Brewed Fresh Daily

Cleveland is getting ready to do some major work on its main street, Euclid Avenue. It's planning to build bus lanes, expand the sidewalks and put in trees and other improvements. But first it has to fill in the vaults. How's that? Just beneath downtown Cleveland's sidewalks, there's a honeycomb of vaults that were once used for storing coal and heating oil or as freight entrances for businesses. (These were called "pop-ups." A bell would ring loudly, metal sidewalk grates would open, and a elevator would slowly rise to the sidewalk.) "Most people are surprised to find out that underneath, the sidewalk is hollow," said a local architect. The vaults have been abandoned for years but city officials worry that they might not withstand heavier uses overhead. So the city wants to reinforce or simply fill them in with concrete. Cost of the work: $9 million. So, in their inspection tours, have city workers found anything interesting tucked away in Cleveland's vaults � say, a nice wine collection or perhaps a missing Rembrandt or two? Nah. "These are underground concrete pits," says the city's public works director. "There's no romance in the vaults."

The problem with statistics like this is what they don't show. They don't do a good job of picking up the self-employed, the consultants, the freelancers, the startups and other small businesses. They give a somewhat understated view of the employment/business picture. For instance, I have no doubt that I would be an unemployed statistic according to this kind of chart. Yet I am a business owner. I have no desire for a "job." A job doesn't jive with my view of myself as a free agent. And I suspect that is much the same way that many readers of BFD feel about themselves -- many of you are yourselves free agents. And I am not talking about election year politics and attempts to sway jobs figures to suit one political party or another. That's just political noise. The real story is the "smalling" of American business. It is a fundamental change in the U.S. economy that has been gradually building for years. Traditional jobs statistics aren't exact enough to pick up all the nuances about how people earn their livelihoods in the 21st century USA.

Anita's point is the heart of the (currently quite politicized) argument between economists who prefer the BLS "establishment survey" statistics -- gathered by surveying a very large sample of employers -- and those who like the Census Bureau's monthly "household survey", which asks a much smaller sample of individuals about their employment status. The "household survey" is currently showing better job growth than the establishment survey, which might be because it catches more startups and self-employed people (or maybe not). Economists who prefer to rely on the establishment survey seem to be in the majority, and include not just Dems but also Alan Greenspan... but there are obviously arguments on both sides, and I agree with Anita that the "smalling" of firms and churning of positions raises important questions about the survey approach. Just for the record, here's one defense of the establishment survey as a prime source of national job numbers. As a non-economist I'd just add two things: 1) The government doesn't break the household survey numbers down to the local level because the sample's too small, so it's useless as a marker of Cleveland area employment; and 2) While the BLS establishment survey includes as "employed" only people who are reported as receiving income, I know a lot of folks who might well tell the Census they're "self-employed" or "business owners", but who aren't making a nickel.

Techworld reports that the London Ambulance Service is using an application that switches among different networks according to priority. If they are within range of a Wi-Fi network, they use it to download maps to get to a patient, but if no Wi-Fi network is available, they switch over to GPRS (for example, to transmit patient data back to a hospital). According to the London Ambulance Service, the new system has saved them a lot of time: "It used to take approximately one minute to pass the call details to an ambulance crew by voice and then the crews may have needed to look where the destination was in their map books. Now it takes typically two seconds for all the call details to be sent to the ambulance, and the PC in the vehicle tells the navigation equipment where the destination is."

Last three Mondays I was having a workshop "DOCUMENTING PERFORMANCE ART" on streaming with Coco Fusco's class at Columbia University. For the last session students were to come up with a short (three minute) performance that we have streamed live. Streams and torrents for the clips are here.

�Designs on Democracy was a three day conference on design, advertising, public relations and marketing for social change.... The conference was organized by a crew of eight activists. Forty volunteers did the work that made it happen for the 350 who attended. Designs on Democracy, said Favianna Rodriguez, one of the organizers: �is not just for designers, it�s for people who are in the business of doing marketing and selling the image of the Left, to take it to a broader audience and make it more appealing.�� They�ve already posted two pages of notes and several audio files of the conference sessions in Ogg Vorbis format. More audio, video, and documentation is on the way.

