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.

We concluded our discussions on education at the July 05 roundtable with the thoughts that a more proactive approach is needed to more directly connect businesses with social needs. We are expanding outreach to corporations to donate computers to needy NEO residents and we are beginning work on a social network for schools to connect with those outside the system wanting to support education. At the 07.12.05 Roundtable we will further these pursuits and brainstorm on related opportunities.

As another topic for the week, we will discuss whom roundtable participants would like to invite to future Roundtables to lead discussions on new areas of interest and expertise. Names we are floating around include Scot Rourke of OneNEO/OneCleveland and Cuyahoga County Planning Commission Director Paul Alsenas.

Please join us at the 07.12.05 NEO Excellence Roundtable at the City Club of Cleveland, from 11:30 AM - 1:30 PM to share your thoughts on these matters, and anything else on your mind.

About the NEO Excellence Roundtable: People who care about Northeast Ohio who are openly strategizing on how our region may achieve world-class status - we are establishing benchmarks for success and taking action in pursuit of measurable outcomes. Current pursuits include bridging the digital divide in East Cleveland, deploying the optimal social network for Northeast Ohio, exploring innovative approaches to funding regional economic development and entrepreneurship, and exploring innovative approaches to improve education in NEO.

We're nurturing face to face visioning and so have revived a storied tradition of roundtable lunches at the City Club, each Tuesday between 11:30 AM - 1:30 PM, where non-hierarchical area innovation champions are breaking bread and brainstorming. The NEO Excellence Roundtable format is casual and conversational - to join us for lunch, please contact coordinator Norm Roulet at norm [at] realinks [dot] org. Each attendee is expected to pay for one's own buffet lunch, which is $13 and always excellent - if that is a barrier to you attending, please join us regardless and we'll cover the difference.

In the interest of supporting this open collaboration, we've also established a virtual Community Of Interest Link (COIL) called NEO Excellence - please visit at http://neoexcellence.realinks.us. To participate in the community, please "create an account" using the link found at the home page - or, if you have an account at another REALinks site... like at REALNEO... you may log-in with your username followed by @ that site's URL (e.g. your username [at] realneo [dot] us), and then enter your password from that site.

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