Brewed Fresh Daily

When you think of creativity, think Cleveland Water-Works. Three basic elements are required: the faucet, the distribution network, e.g., the pipes, and the source. The world's best-designed waterworks is of no value to the people it was designed to serve if there is no water. Having an abundance of water is of no value to the community without a way to tap into it and distribute it to our faucets. Up until now, Cleveland's discussions on creativity and the Creative Class have been focusing on the faucet, perhaps a little on the pipes, and not at all on the most necessary element of all, the spring. Creativity theory notes three complementary aspects of creativity: raw, adaptive, and productive. All three are of absolute necessity. However, to borrow again from the water-works motif, as long as the region continues to remain fixed on the faucet, we like California, will forever be looking elsewhere for water, and depending upon someone else to lay the pipes. The analogy is obvious. The faucets are the producers, those who shape the idea into a usable product or service. The pipes are the adapters, those who gather the raw ideas from the source and move the flow toward production, along the way refining the raw idea.

In a conference room in Lamont Library, Dave Winer is evangelizing, doing his best to convert to his cause the University's far-flung Webmasters who've come to this monthly meeting of the Harvard's ABCD committee. Earlier in the week, the Kennedy School of Government's Institute of Politics was his pulpit, and a few hours after his ABCD sermon, he'll reel in a few more believers at the Law School. He's a preacher with a projection screen, and, in his jeans and sneakers looking more like a software developer than a gospel-sayer. In fact, Winer is a software developer; as founder and CEO of UserLand Software, he created software that facilitates Weblogs. Not coincidentally, it's the wonder of Weblogs - simple personal Web sites that authors frequently update - that Winer is preaching as a fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School (HLS). Not only are Weblogs ("blogs" to those in the know) getting a buzz as the Internet's next big thing, but Winer and the Berkman Center think blogging might change pedagogical practices at the University and create community on Harvard's famously decentralized campus.

Open Space would be an ideal way to spawn a whole nest of weblogs in an organization, as each person leaves the meeting and enters the office to begin blogging the outcomes, next steps and results. With comments on each blog, people could begin linking ideas and knowledge and recreating the Open Space environment on a constant basis to share knowledge about whatever the organization is working on.

Hosted by Richard Florida, The Memphis Manifesto Summit is an unprecedented gathering of the Creative 100, the best and brightest, most active and creative young minds from across the U.S. These 100 young professionals will share their thoughts and insights in the areas of business, culture, design, society, education and science to create the Memphis Manifesto - the definitive report on transforming cities that want to compete for the Creative Class.

I am getting excited about attending this Summit next week after finally having a chance to read the preliminary messages and ideas being exchanged on the listserv. If you're going, drop me a line. Bon voyage

A great deal has been written over the last few years about the need for brevity on the Web. Whether Web writing has improved as a result is debatable, but one thing is certain: the word has gotten out. These days one can't gather three people in a room to plan a Web site without someone's sounding off about the need for brevity. That's a good thing. Our collective consciousness has been raised. But there are at least two downsides to this Web-brevity mania. First, perhaps following Newton's third law, it has at times caused the opposite reaction in print. It is as if writers, reeling from the constraints imposed by the Web, can't help but pour forth in print. Second - and far worse - it has put the cart before the horse: brevity has begun to supersede clarity in importance in our eyes. Striving for brevity isn't enough. We need to write tight.

The following O'Reilly technical books are currently in print and set to be released under an Attribution license after either 14 years or 28 years after the publication date, given author permission. Titles that have been cleared by their authors are denoted below with a pale green background in the publication date column, titles still pending are shown with a pale red background.

"What impressed me, by far, were the thoroughly intelligent questions people asked. They were asking questions about conversion utilities, positioning strategies within the top spots, affiliate marketing troubles, potential problems with Overture partner strategies with Gator... just to name a few. I was very proud of Cleveland. Nice job everyone!