Nature reports that on the 21st of April, Austrian scientists used quantum cryptography to transfer a US$3,500 donation to their laboratory.The article explains."Quantum cryptography uses the odd properties of quantum particles to create secure keys for encoding and decoding messages.The very act of observing these particles changes their nature, making it easy to detect any eavesdroppers.

I've traveled and lived other places and may live other places again, but I have this feeling that whenever someone asks me where �home� is for me, I'll always say �Cleveland�.

Blogging to the outside is about building relationships. You don't have to turn every reader in to a dyed in the wool customer, but you turn them in to some one who is willing to consider your company when they go to spend their hard earned money. You build loyalty, and you show that you do care about the feedback you get. Blogging is like sitting on your front porch and waving to your neighbors as they walk by. You don't have to have a great dialog with each of them, but they will remember who you are and think of you when they need something, or be there to help out when they can. Blogging to the inside is about building relationships, but it is also about perpetuating dialog. A blog lets you put your idea out for everyone to see. It is like the ultimate suggestion box. And because blogging happens on neutral ground no one has to take offense to contradictary ideas. You can say this is what I feel we need to be doing, and if some one else says, this is what we should be doing instead, the discussion can be about the ideas not the people. You don't get that level playing field in a conference room where you worry about rank, or department, or even if you like the other person. Blogs are like coming home after work, sitting down on the front porch and having a beer with your co-workers.

eclec�tic adjective 1 : selecting what appears to be best in various doctrines, methods, or styles 2 : composed of elements drawn from various sources;

Executives at the Milken Global Conference yesterday brushed off the notion that television is a dying medium. "What time has shown is the unbelievable power of network TV," said Peter Chernin, president and chief operating officer of News Corp., which owns the Fox Group. "The fact that people are still watching that much network television is a testament to its remarkable strength." Perhaps he hasn't seen the massive declines in Nielsen numbers. Sumner Redstone also chimed in saying, "The only way you reach all American people is through network television." Sumner, there's this big thing called the Internet. Perhaps you've heard of it. Lots of people are using it. Really. I'm serious. You should check it out.

"If, as aspiring entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial support organizations, we pay attention to the foundational roles of learning and complementarity, we improve our chances for success."

: "Economies change rapidly but educational systems don't. Think of the U.S. like a company. Should a company respond to changes in the market by whining, attempting to manipulate the law and attempting to change the market? Of course not. A company should train employees, making sure they have the skills to compete in the new market. I wish one of the presidential candidates would embrace the idea of making education a source of American comparative advantage. "

From USA Today Iraqis enjoy new freedom of expression: "'We suffered for years under Saddam Hussein, not being able to speak out,' says Omar Fadhil, 24, a dentist. 'Now, you can make your voice heard around the world.'" You said it Omar.

Aaron Gach, a noted performance, installation, and new media artist will be sharing his works and collaborating with students and the public for one evening only. Aaron's inspirations come from studying with a private investigator, a magician and a ninja. Most recently he fused together the art of magic and surveillance to create Smokey Hill River Outpost exploring the relationship between security information and the mystification of technology. He has accepted residencies and won several awards for his works including a $50,000 grant for the Grand Arts project commission. Mr. Gach has also produced and installed numerous exhibitions, public projects and events. Aaron is a proficient lecturer at several universities and art galleries across the United States. The event is being held Thursday, April 29, 2004 at 7:30pm in the B.K. Smith Gallery located on the east side of Lake Erie College on Gillett Street near Phillips Osborne School. This event is sponsored by The Harriet B. Storrs Fund of the Cleveland Foundation and The Lake Erie College Fine Arts Department.

"Since 9/11 there has been a great fear amongst new immigrants at all levels, but particularly about issues that are important to them," says Gouri Sadhwani, executive director of the New York Civic Participation Project. "In a very practical way, allowing them to vote will connect them with the long history of new immigrants in this country and give them the opportunity to participate in the most fundamental way in our democracy." But to opponents - which includes this city's mayor - enfranchising immigrants will only dilute the nation's democracy. They think of it as the equivalent of two people living together without making the formal commitment of marriage with all of the responsibilities it entails. "There have been an awful lot of people over the years that have fought and died for the right to vote," the mayor, Michael Bloomberg, said at a press conference earlier this month. "If you want to have full rights, and voting is a very big part of full rights, become a citizen."

