Brewed Fresh Daily

At the risk of being labelled negative, I'll repeat what Thomas printed in Cool Cleveland:

When the Council on Competitiveness slouched into town with their Powerpoints and dry podium pounding, CrainTech's Chris Thompson saw them for the usual suspects they were: "mostly the same people (predominantly old, white men) who have attended similar meetings in the past." What's called for instead are interactive sessions calling on the talents of our creative sectors, "There's not enough 'unusual suspects' in the room," stated acting ED of the Council's Center for Regional Innovation. One reason for our brain drain is our negative attitude. "Everyone knows the problems [of our region] and nobody's talking about how great it is." Nobody but Cool Cleveland, apparently. See CrainTech here. See PD's version here.

One point I'd like to add, as Chris Thompson points out, Randall Kempner was the one who made the call for unusual suspects. My guess is that he looked around the room and saw very few people like himself: young, energenic men with a vision and a plan to make things better. Chris sat in the same break out that I did, so I appreciate him calling for "interactive sessions calling on the talents of our creative sectors". Exactly why my partners and I formed Smart Meeting Design. One thing I'd like to point out. If you get people from the creative sectors involved, they're not going to tolerate the sort of jawboning that the GOB network needs to get "ideas" going. They want to put an end to the talking and start doing. I'm stiil waiting to hear from the "Action Team" that I signed upf for...