In 1869, dentist Thomas Welch was elected Communion steward at the First United Methodist Church, Vineland, N.J. He objected to the use of wine for the sacrament and refused to touch it. Meanwhile he heard of Louis Pasteur's new method of killing bacteria in milk ("pasteurization"). He decided to try applying the same principle to preserving the juice of grapes unfermented. Dr. Welch, his wife, and son Charles gathered grapes from their trellis, washed and cooked them, and squeezed the juice through cloth bags. He poured it into bottles, stoppered them with cork and wax, then boiled them in water to kill any yeast in the juice that would start the fermentation process. It worked! Welch asked his church to substitute his new "unfermented wine" for the traditional Communion wine. At first the elders viewed his suggestion as "an unacceptable innovation," but he convinced them. Word spread. Temperance-minded churches begin asking for Dr. Welch's Unfermented Wine. Thou-sands sampled it at the 1893 Chicago World's Fair. That year, young Charles left his dental practice to market the family juice full time.

You will not be able to stay home, dear Netizen.
You will not be able to plug in, log on and opt out.
You will not be able to lose yourself in Final Fantasy,
Or hold your Kazaa download queues,
Because revolution is not an AOL Keyword.

"A bookstore in Ohio has come under fire for throwing away hundreds of unsold books when it went out of business. A local TV news reporter came across the overflowing dumpster and got upset that the books weren't donated to area nonprofits. The reporter became even more upset when she learned that taking the books out of the trash was illegal.

NewsChannel5 was told that tearing front covers off new books is standard procedure when a bookstore closes. It's called "stripping a book." ... [T]o take these books from the trash bin is illegal; the books would be considered stolen property. Inside the front cover, a warning states that a book without its cover is unauthorized. It was reported to the publisher as unsold and destroyed, and neither the author nor the publisher received payment.

I just checked a mass-market paperback -- Robert Jordan's The Eye of the World -- and it has no such warning. Ah, here in Stephen King's A Bag of Bones, it says, "The sale of this book without a cover is unauthorized." Dumpster dive away, Media Dieticians. It's legal unless you sell the books.

According to Men's Fitness Magazine, Cleveland is now the 6th fattest city in America. We moved up from the number 13 spot attained last year, and jumped ahead of Columbus, which now ranks 8th in the national standings after finishing 6th last year. At the rate we're piling it in and on, we should overtake Houston for the number one spot by next year. The people of Houston would be glad to shed that dubious distinction, having held on to the number one spot for three years in a row now.

"Over a 20-year writing/editing/media career, Eric Olsen has written in depth on a vast array of topics including politics, current events, world affairs, popular culture, music, music industry, digital technology, opinion and commentary, etc., for periodicals, books, TV, radio, and the Internet. Internet: Founder/editor/writer: Blogcritics.org Popular culture writer for various publications including Playboy, Billboard, Alternative Press, Option, Cleveland Plain Dealer, Akron Beacon Journal, Hear/Say, Cleveland.com, etc Editor/Author: Networking In the Music Industry (Rockpress, 1993), Encyclopedia of Record Producers (Billboard Books, 1999) TV: music critic for Fox 8 Morning show 2000-2001; host/writer of Dancevision music show in Akron/Canton 1993-1995 Radio: founder/host/producer/programmer "Cool Tunes," one of the most highly-regarded and longest-running specialty music shows in the country: WRQK 1990-1994, WENZ 1994-1996, WAPS 1999-2002

Few people know that there are truly beautiful places in the city limits of Cleveland featuring 100 feet high sheer cliffs, mallards, Canada geese, great blue herons, deer and giant rainbow trout. I know these places. I love them. And that's why I get up before work and visit these places.

Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "It is one of the most beautiful compensations of this life that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself."

This is the real secret of the arts: Always be a beginner. Then we can really learn something. In the beginner's mind There is no thought, "I have attained something." If you keep your original mind, The precepts will keep themselves.

The San Antonio Symphony, which has been struggling with a cash crisis, has canceled the final month of its season, the San Antonio Express-News reports. The season was scheduled to end on 7 June, but the orchestra board voted Wednesday to suspend performances after 3 May.

