Reminds me of Jack Ricchiuto’s book Accidental Conversations:

You walk into a restaurant and, instead of the expected array of seating, there are only a handful of tables surrounding one large, central table that seats 20. The host smiles and directs you to seats between a couple reading the newspaper and a small group that is having a lively discussion. A few of the other diners seem to be keeping to themselves and a few more are drawing new people into their chatter. Generally, the food is not shared, but the space is.

The first time that you find yourself in a restaurant with a large communal table, your initial reaction might be something like mild shock because we are all so used to being seated at our own tables and not interacting with anyone other than members of our own party and the servers.

What do you think of communal dining tables? - Slashfood

Reminds me of Jack Ricchiuto’s book Accidental Conversations:

You walk into a restaurant and, instead of the expected array of seating, there are only a handful of tables surrounding one large, central table that seats 20. The host smiles and directs you to seats between a couple reading the newspaper and a small group that is having a lively discussion. A few of the other diners seem to be keeping to themselves and a few more are drawing new people into their chatter. Generally, the food is not shared, but the space is.

The first time that you find yourself in a restaurant with a large communal table, your initial reaction might be something like mild shock because we are all so used to being seated at our own tables and not interacting with anyone other than members of our own party and the servers.

What do you think of communal dining tables? - Slashfood

Interesting idea:

This afternoon I tossed together a two-minute piece for Rocketboom on an art mob that assembled at Boston’s Public Garden. At first I thought they were war protestors holding signs, but they were actually a group of amateur photographers who were standing in a circle holding out large photos they’d taken around the garden. Since they weren’t able to get their work shown in a gallery, they decided to become a human gallery at the garden.

Andy Carvin’s Waste of Bandwidth: Art Mob at the Public Garden

Keep austin wierd, Drink Local Coffee

Originally uploaded by -Dons.

Where do you think is more weird, Austin or Cleveland? I love the idea of capitalizing on the eclectic nature of this city by supporting local businesses…

Indeed:

It is incredibly lame to point to ownership of DVD players and cell phones as proof that poverty isn’t a problem in America. Similarly, it is stupid to claim that the purchasing power of the middle class has grown (even though wages have stagnated) because of stores like Wal-Mart and Best Buy. Both of these arguments rest on complete bullshit. First, people generally don’t “own” these items. They are in hock for them. It’s a modern form of indentured servitude. And the poorer you are, the longer you are indentured. Second, these items are overpriced plastic garbage — they test the limits of consumer tolerance for built-in obsolescence. They’re not indicators of wealth. Assets that grow in value (or at least hold their value or allow one to create value) are indicators of wealth…

Sleepy Kid - Poverty and the Shrinking Middle Class

After our interview with Ben Konop, we grabbed some dinner and I brought back a couple bottles of Sweet Hot Ketchup. The most disappointing thing about our trip was that none of the Toledo area blogger save one, JR of ToledoTalk.com bothered to show up and participate. If the rumors are true, they’re listening to their masters and waiting for something big to happen in the blogosphere. Good to know that JR thinks for himself and understands community.

Welcome to Tony Packos Welcome to Tony Packos (pickles, peppers, salsa, spicy ketchup, mustard, chili and much more..)

From this week’s PostSecret, Chaulk.

If you haven’t done so in a while, check out the growing list of items we’re auctioning off. Also, if you’re interested in helping raise money to help keep MTB interviewing and publishing, please contact Gloria Ferris.

Meet the Bloggers » Silent Auction

You know people are going to poke around in there anyways. Why not let ‘em?

Chumby is an open hardware flash player. That’s just a starting point though. Chumby is designed to be hacked.

Chumby - hack a day - www.hackaday.com _

DSC01194

Originally uploaded by sciurus!.

Adam Harvey snaps @ City Xpressionz

• Ethanol - “One of those light bulb deals”
  Jeb Bush has an ah-ha?
  (tags: sustainability)

Right now, I’m listening to another in the series of Seminars About Longterm Thinking:

Roger Kennedy also found the mountain in Nevada where The Long Now Foundation aims to build the 10,000-year Clock. In this talk he defines the continental frame of the Clock. Most of Roger Kennedy’s audience Friday night had no idea that a multi-millennia sequence of major cultures, cities, and earth monuments of enormous size once occupied the Mississippi valley and areas in Ohio and the Southeast. They had never heard of the vast ruins at places such as Poverty Point and Cahokia. But American founding fathers Washington and Jefferson knew of the ancient works and honored them with new-made earth mounds at Mt. Vernon and Monticello…

Poking around their website, I had a major ah-ha. One of the co-chairman of the Long Now Foundation is Stewart Brand:

Stewart Brand is a co-founder and managing director of Global Business Network, founded and runs the GBN Book Club, and is the president of The Long Now Foundation. Brand is well known for founding, editing and publishing the Whole Earth Catalog (01968-85), which received a National Book Award for the 01972 issue.

