Brewed Fresh Daily

Jay Miller at Crain’s told us about the failed efforts to start a Med Mart in Birmingham.

Promoters of Cleveland’s medical merchandise mart proposal believe they have a winner on their hands, but the early-1990s failure of a similar venture in Birmingham, Ala., and comments from national medical marketers suggest the local project isn’t a slam dunk.

In 1992, Birmingham opened the Medical Forum, a 10-story building created to help raise the southern city’s profile as a prominent medical center. But the concept of using most of the building as a one-stop shop for medical equipment makers to display their wares quickly was abandoned, and the building now is used as traditional office space.

“The medical industry proved to be totally different than what we expected,” said Jack Fields, who at the time was charged with filling the new building for the Birmingham-Jefferson (County) Convention Center.

“We found that buying decisions were not made by the medical professionals but by purchasing agents,” said Mr. Fields, who now is executive director of Birmingham’s convention center complex.

Now Roldo uncovers the failed efforts for a Med mart in Baltimore.

By 1997 it was forgotten dream in Baltimore. Nothing ever happened to the wonderful $600-million idea born in 1991.

“They could never make the project work,” said Heywood Sanders, Professor of Urban Studies in the Department of Political Science at Trinity University at San Antonio.

Read more.

Seems to me, we need a business plan from Sam Miller, Albert Ratner, Tim Hagan or Joe Roman, the prime promoters of this untested idea to rescue Tower City.

(That follows the logic of Congress, which recently told the automakers to come up with a plan before we invest public money: Congress wants business plan from automakers.)

Markets don’t lie, and past experience tells us that a passive Med Mart (aka medical showroom) will not work.

Where is there any evidence supporting this idea? (Aside from web sites, artist drawings, press releases and salesman’s puff from Fred Nance.)

At the same time, developers in NY are preparing to test a far more sophisticated model of a multi-functional medical facility.

World Product Centre facilities will include state-of-the-art permanent showrooms, conference and educational facilities, media centers and traditional office space. The building will also feature a Consumer Health Pavilion open to the general public, including students, tourists and other healthcare consumers. The Pavilion will offer guided tours, interactive forums, and a wealth of information supporting health literacy, prevention and wellness, and those considering careers in healthcare. Hewlett Packard (HP), the world’s largest technology company, is designing a vendor-neutral technology infrastructure that will, as Tom Tillar, HP Principal for WPC, describes, “support one of the smartest and technologically advanced buildings ever developed.”

Current plans call for over 120,000 square feet of education and conference space that includes a two-story, 499-seat, fully digitized auditorium. Medical device manufacturers, pharmaceutical companies, healthcare associations, and WPC itself will offer events of all kinds, including accredited professional and medical education courses. ”

How will the proposed Cleveland Med Mart stack up to this multi-functional facility? Will Cleveland be building a Medical Mart that will be out of date the day it opens?

It’s hard to say without a business plan.

• teensygreen » Brita Announces Recycling Program for Filters!

Foreign-Born Entrepreneurs: An Underestimated American Resource

• jack/zen » Lost prophets
• Northeast Shores News: Holly Golightly Benefit is a Hit
• Save National City Bank
• superbarista: The Empty Cup
• How to Cut Your Grocery Bill In Half | Zen Habits
• Bazaar Bizarre, 12/13-14, Noon-9pm – I can go this year! : Writes Like She Talks

Perhaps someone can explain this to me…

Here are a couple of very interesting videos of Lawrence Lessig discussing problems with Congress – essentially the influence of money on policy. Money + Congress = Mistrust (or worse).

(20 minutes)

(1 hour)

In the first video Lessig goes through examples of money interfering with solid policy and I agree with most of what he says. One of the items eluding me is this:

On the one hand Lessig says that when our congressional representatives receive funds from corporations or special interest groups, it does not mean there is corruption but there is certainly the appearance of impropriety. Money destroys the conditions for trust. Money destroys trust.

He goes on to discuss global warming policy. Gore is now a venture capitalist investing in green technology and as far as I can tell he intends to profit from these investments. How can you on one hand say that money yields mistrust and then cite an example where the standard bearer clearly stands to receive economic benefit from promoting a cause?