The fragrance of coffee is now officially illegal in New York. In making this determination the Environmental Control Board, of New York City, an administrative court of the city's Department of Environmental Protection has found Gillies Coffee Company guilty of polluting because coffee smells like coffee. An inspector responding to a single complaint from someone in the neighborhood smelled coffee outside the coffee company. He found it "annoying" and in violation of NYC 24-141 which prohibits "the emission of air contaminant" The inspector testified that there was no roasting going on. NYC Administrative Law Judge Phyllis J. Roberts stated in her written opinion that the "smell" of coffee comes within the statutory definition of odorous air contaminant defined by 24-104 as "any air contaminant which is released in sufficient concentrations to be detected by the human olfactory sense."

Earlier Wednesday, Imax and Warner Bros., a division of AOL Time Warner Inc., announced that the second and third chapters of "The Matrix" trilogy, to be released in the spring and fall, will be digitally-remastered using Imax DMR - a technology that upgrades live-action 35mm films into the Imax experience. Although "The Matrix Reloaded" will open in Imax theaters two or three weeks after its general release May 15, "The Matrix Revolutions" will open Nov. 5 in both conventional and Imax cinemas, marking the first time that a live-action Hollywood film is released concurrently in both large- and standard-sized formats, known in the industry as a day-and-date release.

" I met my wife at the coffee machine, and we got married in a coffee shop!! Is coffee a passion or an addiction?"

"MapleFest 2003 is cranking up in all its sugar-coated glory on Thursday. I've lived in this town 4 years, and I still see no point to this endeavor except an additional 25 grand in tourist dollars."

"Sometime between January 1, 2002 and January 1, 2003, the world figured out that this downturn isn't a blip in an otherwise unfettered march to untold prosperity," says veteran technology investor Roger McNamee, who has seen his share of booms and busts (and managed to extract stellar returns during both). "People faced up to the fact that we're never going back. The '90s are over." McNamee has a message for businesspeople mesmerized by the recent past (mooning over the boom and tallying up their losses from the bust) or frozen by fear of the future (terror, war, double-dip recession). "Forget about the Next Big Thing," he says. "The next thing has started. It's called the New Normal, and 2003 will be the first full year of it. The New Normal isn't where you wait for the next boom. It's about the rest of your life." To say that Roger McNamee's career is a triumph of smart money is to say that Jerry Garcia (to invoke one of his heroes) had a decent following. While the world makes excuses, McNamee names the moment -- and maps out a productive path forward. In the case of the New Normal, that means unlearning most of the principles of the past decade. Forget everything that you've learned about time (faster is better), money (capital is free), and leadership (no experience required). "Everything takes longer in the New Normal," says McNamee. "Longer is better than never, but it requires a different frame of reference. Wealth is no longer an entitlement. Vision isn't a template in PowerPoint. Patience will once again be a virtue of great consequence."

"From:Dr.Lawrence Ngoma, Director:Audit/Account unit, Foreign Remittance Eco Bank Lome Togo PLEASE TREAT AS ABSOLUTELY CONFIDENTIAL My name is Dr.Lawrence Ngoma, I am one of the Senior Managers in the bank I work for (Eco Bank Lome Togo West Africa and I work under the Director of Foreign Exchange Operations. I am contacting you presently because I need your urgent assistance in a business transaction that will be of immense benefit to both of us. I have the immediate need to transfer some money that has long been declared _UNCLAIMED_ by the Chairman and some members of the board of directors of our bank. The money is the closing balance of one of our best customers ever, Late Engr. Lee Yung , I was his personal account officer just before he died in the ADC plane crash of 1997 in Abidjan.

Lud-dite n. 1). Any of a group of British workers who between 1811 and 1816 rioted and destroyed laborsaving textile machinery in the belief that such machinery would diminish employment. 2). One who opposes technical or technological change.

"I was surprised to see that there [are] that many NE Ohio bloggers. Dealing with the various inter-politics at CWRU and their associations with tech companies and the like, you are left with the feeling that Cleveland is full of Luddites. It's refreshing to know that this is not necessarily the case.

"ICCR is a thirty-year-old international coalition of 275 faith-based institutional investors including denominations, religious communities, pension funds, healthcare corporations, foundations and dioceses with combined portfolios worth an estimated $100 billion. As responsible stewards, they merge social values with investment decisions, believing they must achieve more than an acceptable financial return. ICCR members utilize religious investments and other resources to change unjust or harmful corporate policies, working for peace, economic justice and stewardship of the Earth."

