Brewed Fresh Daily

"It is the good girls who keep blogs; the bad girls never have the time."

I used to live in Cleveland, have met the inimitable Tom Mulready, drank many gallons of coffee at the Phoenix Roastery Cafe (best coffee in Cleveland at the time). Now I live and work in Chicago, and although it is a big step forward I do miss the intimacy of the Cleveland scene. Thanks SPACES, thanks CSU, thanks friends, and good luck. It's great to meet you again in cyberspace...

The founder of Jefferson Standard Insurance built a successful company from scratch. He assembled some of the greatest insurance people by simply asking, "Why don't you come and help me build something great?"

Since 2001 CatalystStrategies has helped companies grow their businesses, and non-profits achieve their goals... We consult with organizations of all types in the areas of organizational strategy & leadership development. We also help organizations with their sales & marketing strategies. Facilitated events and workshops are our specialty. We love our community in NE Ohio. One of our contributions is the creation and management of the the ConnectionSeries. The ConnectionSeries aims to provide content-rich connection-oriented events geared toward improving our region. More info at www.ConnectionSeries.com If all this sounds "serious", well, we do take it seriously! But we don't take it seriously to a fault. We approach our engagements in unique and memorable ways that help our clients enjoy the journey... We have some fun - and so do our clients. Sue James and Craig James are the firm's Co-founders and Managing Partners. Check us out - We'd love to chat with you and see how we may be of service.

In early 2003 I did the first political book network map -- http://www.orgnet.com/leftright.html Today I updated it for 2004... different books, same pattern... second verse, same as the first -- http://www.orgnet.com/divided.html Enjoy! Valdis

On Technorati: "It's like the 17th century coffeehouse in Neal Stephenson's Quicksilver without the threat of a duel." and "Email is the dark matter of the blogsphere."

I'm simply suggesting that the information on who corresponds to each number should be readily available somewhere without someone having to contact you. That would be more in keeping with what I hope is the spirit of Ryze.

George was one of the friends who encouraged me as I started blogging. George keeps us apprised of (among other things) cultural, political, business and technological happenings in Cleveland and the wider world. He is a master of pithy posts and creative links... Thanks, George, for your generous spirit and keen sense of adventure and curiosity, always made visible on BrewedFreshDaily!

"Meetings waste time and sap people's energy." - Joe Weller, CEO, Nestle USA

Chief Software architect Bill Gates told the World Economic Forum that Google "kicked our butts", according to Associated Press.

There are two main types of these networks, with hybrids in between, says Andrew Kraft, 30, who is writing a book on the subject to be published this summer. His consulting firm, Executivity in Hillsborough, N.J., oversees all Ryze.com events. And about $70,000 in business has come his way through contacts he's made at these events. The first type, he says, is community-based such as Ryze. Although there are no help-wanted areas such as those on job boards, people do post profiles, create online communities and can meet face to face. Before an event, members can check a listing of others who've registered to attend and even make plans to meet at the gathering. They ask if they can be linked online as 'friends,' bringing with them their own lists of friends. Such sites have no gatekeepers, and members can connect directly though a private e-mail system. The other type is referral-based, such as LinkedIn, in which you can choose to turn over selected contacts or your entire e-mail address book. The site uses that information to determine what connections you already have with members, and does not post it for public viewing. On LinkedIn there are no photos, no face-to-face events, just a search component to help you identify various potential contacts such as chief executives, hiring managers and industry experts, and to tell you how many degrees away you are and which of your own contacts can start you on the path to reaching them. To do that, you submit a request to your contact, who can link you with his or her contact, the next step in the chain. (You don't see names of those beyond your own buddy.) Each person along the line must agree to pass your request on, and this, says Konstantin Guericke, marketing vice president for LinkedIn, discourages frivolous queries. People don't want to 'use up their relationship capital,' and that 'acts as a quality filter. People think twice about making a request,' he says.

