Chris Thompson sent this out today:

Do you recognize this description of our city:

�Cleveland: Seriously. Not just the Lake Erie shoreline has been redone to add to the attraction of the lakeside Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, but the Cuyahoga River no longer bursts into flames when somebody flips a cigarette butt into it. Now you have trouble getting a reservation at the bistros on “the Flats” beside it. All of this knit into a 100-kilometre string of parks and greenbelt called “the Emerald Necklace.” The waterfront development caused Runner’s World, of all publications, to call Cleveland, of all places, America’s “premier turnaround town.”�

Even if it isn�t a completely accurate description of our waterfront, it is interesting that some still hold Cleveland up as a model. Of course, �Slinger� couldn�t resist a dig at Cleveland and ends his column with: �Imagine Cleveland showing us the way. How humiliating.�

About the new Brewed Fresh Daily graphic?

Email from Steve Goldberg:

Just got my issue of Inside Business today and look who’s on the inside cover, none other than you.

One of the coolest things I’ve been watching is the online discussions happening in a Yahoo! Group around Ohio City. Check it out.

Tony Houston blogs:

“Isn’t it disturbing that Cleveland is the third most segregated city in the country and also, at the bottom of every social, educational, health and poverty index? Clevelanders must be engaged to travel outside of these community silos and be encouraged to visit other places. We must to do it. As long as we wait for ‘leadership’ to do it, it will be too late.”

Jack Ricchiuto describes meta-questions which are “the questions we raise about the questions we should be raising”. He asks the profound:

What questions would get people connecting and collaborating more?

Time to vote for a venue! Don’t forget you non-bloggers can attend these too. I’d love to see some of you readers show up.

Hey! Some positive media coverage in the local paper. It’s good to see something about the issue that need to be addressed in this town:

“The American Dream should be about more than owning a house, it should be about owning a business. Carlos Guzman, acting regional director for the federal Commerce Department’s Minority Business Development Agency, told an Urban League of Greater Cleveland gathering at The Plain Dealer yesterday that entrepreneurship should be taught to schoolchildren. Owning a business is one of the surest paths to wealth, said Guzman, who directs his agency’s Chicago office, which covers Ohio. Yet the percentages of minority-owned businesses, particularly those owned by African-Americans, lag the percentages of minorities in the general population. “

How long ago was that ECityCleveland breakfast I attended when George Fraizer said pretty much the same thing? We’ve got to be fast about this sort of thing. Let’s do something about it!

The other day at the Klatch, Paul Winkeler said that he doesn’t have much time for his personal blog, because he blogs all day with his customers. Turns out Paul isn’t a blogger, but a knowledge blogger or klogger. I won’t make any reference to the appropriateness of this due to his nationality. The title links to an old article I found doing some research that talks about some the the pain a knowledge blog would relieve:

• Managers coordinating in the dark
• Team members working in isolation
• Hard to change processes and culture
• Forever to come up to speed
• Teams are insular
• Rework Effort duplicated
• Mistakes
• Palm-to-forehead slapping
• 10 percent of your workforce is eligible for retirement
• You had a big layoff in the last three years
• You expect massive hiring when your industry or the economy picks up

I hope Paul finds some time to expand on this. It’s interesting stuff!

Found a commenting system that I want to install. Stay tuned.

This sounds cool:

“The RedPaper is an experimental online information exchange that blends self-publishing with micropayments. An author’s success depends on how popular poetry, police files and recipes are.”

Barbara Payne blogs:

“Very interesting meeting last night at Flannery’s. Folks from various departments of the City of Cleveland, some Connection Series BCP-CAT members, bloggers and assorted others gathered to have an interactive session with Zach Reed, council guy from the Kinsman/Mt. Pleasant area.

