Brewed Fresh Daily

The third in a series of popular Cool Cleveland after-work networking parties, this one is subtitled, Innovation/Immigration, in order to honor the immigrant entrepreneurial spirit that built Cleveland around the turn of the century, but that we have somehow forgotten about. Check out the beautiful Lin's Omni Center at 3167 Fulton near Clark in the area that the 2000 US Census called "the most culturally diverse community in the State of Ohio," and party with multicultural performance (Aphrodesiatics, Cats On Holiday, SAFMOD) and international food from around the region. Same open bar and casual atmosphere as the last A/T/D parties, but now you can enjoy the great view of Cleveland's skyline from the 25,000 square foot fourth floor space and groove to the sights and sounds of the area's coolest cultural sensations. Thu 6/5 4-9PM. Register now before it's too late!

"Be there or suck."

"The world is wild at heart and weird on top" - Lulu

Memorial Day festivities are over and that means the summer party season has arrived. The local tech community is getting into the swing of things with several events that should be on your social-work calendar. Each week this summer we'll take a look ahead at the next few weeks and help you decide the places you should be.

But What of Its Soul? Looks like someone buried the Free Times in the (scary music) Pet Sematary: RUMORS OF OUR DEATH WERE GREATLY EXAGGERATED Actually, I wouldn't put it that way: I'd say you were stone cold dead, dead, deadsky until a judge said dig up the corpse, dust him off, and send him on his way. Hey, competition is good but do enough people care about this one way or another? How many of you actually MISSED the Free Times? Send me an email and let me know and we'll publish the results.

I spent most of yesterday at the American Association of Museums annual meeting here in Portland. The most significant thing I heard -- and I heard it over and over again -- from both musuem people and creative types: "Cleveland is the place where it is happening on the creative scene." Go figure, we Clevelanders moan and groan about creative impetus while the rest of the country looks on us with envy. Thinking that maybe I was hearing something wrong, I asked my fellow Clevelanders in attendance and they were hearing the same buzz. Now, are you ready for this one from the founder of a large animation film company? "If I were to start my business over again, I would seriously consider Cleveland."

"We must be willing to get rid of the life we've planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us." - Joseph Campbell

"I had a heart-to-heart with a former member of the Connection Series BP CAT who has joined the ranks of the powers that be--and who cautioned that the CAT members might be spinning their wheels with all their earnest endeavors to change things. The powers that be are already working on these things, was the message. And unless you have the big money behind you, your efforts will likely be wasted."

They are the sort who make you want to chuck everything and join their crusades. In the streets of the dingy Brooklyn, New York neighborhood of Red Hook, Ian Marvy is putting teenagers to work in organic gardens. Karen Tse, a lawyer and minister, is building networks of public defenders in Cambodia, China, and Vietnam. Nicole Rinke, just out of law school, is battling big mining companies in Nevada over pollution. They are all social entrepreneurs, and since 1987, the Echoing Green Foundation has funded more than 350 of them -- smart, often obsessive young people with solutions to problems that others prefer to overlook. Echoing Green gives individuals seed financing of $30,000 a year for two years, plus health benefits and management support. Just as important, Echoing Green "fellows" win access to a community of like-minded activists who lend ideas, experience, and solace.

Down in the ville on forthy north street. Theres a rockin place where the people meet. They come from miles aroud. Get together when the sun goes down. Jump aroud and feeling alright. At Johnnys tonight.

An even more naked argument came from the pro-15 side, compliments of Thomas Mulready, the self-appointed "Cool Clevelander," who pens an e-newsletter telling artsy types where to get their weekly dose of hip. Mulready, recently hired by Cleveland magazine, apparently considers those pesky orphans and widows a side issue as well. "Until health and human services are funded, everything else takes a back seat," he wrote in his inaugural column. "That means you should go out and vote for it; because if it fails, the arts-and-culture levy gets pushed down a notch."