"When Ken Berger accepted a transfer, he promptly landed in house-hunting hell. Over the course of six months, working with two different realtors, Berger lost four separate bidding wars on homes in the area. Meanwhile, the 41-year-old business-unit president and his family were camped out in a temporary apartment. Then he found a new agent, Rick Rothman. In just one week, Berger had his new house--2,600 square feet, three bedrooms, and a den in an upscale, gated community. This time around, there was no bidding war. Rothman had spotted the newly listed house on his laptop, thanks to its high-speed wireless connection, and used his wireless printer to take care of the paperwork. 'It was a last-minute decision to swing by and see the place when we saw the listing,' he says. 'Ken decided he liked it and was preapproved for a mortgage, so I printed the contract on the spot and had him sign it right there--and the transaction was done. It was amazing!' Welcome to the new wireless world. It's not just about checking your email mid-Frappuccino at Starbucks, or even about surfing the Web via Wi-Fi in the lobby of your hotel. Wireless technology is already changing daily life and work in all sorts of ways for all sorts of people, from real-estate agents to doctors and pharmacists, office-building managers to hotel housekeepers."

Bravo, Nikki! Thanks for reminding us that we cannot be reduced to, nor should we be strangled by, simplistic and static identities.

Read this article that talks about why blogs, like ED Futures, are important. According to a recent Newsday article, blogs are having an impact. The article talks about the role of blogs, or online journals, in stimulating political discourse. ED Futures is interested in stimulating greater discourse in the economic development community. So, let's have "discourse."

"We do need leadership, but not of the sort some are thinking about. We need more folks (thousands of them) who understand the intersection between self-reliance and interdependence, and know how to couple the two in business and society."

Dear George, I'd like to invite you to participate in my LinkedIn-Ryze-Plaxo networking extravaganza at REI, sponsored by the Coffee Klatch, brought to you by Cool Cleveland and the Connection Series. This will be held concurrently with the Neopreneur Exchange, with a special appearance by the NEOSA pack. Thanks to Cleveland Bridge Builders and the CAT-Teams for reporting back to the group. We're exciting about this new Community of Minds, because it really makes Cleveland Click in a special kind of way. See you at the Entrepreneurs for Sustainability meeting tonight. Hey, do you know what's happening at the City Club's Emerging Leaders Community Network Gathering Party? Six Degrees, Friends...

Hansen is part of a giant and growing class: worn-out, dragged-out denizens of a sleep-robbed netherworld. More than 82 million Americans -- nearly 40% of the teen and adult population -- suffer from some form of insomnia, meaning they routinely have trouble falling asleep and staying asleep. Even for those who grapple with transient insomnia a few times a year, the bouts of sleepless nights are an ordeal, like a bad, recurring flu. On the other side of the empty bed are countless people who cheat on sleep so they can squeeze more hours out of the day. Only 32% get the recommended eight hours of shut-eye on weeknights, according to a 2002 poll by the National Sleep Foundation. They won't outgrow the problem, either. Studies show that as we age, the quality of our sleep deteriorates (table). And our wired, 24/7 society makes it worse, bombarding us with news of mad cow disease and other coming calamities while beckoning us late at night to finish our work online. While we've been busy burning the midnight oil, scientists have been amassing evidence that sleep deprivation is a hazardous state. Insomnia has been fingered as a major risk factor for depression, alcoholism, and obesity. Other ruinous effects may be on display right in your office. Surveys indicate that nearly half of all office workers sleep poorly at least a few times a week, and more than 65% confess that they have trouble concentrating after a sleepless night, according to the National Sleep Foundation. Now think about the people responsible for your safety. A huge proportion of pilots -- not to mention policemen and doctors -- admit to making errors in sleep-deprived states, according to Alertness Solutions, a consulting company in Cupertino, Calif. "It's not as if people are off their game by 1%," says Mark K. Rosekind, president of the company. "They're way off." What's more, all this tossing and turning is putting a damper on the economy. Sleep deprivation costs $45 billion a year in lost productivity, health-care bills, and expenses related to traffic accidents -- rivaling the impact of depression, say, or stroke.

