For anyone who has ever been interested in music or has ever wanted to learn more about music, there is a spectacular event taking place right now in the Cleveland Play House that you must attend. The Cleveland International Piano Competition has been going on since July 27 and the finalist will be selected on August 7. The event features performances from 35 of the world’s most talented young concert pianists and within a ten day period only one can be named the best. With this distinct honor not only comes the Mixon prize, a $50,000 award, but also worldwide concert engagements and an internationally distributed compact disc recording.

Drug Giant Takes on Global Health - Former Merck Chief at The City Club of Cleveland

CLEVELAND, OH—Raymond V. Gilmartin, former president, chairman and CEO of Merck & Co., Inc., will speak on the topic “A New Role for Corporate America: Partners in Global Health and Development� at noon on Friday, July 29, 2005, at The City Club of Cleveland.

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At the 07.19.05 NEO Excellence Roundtable, we have some major developments to celebrate.

First, the Battle of Whiskey Island is over – the Island will remain a park… Ed Hauser will join us to discuss plans for the future, and the Burning River Festival he’s leading on August 13.

Second, the GCLAC kicked of Lead Awareness Week on 07.18.05, taking proactive steps to prevent lead poisoning of residents of Greater Cleveland – the most important pro-education, pro-quality of life initiative in the history of NEO.

What else do you and the people of NEO have to celebrate?

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Lead Awareness Week in Northeast Ohio kicked-off at 11 AM on July 18, 2005, with a press conference at the Zelma George Recreation Center, 3165 Martin Luther King Blvd., in the Mt. Pleasant/Kinsman area of Cleveland. City Department of Health Director Matt Carroll coordinated this informative and valuable insight-sharing session, with great support from area health professionals, community activists, Cleveland and Cuyahoga county staff, foundation workers and volunteers, all working together as the Greater Cleveland Lead Advisory Council (GCLAC). The purpose of the conference and week is to raise public awareness for the risks of lead poisoning, and support preventative action.

Ed Hauser once spent his time insuring the Flats was industrially sustainable, being a computer programmer for LTV. Then, a fortunate thing happened for Cleveland - LTV went bankrupt and Ed found a higher purpose for his life. He moved his loyalty and attention a mile or so up-river to where the Cuyahoga River meets Lake Erie at a parcel of land called Whiskey Island. Since discovering that urban oasis, Ed has dedicated his time and talent to insuring Cleveland is ecologically sustainable and a quality place for current and future residents and visitors by fighting to preserve Whiskey Island as a free and open natural park for all citizens to enjoy.

Bill Callahan, Director of Digital Vision (a coalition of organizations in Cleveland, Ohio working to eliminate the "digital divide" in our city), has posted to his blog an analysis of the extent of the digital divide in Cleveland, and the findings are disturbing... "the percentage of Cleveland households in the sample with active Internet connections may be as low as 40%". The numbers for many sectors of our society are much lower. There is not a simple solution to this problem - not just a wi-fi mesh, or neighborhood computing centers, or school labs, or libraries - there is a need as a community to say that we are all committed to help each resident who wants to participate in the new economy to cross the digital divide, and help in every way every step of the way. Read on about the current state of the divide in Cleveland, and consider how you may make a difference:

CLEVELAND'S DIGITAL DISCONNECT: The data, provided to Digital Vision by Scarborough Research,
is from interviews with more than 300 Cleveland residents, 18 and
older, conducted in 2004-2005. While it's not a perfect random sample
of the city's adult population, Scarborough says the sample is
"stable", i.e. the margin of error is reasonable. Here are some of the
highlights:

With the recent contributions by Benesch Friedlander Coplan & Aronoff of 10 laptops and by Progressive Insurance of 75 Pentium II CPUs for donation to those in need of help across the digital divide in East Cleveland, we have tangible evidence corporations may make a positive contribution to people's lives in NEO. Along the same lines of thought, at the last NEO Excellence Roundtable, participants interested in making NEO the world's most empowering learning community discussed the value corporations have had in supporting schools and even individual classrooms.

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The July 5th NEO Excellence Roundtable attracted a most diverse and remarkable group of participants and our discussions were bright and impactful.

Child Welfare Reformer Dorothy Roberts at The City Club of Cleveland

CLEVELAND, OH—Dorothy Roberts, Kirkland and Ellis professor at Northwestern University Law School, will discuss the glaring racial disparity in the nation’s child welfare system—why it exists, the harm it causes and how it should be addressed—at noon on Friday, July 22, 2005, at The City Club of Cleveland.

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The Greater Cleveland Lead Advisory Council is pleased to announce an important statewide lead awareness week in July, which offers an opportunity to blend awareness of the harm of lead to children with the importance of investing in education. Read on:

Barbara J. Danforth, Esq. - Executive Director, YWCA of Greater Cleveland

Despite decades of advancement, women still are not making it to the upper rungs of Cleveland’s corporate ladder. Not one woman has penetrated the Crain’s Cleveland Business list of top-paid CEOs. Only a small handful of women are seated at the top of Cleveland corporations. Across almost every industry, women earn only 76 cents compared to the dollar their male counterparts make. And this isn’t just the case in Cleveland; it’s a national issue.