"A good casino could keep people from finding time to drown in the flats."

The talk about bringing casinos to Cleveland will undoubtedly revive discussions about the need for a convention center here. Casinos and conventions go hand in hand. However, it is unlikely casino companies would be willing to foot the bill. Paying for convention centers remains difficult � but cities keep building them. In Washington, 13 cities have begun work on convention center construction projects in the last year.

One of the blunt realities of American politics is that most states don't matter in the presidential election, as their outcome is already certain. Only 10-14 are "swing states." What to do if you don't live in one? Try going online to plan a road trip to register voters in the swings.

Durham, NC is considering an ambitious plan to revitalize a downtown street, Parish Street, by combining exhibits and kiosks that illustrate the history of Durham's tobacco industry, African-American entrepreneurship and traditional arts and crafts. Parrish Street was the birthplace of the city's first tobacco operations. In the early 1900's the street represented the center of the city's African-American commercial district. Read more about the plan to revitalize Parish Street. You can download the report here.

"[T]he Green Party of Canada, conversely, in its bid to become a new player in Canadian parliamentary politics, has opened its platform on a Wiki, allowing all members to shape its contents directly... The party platform -- its collection of core beliefs, policy agendas, and issue positions -- is editable by all members in a Wiki, and the process is visible to all visitors. By using a Wiki format, all Green Party Canada members have a say in the evolution of the party's approach to Canadian concerns. This will inevitably be somewhat chaotic, as even in a small, activist group, there will be diverging beliefs and ideas; nonetheless, it's the perfect tool for a movement espousing individual empowerment coupled with community collaboration."

Thanks to George Nemeth and his excellent Brewed Fresh Daily blog, I discovered a wealth of resources on the important art of storytelling. Check out his "Economic Development is Storytelling" entry -- this discovery led me to Robert Dickman's The Four Elements of Every Successful Story. Dickman tells us that there are four components to every story that can be easily remembered by thinking PHAT. No, not calories or hip hop -- he's referring to passion, hero, antagonist, and transformation.

"Many of my students, or their families, have been the victims of crime. It seems, just as often, I hear that someone in our school is the perpetrator of a crime. We read about our students and former students with an uneasy regularity; armed robbery, rape, police chases, assaults, domestic violence, murder. Crime in the inner-city is like a thread that weaves in out of our lives with such a regularity that it becomes a part of the pattern. Unfortunately, it is a pattern that I am growing used to. I am not so jaded that I have lost heart. I am just no longer surprised. If I had to identify the silver lining on this particular dark cloud, it would be the appreciation that I feel for the good things in life. The preponderance of negativity really makes me take notice of the positive stuff around me. The constant contrast helps me to focus on savoring the goodness that I see, and inspires me to nurture it. It makes me want to be a better teacher."

"Erasmus said that the city is like a monastery � an ordered existence. Order for a monastery comes about not because the monks arrange themselves naturally in an ordered fashion, but because the monks are arranged, or ordered, externally by a fixed Rule. It is not a coincidence that those adhering to the Rule are called an �order.� Thus, Erasmus� claim begs the question: Does a city exist because it comes together of it own accord, or because of restraints � a rule � externally imposed upon her citizens?"

"Do you want to be a leader? Then you've got to be a servant."

His most recent books are Immigrant and Minority Entrepreneurship: Building American Communities and Economies (with George Kozmetsk; forthcoming, Greenwood Press) Forgotten Citations: Studies in Community and Entrepreneurship (Forthcoming, Ohio State University Press) The former book explores, among many entrepreneurial issues, the development of business incubators by immigrant business groups. The latter book explores the history of institutional building among black Americans.

Photographs of flag-draped coffins bearing American casualties from Iraq should not have been made public under a Pentagon policy prohibiting media coverage of human remains, officials said. "Quite frankly, we don't want the remains of our service members who have made the ultimate sacrifice to be the subject of any kind of attention that is unwarranted or undignified," said John Molino, a deputy undersecretary of defense.

"We've come here in different ships, but we're in the same boat now." - Martin Luther King Jr.