What’s the significance you ask? GBN were the consultants on Nortech’s Tech Futures.

Makes me wonder how longterm thinking has impacted these action plans. Speaking of, I’m also curious how the one’s that aren’t posted are progressing. There seems to be some crucial institutions that don’t have their plans posted–JumpStart,Team NEO,OneCleveland,World Trade Center Cleveland, and Nortech itself. I hope we see them soon. It’s not as if Cleveland couldn’t use vision and leadership…

Long Now Discuss > View topic - 02005-02-11 > Roger Kennedy

Toledo Fox affiliate interviewing Gloria

Originally uploaded by GeorgeNemeth.

Not one, but two media outlets were at our interview with Ben Konop. Here the Toledo Fox affiliate is interviewing Gloria. Philip Kaplan from the Toledo City Paper sat in on the interview.

Jason Haas:

When MTB met with Tim Ryan and Sherrod Brown recently, I asked both this question: How do Democrats speak about the economy in light of Republicans running about saying how wonderful everything is each time the government issues a report?The Congressmen gave similar answers. On the podcast, Ryan said we should ask voters if they feel things are going well in their gut, a sort-of variation on the standard “are you better off now than X years ago” question.After the microphones were turned off, Brown stated [paraphrasing from memory]: “All we need to ask people to do is look around. They’ll know how things are going.” Again, a variation of “are you better off”.

psychobilly democrat: US Economy: Leaving Workers With Less

3 Meet.The.Bloggers interviews posted:

Ben Konop
Ed Hauser
Joan Synenberg

• Notes from FOO Camp: Getting High Performance out of High Potential People
  (tags: leadership business)
• Sleep Tight With Snore Stopper
  (tags: shocking)
• Caption This 8-28-06
  (tags: whoa)

Okay, so I am a little peeved by this group. Actually, it’s not their cause that gets under my skin, it’s just their process.

This is a bit of a rant and a request. First, Ohio Citizen Action seems like a credible organization with a great cause. Generally speaking, they are for a better quality of life for Ohioans through being environmentally friendly. Makes sense to me. This is especially true after reading Yvon Chiounard’s, Let my people go surfing: The lessons of a reluctant businessman. I am all the more aware of the importance of “not doing unnecessary harm to the environment” through life and business. I love the book and feel compelled to take part in Yvon’s activism and vision.

However, when I get someone knocking on my door (more or less insisting to hear them out) while making dinner for my kids, answering the phone, and trying to find a peaceful moment after a crazy day, I get freaking irritated! Obviously these youngsters don’t have kids, which I confirmed, and needed to complete there mission. Okay, I like there persistence, but give me a break! Slip me a business card with your blog, tell me what you are doing in 1 (one) sentence, and that you are sorry for being invasive.

Done with the rant.

Here is the request:

• Go check out their website www.ohiocitizen.org, if you have not done so already.
• Ask them what they want you to do.
• Beg them to get a blog and tell people to go to it in addition to repeatedly coming to their doorstep.
• Tell them to post on BFD!
• Get on board or don’t!

Here are people you can e-mail about the Mittal Steel (formally LTV Steel) campaign issue because you won’t find’em on their website:

sbuchanan@ohiocitizen.org
rbreech@ohiocitizen.org
simona@ohiocitizen.org

Best of luck Ohio Citizen Action. I wish you the best and hope you will spend a little more time understanding how to reach like minded individuals.

Jay

PS - If you are for the cause, encourage Adam Harvey to persist as he is mentioned on their website!

Love to hear specifics on both the empowerment zones and boosting home ownership in urban areas:

The two major party candidates for Ohio Governor recently told an audience of local and regional government officials how they planned to address economic development. Among the themes stressed were several of Greater Ohio’s priority issues, including regional approaches to economic development, better land planning and urban investment.

Republican Ken Blackwell said unified regional development guidelines would stimulate economic growth by making capital investment easier. “I want to see greater regional cooperation, everything from building codes to land-use policy,” Blackwell said. He also cited the success Unigov in Indianapolis and Marion Co., Ind. has had with economic development.

