably, few of my peers tend to be outspoken about their attitude toward Cleveland; many out-of-towners feel unrepresented by local civic leaders; and having attended two of Cleveland’s universities in the past half-decade, I hope to shed some light on the mindset of other young people in our region.

I’m often told about how great Cleveland will look when I’m established in my career and ready to settle down and start a family. Between the affordable housing, numerous suburban neighborhoods with respectable schools, and cultural amenities that appeal to that particular crowd, I’ll be hard pressed to find a better mix elsewhere. I can’t deny that Cleveland does have a lot to offer. The time I spent living in Texas recently led me to appreciate Cleveland more than perhaps I’d ever imagined. I love Cleveland as much as the next person, but I hope it is clear that the region’s shaky ability to retain smart, young, talented individuals hurts. It hurts a lot…

Read the rest of this entry »

Study finds Iowa not economically dynamic

This is never a good sign.

When parties to a negotiation start talking to newspaper reporters before they talk to each other, you know something’s breaking down.

“I can’t find out what’s going on like you can’t find out what’s going on,” said David LaRue, president and chief operating officer of Forest City’s commercial group. Forest City owns Tower City.
Progress for a medical mart in Cleveland remains a mystery

(So, let me get this right. The County just paid Fred Nance $100,000 for negotiating in a negotiation in which the parties are not negotiating. That was after they thought the Cleveland+ people were supposed to pay the bill.)

The Tower City bailout (aka the Convention Center/Med Mart at Tower City) is not the goofiest public development project I’ve seen. But it’s getting pretty close.

(My award for the goofiest public sector development project goes to a developer in Shreveport, LA who wanted to put retail shops along side the riverboat casinos on the Red River. Except there was no there, there. The casinos were surrounded by parking garages. Undaunted, he proposed floating retail shops in the river on pontoons.)

Jill Miler-Ziimon, in a post on her blog dated yesterday, shines some light on why the Tower City bailout is probably in trouble. A recent Morningstar report evaluated Forest City Enterprises as having lost virtually all of its equity value.

Read more.

It seems pretty clear that the Kennedys (the family behind MMPI) are not so eager to get into business with the Ratners (the family behind Forest City) right now.

The big retailers and the malls: Retail Sales Plummet

Some small retailers who figured how to adapt: Doing well in bad times

On-line sales are relatively healthy: Amazon.com touts ‘best ever’ holiday shopping season

A week ago, the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching awarded The University of Akron its highest rating in the area of community engagement.

The foundation named The University of Akron on Dec. 18 as a community engagement institution, a classification the foundation developed in 2006 to recognize colleges and universities that are deeply engaged with their communities.

U of A is one of 119 schools nationwide to earn the Carnegie designation in two areas, curricular engagement and outreach and partnerships. (Purdue, where I am now connected, received the same designation.)

According to the Foundation:

Schools receiving the classification have addressed community-identified needs, deepened students civic and academic learning and enhanced the well-being of the community,. They also have demonstrated teaching, learning and other scholarly activities engaging faculty, students and the community in mutually beneficial and respectful collaboration.

Carnegie Selects Colleges and Universities for 2008 Community Engagement Classification

On Monday, in eastern Tennessee, the wall of a TVA retention pond broke. About 2 million cubic yards of coal ash slurry flooded nearby valleys. It’s a huge environmental disaster. The best newsfeed comes from Twitter.

Jill Miller Zimon alerted me on Twitter last night.

The Knoxville News Sentinel has joined the conversation on Twitter and alerted us to additional coverage, including videos they have posted on their YouTube channel. One Twitter post from KnoxNews reads:

We’ve uploaded the TVA coal ash videos we’ve done to our YouTube channel and we allow embeds.

They have quickly pointed us to a TVA briefing report on the breach, a web page with aggregated coverage and stories of two prior breaches at the retention pond.

Good journalism is more valuable now than ever: making sense of fast moving developments.

This note comes from a colleague at Purdue. The Healthcare Innovation Challenge sounds like an ideal competition for Cleveland and Akron.

My guess is that Purdue will be competing through our Regenstrief Center for Healthcare Engineering. The Purdue Center for Regional Development has partnered with Regenstrief on a healthy workforce initiative.