"I found this amazing resource for storytelling in organizations. Under the resources section, I found a link to a fantastic article on "The Four Elements of Every Successful Story" (PDF) by Bob Dickman."

"As Matt Marshall at San Jose Mercury News puts it, �it�s part of life here in Silicon Valley�. Nonetheless, it�s still pretty shocking news. It seems that Friendster founder Jonathan Abrams and Plaxo creator Sean Parker have been ousted from their respective leadership roles. Abrams will remain in a role as company founder, but Parker has apparently been locked out of the company. The reason? Simple � they weren�t making money fast enough for the VCs. Think the timing�s a coincidence? Probably not. Turns out former Yahoo CEO (and interim Friendster CEO) Tim Koogle and Google angel investor Ram Shriram are both major investors in Plaxo and Friendster. This also comes amid rumors that AOL is talking about buying Plaxo.

"As an active Blogger user, we would like to invite you to be one of the first to try out Google's new email service, Gmail."

What does all this mean for today's company looking to jump-start its innovation programs and processes, and today's individual looking to participate in making his or her own, or his or her employer's, enterprise more innovative?

Dave Pollard has continued his great work on networked organizations and innovation paper.

Hierarchy and Autocracy are the Enemies of Innovation: There is a strong creative tension between individuals and the communities they elect to or are asked to be part of, caused by divergent needs, drivers, and behaviours. Each individual and each community needs its own space. Flat, small, responsive, democratic organizations are inherently more innovative.

Innovation Needs an Urgent Problem: True innovation only occurs where there is consensus that there is an important problem to solve and a sense of urgency to solve it.

Cooperation is Replacing Competition: Competition is now dysfunctional, a vestige of earlier times of resource scarcity, and cooperation is now essential to effective innovation.

The Customer Rules: The customer is now king and needs only better decision making tools to become the sole driver of economic activity, rendering obsolete the need for marketing, branding, and other producer-driven mechanisms of influencing customer actions.

Female Organizational Style is More Innovative Than Male: As shown in the table below, organizational structures, processes and behaviours more commonly associated with businesses run by women are gaining traction in the New Economy, and that bodes well for innovation.

The Emerging New Economy Will Accelerate Innovation: Despite the current waves of globalization, corporatism and increased concentration of wealth and power, the Internet and other new technologies will inexorably break the strangle-hold of riak-averse oligopolies and unleash a new age of astonishing innovation.

"DreamWorks Animation has beefed up its technology infrastructure by tapping into an off-site 1,000-processor computing farm built on Linux... The computing farm is based on HP ProLiant DL360 servers running Linux and HP ProCurve network switches. It is linked via a high-speed network to the DreamWorks Animation studios to provide an extension of the film company's internal data centre... So far more than half a million individual frames have been processed on the infrastructure, the firm said."

Let me add one important note about resistances. One can�and must�go through an exercise of deep and pervasive mental surgery with respect to every entrenched view: Define it, understand the reasons for its provenance, point out its weaknesses, and then develop multiple ways of undermining that view and bolstering a more constructive one. In other words, search for the resonance and stamp out the resistance.

" Is the Great American Asphalt machine (celebrated by our colleague Jane Holtz Kay in Asphalt Nation) about to get derailed � or given multi-billions for massive expansion? Fresh reports from Pennsylvania and Virginia offer vividly contrasting visions. Latest from Harrisburg is that the state�s DOT has chopped $5 billion in bridge and highway projects from its planning list. Gov. Ed Rendell�s transportation director refers to the state�s tightening fiscal condition and then adds what�s been unsayable in most states up to now � some road projects may be bad ideas because of their impact on the landscape... For stark contrast, check Virginia. State and federal officials are thinking out of the box in quite different fashion, pushing a plan to add a second four-lane road, exclusively for trucks, to the state�s 325-mile stretch of Interstate 81, a major north-south road (and now NAFTA highway) along an American natural treasure � the Blue Ridge Mountains and the Shenandoah Valley... Yet I-81's new truck lanes, critics fear, would �industrialize� vast stretches of Virginia landscape, turning the Shenandoah Valley�s fabled blue sky, for example, from blue to gray. And one has to wonder � �Why not trains?�� the argument I made myself in a recent column. It would be great to see the presidential campaign focus on vital transportation issues like these, touching as they do on our economic future, our environment and quality of life, democratic planning and choice. But don�t count on it.