Democrat Ted Strickland proposed a state office to support urban economic development and to recommend changes in Ohio’s land policy. He called on ODOT to support public transit and rail and consider economic development in its criteria. He also promised not to provide state economic grants to communities that “poach” business from elsewhere in the region.

The candidates spoke to the Ohio Association of Regional Councils in Columbus on Aug. 21. OARC is comprised of metropolitan regional agencies that plan and allocate state and federal funds for transportation and air and water quality projects.

Strickland used the occasion to unveil an agenda for revitalizing Ohio cities and towns that calls for historic preservation and “managed growth.”

Blackwell’s urban agenda, according to an aide, includes empowerment zones and plans to boost home ownership…

Too bad Blackwell won’t do an hour of Meet.The.Bloggers*. Those are two things I doubt we’ll hear any eloboration on.

Greater Ohio | Testimonials & Media

1. According to researcher Earl Grinols, most casinos attract 80 percent or more of their market from a 35-to 50-mile radius.

2. The Australian Institute for Gambling Research has studied who it is that
gambles, and found that 30 to 50 percent of the industry’s revenues
derive from problem and pathological gamblers.

3. Researchers have found that a casino within 10 miles of a home means a 90 percent increased risk of its occupants becoming pathological or
problem gamblers.

From Xeni:

McSweeney’s has released a new book called Arboretum by David Byrne, described as a “collection of drawings/trees/maps.” From the McSweeney’s preview:

It’s printed in a black-and-silver duotone for an uncanny graphite finish that preserves all the erasures and scribbles of the originals, its hard cover is wrapped in unassuming lunch-bag brown paper, and there’s a 4-foot-long foldout explanatory guide.

Byrne explains the drawings:

Well, I guess they’re a lot of things. Faux science, automatic writing, self-analysis, satire, and maybe even a serious attempt at finding connections where none were thought to exist.

Boing Boing: New book by David Byrne: Arboretum, from McSweeney’s.

Have you ever looked at a photo on Flickr and wondered “where is that?”.  I know there are some Flickr fans in the audience so I thought this may be appropriate.

Flickr now has the capability to allow you to geotag your pictures.  In layman’s terms, you can connect your picture to the place where you took them.
There’s more info here.  I have done it and, if you are a contact (it has varying levels of privacy), you can see it.

YouTube - This State

I probably won’t be able to (someone has to rep for MTB at the Urban Gallery Hop) but I hope some of you can attend:

The Voices & Choices Regional Town Meeting is coming up in less than three weeks. Hundreds of people will come together representing the diversity of Northeast Ohio to deliberate about solutions to the region’s greatest challenges.

In keeping with Voices & Choices’ mission of educating as many people about the challenges facing the region as possible, we would like to extend a special invitation to the bloggers of the region to participate in the Town Meeting.

Voices & Choices will be making special accomodations to ensure that bloggers attending the Town Meeting will be able to submit posts from the event throughout the day (still working out whether we’ll have a wireless network or wired connections - we need to make sure there is no interference with the wireless networks we will be using for our keypad polling and groupware computer systems).

To get a sense for what the Town Meeting will look like and how it will work, take a look at this quick video.

It probably goes without saying, but bloggers attending the Town Meeting are free to write whatever they want about the event/process and are encouraged to take photos as well. We only make two requests…

Blogging the Town Meeting | Voices & Choices

Thanks to Doug Nagy for bringing this to my attention:

The U.S. Census Bureau reported today that Cleveland has the highest poverty rate rate among the country’s big cities.The Cleveland poverty rate was 32.4 percent - or nearly one out of every three residents - in 2005.

What’s the mayor and our city fathers and mothers going to do this time around?

cleveland.com: Newslogs

I do:

RMI’s work in Cleveland was part of the Cuyahoga Valley Initiative (www.cuyahogavalley.net), an ongoing local program that is emblematic of the new Cleveland, a city that is shedding its gritty grey image—which includes a burning river—through innovation and creativity. Such organizations as Entrepreneurs for Sustainability (E4S) (www.e4s.org), Eco-City Cleveland (www.ecocitycleveland.org), the Cleveland Clinic, and the Cuyahoga County Planning Commission (CPC) demonstrate that the community is moving beyond its rust-belt past…

Advancing the Regeneration of the Cuyahoga Valley

Microformats. From Clyde Miles @ Optiem:

What are they? (Thanks to Drew McLellan)

Microformats are a way of attaching extra meaning to the information published on a web page. This extra semantic richness works alongside the information already presented, and can be used for the benefit of people and computers. This is mostly done through adding special pre-defined names to the class attribute of existing XHTML markup. Microformats are the way to publish and share information on the web with higher fidelity.