This region has many nodes/neurons (groups, communities, organizations which are composed of their own neurons [people] and synapses [relationships]). We seem to be on the edge of explosive network growth. Massive grass-roots, bottom-up connecting is being driven by groups like REI@Weatherhead, ConnectionSeries, NEOpreneur Exchange, NEOBio, BridgeBuilders, CoolCleveland, Ryze, Linked-in, Entrepreneurs4Sustainability, OneCleveland, NEOhioCompanyOfFriends, CreativeClevelandCoalition, SmartMeetingDesign and many others. Regions such as Silicon Valley have already gone through this phase and are now settling into the long adaptive phase.

Valdis Krebs is a management consultant and the developer of InFlow, a software based, organization network analysis methodology. This column was originally published in Wiki format, which allows you to add your comments, on the SmartMeetingDesign web site.

The US spent $75bn on obesity-related illnesses last year and half of that amount was financed by taxpayers through Medicare and Medicaid, according to a US study to be published on Friday.

"Tim Mueller, currently Cleveland's chief development officer, will become chief of strategic planning responsible for implementing the city�s Strategic Partnership Plan under a reorganization plan announced by Mayor Jane Campbell. The mayor's office said the post of chief development officer that Mr. Mueller is vacating will not be filled. Instead, the city's development cluster comprised of City Planning, Community Development, Economic Development and the Building & Housing Departments will report directly to chief of staff Deb Janik."

"A friend is one who walks in when the rest of the world walks out." - Walter Winchell

Have: advice on internship development/ candidate selection, JCU students capable to be your intern Want: to learn more about the Native American culture, more space to paint artwork, read more books Interests: career counseling, advising, art (from contemporary to before photographs), painting (i miss it terribly - since i don't have the room anymore), music (house/ anything with a beat), cooking

The Big Bag Design Competition Finalists are now online! We are proud to announce the five finalist designs at right. (Click on each thumbnail for a full-size image). We'll be revealing the winning bag design in March at the SXSW Interactive Festival. The Big Bag is the souvenir canvas bag distributed to all SXSW Interactive registrants. These bags display original art and contain magazines, companies� product samples and tons of fun promotional materials. Previous bag artists range from Mike Judge to feelgoodanyway.com to South Park's Trey Parker & Matt Stone to Todd McFarlane. Take a look at the SXSW Big Bag Archive at the far right for some more examples.

Web sites, such as Tribe.net, Meetup.com, and Ryze.com are all being tapped by those looking to build social networks for leverage in finding jobs or building business clientele. The demand for services is so strong that Ryze.com, which was launched in 2001, has stuck exclusively to offering business networking, while sites, like Tribe.net, offer opportunities for finding friends, dates, apartments and connections to a host of other interests alongside the service. Online personals, dating and socializing sites are among the biggest paid content generators on the Web, bringing in almost $215 million in the first half of 2003, according to Jupiter Research. The sites attracted 927,000 visitors in October alone, up from 532,000 visitors in June, the research organization found. Revenues from such sites are expected to reach $642 million by 2008, Jupiter predicts. "It's just something that people are making more and more a part of their life because they are realizing that the best time to build your network is before you need it," said Adrian Scott, founder and chief executive officer of Ryze.

From Ross Mayfield's blog: We're entering what might be called the Bottom-Up Economy. As the Internet's influence grows, we're seeing its intrinsic egalitarianism and tendency to empower the small start to change many aspects of modern life. Customers today have more options and less loyalty. They will migrate to businesses that see them as participants in a process rather than as just consumers.... Smart companies are already embracing this...This new style of business, birthed by the Internet, is ignored at any company's peril. In the bottom-up economy, presuming you know what the customer wants is the ultimate error. Prahalad and Ramaswamy instead call for 'co-creation of value': The successful products and services from now on will be those developed jointly. Ross' comments on the article: "It's not just that the Internet created the opportunity for the bottom-up phenomenon to emerge. We are compelled by the necessity of our times to work together, be open to change and to continually tinker with simple solutions that work. Because of the degree of connection we are beginning to acheive, these changes may be more persistent and the emergent impact may be greater than we realize."