The First Suburbs Development Council announces the launch its new website. This site enables you to search for available properties, identify member communities and the appropriate contacts, answer questions regarding the FSDC, keep up on FSDC news and events, and provide a portal for economic development in the First Suburbs. Property listings, news, contacts and links will be continuously updated to provide you with up-to-date, useful information.

Lake Erie College announces a symposium on narrative practices in the arts with area artists and writers, to be held Thursday, April 22, 2004 at 7:30 p.m. in the B.K. Smith Gallery located on the east side of Lake Erie College on Gillett Street. This discussion is being presented with the support of Lake Erie Interdisciplinary Committee. In a round table style discussion the panel will explore topics bringing visual artists together with writers to converse about the creative process, and the role that story telling plays in our contemporary world with its ultra fast links to the web. Some of the more specific questions they will encompass include topics on the ramifications and possibilities inherent in the link of dissolutions of media/art and life boundaries between art and storytelling. As well as entertainment versus healing: the idea of artist as shaman and the incorporation of storytelling just another material available for manipulation in a fragmentary, postmodern world. The panelists will then take part in a comparison dialogue between the role of storytelling historically across cultures and time to storytelling today, specifically oral tradition. The panel will consist of Nancy Prudic, moderator, and Assistant Professor of Visual Art at Lake Erie College; Laila Voss, adjunct professor at several area colleges and universities including CIA, University of Akron and Kent State University. Laila was also a recipient of OAC fellowship and residency program in Prague; Johnny Coleman, Professor of Art at Oberlin College; Dr. Mimi Pipino, Assistant Professor in the Department of English and Director of Scholars Program at Lake Erie College. Her research and teaching interests focus on multiethnic American literature, specifically Italian American literature; women's literature; and feminist critical and literary theory. She has published a book, "I Have Found My Voice": The Italian-American Woman Writer, and is currently working on several articles on Italian American literature for a forthcoming Greenwood Press encyclopedia of multiethnic American literature; Kelly Harris, a distinguished poet and former journalist and editor-in-chief of UHURU Magazine. Ms. Harris was a member of the 2003 Cleveland Poetry Slam team and has won several awards for her works including the Wendy L. Moore Emerging Artist Award and selected for the 2003 National Poetry SLAM Anthology. She has read as a featured poet at The Ohio State University, Kent State University, CSU, The Canton Museum of Art, to name a few. Kelly currently teaches creative writing part time to high school students; �ngel Pag�n, Senior Community Officer for the Puerto Rico Federal Affairs Administration. Holding a Masters Degree in Philosophy, �ngel is a member of Philosophy Club at Cleveland State University as well as a member of Student Group Latinos Unidos. He has been awarded twice for his works in poetry and is an illustrious composer, songwriter, percussionist and performer.