Trouble was, it turned out to be something else. Mr. Reed has done some serious legwork with the help of former Mayor White and gotten some $50 million already allocated from government sources that he plans to use it to beautify the area and build a new library and school. Attendees for the most part seemed to want to know how they could help with the revitalizing the area, but Mr. Reed didn’t seem much interested in help. He did ask us to send private investors his way. “

I’m glad to see that some of the NEO Blogging Community was there to take them to task. Barbara has a pic on this post. It’s good to know that Tony Houston was there, along with J Beatrice and Steve Goldberg. I’m sure they were all outspoken about the way the meeting was handled. Hopefully, we won’t waste more time on the project. If they don’t want our help, let’s find someone who does.

OK. I’m checking my hotmail account and notice a “headline” (I use that word loosely, it’s really an ad) that says “send ‘coffee week’ cards”. Coffee week? WTF? It’s obviously something that American Greetings made up, so don’t expect to be getting an animated egreeting from me anytime soon!

I don’ know about the rest of them, but I had a blast yesterday hangin’ out in Tremont. You know, it was that monthly Coffee Klatch thing. A bunch of us get together on the last Monday of the month at Civilization to have coffee and talk, now big whup. Since Civ closes at 7, we decided to find a place to grab a bite and get a drink. Little did we realize that Monday nights are the wrong nights to try to find a place that’s open. We ended up at Dempsey’s. Which was a good place, but next time we’ll go straight there instead of taking the tour.

What about you? Did the rest of you have a good time?

I was listening to NPR this morning and April Baer had Trudy Libermann on. Barbara Payne saw her yesterday at an SPJ meeting:

“I asked her whether she felt that blogging might be a self-correcting mechanism people themselves have invented to get the truth out–but she wasn’t too familiar with the phenomenon so couldn’t really offer an informed opinion.”

That’s a shame. From what I heard on the radio, she’d have a great blog.

I’ve been silent since I found out about the ordeal he’s experiencing, which he likens to the Bataan Death Market (google it). But I won’t hide my excitement of Tim Bakke’s re-emergence back into the blogsphere. He doesn’t just ease back in, he hits back full force with a power packed post about Mark Lombardi’s exhibit at MOCA. Check it out.

On Mon Jul 29 at 11:49:14 AM I made my first entry in what would become Brewed Fresh Daily. This blog has been loaded over 40,000 times since then.

I’d like to thank all of you who visit for being part of this last year. I value your comments and emails, your unique perspective and opinions. I’m looking forward to the second year.

Bruce blog learned from a certain director of a local nonprofit organization that the city of Cleveland Heights owns a small cache of chess tables that it bought in the 1970s. The tables have languished in storage all of these years�inexplicably, the city never put them out for use. What gives? These could be excellent ways to provide ‘city comforts’ at Coventry Courtyard or at Cedar-Lee.

How about both?

I don’t like my new commenting system. I don’t like my old system either. I’ve got half a mind to get rid of the asp and switch to php. If I do that, I’ll need to replace my hit counter. That’s ASP. Does anyone know of a decent php hit counter?

Sometime this afternoon, my hits stopped hitting. I try visiting the index page and WTF? I’m getting an include error on my archive template. Great! Fortunately, all I had to do was republish the whole site and it seems to be working. Did any of you try to visit and find it unreachable?

Bob Hope, whose mastery of the comic monologue and the topical wisecrack carried him from vaudeville to Broadway musicals and then on to worldwide fame as a radio, film and television star of the first magnitude, died Sunday night in Toluca Lake, Calif., according to The Associated Press, which cited his long-time publicist, Ward Grant. Mr. Hope was 100.

I think the first time I saw Bob Hope was in a movie on Sunday afternoon. I think it was Road to Morocco with Bing Crosby. The world is a little more serious with his passing.

This afternoon at 5:30 we’re at Civilization in Tremont. If you’re not busy, stop by for a chat. They kick us out at 7, so maybe we’ll head to the martini bar or over to Lucky’s Cafe. Hope to see you!

“Any fool can criticize, condemn, and complain - and most fools do.” - Dale Carnegie

Just wanted to do a couple shoutouts. One to Kevin Holtsberry for the referrer script he’s running on his site and one to Steve Goldberg of What’s in the Bag for sending me all that traffic.