"Lured by cheap [Don't say cheap. There's nothing cheap about it. Say "a good value for the expense". Cheap is degrading. Have some confidence. G] rent and the quaint [It ain't that quaint either. Its loud, edgy and ethnically diverse. I like it.] setting of Painesville, two longtime friends, Gillian Barnes and Lisa Nemeth, last spring opened a modern loft brimming with trendy jewelry, paintings and home accessories made by local and international artists. Finestra@Studio 58N, an art and gift store that will be a year old on Sunday, might fit better in Manhattan's Soho district. But tucked behind a small travel agency off Main Street, it is thriving among a string of new businesses that have recently made this 8-square-mile, 70-year-old community their home. Painesville has the potential, as far as the look of the place, to be something like Tremont," said Barnes, 38, of Painsville Township, referring to the cluster of art galleries, restaurants and gift shops on Cleveland's Near West Side. Despite the slow economy, Arabica, At Wick's End, Karpenisi's restaurant, Special Events Floral and Design, Diamond Jim's Bistro and Sweet Memories at Thayer's have all set up shop in Painesville in the last 18 months. The city then identified businesses that had been successful long-term - Bitzer's Furniture on South St. Clair Street and Grande Designs Floral on Main Street, for example - and targeted specialty stores. With Great Lakes Mall nearby, the city had to offer something different. It came up with a two-prong approach to downtown stabilization: financial incentives for businesses and a lot of marketing. Once the stores opened, the city held marketing classes for the new business owners and hosted events such as Art in the Park, featuring dozens of local artists, to bring people downtown. The city also pays for half the advertising in local publications.

"[W]ouldn't it be wonderful if the entire motivation of business be about giving to others and not just getting the best deal? Companies would still see profit through their Karma results. The benefits would come as long as we keep working towards what's really important. Thubten Chodron called this the 'Economy of Generosity'."

'Your arrows do not carry,' observed the Master, 'because they do not reach far enough spiritually.'

"Here's hoping that you can carve out a night to spend with a few dozen, perhaps as many as 100, of the most interesting folks in Cleveland. On May 15th, at 6 p.m. in the tasting room of the Great Lakes Brewery, we'll be putting on a celebration of local web journalism/blogging/choose the term you like best... [T]he initial main sponsor this time is an equally serious and dynamic group, the Cleveland chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. And the main champion is my longtime friend and colleague, and one of Cleveland's leading writers for more years than I can count, Jay Miller, who has done nothing but remove hurdles and otherwise help plan this event. The panel of four is an all-star cast: longtime music writer and now hyperblogger Eric Olsen, veteran urban planning strategist Don Iannone, and [some guy named] George Nemeth [who drinks way too much coffee]. Finally, there's a special guest, a guy who I think of as an average Joe citizen, a transplanted Clevelander actually, who just decided about five years ago to begin commenting on Cleveland events and politics on the web. I think of Mark Schumann and his Cleveland pages as something of an e-Tom Paine of Cleveland... here's the other agenda: to demystify the journalism/writing aspect for the techies, and to demystify the publishing technology for the writers and journalists, we'll be inviting a handful of technology groups to co-sponsor this event. Fast Company Magazine's Northeast Ohio Company of Friends group is the first of these fine orgs to jump aboard and join the fray (thanks to the smooth servant leadership of our zen genius Jack Richiutto), and we'll next be talking to Cleveland Clicks, the Association of Internet Professionals and NEOSA. If you have a similar, like-minded organization that you think ought to be involved, please let us know.

"Every once in a while I meet people who get information and don't pay it forward. Their ego supports knowledge hoarding. They assume others are as uninterested as they are in learning. They restrict communication to those within their inner circle of contacts. They are stuck in agrarian/industrial models that are unconscious about the value of knowledge in the emergence of sustainable communities. They are human firewalls that prevent the serendipitous flow of energy in systems."