An informal panel discussion on femininity and feminism with artists Hadley K. Conner and Sarah Curry, and Ren�e M. Sentilles, Assistant Professor of History at Case Western Reserve University, and Nancy Prudic, Assistant Professor of Visual Art at Lake Erie College is scheduled for Wednesday, April 21 from 7:30 to 9:00 p.m. at the B.K. Smith Gallery at Lake Erie College in Painesville. The event is free and refreshments will be served. For more information, contact Lyz Bly at lbly@lec.edu or 216.521.8582 or 440.375.7461. Information on the work of Hadley K. Conner and Sarah Curry, and on the exhibition "Construct Femininity: Femininity Construct" is available in the attached press release. Bios - Professor Sentilles and Professor Prudic: Ren�e M. Sentilles is Assistant Professor of History at Case Western Reserve University. She is interested in nineteenth and twentieth century American culture, both high and low. The focus of Professor Sentilles' research is on American women's history and nineteenth-century cultural expression. Having lived and traveled all over the United States, she is particularly fascinated by regionalism and relationships between different American cultures. Her book, Performing Menken: Biography of a Nineteenth-century Celebrity, combines these interests as she uses Adah Isaacs Menken, a nineteenth-century Madonna-like character, as a means of viewing Civil War America from a cultural perspective. Her newest project is on the imaginative landscape of nineteenth-century girls. She has taught classes on the American West, African-American history, American Studies, the 1960s, the American history survey, and American women's history. Professor Sentilles received a Ph.D., American Studies in 1997 from the College of William and Mary. Nancy Prudic received her BFA from the Cleveland Institute of Art and her MFA from Vermont College. Her work has focused on feminist driven performance, installation, and sculpture. She lives in Cleveland and has exhibited locally, regionally, and nationally. She is presently teaching studio art at Lake Erie College and supervising museum classes at the Cleveland Museum of Art. In the last year she has exhibited in the Lantern Festival at the Cleveland Museum of Art, 48 Hours of Making Art and ShutUp: Censorship, Art, and Literature at B. K. Smith Gallery at Lake Erie College, Allied Art: Artwork by Faculty Members of the Academic Alliance at Weyers-Sampson Gallery at Thiel College, Health and Beauty at the Womancare Center of UPMC, Hermitage, PA, V-Energy Art Show and Sale at the Cleveland Public Theater, and the Cleveland Museum of Art Staff Invitational at the Martin Luther King Jr. Branch of the Cleveland Public Library. She has also just completed working on a collaborative project for the 7th Annual Food For Thought dance incubator with choreographer Lisa DeCato. She is preparing for a solo exhibition in June at Brandt Gallery in Tremont.

Digital Vision and Computers Assisting People are the two main nonprofit organizations working to narrow the "digital divide" in Cleveland. They're teaming up to celebrate the progress they've made, honor some outstanding contributions to Cleveland's community technology movement, raise a few bucks to support our work, and have a great party! Wednesday, May 12 5:30 to 7:30 pm Cleveland Midtown Innovation Center 4415 Euclid Avenue Be part of the movement to include all of Cleveland's people and neighborhoods in our Digital Future.

Northeast Ohio is in the midst of an economic transformation. We are "Making Change" by developing new ways to connect in our networked economy. This Making Change conference will� * Provide you the best practices on how universities, governments and businesses combine to create innovation and entrepreneurial networks * Build your contacts among leading practitioners and academics in regional innovation * Provide guidance for you on how to implement practical initiatives to strengthen innovation connections among universities, governments and business You'll come away with a new sense of how public officials, foundation representatives, university researchers, business leaders and economic development professionals can collaborate. REI@Weatherhead is one of the architects of our innovation economy in Northeast Ohio.

"Now that is a splendid idea! I wish they would do something creative like this to revitalize the RTA. What if they had live music for people waiting at the stations?"

"[B]logging has led to a student community beyond the borders of the campus, a community that Reed administrators can't control but can peek at."

"A program in Mexico City is giving away free books in the subway. The stories, prose, and poetry are short enough to finish on the average subway ride; readers drop the books off as they leave the Metro. Mexican authors were paid about USD 300 for use of their works but see the real payment as increasing in-country interest in their writings. The program gets books into the hands of those Mexicans who often can't afford to buy them. And transit officials also hope that crime in the system might decrease if people are busy reading rather than picking the pockets of fellow riders. The Washington Post quotes a Metro official: "Cruz said the idea originated in discussions about how to make the subway safer. While some consultants argued for placing armed guards on trains, he said, Metro officials decided to try improving the atmosphere with books instead of guns."

"Employees of eMachines Inc., which sells low-end computers, got a $72.5 million piece of the pie when the company was sold last month to Gateway Inc."

"Here's an article from the BBC news that suggests that drumming in the workplace results in less stress, happier employees, and lower turnover."

My colleagues who spend a lot of time in the coffeehouses are skeptical. They say the annoyance of being confronted with a "pay" screen when you try to access the hotspot, undoes all the positive goodwill of providing the hot spot in the first place -- and may even anger patrons.

