Brewed Fresh Daily

Cleveland Institute of Art & Case Western Reserve University students team up to make an iPhone game. ChromaWaves is an “ambient color mixing game” that, aside from being cool, donates every 70 cents of the dollar you spent on downloading the game to a charity that buys toys & books for kids in hospitals ’round [...]

The Green Cottages offer supreme energy-efficiency and cutting-edge design for an affordable price. Think you don’t make enough cash to be a homeowner? The Green Cottages offer sustainable homeownership specifically for low to moderate income people. Check the Community Land Trust of Greater Cleveland’s website to see if you qualify for a new home. Who [...]

More good news in the biz world: From February to June 2010, Cleveland led the nation’s 40 largest MSAs in manufacturing job growth. According to an analysis from Pittsburgh Today blogger Harold D. Miller, the Cle MSA added about 5,000 manufacturing jobs. Hey, times are tough but, when it comes to recovery, we’re actually doing [...]

A New Coffee Shop Reinvigorates the Creative Juices In the early 90’s, between studying at DePaul and selling greeting cards at Arcadia, I spent a significant amount of the little leisure time I had hanging out at local coffee shops in Evanston, home to Northwestern University and frequently referred to [...]

Something cool is happening at Tower City Center. It’s called the Green Exchange, and it’s a place where sustainable organizations, entrepreneurs, farmers, biz leaders and community organizers will converge to “collaborate, innovate and connect with their customers.” Interested in being a tenant or sponsor? Click on the link below to learn more. Here’s a little more [...]

In a word: regional economic development is not the same as writing a middle school term paper.

Sadly, Henry Gomez from the PD has gotten swept up into a game of political gotcha. He somehow tries to make a case that Vic Voinovich has lifted ideas from somewhere else without asking permission.

Unfortunately, Henry does not understand a key concept of open innovation: the importance of sharing ideas.

Instead, Henry has fallen for a dumb political game. He’s allowed himself to become a tool of one candidate over another, a cub reporter’s blunder.

Henry neglects to mention:

1. All of the ideas I develop in regional economic development are licensed under a Creative Commons 3.0 Attribution license. Anyone can use the ideas without asking permission, just tell people where you got them. Vic clearly does that. He’s satisfied me, the author, and that’s, frankly, all that matters. Henry is genuinely lost when it comes to Creative Commons licensing. To learn more about Creative Commons licensing, go here.

2. Strategic Doing is a discipline that is gaining wide acceptance as old approaches to regional economic development prove themselves to be too slow, costly and ineffective.

As this map shows, we have been conducting strategic doing workshops across the country. Purdue routinely conducts strategic doing workshops and webinars. Or, if you are interested, you might spend some time with this webinar from the U.S. Department of Labor.

3. I have used the terms “replicable, scalable and sustainable” widely. These are the three critical dimensions of transformation in regional economic development. If you would like to see how these terms define a transformation strategy, please come to a workshop or take a webinar. If Henry had taken some time to investigate these issue more deeply, he would have understood that these terms are widely used in my work.

4. Open innovation and strategic doing form the basis of a new university-based collaboration that includes Purdue, Penn State, The University of Akron. This network is growing steadily. I mentioned this to Henry, but he seems to have been instead focused on proving a point (which, in the end, he failed to do).

As I explained to Henry, regions across the country are facing major economic shifts. In increasing numbers, people are turning away from old patterns of thinking — indeed old patterns of partisan politics — to find new collaborations across political and organizational boundaries.

Leading regions borrow ideas from each other to speed their learning. This is why these leading regions organize annual study tours for their civic leaders (a common sense practice that Cleveland, for some strange reason, does not follow).

Here’s a look at what’s happening just in the next ten days on my calendar:

A collaboration of eight workforce boards in Eastern North Carolina are conducting a two day strategic doing workshop. We’ll be looking to connect the recent work of these boards to the powerful insights generated by a new statewide commission in North Carolina that is examining new connections between schools and clusters.

We are moving ahead with a revision of our strategy in Brevard. This strategy will also include an Opportunity Fund, as well as new initiatives in clusters and entrepreneurship networks. The plan will be announced by the White House in September with a commitment in the neighborhood of $40 million.

The Commissioner of Labor in Maine is convening a strategic doing workshop series over the next four months to build new career pathways in high demand health care occupations. We start August 19.

On August 17 and 18, a group of universities, convened by Penn State in Washington, will be completing the initial draft of a “solutions catalog” for regional innovation. Strategic doing and open innovation form the core of this catalog.

Will County, IL — a community with a leading edge economic development program — will be evaluating a new approach to connecting education and business together through a visual language of skills. We have used radar charts to identify skills required in high demand occupations. We will then organize innovation teams to create new career pathways among high schools, community colleges and businesses.

In view of all this activity, it’s sad to me that Cleveland and Cuyahoga County seem so out of touch.

Henry’s story underscores the core weakness of the Plain Dealer in covering these emerging trends in regional economic development. That’s odd, because economic transformation is the core story of our region.