Mark Lombardi's amazing hand-drawn network maps of influence and corruption will be exhibited around North America over the next year... including a Cleveland gig in June [at MOCA]! Curator Robert Hobbs has gathered 25 works for the traveling retrospective titled Global Networks.

Seattle's Best Coffee has been bought by Starbucks. I think a lot of Seattleites are disappointed. With the merger, it leaves us with essentially Starbuck's and Tully's. An article in the Seattle Times quotes a Seattle man saying that because he doesn't like Starbucks - he won't be buying from Seattle's Best in the future (even though he thinks SBC coffee is the best of the big 3).

I'm not a huge coffee drinker myself... I do wish that they hadn't merged.

"The Great Lakes Brewing Company observes the Bavarian Purity Law of 1516 (Reinheitsgebot) which states that only the four following ingredients are allowed in beer: Malted Barley, Hops, Yeast, and Water."

"How would you like to waltz into City Hall with a questionable business record and walk out with $250,000? That's what a California man did last week. At least he got the go-ahead sign from the Council's economic and community development committee for a loan of $250,000, likely to lead to full approval. In exchange for a $250,000 loan, the man, a former Clevelander, will move his Cupertino, California high tech business to this city."

"Cleveland is a good place for business, but only for business that is good for Cleveland."

Life's too short for nasty coffee ... M

That's probably one of the nicest things anyone has ever said to me. Thanks, Darcy.

"In study of the impact of economic development incentives, two unniversity researchers have found that incentives have no impact on job creation. Professors David Kraybill of Ohio State and Todd Gabe of the University of Maine looked at 366 [Ohio manufacturing and non-manufacuting] establishments that expanded between 1993 and 1995, and compared those that received state incentives with those that did not.They conclude that incentives don't stimulate job growth and that firms that received incentives inflated their job claims."

"In a free country, it is the duty of writers to ignore duty." - E. B. White in 1939

Update: Steve hooked us up with our meeting. He registered and confirmed his attendence. Head over to his blog and thank him by leaving a comment.

"A student at Caltech has created a website - BuddyZoo - that tracks cliques within groups of peoples' buddylists. It also measures buddy popularity and allows you to do a six-degrees type search for other screen names. An interesting approach to social network theory."

"Although he is now remembered as a novelist, Roth was better known as a journalist in his lifetime, and it was through journalism that he made a living. He was a master of the feuilleton, the short sketch which has an element of reporting but which transforms small scenes into revelations about the inner nature and destiny of an entire society or regime... The myth of the feuilleton insists that it must be written at a cafe table, and Roth soon had an honored place with the other Berlin literati in the Cafe des Westens or the Romanisches Cafe, talking, drinking, and inhaling their delicious reek of leather door-curtains, rain-moist fur collars, cigar smoke, coffee, and fresh newspapers."

"A caffeine and alcohol cocktail similar to an Irish coffee could prevent severe brain damage in stroke victims, new research has revealed." "The experimental drug, called caffeinol, has the potency of two cups of strong coffee and a small shot of alcohol. When injected into rats within three hours of an artificially stimulated stroke, brain damage was cut by up to 80 per cent."

"Business plans are 'declining in importance as vehicles for attracting investment' - making participation in business plan contests around the country a less effective means of attracting VC attention. As one venture capitalist advises in this article, the founders of a company 'would do better if they devoted the 100 or more hours required to prepare a lengthy business plan to bootstrapping their business and generating real sales'."

"Hey - you're either an 80's fan or you're an Eminem fan...it's just a choice that we all have to make at some point."

"OK, some humour is needed. Have a look at this article on BBspot: Iraq Liberated from Oppressive Statue Regime. I think they should call for a global task force for Operation Evil Art; I know a couple of statues in Ireland that could require some 'rescuing'."

That's why Stop & Shop's experiment with Cuesol is so interesting. Cuesol makes a system that ties into the "loyalty" data that stores collect when shoppers use their discount cards. Currently most stores use that data to track sales, manage their inventory, and generate targeted coupons. Cuesol takes it a step further. Cuesol's Cart Companion gives customers access to their data when they enter a store: They pick up this tabletlike wireless computer, which snaps onto a shopping cart, and swipe their discount card through it, bringing up a list of the items they purchase habitually and a locator map showing them where in the store to find their groceries. The Cart Companion not only acts as a shopping list but also flags related items that the shopper may not have thought of (such as, say, buns and mustard if you're buying hotdogs). The computer uses infrared beacons to locate your position in the store to within a few feet, so it can also call sale items to your attention.