"With night finally upon me, as the wind gusted and I paused to pull my Webmonkey hat down to better cover my ears, a sharp scent flared my nostrils. Someone nearby had lit a wood fire"

After seeing a call for music and video entries for upcoming Minneapolis Light Rail project, it got me to thinking that it might be a good idea if the proposed RTA Euclid Corridor project budget had a spare couple of thousand dollars (less than five figures) to spend on honorariums for short pieces of music to go along with the art. And not crappy boosterish jingles either -- just short pieces of music written by the people who live here.

I know it's easy to overlook audio in favor of the visual impact that a physical piece of art would have, but Cleveland has always had a sense of sound about it as well.

Other possible uses

• replace the "on-hold" music when you call RTA or for that matter, the new Greater Cleveland Tomorrow (or whatever they end up calling it), or hell, why not City Hall?.
  
• Put all of the music on a website where people could download the tracks they liked, Also, make it a Creative Commons project so there's less squabbling...

Of course, something like this at Cleveland Hopkins Airport would be a great idea too, but that's just me ;)

"Just the good ol' boys, never meanin' no harm. Beats all you've ever saw, been in trouble with the law since the day they was born. Straight'nin' the curve, flat'nin' the hills. Someday the mountain might get 'em, but the law never will. Makin' their way, the only way they know how, that's just a little bit more than the law will allow. Just good ol' boys, wouldn't change if they could, fightin' the system like a true modern day Robin Hood. Mutley, you snickering, floppy eared hound. When courage is needed, you're never around. Those medals you wear on your moth-eaten chest should be there for bungling at which you are best. So, stop that pigeon, stop that pigeon, stop that pigeon, stop that pigeon, stop that pigeon, stop that pigeon, stop that pigeon. Howwww! Nab him, jab him, tab him, grab him, stop that pigeon now."

Yes, in my opinion Cleveland IS creative. The city has so much potential in the field of arts, but most Clevelanders are too busy sitting at home, watching ESPN, and shouting at the screen each time the Browns miss a pass, while downing a twelve pack of Budweiser. After going on (part of) the Urban Trolley Hop, it made me look pass LTV and the deserted storefronts on Euclid Avenue. It made me look at my city in a hip, cool sort of way. Maybe Cleveland will lose it's "mistake on the lake" image one day. Clevelanders just have to get their attitudes together. I think it's mainly the infeority complex that is slowly killing the city and and any potential, whether it's in arts, bussiness, ect. that Cleveland may have. Cleveland is like a depressed teenager with an indentity problem: He/she wants to be "popular", and it has the potential to, but all these negative comments made about him/her are dragging him/her down into a deeper depression. Also he/she is to busy trying to be like the popular kids in school. Their names are New York and Chicago Illinois.

"Diamonds are nothing more than chunks of coal that stuck to their jobs." - Steve Forbes

This influx of talent turned America's creative centers into boomtowns. Salaries skyrocketed, followed by housing prices � especially those in the funky inner-city neighborhoods and gracious close-in suburbs favored by the product designers, video editors, hedge-fund analysts, and marketing consultants who made up this emerging new creative class. The rising living costs and go-go lifestyles engendered by the incoming creative class in turn drove out some of the lesser-educated natives, and even many of these creative migrants eventually had their fill and returned to their hometowns. The statistician Robert Cushing has come up with telling evidence of the economic impacts of these reciprocal migrations. Using Internal Revenue Service data, he found that families moving from Austin, a high-tech boomtown, to slower-growth Kansas City in the 1990s earned an average of $25,912 a year. Those going in the other direction, from Kansas City to Austin, earned over $65,000. He found similar disparities between Austin and other older cities: Cleveland, Louisville, Indianapolis, St. Louis, and Pittsburgh. But it's not as if the Clevelands and Kansas Cities didn't advance at all. Most added some jobs thanks to local nodes of creativity, such as university-connected medical centers, or managed not to lose as many jobs in their existing companies as they might have absent the help of innovations � primarily information technology � that the creative centers gave birth to. Average incomes in these places rose more slowly, or in some cases declined, but people's purchasing power generally increased, again thanks to creative-center innovations.