If you run a commercial website, and you don't have a blog, then you are a clown. To illustrate - on both Overture and Google PPC the term "Marketing Strategy" costs $1+ per click. Currently I have the top spot on Google for that term, and have done for around 8 months even though my site has been close to inactive for 6 of those months. So why do I hold the top position for this coveted phrase? Well partially because I understand website optimization, but mainly because Google current algorithm is very kind towards blogs that know how to play the game.

Have you ever tried converting a Word document to FrontPage? It can be a code nightmare. But fortunately there are work arounds to accommodate this code bloat. Microsoft has put out a Word to html converter. You can download it here.

So one winter day when I finally couldn't stand the isolation any more, I begged my letter carrier, Bill Merriman, to tell me where the other parents were. I struck gold! It turned out that he was a long-time Cleveland resident, very active in the community, who knew everyone in the neighborhood except us. He hooked me up with two other moms who had boys my son's age, and a tiny little play group was born. It didn't take long for the little play group to turn into a pretty big play group. Every month, we mailed a letter out to all the members, so that they would know where the upcoming play dates would be. Gradually, we started including notes about other events and activities that would be of interest to families living in the Tremont, Ohio City, Old Brooklyn, Clark-Metro and Detroit-Shoreway neighborhoods.

Here's a question that you should clip out and tape to your bathroom mirror. It might save you some angst 15 years from now. The question is, What did you do back when interest rates were at their lowest in 50 years, crime was close to zero, great employees were looking for good jobs, computers made product development and marketing easier than ever, and there was almost no competition for good news about great ideas? Many people will have to answer that question by saying, "I spent my time waiting, whining, worrying, and wishing." Because that's what seems to be going around these days. Fortunately, though, not everyone will have to confess to having made such a bad choice.

The agent in this simulated Matrix scene asks, "Do you ever get the feeling you're living in a virtual reality dream world fabricated by artifically intelligent machines?" He advises humans to drink more PowerAde. Now.

"If you pull together a project team, and everyone on it is a white male over age 50, something is wrong!" - Michael Schrage, Author and speaker at RealTime Miami

Join AIP and the Society of Professional Journalists as they bring you a community panel discussion on how the new do-it-yourself Web publishing tools are spurring citizen publishing and enhancing community conversation and collaboration.

John Zitzner is working on becoming the Johnny Appleseed of entrepreneurs. Instead of planting apple seeds that one day will grow into fruit-bearing trees to feed the hungry, Zitzner is planting the seeds of entrepreneurship in the spirit of youngsters. He hopes these seeds will blossom into successful businesses that will transform their owners' lives, revitalize low-income neighborhoods and spur lasting economic growth throughout the city. "We're planting seeds to grow healthy communities," Zitzner said. "I think entrepreneurship is the key to breaking the cycle of poverty. It teaches kids that they can be successful."

that provides small grants to teachers in the Greater Cleveland area who are currently using their own money to enhance learning opportunities for their students. The small grants, up to $1,500 each, bridge the gap between what our schools can afford and what our teachers and students need

Entrepreneurs must submit a brief summary of their businesses to the software association Neosa, which is helping to organize the event. Neosa president Jim Cookinham said the summaries will be reviewed and entrepreneurs with the best businesses will be asked to give oral presentations to a panel of local business leaders. The top five then will be invited to Chicago.

Indie Young broke her leg while running. After five days in the hospital, surgery, a titanium rod, and several painkillers, She found herself conducting all of her business remotely. On the upside, working from her couch gave her an opportunity to hone techniques for working with remote teams. "It will always be easier to rally a group of people who work in the same building, but you can accomplish just as much (or more) with a motivated remote team. Getting team members motivated in the first place and holding their interest are your goals. Here are fifteen quick and useful tips to get you started."