"The key question must then become: Consumers of what? Wal-Mart has built a huge operation that is stunningly effective in serving consumer demands. They don't do education, they just respond with ruthless efficiency. If consumers demanded healthier, more sustainable products, this machine could be driving down the costs and ramping up the availability of those products. They will never lead demand, but they must respond to it. Even in the face of this apparent economic might, America is still an economic democracy. And as long as we vote for junk, degradation and bad health, our Constitution says we are entitled to as much of it as we can fit in our supersized carts." "If we want to change the world, then we must change our minds -- at the check out stand. We need to be more creative, more healthy and more awake and alive in our pursuit of happiness. And once we manage that, as people, I would think that an operation like Wal-Mart could become a priceless national treasure."

"This weekend I had the opportunity to read one of my poems at the James Wright Poetry Festival in Martins Ferry, Ohio, which is the Pulizer Prize-winning poet's home and mine. The Festival was quite successful. These are just the type of events that communities should be capitalizing upon for tourism and economic development."

When given the chance to take the mike, many in the audience gave impassioned speeches rather than asking any questions. Thomas Sudow, executive director of the Beachwood Chamber of Commerce, gave the most memorable speech, challenging the panel to get up out of their seats and actually do something, rather than just talk about doing something. He added that he had met with three Israeli companies that morning that planned to set up shop in Beachwood.

SAVE CAF� 101 Did you know that several members of the administration decided to remove Caf� 101 from campus, and give the restaurant to Aramark - the company that operates all other food and beverage outlets on campus? A petition is circulating, and by signing it you are sending a clear message to the administration that you want to keep Caf� 101 at CSU. 1. CSU gives Aramark hundreds of thousands of CSU dollars every year to operate the cafeteria and operate it's state-subsidized catering monopolyon state property. 2. Caf� 101 receives no such subsidy from CSU. In fact, Caf� 101 pays rent to CSU to operate on campus. 3. This decision was made without student, staff, or faculty input---making it essentially a no-bid contract performed behind closed doors. 4. Caf� 101 employs students and is alumnus owned and operated. 5. Caf� 101 has been serving the campus for 8 years (seven years as Panini's.) 6. The cafeteria and all other food, coffee, & catering on campus is owned and operated by Aramark. 7. CSU wants Aramark to have a complete monopoly of the campus foodservice. 8. Aramarks initial plans call for it to only open the Caf� 101 space for lunch, this means that the evening students will have no campus dining options after 6pm. This would hurt the student experience and hinder the growth of campus life. 9. Caf� 101 is asking for a 20-year contract to continue serving the CSU campus community in its current space or in the former Kinko's buildingnext to Viking Hall.

The purpose of the NEOSA Alpha Student chapter is to prepare students for the Information Technology (IT) industry by creating and providing opportunities for networking, hands-on experience, and insight into the field. Contacts: Anthony Stenger, Alex Tenenbaum

"[T]he potential of co-creation and social / business innovation happens at the boundaries of networks."

"Mainstream journalists want to maintain their objectivity and above all their independence. In the past this meant being the gatekeepers. They see themselves as the professionals who demand firewalls not only internally, but also externally. Indeed, when it comes to the letting the public in, they have almost a fortress mentality. The public journalism reform movement illustrated how deeply entrenched that mindset was and is....Today through self-publishing tools like weblogs, the public is battering away at that fortress and forming its own information portals."

Indianapolis Economic Development this week launched a new web site to help attract businesses to that Midwest city. The extensive and resourceful web site gives the folks at Team NEO a good target to shoot for if and when they decide to use the web to market the region to businesses.

Bystanders rated mobile-phone conversations as dramatically more noticeable, intrusive, and annoying than conversations conducted face-to-face. While volume was an issue, hearing only half a discussion also seemed to up the irritation factor.

The proliferation of the Linux open source operating system through a growing number of U.S. defense systems, poses a 'serious and urgent security threat', Dan O'Dowd, CEO of Green Hills Software, said last week in a speech to the Net-Centric Operations Industry Forum in McLean, VA.

"Non-profit organizations and 'under-served communities' that typically have had computers donated to them have struggled to provide fully licensed versions of the Windows operating system that have accompanied those used computers. To answer this concern Microsoft has developed a program for its Europe, Middle East, and Africa region (EMEA)."

Is economic development the sine qua non of personal and communal success? What else is on your list?

Latin for "without which not"; something that is absolutely essential.

