People who complain there aren't leaders in Northeast Ohio fighting each day to improve our economy and quality of life are themselves ignorant and to blame for the problems in this community. Innumerable exceptional, dedicated, capable and effective leaders fight day in and out to improve everyone's lives here, every day - it is the people who do not participate actively in this process who are our region's "quiet crisis"?. Each day we have opportunities to be solutions - visit the REALNEO calendar frequently to get up to speed and learn where, when and how to make differences in the future of this community, participate in forums on-line, find and share insight with our community leaders, and take personal responsibility, now.

I participate in a Harvard Law School open knowledge sharing program called H2O, which this week posed an inspiring issue regarding the origins and impact world-wide of Free and Open Source Software (F/OSS), which is the foundation of REALNEO. If you're interested in this subject (if you're into IT you should be), then consider the topic posed, take a look at my viewpoint, and feel free to visit Harvard H2O to review other viewpoints and the discussion. If you like what you see there - feel free to sign-up and participate, for free.

Crain's Cleveland reported today that Open Source programmers are in high demand, which means NEO universities and businesses should train and certify our residents for this opportune sector of the IT industry. The benefits go beyond skilling our folks for the new economy, as this will insure businesses in the area are able to find the workers they need to locate and grow here.

Let's beat Artsopolis (and Silicon Valley) and save NEO artists money. The following article plugs an arts portal in Silicon Valley that they claim is getting the attention of lots of other arts organizations around the country. I do use Artsopolis when in SF and the protal is good, but it is no better than we can do here - and we need this capability to promote one of our greatest regional assets... the arts!!!

I received an email today from area economic development leader Kevin Cronin that should be of interest of content creators interested to commercialize books, music and images. Nice service - don't know if it is cost competitive... and wonder, can't folks in publishing here compete with this, as self-publishing will continue to be a growing business (some folks will always want dead trees to read ;-)

Pay-Per-Click Search Engine Marketing

November 30, 2004

Location

Good information posted in today's Good Morning Silicon Valley newsletter - the most interesting reference is: "Typically, we have seen that the civil liberties and education levels of a
nation strongly determine its level of technology adoption..." - let's make the nation of REALNEO as good as Denmark, with great IT, education, and civil liberites for all!

In the words of Northeast Ohio Arts Educator of the Year Mary Beth Matthews:

As a little P.S. to all of Cleveland's chronic complainers who like to whine and say,

"Nothing ever gets done in this city"
"People have no vision here"
"Clevelanders don't know how to work together"
"It's all just a lot of talk"
"New ideas don't stand a chance."
"The Cleveland Schools suck."

At Max Hayes, we refused to get caught up in all of that negativity...We're makin' it happen...Ha!

Ha is right - it has just been announced Mary Beth and her students will install a major public arts project at the Soap Box Track, right down from her school,

China Breakfast Seminar: Cultural, Logistical, and Legal
Considerations when Conducting Business in China

Start Date: 11/17/2004  One
Day Event

Location

Understanding the New China

Start Date: 11/13/2004  One
Day Event

Location

International Trade and Foreign-Trade Zone 181 Workshop: A
panel discussion

Start Date: 11/4/2004  One
Day Event

Location

Event:  Growth Capital
Corp. 22nd Annual Meeting and Networking Reception

Date:  11/18/2004 -
11/18/2004

Location

Event:  CAAO
Entrepreneurial Empowerment Circle Meeting

Date:  11/19/2004 -
11/19/2004

Location

Event:  The Fund For
Our Economic Future - see website

Location

CrainTech Breakfast:

"How NOT to be a Target of Opportunity- Information
Security and You"

Location

Leadership Breakfast Series

Featured Speaker: Sandra
Pianalto, President & CEO, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland

Location

I noticed an interesting ad on the NY Times website, from GE, saying "Put Your Imagination to Work - Invite your friends to Collaborate" so I clicked it and found they are providing a cool interactive Flash drawing application that allows one to several Internet visitors to collaborate on a "drawing" - you can change background, line and fill colors and shapes and create a sketch of an idea or concept, and save it and send it to friends.

Neighborhood revitalization requires more than affordable housing,
more than the right retail mix...

by Frank Mills

There’s a fascinating article in the NY Times today on a
massive spike in funds raised by venture capital firms – a 78% increase in the
3rd quarter over the second quarter results. Folks in the VC game
see this as bad news, as the industry in over-funded and they literally need to compete for good deals to fund.
I’ve met with many VCs in Silicon Valley and the general position a year ago
was that there was 10 times more VC funding available than there were good
deals to fund – and that was well before huge ramp-ups of the past few quarters,
which have probably pushed this multiple near 20X… VCs literally can’t invest
their pledged funds fast enough, and that is a problem for them. It is safe to
say any good entrepreneurial venture is now very fundable and in fact in a
position to shop for best VC deals around the country.

Most people probably don't realize Cleveland is the origin of wind power generation - renowned Cleveland innovator Charles Brush invented and built the first wind power generator behind his mansion on Euclid Avenue in 1888.

Next week, Cleveland again becomes a leader in the wind industry by posting the Wind Power Conference, November 9 & 10 at the Sheraton Cleveland City Centre Hotel.

Read more about the conference and wind industry opportunities for our region at a special REALNEO provided just for that Community Of Interest Link (COIL) - linked from here!

I just received an update from the President of NEORUG - Northeast Ohio Regional User Group of Hewlett-Packard computers - on an exciting session featured at their upcoming Training Symposium and Vendor Show - Thursday Nov. 4 from 7:30 AM until around 6 PM.

Atlanta Based Civic Strategies maintains "scans" of community development perspectives in many regions, including Cleveland - this link takes you to these postings, which seem to update about once a month... interesting to see one global viewpoint on our local world. You may also subscribe to a monthly newsletter of "New Ideas for Civic Leaders" from their site.

About Civic Strategies:

Public Policy Solutions 
for
Cities and Regions:::

This article couldn't be more accurate about entrepreneurship issues in Northeast Ohio - although this is about the Lehigh Valley (around Allentown, PA). We're not alone in our problems, and we can learn from the analyses and strategies of others in similar circumstances.

UK government departments moved a step closer to using open-source
operating systems such as Linux after a study found that they are
"viable" products.

The software can "generate significant savings", the Office of Government Commerce (OGC) in its report.

This article offers good perspective on applied nanotechnology in healthcare, which was the subject of a recent conference in NEO...