"Your ability to accomplish any task or goal is directly related to your ability to find the right thing at the right time. If you can't find your things, you're wasting your time and, if you're an entrepreneur, you're wasting money. For an entrepreneur, this is a bottom line issue." - Barbara Hemphill, CEO of Hemphill Productivity Institute and author of Taming the Paper Tiger at Work

Schlossberg, 56, is a pioneer of experience design. For years he has studied media and interactivity -- long before the Internet made it into a buzzword. He got his inspiration at the age of 19 while attending a series of lectures in New York featuring Marshall McLuhan and Buckminster Fuller. Most notably, it was Fuller's ideas about Spaceship Earth -- that the Earth is a life-sustaining system that requires the cooperation of all humans in order to thrive -- that captivated Schlossberg. Schlossberg, who had already befriended artist Jasper Johns and musician John Cage, was later introduced to Fuller, and in 1968 he became Fuller's teaching assistant at Southern Illinois University.

My route home from work takes me through University Circle and the police cars and sirens caused me to flip off the tunes and listen to the news where I heard about the gunman at the Peter B. Lewis Building. When I got home I got on-line and was relieved to see my good friend Paul Stork, professor at CWRU with an office in the building, on-line as well. Unfortunately, he was hiding in his office with 3 grad students. Luckily he was able to communicate with friends and family via e-mail, phones and Instant Messaging (IM). I called the media on my cell and relayed info from Paul's IM sessions. Two stations used Paul as their inside reporter and he also talked with the PD. Paul said that, along with having others with him, the ability to communicate in various ways allowed them to remain relatively calm.

"Be fit for more than the thing you are now doing. Let every on know that you have a reserve in yourself; that you have more power than you are now using. If you are not too large for the place you occupy, you are too small for it. - James A. Garfield

True to Wooden's nature, on the 21st of each month he sits down and writes a love letter to Nellie, his wife of 53 years. Once he's shared his heart with her, he carefully puts the letter in an envelope and places it with the others in their bedroom, all neatly tied with a yellow ribbon. So far, there are more than 180 of those love letters. And they remain unopened. You see, it's been 15 years since his beloved Nellie died. - John Maxwell in The Right to Lead

Honore De Balzac [1799-1850] French Author - Believed to have choked on too much coffee

More than likely it will simply get recorded in the annals as yet another valiant failure. Perhaps NetGenics rise and fall will become a Harvard Business school case-study; I for one would surely like to learn from its mistakes. Yet I am worried we in Cleveland once again do nothing more than stare at our collective navels; analyzing what went wrong; agonizing over yet another close call. In short, we won't do anything. Sure, I too feel some pangs of pain at seeing the company where I once worked, erased from the scene. But if this were one of the true entrepreneurial hotbeds we claim to want to create here we would be going out and starting a new business with all the excellent talent that was just released!

Spring has its hundred flowers, Autumn its many moons. Summer has cool winds, Winter its snow. If useless thoughts do not Cloud your mind, Each day is the best of your life. - Wu-Men-Hui-Kai (1183-1260)

Here's the announcement that's about to go out from SPJ, the Cleveland chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists:

For centuries, freedom of the press ultimately belonged only to those who actually owned a press - that is, publishers. Now, with new Internet tools, that's changing. You don't even need to know some geeky programming language to write for the web. You can just do it. To learn how, come to a panel discussion among some of the area's leading online scribes - "bloggers" - who are leading the way toward citizen publishing and enhancing community conversation and collaboration. This after-work event is on May 29th at 6 p.m. at Flannery's Pub, in Cleveland's Gateway neighborhood. The price is just $10. The discussion is convened by the Cleveland chapter of the Society for Professional Journalists and co-sponsored by the Association of Internet Professionals, Fast Company Magazine's Northeast Ohio Company of Friends and the John Carroll University Entrepreneurs Association (with help from Thundertech.com).

Coffee houses reign as king in Northeast Ohio, but not necessarily in the eyes of a group of Asian-American entrepreneurs who have opened the area's first "bubble tea cafe" - serving up in the heart of winter an assortment of ice cold, effervescent teas. Bubble tea, or pearl milk tea as it is sometimes called, was originally a Taiwanese drink. Now it is popular throughout Asia and has made its way across the Pacific. The beverage is a blend of green or black tea, sweet condensed milk, ice and the pearls, made from cassava root. Aficionados suck up the milk and simulantaneously chew the pearls. Called TurboFour, the cafe makes 10 flavors, all with the chewy tapioca pearls settled at the bottom of a 16oz plastic cup that comes with a jumbo straw. Flavors range from coffee to almond. The owners admit it can be disconcerting for first-time bubble tea drinkers to suck up the slightly sweet tapioca pearls.