"Movement, change, light, growth and decay are the lifeblood of nature, the energies that I try to tap through my work. I need the shock of touch, the resistance of place, materials and weather, the earth as my source. Nature is in a state of change and that change is the key to understanding. I want my art to be sensitive and alert to changes in material, season and weather. Each work grows, stays, decays. Process and decay are implicit. Transience in my work reflects what I find in nature." - Andy Goldsworthy

"Economic Development is the sustained, progressive attempt to attain individual and group interests through expanded, intensified and adjusted use of available resources." - Ron Shaffer

Mark Drabenstott is one of the leading voices for new economic development strategies in rural areas. He's vice president and director of the Center for Study of Rural America with the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City. Last week in Iowa, Drabenstott put the challenge clearly: "We need to start believing that we are interdependent, not independent. We need to stop thinking like the independent Swedish farmer and start thinking like a quilting bee. We can't let county, city or state lines keep us from working together."

"Tracking the tools that decentralize the media.

From Terry Heaton's Pomo Blog..."Time and again, I run into the mistaken proposition that the Internet is just another form of broadcasting. Sadly, this view is pretty common amongst broadcasters, and it's what keeps them from entering into a profitable relationship with the Web � something I believe is essential in our digital world. When I left TV News in 1998 and bought into an Internet startup, I believed as most broadcasters do. Consequently, it was easy to create a business model wherein advertising was the principal revenue stream. It didn't work... It didn't work (and doesn't work), because the Internet serves a master more powerful than the mass market. The laws of reach and frequency don't work here, because the end user calls all the shots. The individual user is god, and broadcasters are inherently unable to get ahold of that, because their nature is to speak to and influence a captive audience. You cannot "serve ads" to people who don't want them online, but if you give them some say in those ads, they'll gladly take part. I don't know how to say it more clearly than Doc Searls has: There is no market for unsolicited messages. There never has been, and the Internet makes that abundantly clear...."

Paramedic Robert Austin, writing in OSNews: "Like any government agency, emergency service agencies need the basic office software, but they also need 'specialized' software, such as Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD) systems, 9-1-1 Call Taking systems, incident reporting systems, etc. Today, almost without exception, every agency is forced to use a proprietary, closed source Windows program. Far too often it is purchased from a company that is no longer in business five years after the purchase, resulting in the need to purchase a replacement product from another vendor." Open source isn't merely about control, or choice; it's also about continuity, and avoiding the disruptions when small software companies tank.

Interest in and patience with long, complex books and poems have alarmingly diminished not only among college students but college faculty in the U.S. It is difficult to imagine American students today, even at elite universities, gathering impromptu at midnight for a passionate discussion of big, challenging literary works like Dostoyevsky's The Brothers Karamazov�a scene I witnessed in a recreation room strewn with rock albums at my college dormitory in upstate New York in 1965. As a classroom teacher for over thirty years, I have become increasingly concerned about evidence of, if not cultural decline, then cultural dissipation since the 1960s, a decade that seemed to hold such heady promise of artistic and intellectual innovation. Young people today are flooded with disconnected images but lack a sympathetic instrument to analyze them as well as a historical frame of reference in which to situate them.

Plug In Cleveland 1.0 will take place Wednesday, May 12 from 5:30 to 7:30 pm at the Cleveland Midtown Innovation Center. It's a $25 fundraising and recognition event for Cleveland Digital Vision and Computers Assisting People (CAP). The goals of Plug In Cleveland are simple: ... to raise a few thousand dollars for the operating budgets of each organization ... to recognize the exceptional contributions of some organizations and individuals to Cleveland's community technology movement; and ... to bring together lots of our members, supporters and friends for a good party!

The Encyclopedia Britannica gives a half page to the accomplishments of Charles Francis Adams, the son of President John Quincy Adams. The younger Adams followed the political trail of his father and became a U.S. diplomat to Great Britain. The encyclopedia makes no mention of Charles's family, but Charles's diary does. One day's entry read: "Went fishing with my son today - a day wasted." Another diary, however, offers a different perspective: "Went fishing with my father - the most wonderful day of my life." The person who wrote those words was Charles's son Brook.

"The cross is real wood, the nails are real iron, the vinegar truly tastes bitter, and the cry of desolation is live, not recorded." - Malcolm Muggeridge