In 57th place, up 4 from last year Is the Cleveland/Lorain/Elyria region of the country when it comes to the annual listing of Best Cities for Entrepreneurs as ranked by Entrepreneur.com. This is not the kind of ranking, or even the kind of improvement, you would necessarily write home about, but on the other hand it does show we must have done something right to create a better climate for our entrepreneurs. Unfortunately the study merely ranks cities based on empirical evidence as measured by their small-business head-count, job-growth and bankruptcy rate. Do you have any notion of what might have changed since last year?

Hi George- I just saw this today and didn't know if you had come across it yet... http://www.notacon.org/basics.shtml here's the blurb I saw on LJ today... ----- I and a number of other people here in Cleveland are going to be throwing an art, music and technology conference here in Cleveland in April. It is being run and supported by volunteers not only from Cleveland, but from Detroit, NYC and numerous other locales. It is an experiment on my part to see how the two will mix and to see what interesting middle ground develops. Anyway, the reason I'm posting is primarily because we are seeking proposals, presentations and performances. We are accepting proposals through March 1st. The conference itself will be on the weekend of April 23rd through 25th. If you are interesting in getting more information about the event and proposal guidelines, please check out our website http://www.notacon.org.

"The person who says it cannot be done should not interrupt the person doing it." - Chinese Proverb

I am no longer enamored with Richard Florida�s creative class theory. My disillusionment began after a chance discussion at Lucky�s Caf� in creative-class-trendy Tremont. Each of us present fit Florida�s definition of individuals comprising the creative class � techies, attorneys, university professors and artsy types, male and female, straight and gay. As the conversation wore on, two interrelated topics arose: (1) The lack of raw ideas generated by Cleveland�s creative class, and (2) Cleveland�s grand assortment of creative oddballs. It was at this intersection of ideas that the proverbial light bulb turned on: despite the use of the word �creative,� the creative class is not about creativity at all.

In what would probably be George's worst nightmare, this guy : has been living without coffee - "I am proud to state in front of God and Juan Valdez that I have gone five years now without a single cup of joe, and that includes latte in any form."

Should Humans Welcome or Resist Becoming Posthuman? This was a key question debated at the 2003 World Transhumanist Association conference at Yale University by attendees, who met to lay the groundwork for a society that would admit as citizens and companions intelligent robots, cyborgs made from a free mixing of human and machine parts, and fully organic, genetically engineered people who aren't necessarily human at all.

Do you have to attend? NO�but then, don�t complain when our region slides further away from a vibrant economy. ATTEND IF YOU CARE�if you want to make a difference, be there!

This Can Is My Can, This Can Is Your Can When Cleveland Mayor Jane Campbell announced last November, as part of a series of budget cuts, that the city would remove its 1,300 trash cans from the city's sidewalks and parks and lay off the workers who maintain them, citizens raised a stink. So now Mayor Campbell has a new idea: Adopt-A-Can. The city wants to sign annual agreements with companies, non-profits and even individuals who'll agree to look after specific trash cans, removing trash liners when they get full, replacing the liners and wiping off the lids. No-nos include painting the cans or slapping your company's logo on their sides. The mayor is optimistic that many of the cans will find foster parents. "We have a sense from the initial calls (in November) that there may be cans that several people want to adopt," she said. What do you do with the garbage you collect? Put it out with your regular trash. If you find something hazardous in the cans, call the city. Ditto if the cans are damaged. Already, one company has stepped forward to say it'll adopt 50 trash cans. Not surprisingly, it's a trash-hauling company. "We thought it was important that we stepped up and did our part," says the company's owner.

"We live together as rational human beings or die together as fools." - Martin Luther King, Jr.

One of the nation�s leading providers of Wi-Fi deployment services is Akron-based NeTeam Corp. NeTeam�s chief technical officer Jim Portaro will speak to the benefits NeTeam�s clients are experiencing from deploying Wi-Fi networks and the applications they are developing to take advantage of those networks. NeTeam, founded in 1998 by a group of Telxon Corp. veterans, has more than 500 clients and has worked on some of the country�s largest wireless networks. Customers include the New York Stock Exchange, Carnival Cruise Lines, University of Akron, and Case Western Reserve University. Mr. Portaro, a nationally recognized expert in Wi-Fi technologies, will speak specifically on Wi-Fi applications in the health care, finance and manufacturing sectors.