A colleague of mine made $3.6 M in personal income in 2000 and $1.8 m in 2001 -- selling software. I asked him, "How do you do it, what's your secret to selling?" He replied, "I don't sell them anything, I just tell stories and they sell themselves"

lipstick indicator n. The tendency for lipstick sales to increase prior to and during a recession. Example Citation --------------------------------- You're not imagining it: Shopping can contribute to your psychological health in times of stress, says Dr. Jane Greer, a New York psychologist. "Making a purchase can be very exciting. You're discovering something new, and you have the anticipation of finding something that's going to please you," she said. Finance gurus even have a name for shopping in stressful times: the "lipstick indicator." - Sarah Gilbert, "Pack up your troubles in your new gift bag," The New York Post, March 24, 2003

"I sent this to your comments on the blog, but forgot the key sentence about Bluetooth --> both the Tungsten and the Nokia are bluetooth devices that work great together. Yesterday, I retrieved email while waiting in line at the bank. Then I read and answered the email while waiting in line @ the post office! George, get the Palm Tungsten T PDA and the Nokia 6310i phone. Then you can blog from anywhere! You'll be bloggin' at Civ, or the Connection Series, or a boring meeting, or ... as it happens!!! The rest of your readers will just need to get the same tech so they can keep up! VK

Located four miles from La Antigua, Guatemala is a small aldea named San Lorenzo El Cubo. We are told El Cubo means "The eye of the water", and that's why the town was established here. Finca Los Nietos was started in this small village in 1991. Our visitors agree with us that Finca Los Nietos is a paradise. Growing at an elevation of more than 5000 feet, a few thousand Arabica coffee trees flourish in the volcanic soil, facing south on the brow of a valley which overlooks the volcano "Agua" Finca Los Nietos Coffee is shade grown and bird friendly.

Last night Marty and myself finished with the outdoor window display on the Euclid Ave. side of the Agora which features a mix of posters and photo's. There's some really great pictures from past Agroa shows including the Clash, Stiv Bater and the Dead Boys with Iggy Pop, Wendy O Williams with the Plasmatics the night she was arrested for indecency, PIL, and so on.

My feelings on modern poetry are not unknown. Ezra Pound impaled it on the stake of the dada art movement, and it has never recovered. All we get now is TV poetry -- skits of words that are entertaining and shiny but possess no architecture, no expressed intent of creation. However, one unique poet emerged from all of this; captivated this style; and perfected it. Every other tried to recreate it... since. And, with absolute disregard of any kind to whatever applicable copyrights that may exist (if it's on the Internet, it's free), I will reproduce one of his more technical pieces here. e. e. cummings - somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond any experience,your eyes have their silence: in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me, or which i cannot touch because they are too near...

I consider bike messengers to be one of the indications of a vibrant downtown. After all, if there are enough packages flitting about town in the bags of these folks, there must be businesses that require such immediate attention from each other. I've only been in Cleveland full time for three months now and already see parallels to vibrant areas I've lived in and visited out west. And I am ... relieved to see vibrancy, hope, aspirations, culture and commerce.

A painting I was commissioned to do for St. Vincent hospital was "unveiled" with a small celebration and prayer service. The highlight was when they threw holy water on the painting to bless it! Never had that done before.

"When you peer into the future, what do you see?," asks physicist Dr. Michio Kaku. "I see a freight train coming, and hear its whistle tooting, 'The Internet. DNA. Artificial intelligence. Quantum computing.' By 2020, computer chips may cost as little as a penny, like a scrap of paper, and disappear by the millions into our walls, our furniture, even our bodies. The Internet will transform into the magic mirror of fairy tales.