How might they be used? (Thanks to Tantek Celik)

For example, if a company wanted their contact information to be easily found and shared, they would publish it with hCard…

Fuel For Thought at Optiem

From Wendell Robinson:

In typical Cleveland leadership intelligensia babblespeak, the results were well summed by the following statement from local Urban League President Myron Robinson, “I’m shocked.  We’re stuck with it and we’ve got to do something about it. It just seems that we as a community have got to pull our resources closer together and try to move together to come up with a concerted effort. We’re so fragmented.” 

But Myron, isn’t that what you were supposed to have been doing for the last 15 years???

wenBLOG » “The Most of Us are the Least of Us”

Name: Jim Kukral
Age: 34
Resident of: Seven Hills
Blogs: Um, here’s the biggest ones. ReveNews and a new one Awesome Million
Native of: Independence, Ohio, 3 miles away of where I live now
Family: Wife Doreen (no age to be listed or I will be smacked), daughter Hailey 4-1/2, and son Jayce 1-1/2
Education: Independence High School, THE University of Akron and the dotcom bubble bust
Paying Gig: Brand manager for affiliate marketing firm www.forgebusiness.com
15 Minutes of Fame: Getting Mark Cuban to hate me, almost. www.markcubanpleasecallme.com

Story behind the blog and its name? ReveNews was built in 1998 to cover the business of making money online. So Revenue+News=ReveNews.com

Describe your blogging habits. I blog when an idea or rant hits me, or specifically when I’m trying to get the attention of a group, or even just one person. I never blog just to blog. Usually I blog at a moment’s notice. Nothing is ever planned out ahead of time.

How would you describe your writing and content? I write extremely conversational, which is just the way I talk.

Who reads your blog? Mostly entrepreneurs and webmasters in the online marketing industry.

What do you read? Main coverage is gathered from www.techmeme.com and www.techcrunch.com these days, and the news section at ReveNews. Just started reading a real book called “The World is Flat.”

What post(s) generate the most response from others? Rants and negative posts always get the best response. However, I’ve found that very personal and revealing/honest posts also can generate a huge response. But if you’re writing for responses, you’re blogging for the wrong reasons.

How much time do you spend reading blogs? 3-4 hours per day at least.

When not blogging, how do you choose to spend your free time? Working on creative online projects such as my latest www.awesomemillion.com, where you can make yourself, or someone you know really awesome for as low as $1.00.

Who let this one slip?

However, there might be another reason that Mr. Estruth wasn’t ready to vote Democratic. Via Buckeye State Blog, we learn that he happens to be the president of Common Sense Ohio, a Blackwell-supporting group that’s been running hundreds of thousands of dollars of advertising across that state attacking Ted.

The BSB post: http://buckeyestateblog.com/node/2592

Common Sense Ohio: http://www.commonsenseohio.org

Common Sense Ohio’s ads began running on August 16th. The president of the group is on the record alleging to be a Republican just “checking out” Ted Strickland at a rally held on August 19th.

Wouldn’t it just be common sense that the president of a group spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to destroy Ted Strickland had already made up his mind?

Eschaton

• How much of our wealth is on others’ backs?
  From my friend Steve in Cincy
  (tags: spirituality)
• What is a paseo?
  From CoolTown Studios
  (tags: community)
• Dorothy Fuldheim: Dorothy Fuldheim 3.0
  She’s back…
  (tags: bfd)
• What does his choice for a first-date restaurant say about him?
  from slashfood
  (tags: hilarious food)
• NYTimes: Why the economy is NOT doing better for everyone
  Susan Mernit
  (tags: poverty)

Henry Gomez blogging on the Forest City blog:

If you hear some stomachs grumbling at Forest City headquarters, here’s the dish. Plain Dealer food reporter John S. Long reports that the Century Restaurant at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Cleveland is closing Sunday:

cleveland.com: Weblogs

24/30 on the Forbes list. Thanks to Tony Ramos for the link.