Hello George Nemeth, You voted, we counted, and the results are in! Your Weblogger Meetup in Cleveland, OH will be:

Wednesday, Apr 16 @ 7PM Starbucks Coffee 12405 Cedar Rd Cleveland, OH 44106-3155 216-229-5531

We cancel Meetups that have fewer than 5 people confirmed as attending, so if you are indeed planning on coming, let us know!

"Living in Cleveland is like shopping at TJ Maxx. There's really cool stuff here but it happens sporatically and you have to dig to find it."

If you do, please let them know Thomas is looking for artists to participate in a performance art series May 29 through June 8, 2003 at Cleveland Public Theatre. The series accompanies the exhibition Confessions of the Avant-Garde, which is an exhibition of the photo and video archives of the Performance Art Festival.

"Cleveland doesn't know how to brag. CrainTech has tried to address that by providing an outlet for news and information about lots of very interesting companies. But we're just scratching the surface. Cleveland needs to do a better job of touting its strong, world-class tech companies that even its own residents don't know much about - such as Thunderstone, OverDrive, and Accelent. Despite years of talk, there is still no promotional web site for what is great about Cleveland's technology community. Various nonprofit and for profit entities (including CrainTech) have web sites that promote their own initiatives. But we need an "umbrella site" that embraces and supports all of "Creative Cleveland" - the entrepreneurial, high-tech crowd that is reshaping the city. Local web developers don't need another pro bono project, but someone needs to take on the challenge of creating a web site that brags about the great companies and tremendous opportunities in Cleveland.

"They were an instant hit when test-marketed in Cleveland in late 1963. Post, now 75 and a new-product consultant for Kellogg, which acquired Keebler two years ago, says Kellogg sold out of all 45,000 cases of each of the four original, unfrosted flavors -- strawberry, blueberry, apple currant and brown sugar cinnamon -- it had prepared for the test run."

Volvo Democrat (VOHL.voh dem.uh.krat) n. A white, well-educated, moderately affluent, liberal, suburban professional.

"The independent cinema chain Landmark Cinemas is installing the biggest chain of digital cinemas across the U.S. 53 of its cinemas, which equates to 177 screens, will be modified to use the new digital cinema technology." "The equipment being bought uses Microsoft's digital media technology in the form of Windows Media Player 9. This allows all the films to be protected by Microsoft's Digital Rights Management (DRM) technology, which is already built into Windows Media Player. It also boasts high-resolution picture quality and 7.1 channel sound, which is required for the true cinema experience."

Want to take your sales to a whole new level this year? Then I have one word of advice for you - THINK! We've entered into a new sales paradigm - and most sellers have absolutely no idea that the rules of the game have fundamentally changed. It's nearly impossible these days to differentiate based on product or service superiority. Copycat offerings appear virtually overnight wiping out any competitive advantage. Plus it's never been tougher to set up meetings with decision makers. Protected by caller ID and voicemail, all calls are screened. Their schedule is too busy for non-productive interruptions. And if they want to learn about your product or service, they'll go online to check it out - not call you back. There's no need to meet with sellers today until they're in the final stages of decision making and need a price quote!

• Value Propositions
• Customer Meetings
• Creating Value

"A series of brochures and print ads soon will be released to tout the best that Cleveland's 36 neighborhoods have to offer and to promote home ownership in the city." "The ads and brochures are part of a $160,000 marketing campaign developed by The Living in Cleveland Center in cooperation with the neighborhoods' individual economic development corporations, said Jeff Kipp, executive director of The Living in Cleveland Center, an 11-year-old nonprofit organization that promotes home ownership in the city."