These venture capitalists are making investments with the expectation of receiving returns on their investments. If they are so concerned about the environment, why don’t they loan the funds, put a cap on their return or not even take a return? Lessig points out (in the second video) that since Wikipedia does not allow any advertising, they leave ~$100,000,000 of revenue on the table. Wikipedia does not allow advertising specifically to avoid any taint of quid pro quo.

Gore is a private citizen and free to make investments as he sees fit. However, when you are the standard bearer regarding global warming and your message is that we need to make massive changes now, yet you are also positioned to profit from these changes, how is that not, at least, the appearance of impropriety?

From Al Gore’s next act: Planet Saving VC (Fortune 02/12/08):
They argue that to halt global warming, nothing less will be required than a makeover of the $6 trillion global energy business. Coal plants, gas stations, the internal-combustion engine, petrochemicals, plastic bags, even bottled water will have to give way to clean, green, sustainable technologies. “What we are going to have to put in place is a combination of the Manhattan Project, the Apollo project, and the Marshall Plan, and scale it globally,” Gore continues. “It’d be promising too much to say we can do it on our own, but we intend to do our part.”

“Doerr understands the complexity of what’s ahead. Most venture capitalists are judged on return on investment alone. Asked how he’ll judge the success of the green initiative, he reels off five measures: “the company we keep, the quality of the companies we help grow, the quality of the partners we add, returns on the investments we make, and by the CO2 that’s taken out of the atmosphere.”

I don’t see how this can be glossed over…

—
Lawrence Lessig, a professor at Stanford Law School, is a leading thinker on technology and Internet policy. He is the founder of Creative Commons and author of Code, The Future of Ideas, and Free Culture.

• Future of the U.S. Space Program in Obama's Hands: Scientific American
• mom go green: coffee sleeves
• Tipoff: The Cafe on St. Clair makes list of 'Great American Dive Bars' -
  Playboy names Mitzi's One of America's Best
• Technology Pundits ~ Eliminating Obama’s Blackberry Just Stupid
• PR 2.0: Barack Obama, The Social Web, and the Future of User-Generated Governance
• When social media attacks: Motrin backs off of back pain relief ad targeted at, dissed by moms : Writes Like She Talks
• New study links TV to depression @ www.dosenation.com

I’m saddened by this loss:

Known as “Citizen Hauser” and the “Mayor of Whiskey Island,” Hauser enjoyed seeing people use what became the county-owned Wendy Park in 2005, which has a marina, beach restaurant, sand volleyball courts and became home to several festivals…

If you like to know more about Ed and his legacy, listen to this interview we did with him late summer of ‘06.

Ed was an amazing man doing amazing work. Cleveland wouldn’t be the place it is, if it wasn’t for people like Ed. He’ll be missed. Please, add your comments about Ed and his work below.

In Northern Colorado, civic leaders have come together to develop strategies to find pathways out of poverty. It appears to be the kind of persistent effort from which Cleveland could learn.

One interesting insight: if 300 people had been helped to receive high school diplomas, 570 fewer people would be living in poverty. (That’s pretty good leverage.)

Pathways Past Poverty: Preliminary goals

Pathways Past Poverty

Over in Kalamazoo, Kalamazoo’s Promise celebrates its anniversary and business/school alliances with companies (like Eaton) taking part.

KALAMAZOO PROMISE WEEK: Business-school alliance works; Developing homegrown talent a plus after graduation

Credit Crisis in 30 slides

Well we did it. We pulled off our first Ignite Columbus event this evening at the Columbus Robotics Society in Grandview. To say it was awesome would be an understatement. We had about 45 folks show, 15 presenters present a wide range of exciting ideas intermixed between pizza, robots, the chumby, spiked cider and cold drinks. Conversation and chatter ran wild as people met for the first time twitter or no twitter. I saw a lot of new faces, new to social media, new to this evolving scene and a few old friendly faces from Startup Weekend.

The rules of Ignite are pretty simple, there are none- other than 20 slides, 15 seconds a slide, 5 minutes for your skinny, your big idea. Get up, present!

Ignite Columbus

Slide presentations available on SlideShare