Beliefnet.com — Prayer of the Day:

May we discover through pain and torment,
the strength to live with grace and humor.
May we discover through doubt and anguish,
the strength to live with dignity and holiness.
May we discover through suffering and fear,
the strength to move toward healing.
May it come to pass that we be restored to health and to vigor.
May Life grant us wellness of body, spirit, and mind.
And if this cannot be so, may we find in this transformation and passage
moments of meaning, opportunities for love
and the deep and gracious calm that comes
when we allow ourselves to move on.

- Rabbi Rami M. Shapiro

“This year we begin the rebuilding of Kinsman Avenue. The old way would be just to pave the road. Our new way involved the local development corporation and all of the utilities-even Ameritech, which has a switching station just over the Shaker border. Together we crafted a plan that includes new housing, new businesses, streetscaping, lighting, and other investments in Luke Easter Park. Kinsman, once a symbol of urban decay, can again become a vibrant neighborhood.”
Quote from State of the City Address, Mayor Jane L. Campbell, February 20, 2003

On Tuesday, July 29th, the ConnectionSeries’ Community Action Team (Business Creation + Preservation & Growth) invites you to attend an open dialogue session with Ward Three Councilman Zack Reed, regarding revitalization efforts in his district.

Highlights of efforts include: the first new school to be built in Cleveland in 20 years, 11 million dollars repaving and streetscaping project, the construction of a 3 million dollar medical building, the construction of a 39 unit senior housing project, park improvements, library improvements and more.

Where: Flannery’s Pub 323 Prospect Avenue E, Cleveland OH, 44113, 216-781-7782

Time: 5:30 pm

“[O]h, and while I was away…
… I made the Plain Dealer! Here’s the article, by Chris Seper, on the sticky issues that professionals who keep online journals or weblogs face. I’ll have to follow up with Lev Gonick and make sure that I’m on solid footing, but since my journal is generally more appreciative than critical, I’d be shocked if anyone at CWRU took offense.”

She’s looking for a hard copy of the column, so if you have last Monday’s PD around, please let her know.

Was watching a movie on IFCTV tonight. Experienced a wave of remorse during a long shot of the World Trade Center Towers. Probably one of the most fitting memorials is the one that exists in images and film. It seems like every photo, movie, and television show set in NYC has a shot of them. I wonder how many that is?

More good news about coffee consumption:

Drinking three or more cups of coffee a day can almost halve the risk of cirrhosis of the liver, according to a new study in Norway. The protective effect applies even among alcohol drinkers, whose risk of cirrhosis is much greater.

The NIMBIS Gallery Blog. This is my favorite part:

Disclaimer: The Nimbis blog is maintained by the many members and Nimbis, and therefore individual posts and opinions may or may not represent every member of Nimbis or Nimbis as a whole. Long Live Free Speech!

Hurray for individuality too.

I know, I’m almost a week late blogging this. John Ettore already did, but I didn’t realize it’s about Sandy and Chas Rich.

I also think it’s important in light of what Ross Mayfield said about the NYTimes article regarding the backchannel. Blogging about what’s going on in a community or organization is a backchannel. Smart, creative people are going to talk, write, blog, whatever, about what’s going on around them. You’ve got a choice. You can either embrace it and allow it, or you can quell it and lose the talent. If a company is letting people go because they express themselves, I think it’s the death knell for the company. Fast companies like Southwest Airlines encourage their employees to have personalities. It contributes to the culture of the company. Heck, if I had a company, I’d encourage everyone in it to have a blog! I’d give away free websites to company employees and help them set up blogs. I’d even work with them on the designs, helping them to express themselves through the layout and graphics of the site. Wow! What sort of people do you think would come work for a company where during the interview they were asked, “Do you have a blog?” and “Do you know what a blog is?”, or “We’d like to give you your own space on the internet to express your thoughts and idea. Are you comfortable doing that?”. What do you think? Click on “Your Comment” and leave one for me.