"Keeping your body healthy is an expression of gratitude to the whole cosmos - the trees, the clouds, everything." - Thich Nhat Hanh

Economic developers use networking as a strategy to make in-roads with businesses and other resources they need to do their jobs. Regional, state, national and international associations exist to facilitate this networking. There is another side to networking, which has been getting much attention in the business world, called "relationship management." I find that networking is usually not an end in itself, rather it is a step toward extending existing and forming new relationships that coincide with our interests, abilities, goals, and activities. I ran across a wonderful article on relationship management as a formal business strategy. Here is a clip from it: "Alliances, partnerships, and relationships of all kinds in the business environment, whether with external parties such as suppliers or distributors, or internally with the groups and divisions of the same company, require a repeatable process and discipline to be successful. Partnering concepts are easy to think about, and alliances are even easy to create. But their value only becomes clear upon the implementation of the relationship. And sadly, that is where many companies fail."

We should not forget that raising a "good" child is a dubious goal in the first place, if only because the line between instilling integrity and breeding self-righteousness is so fine. Getting into trouble can be a vital part of building a child's character. As the Polish pediatrician Janusz Korczak points out: "The good child cries very little, he sleeps through the night, he is confident and good-natured. He is well behaved, convenient, obedient, and good. Yet no consideration is given to the fact that he may grow up to be indolent and stagnant."

Main Entry: ma�jor�do�mo
Pronunciation: "mA-j&r-'dO-(")mO Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural -mos
Etymology: Spanish mayordomo or obsolete Italian maiordomo, from Medieval Latin major domus, literally, chief of the house
Date: 1589 1 : a head steward of a large household (as a palace)
2 : a person who speaks, makes arrangements, or takes charge for another

"The Fast Company poll on whether NE Ohio bloggers should dialogue with Canadian and UK bloggers has been closed. A total of 46 votes were cast with 33 in favor (72% for) and 13 opposed (28% against). In my judgement, these results suggest there is sufficient support to move forward with the project. As Chris Corrigan from Canada indicated in his comments: 'By the way, who in their right mind would vote 'no' to this?' Everyone is entitled to their opinion. I will be contacting those of you who indicated an interest in meeting face-to-face to discuss the next steps. If you are interested in joining in, please let me know. We need to create a 'team' to make this happen. Many thanks to all who contributed their inputs and ideas

"I help maintain a non-profit organization with my family called The Pookai Book Project. The project sends books, money and other aid to libraries and schools in Cambodia. We are currently working with our first client, The Angsoeng Library."

Valdis Krebs and the world of networks - If you�ve never seen Valdis show off his network mapping software or heard his description of the value of networks make sure you check out the Strategic Networking program hosted by Smart Meeting Design on Wednesday, Jan. 7 at the Market Avenue Wine Bar, 2526 Market Ave. Register here.

"I think it's old school versus new school. One of the primary reasons people the 'business communty' want[s] to defeat me is because I have become much more comfortable with a bottom-up approach, building human resources rather than one building downtown. Their only major agenda item was a convention center, and I think that misrepresented the community. I think that confused some business leaders. We need a sense of where we're going. We're no longer competitive without building those areas of interest to human beings. [We have to offer] a sense of opportunities here. That has to be turned around. When you talk that way, it perplexes the bankers that are behind [Tim Hagan]."

They {Iceland} are building a nice internal network before reaching out to the world... Cleveland could follow that plan [and is]... but most {Clevelanders} still look for top down leadership.

Tech Tuesday is informal open forum to discuss today�s technology trends, services, software and equipment. Tech Tuesday�s (TT) members build supportive business relationships, exchange referrals and share contacts and ideas. Our partners have already made a commitment to the process of business networking. They understand that building productive relationships with other professionals is the key to success in today's Technology world. This commonality facilitates success in initiating contact with others and of entering into relationships that are rewarding for both parties. TT is for professionals who are motivated people who want exchange ideas and expand the possibilities for generating new business.