The Study Took How Long...? I have no doubt that this study, "IMMIGRATION AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT: IMPLICATIONS FOR GREATER CLEVELAND," conducted by Sanda Kaufman and William Olson from CSU's College of Urban Affairs, was worth every dime put out by sponsor the Ruth Ratner Miller Center for Greater Cleveland, and required every moment of the ten months it took to complete. But, I could have figured this out in about fifteen minutes last weekend, between packing away most of the winter clothes and dusting off the grill, and I haven't even completed my MA (yet):

Cleveland could reverse a population decline and re-energize its economy by luring select immigrants ...They suggest that a city built by immigrants look to its past for strategies for growth but reach out to smarter, wealthier immigrants from new places Historically, waves of often-poor immigrants from Europe poured into Cleveland and staffed an industrial powerhouse. Today, the region would be better served by immigrants who bring money or education and place few demands on social services

You mean bringing IN people would reverse the population decline? And since Americans aren't all that interested in Cleveland, we should look to immigrants? And the best immigrants to bring in would be rich and/or well-educated? No kidding.

They suggest the region seek immigrants who either are skilled or belong to a cultural group able to help them assimilate... Kaufman and Olson do not suggest which groups Cleveland should target, but they do propose strategies for luring immigrants. They say the region should study what other cities are doing and copy promising models. They suggest working with existing immigrant communities to lure newcomers, since immigrants usually seek their own people. And researchers say the government and the schools should prepare residents to accept a more diverse, cosmopolitan community. "We need to get the word out that Cleveland is a wonderful place, otherwise the immigrants don't know to come here," Kaufman said.

Obviously, it's up to you and me to get the word out. More and more people I know are starting their own blogs. Maybe you should start your own. I'll be glad to help. Just ping me.

"People living in the Cleveland area go to arts and cultural activities more often than people in the Akron area, and that's not the only difference. People up north tend to say they seek activities that will educate them or their families, or will somehow improve them. Those from the Akron area are more likely to say they look to arts or cultural activities for entertainment or just plain fun. And here's a figure that might be surprising: A majority (60 percent) of Akron-area residents prefer Cleveland to Akron as their source of arts and cultural activities.

I walked into the Starbucks on the corner of Matilda and El Camino in Silicon Valley Monday with a laptop in one hand, its AC adaptor in the other and hope in my heart. The Starbucks, which is a huge, brand-new store has 35 places to sit, 15 tables and exactly one available AC outlet. My hopes were immediately dashed. The plug was taken. I have never actually plugged into the outlet, mind you -- it's always in use. If there are four people in the Starbucks, two of them are plugged in. There's huge demand for electricity in places like Starbucks, which makes its fortune in part from providing a place for people to hang out and read, talk and use their laptops. The geniuses at Starbucks have to know that the demand in their stores for AC far exceeds what they're supplying to customers. It strikes me as willful, anti-customer negligence that they don't add more plugs for people to use.

Change = NQ x P x S / FP x E where NQ = New questions P = Planning S = Serendipity FP = Fear of passion E = Ego acting without connectivity

So, why don't we have something like this in Cleveland? How nice would it be to take your laptop out on a nice day and work from a park bench?

Change = D x M x P where (D)=dissatisfaction with the status quo (M)=a clear, accepted model for the future (P)=a well-designed plan of implementation

Whatever happened to all this season's losers of the year? Ev'ry time I got to thinking, where'd they disappear? When I woke up, Mom and Dad are rolling on the couch. Rolling numbers, rock and rolling, got my Kiss records out. Mommy's alright, Daddy's alright, they just seem a little weird. Surrender, surrender, but don't give yourself away, ay, ay, ay.

"Since the beginning of history, human beings have formed communities that accumulate collective learning into social practices - communities of practice. Tribes are an early example. More recent instances include the guilds of the Middle Ages that took on the stewardship of a trade, and scientific communities that collectively define what counts as valid knowledge in a specific area of investigation. Such communities do not take knowledge in their specialty to be an object; it is a living part of their practice even when they document it. Knowing is an act of participation."

"Software designer Valdis Krebs joins Todd to discuss the new software he has created that gives computers the capability to organize spontaneous networks. Given the right data, his software, called InFlow, can follow natural and unplanned networks"