The announcement follows:

As a leading healthcare company or healthcare educator, you are invited to participate in this exciting new event that promises to bring together the best minds from a variety of disciplines to solve real-world healthcare challenges.

Our YOU-Tube link for short video is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdlWu9uuFHM

Healthcare companies are invited to take advantage of this unique opportunity to highlight their company and become actively involved in healthcare innovation. Gain fresh solutions to healthcare problems, recruit top talent in the field, and build company awareness.

Healthcare educators can take advantage of the Challenge to infuse healthcare innovation into an exciting learning opportunity for students. Faculty may want to incorporate this Challenge into student coursework. Deans of healthcare related programs, please forward this to all your faculty and students.

What is the Healthcare Innovation Challenge?

· Inter-disciplinary student team competition focused on healthcare challenges
· All universities with healthcare-related programs are invited to form competing teams
· Team formation and online competition runs throughout Spring Semester 2009
· Six finalist teams will be awarded an all-expense-paid trip to Phoenix to compete in the final Event, May 1, 2009. In addition, an $8,000 prize will be awarded to the winning team.
· Several nationally recognized healthcare innovation experts will speak at this event, which will be attended by students, healthcare companies and educators from around the country.
· Co-hosted by the Arizona State University Center for Healthcare Innovation & Clinical Trials and Idea Crossing, a company with a proven track record of sponsoring successful innovation competitions

How do Sponsors participate?
There are six different levels of Sponsorship. See the attached Sponsor Brochure for complete information or go to the website at http://healthcare.innovationchallenge.com/ .

1. Board ($25K)
2. Judge ($10K)
3. Spectator ($5K)
4. Event ($varies)
5. Team ($8K)
6. Non-Profit and/or Academic organizations ($1K)

How do Teams participate?
To compete in this Spring Semester 2009 competition, each team must complete the steps below. See the attached Student Brochure for complete information or go to the website at http://healthcare.innovationchallenge.com/ .

1) Form your team and register online (February 2009): $100 early registration; $125 regular registration

2) Develop your Concept Plan (March 2009)

3) Submit Concept Plan for judging phases (March/April 2009)

4) Watch for announcement of finalist teams (April 2009)

5) If selected as a top team, attend final judging Event at ASU (May 1, 2009)

For the last two days, I’ve spent time with civic leaders in Kokomo.  We’ve been working on contingency plans for the continued downsizing of the U.S. auto industry. We are moving on several fronts to redefine horizons for the regional economy.

Kokomo is as close to ground zero as it gets. US automakers employ thousands, and the local economy is only slowly diversifying. There is a growing sense of deep change taking place in Kokomo.

Chrysler’s troubles jolt Kokomo

Bailout or not, Ind. carmaking town fears end of era

Next week, mayors from Indiana whose communities host U.S. auto plants will be meeting in Indianapolis to develop collaborative strategies for their communities.

Mayors want ‘emergency plans’ if auto rescue fails

Roundtable to Discuss Effect of Big 3 on Indiana

Does anyone know what is happening in NEO to develop strategies?

UAW’s Sacrifices Look to Some Like Surrender

GM Town ‘On Edge Until Bush Gives Us the Money’

After Lifeline, Big 3 Are Still in Deep

Gary mentioned the PeeD article Desiree is referring to at the 3rd Fri Friends Lunch today:

Who is fostering that sentiment? The people commenting for the article? The firms that are supposed to be fostering business in Cleveland?

You are telling us as entrepreneurs that we must suck? Because you need to go elsewhere to find brain gain?

I’m a little salty and pissed off. No one has helped me with my business. These firms say I don’t fit their target audience??? So my business is self funded and operates on its own. I have no credit. I have no mentor. In fact, I have no support systems. So when rain storms like today flood my shop? Oh yeah. It’s me who has to fix it AND keep the money flowing.

How about catering to the talent that has chosen to stay on in this hardship we know as Cleveland? Where is the support and funding for those pioneers or hangers on? I’ve been told countless times to move my Concierge Service to Portland, L.A., D.C., etc. I’ve been offered funding by investors to relocate to another city… But I choose to stay here…

And how about not insulting us when you haven’t done your homework to know who is out here standing behind Cleveland and might I say… kicking a$$…

Apparently, there’s a press conference about this soon. I need to connect Desiree and Gary…

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