Should Northeast Ohio bloggers start a series of international dialogues with Canadian and UK bloggers on a series of topics of mutual interest?

Why ties with Canada and the UK? For one, there are many bloggers in both countries. Second, we share a common language (and yes French Canadian is spoken in parts of Canada). Third, cities in these countries face some similar challenges as those faced in NE Ohio. It's a starting point. If it works, we could expand the effort to include other countries.

Click here to vote "yes".

Click here to vote "no".

On the poll page you will see a place to add comments. Please suggest 1 or 2 brief topics that might serve as the subject matter for these dialogues. Any other comments are welcome as well.

Possible topics could include: economic development; blogging practices and techniques; using blogs for business; community development; retaining and attracting young talent; arts and culture; making cities cool places; spiritual growth and practices; sustainable development; how to build international ties among and between cities; and a host of other topics. Use your imagination.

You can check the poll results here.

When I need to focus, this could my mantra: Technology and networks make new things possible. (This was from Paul Trevithick, a serial [software products] entrepreneur who is going to make some seriously good things.)

"Marketing campaigns are expensive. I’m offering this campaign idea for free (of course, some may say it’s worth less than that). I propose we create the “Call Cleveland Campaign.” And it works like this: “When Tiger Woods needs business advice, he calls Cleveland.” The tag line reads something like: “Cleveland is home to sports marketing giant IMG and dozens of other innovative companies. Call us to find out how we can help your business grow.” The campaign could work across multiple industries: “When Christopher Reeve wanted to breathe on his own again, he called Cleveland.” Or: “When Proctor & Gamble wants to develop a new product, it calls Cleveland.” Similar campaigns could be developed for Akron, Kent, Canton etc. Whether we “Call Cleveland” or not, we must do a better job of telling our story to the world and to ourselves."

What Chris is pointing to is the fact that considerable professional service expertise exists in the region. He's right. Moreover, many of the region's leading professional service providers (ad firms, law firms, accountants, health care providers, etc.) serve a worldwide clientele... NE Ohio's advanced service sector is at a crucial turning point at this very moment. Our leading law and accounting firms are opening offices around the world to grow their markets. They have moved from being regional service firms to becoming national and global leaders. Our banks are developing in-roads in states across the nation. This is good news for these companies, but does Cleveland and NEO have the assets to keep these companies' headquarters in the future as other locations tender offers to them to relocate from Cleveland? Is our airport good enough to accommodate their travel needs? Can these companies retain and attract the talent they need to NEO? Can we compete with Chicago, Atlanta, Denver, Phoenix and other locations that have a full-court press on to attract headquarter companies? I guess what I'm asking is do we have a solid strategy in place to make sure we can retain and grow the "talent" that Chris Thompson says we should be touting about Cleveland and NEO? How long will IMG stay in Cleveland now that its founder Mark McCormick is gone? Which of our leading banks will get bought up and absorbed by the next new financial conglomerate? How long before one of our leading law firms decides that Chicago is a better place for developing global business? We hear and see great things with area companies like Progressive and MBNA, and hopefully they will continue to find Greater Cleveland to be the best location for their businesses. We cannot assume that they will. Any company can move any time... Trust me when I say that we have a lot of work ahead of us in retaining and growing the advanced service giants that occupy much of our downtown and suburban office space and hire a large percentage of area's universities B school graduates.

"Open systems grow faster than closed ones, and better allow for innovation. This creates value for their users. This value creates incentive for capturing that value, but the incentive is orthagonal to the value - spammers don�t care that their behavior damages the system that created the value to begin with."

Excited about PLINK, which I just discovered via Anil Dash and Jeff Jarvis. Anil writes: "Plink, short for People Link, lets you find connections between people using its simple search interface, and the simple, friendly interface hints at a new breed of FOAF application, aimed more at regular users than the geeks and developers who've been working with the format thus far." The site looks great, offering an elegant interface for a personal identity application--the only catch is that you need to upload a FOAF.rdf file somewhere on the web to make the indexing work.