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I hope you had a great 4th of July. At today's NEO Excellence Roundtable, we'll celebrate independence and freedom - core concepts of entrepreneurship, the new economy and the Roundtable.

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It is not the first time that I have ruffled a few feathers.

Open Source Economic Development encourages the formation of open networks of innovation: clusters.

For the past seven years, I have been developing this model of economic development. We have been applying it in Northeast Ohio with some remarkable success.

Big news and developments to discuss this week at the NEO Excellence Roundtable.

After working in academe innovating the Case Center for Regional Economic Issues, Ed Morrison returns to the private sector to lead Open Source Economic Development (OSED) for this region and the world, his way. Join Ed at the Excellence Roundtable as we explore next steps with him. As so many of us are building our community development plans around Ed's framework, today's Roundtable is where the planning continues.

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The war in Iraq is big news world-wide. Whether reports on casualties or offensives, the news papers, airwaves and internet are on constant high-alert for stories on developments, which they publicize daily. It is thus surprising a major Iraq-related story that has been big news world-wide was not featured in the mainstream US news until this past weekend. The story is of eight secret "Downing Street Memos" - DSMs - which raise considerable cause for global public debate on a lack of US and UK government honesty and openness leading up to America declaring war on Iraq. Why are the DSMs, which the press in Europe starting reporting on May 1st, just now becoming "front page" news in America... seven weeks after the story broke in the UK?

Plain Dealer "reader advocate" Ted Diadiun felt it necessary to dedicate his 06.19.06 Page 2 Sunday column to this question, and his explanation offers critical insight on the state of US mainstream news reporting and American and Northeast Ohio society today.

Plan to join in the discussions at the Tuesday, June 21, NEO Excellence Roundtable at the City Club of Cleveland as we advance innovative open source pursuits for holistic economic development in Northeast Ohio, including:

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An unexpected gem of an editorial in the Cleveland Plain Dealer observes "more than two-thirds of pre-school students use computers". "Education must evolve along with the rest of society" - "pre-schoolers who use computers at school regularly make greater gains than those without such technology." "The challenge for community leaders is to ensure that the advantages of the digital age reach all young people, including those of modest means." Read on below...

Please join the NEO Excellence Roundtable for inclusive dialogue and pursuits to optimize the brainpower, quality places and innovation networks of Northeast Ohio. The Roundtable meets 11:30 AM - 1:30 PM each Tuesday for discussions and lunch at the City Club of Cleveland - related content posts here and at a virtual community for the collaboration at http://neoexcellence.realinks.us.

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The 06.10.05 City Club forum featured Eduardo R. Menascé, president of the Enterprise Solutions Group for Verizon Communications, the national communications company formed by the merger of Bell Atlantic and GTE. His responsibilities include oversight of all sales, marketing and service delivery for Verizon's largest business and government customers.

The 06.07.05 NEO Excellence Roundtable had a very focused flow, starting with an update from Ed Hauser on Whiskey Island developments, following to next steps for East Cleveland, and concluding with a very enlightening discussion on making NEO the world's most empowering learning community.

At the last East Cleveland Excellence meeting at the Helen S. Brown Center we spoke about needs for affordable housing for seniors in East Cleveland, especially as they need to downsize, and affordable housing is a huge issue in general. When then looking at photos of some of East Cleveland's landbanked properties it became clear there is a great opportunity to serve these needs.

 

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The June 2nd WVIZ Ideas TV program explored what makes a city “cool�, by considering the former “Rubber City� of Akron's efforts to understand Generation X (folks born 1961-1981), which is the “Gold Standard� in the knowledge based economy. Akron is the first city in this region to analyze this critical economic development sector, with their Chamber of Commerce hiring the world-experts on the subject, Next Generation Consulting, of Madison, WI. Led by their Gen X CEO, Rebecca Ryan, Akron is comparing its Generation X appeal versus that of many of America’s most vibrant cities, like San Francisco, Seattle, Denver and Minneapolis.

Throughout the history of Northeast Ohio, "Heavy Industry" has been a two-edged sword. Largely due to our water access and availability of natural resources within easy shipping range, steel became big business here and led to great wealth and many jobs. In the process, heavy industry destroyed our natural habitats and created harmful air and water pollution - today, Northeast Ohio is the 8th most polluted region in America. Over the past few decades, old rust-best industry has declined in all of America and historically industrial regions like NEO have needed to envision "New Economy" futures.

Thus, it is especially fascinating that when former Cleveland steel giant LTV cast off its employees and went bankrupt, their computer programmer Ed Hauser chose to evolve his social role from a cog in the steel machinery into an activist pursuing a natural habitat for this region. He has followed his heart and volunteered his time and energy to save for this region a lingering natural Cleveland lakefront asset few knew existed, yet which is one of our region's most unique natural resources... undeveloped land in the "Flats" called Whiskey Island.