America’s Most Wired Cities - Forbes.com

Did the GCP do anything with Ohio Learn & Earn? Not according to this economic development pro:

Call it the vacation perspective. I’ve been sitting here in Europe, and I have had some chance to reflect on the challenges facing my hometown of Cleveland.Part of the challenge we face is a business leadership that gets easily diverted from the important challenges of building a globally competitive economy. Take the case of gambling…I have no idea why the business leadership thinks urban casinos in Cleveland will help Ohio compete globally.The Greater Cleveland Partnership has taken a leadership role in bringing slots to Cleveland. Read more.If your are going to get your business community out front like that, make sure that you run an exemplary campaign. Here are steps to avoid. Don’t:1. Propose a constitutional amendment that makes the state constitution look more like a zoning ordinance than a constitution.

EDPro Weblog: Economic Development for Today’s Professionals

Didn’t know I could do this. Pretty handy:

Google Calendar’s SMS-notification option allows you to conveniently check your calendar just by sending a quick text message.

Google Help Center: Can I check my calendar information via SMS?

Note to self. Leave the apartment Thursday morning before Labor Day. That’s when the war planes start their sorties:

There is a beautiful breeze out today and the wind is rustling the leaves in the trees, the sky is blue and there are wispy clouds on the horizon. Suddenly, I hear a plane in the distance, within a second the distance closes and it is not one plane but three, they are right over my head breaking the sound barrier and my eardrums. The cats run for cover and I can feel my body shaken to the core by the piercing sound and the sheer velocity of the Blue Angels F18 planes flying overhead. Whew. I am talking powerful! The last three times they have gone by I have started giggling, impacted by the sheer force and power of them.

Flying over Cleveland « Coach Joelle’s Blog

Sad commentary from a young guy who wants to stay, but wants more:

I love Tremont, I love the style of Cleveland and its entertainment scene, I love the people. I’ll continue to do the best I can for the city until the day I leave. But I’m out. That’s the only motivation I have today. Cleveland’s got everything I want in a city except for a good, challenging and interesting job.

Organic/Mechanic Permalink » Whinge

Monday through yesterday I was meeting with a new client in Aspen, Colorado (as if there’s another Aspen). During my time there discussing new ideas, social computing, marketing strategies and the first project, one thought kept coming to mind as I would reflect on Cleveland and NEO in general…

Why am I banging my head against a wall?

Sometimes that’s what it’s like living here in this region, especially when you get out of town and have the perspective of looking inside from the outside. It didn’t help that after landing at Hopkins I learned that Cleveland is once again the poorest major metro in the country. I’m starting to think I care too much about this area and need to go back to my original strategy of ignoring as much as I can and focusing my efforts outside.

Maybe that’s why good people keep leaving the county. If you care about things, living here can be damn right exhausting at times. So much so that no matter how much you do to try and make things better you feel like you’re banging your head against the wall. It’s kind of like people who, because of how they interact with you, drain you of your energy. And after you’re done interacting with them you feel like you didn’t get anywhere.

Today I got caught up with BFD and came across this post about Ed Morrison skewering the GCP. First, this man is amazing. The last thing I would do on vacation is blog about a perspective on Cleveland. But, despite my post here being much less articulate than his, it was obvious that those of us who do care gain a different perspective on all things local when we’re out of town.

I look forward to the day I can travel out of town and not think about banging my head against a wall back home and getting nowhere.

What are your perspectives of the Great Cleveland area when you’re out of town? Maybe those perspectives, good and bad, hold the keys to the problems that continue to plague the region. That is, of course, after we get rid of our inept leadership.

• Katrina lessons: Linux kiosks for post-disaster comms
  (tags: linux)
• Do Something
  From Wendell Robinson
  (tags: poverty)
• Art of the Day: Emily Acita in collaboration with the Children of Lakeview Terrace Community Center
  (tags: art)
• The Miller Way…: OHIO…The Heart of it All, Really???
  (tags: ohio)
• Solar power may soon bring the Web to remote areas
  From Smart Mobs
  (tags: tech)
• Live website monitoring with Site 24×7
  via Download Squad
  (tags: tech)
• Ohio House 92nd: Phillips (D) Meets the Bloggers
  From Ohio2005
  (tags: meetthebloggers)
• The PD does CDBG and CDCs
  Reading Callahan’s Cleveland Diary
  (tags: economicdevelopment)
• Don Harvey’s efforts to promote greenspace ian the Flats
  Cuyahoga County Planning Commission Weblog
  (tags: sustainability)