If you want to see quality reporting, look at The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and the work of John Schmid, He is a consummate professional. In this region, Akron, Youngstown and Crain’s all do a respectable job. In Ohio, the Dayton Daily News and the Toledo Blade offer significantly stronger reporting than the PD.

So that’s why we do regional economic development coverage in Brewed Fresh Daily.

Cleveland Hopkins Airport opens a new, 1.8 miles walking path that traverses four concourses, in collaboration with The American Heart Association and the City of Cleveland Health Department. Markers every 400 feet will track distances, and walkers can create their own route. An annual Health Walk will be featured. Read more here: http://www.clevelandairport.com/site/375/default.aspx FacebookTwitterDiggItDel.icio.us

The Plain Dealer adds commentary to the latest data from the Census Bureau on County Business Patterns.

U.S. lost 104,000 businesses in first year of recession

Curious about what was happening with Sustainable Cleveland?

Here’s an update.

At the 2010 summit, efforts will be focused on generating momentum on current efforts and promoting job creation. Summit 2010: The Glocal Engine will be held September 22-23 at the Cleveland Convention Center. This year’s summit will focused on the strength of the local economy in positioning our region to be globally competitive. We will explore how SC2019 can positively impact the capacity of creating a stronger connection between the local and global businesses.

Summit 2010

Also, this week, word comes of a new guide on youth engagement from the National League of Cities. You can download a copy here.

Bending down to lace my sneakers around 7:30 a.m., it was beginning to become a hot, humid morning as I started my run towards Lake Erie. I immediately thought about the Bodies Exhibit I saw for the second time. My body, therefore, has the ability to do amazing things such moving my arms and legs in an even, fluid rhythm. My body with all its intricacies, and complexity, works correctly every day I instruct it. My brain, the conductor, feeds the appropriate information to my quadriceps, ankles and toes, Run please! In fact, the human body is an engineering marvel.

Because of the body’s flexibility, and durability, I have always been fastenated by the human body, and how all the components just magically work. In my sculpture class, in fact, I created a plaster mold of the shoulder’s “ball and socket.” How does the shoulder stay in place? I still ponder that question.

What better way to learn and explore how our bodies digest food, pump blood, and breathe; plus, how our muscles protect and enclose vital organs. I was trilled to witness the opening of the Bodies: Exhibition on East 4th and Euclid Avenue a few weeks back. The seamless restoration of an old abandon building into dynamic graphics, video tutorials and riveting real life bodies that can be seen up close. The brilliant use of space for each body along with a good balance of visuals with simplistic terminology, that was easy to comprehend. With my admiration for such an important subject, I visited for a second time to learn what I missed the first time.

I had the pleasure to speak to Dr. Roy Glover, Chief Medical Director, who informed me that all the bodies in the exhibit are on loan from the medical school, which took several years to preserve. Plus, he enthusiastically stated that the success of this exhibit to children has been an inspiration because everyone can see first hand how the body looks and works. My response was, “why wouldn’t we want to learn the best way to increase our life span. And, why eating a well-balanced meal is so important? Or, if I smoke two packs a day, what will my lungs look like?”

Real-life organ displays, educational videos and staff personal, who have a biological background, are there to answer any of your questions. Interestingly, your brain is mostly comprised of water, which is why preserving it takes longer. It often looked to me that the brain was almost too small but a staff member assured me that it was actual size. Moreover, it weighs over three pounds. Why is this important anyway? Well, your body is brilliantly constructed that your neck bones and spinal cord have the ability to keep the weight perfectly balanced.

Another interesting fact, your liver is the heaviest organ weighing over 3.5 pounds with large amounts of blood circulating. This is a good opportunity to see a “black lung” from smoke inhalation and the arduous distance our food travels. The greater omentum, which hangs from the stomach, is one of the new organs I was unfamiliar with until this exhibit. Facts such as these are explained at each exhibit table along with a normal organ next to a diseased one.

How do the bodies look? Do not be alarmed, the preservation methods is such that the body looks almost “unreal or rubbery.” In fact, it reminds me of a kid’s school biology kit of some kind. The eyes are glass because they contain so much water like the brain; they cannot be preserved as easily. Plus, every body is positioned in a different pose that reflects different positions using other muscles. I had a problem a few years back with my piriformis (pear shaped muscle) that is buried deep down into the gluteus maximus region. Now, I know why it took so long to heal, it is not easy to find; hence, stretching it out is a difficult process.

Finally, each exhibit shows a different interior section that was skillfully dissected. One body will show the heart and the lungs plus the immensity of the aortic artery – the largest artery in the body. My interest was such that my head almost touched the exhibit, for, I wanted to make sure I didn’t miss anything.

The entire show, in my opinion was breath taking. My favorite section was the darkened room with all the arteries and veins all a glow. The hundreds and thousands of veins in the circulatory system was truly – a miracle of life. The design and articulation of the human body can never be replicated. Do your part and help preserve your body for as long as you can – integrate a healthy living style of exercise and nutritious food.

For more information on the Bodies: The Exhibition
http://www.bodiestheexhibition.com/cleveland/

Plus, get 20% off regular adult admission before 8/08 @ box office with code TWEET #bodiesCLE