Bob from Cleveland

Congratulations on making Cleveland Pizza Week a success and thank you for giving the local economy a little “boost”. I ran into other pizza week goers around town and many told me that they tried new pizza locations for the first time.

What we accomplished in less than three weeks:
1.  Over 240 followers on Facebook
2.  Over 70 followers on Twitter
3.  Coverage on many blogs
4.  A conversation of Cleveland Pizza Week on Q104
5.  Friends gathered around pizza and engaged in dialogue

Stay tuned for future food weeks and do not hesitate to contact us (clevelandpizzaweek@gmail.com) with suggestions on types of foods that Clevelanders should focus on! You can continue to follow us on Facebook (Cleveland Pizza Week) and Twitter (ctownpizzaweek) for updates.

Enjoy,
Cleveland Pizza Week Fan Club

The Plain Dealer will run a story tomorrow about the Creative People that Northeast Ohio lost in 2008.  Who would be on your list?  Would you only include people in the traditional “creative” sense?  How about the entrepreneurs who helped build businesses in NEO or the business leaders who led their organizations through troubled waters?

The Plain Dealer has begun what appears to be their version of Quiet Crisis - Part Deux: how will the readers respond?

Numerous organizations in greater Cleveland are attempting to tackle the issue of civic engagement.  The Cleveland Leadership Center has a committee to discuss the issue and a newly launched Citizens Leage has been formed; but what are the “non-connected citizens” doing?

What about the individuals who live in Westlake or Solon and work at Moen or Progressive Insurance.  These are the folks who drive their kids to soccer or baseball practice without thinking about what event they are missing downtown.  These are the people who shop at Crocker Park or Legacy Village and who have probably never been to Ohio City or Little Italy.  Again, how do we engage these Cleveland assets?

I grew up in North Olmsted and Westlake.  My parents made the effort to take me and my two sisters downtown on a regular basis to attend baseball games, enjoy musicals at playhouse square, see the sights at Tower City during the holidays, and occasionally enjoy a pie at Mama Santa’s.  We were westsiders who realized that Cleveland did not stop at East 9th.  I can’t say that this was the case for many of my friends but I appreciate that my parents knew that this “education” would be valuable at some point in our life.

I’ll argue that a large portion of the civic engagement deficit in Cleveland is due to the parents of greater Cleveland.  If only the parents would take a few extra minutes to educate their children of the cultural, civic, business, educational, and athletic assets that we have in our own backyard.  Would the graduating high schoolers of this region view Cleveland differently if they had this conversation?  What if parents explained that many of the activities that the family participated in, even if in a limited basis, were in Cleveland; would the kids think of Cleveland differently when they drove to the airport or to Severance Hall?  Would the kids view their hometown with a greater appreciation if they knew that the oil industry was born in the flats, that Akron was the capital of rubber, and that our sports teams have been trend setters in many arenas.  I wonder.

I grew up listening to stories of my grandparents growing businesses and familes in the neighborhoods that I now live and play in.  Every fall when I vote I meet a little old lady who reminds me that she has known my family for over 50 years and my neighbor never forgets to tell me that she shopped at my great-grandfathers butcher shop at 104th and Madison.  These stories have encouraged me to become more engaged.  I love this town and the people that make it real.

Clevelanders are not motivated by slogans or flashy logos; they are motivated by success and truth.  Tell a Clevelander to believe in something and they will be apprehensive, but demonstrate success to a Clevelander and they will be a fan for years.  So, I ask one thing of the civic engagment discussions going on at the moment: demonstrate success.

Share your successes with the Plain Dealer at sgoldberg@plaind.com.

Where will the PD take this new interest in public discourse?  The beginnings for “Quiet Crisis - Part Deux” are being laid and it would appear to be much different than its counterpart from a few years back.  My one desire is that the paper not only shed light on BIG ideas, rather; highlight the baby steps that are being taken today to solve regional problems of great significance.

One article today discussed “regionalism” but once again only focused on Cuyahoga County.  Regionalism is much bigger than Cuyahoga County and needs to involve our equal partners in Akron, Lorain, Medina, Youngstown, etc.  Each mini-region brings its own assets to the table and is part of a comprehensive economy.

So, thoughts on where this series is going and in what ways the residents of this region can drive the dialogue?  Submit a letter here.

This article in the New York Times Magazine does an excellent job in documenting how a communications team and political campaign manager create the “brand” of a Presidential candidate.  From historic packaging, to daily messaging, to decision making;the process is outlined in its entirety.  I guess we will see if this effort pays off in a few weeks.

This is the stuff that most voters never take the time to understand about a campaign but what campaigns spend the most time in crafting.

Yesterday I had the privilege of attending the Shaker Square Home Tour.  Thanks to my friend Jason Lansdale for inviting me!

I’ve spent plenty of afternoons and evenings on the square but I had never been able to enjoy so many apartments, condos, and homes.  This neighborhood has it all!  If you’re in the market for a sophisticated and enjoyable urban lifestyle I highly recommend the square.

Eaton recently launched their new slogan: “Powering Business Worldwide.”  The central hub for this power has been located in Cleveland since 1914 but will now be generated in Beachwood.  There will be plenty of arguments in the coming months on why this is horrible and how this is another nail in the coffin for the business environment in Cleveland.  This does not have to be the case.

We in Northeast Ohio need to stop viewing this as Beachwood vs. Cleveland or Westlake vs. Avon.  The game is now between major metropolitan areas both within and outside the country.  Cleveland competes just as much with Charlotte as we do with China.  This is why major law and accounting firms are opening up operations or partnering with existing firms in these markets.  The governing structure of Northeast Ohio needs to catch up to this fact or we are never going to be able to move forward as a region.

The Northeast Ohio Mayors and Managers Association, through Mayors Bill Currin (Hudson), Bruce Akers (Pepper Pike), and Mike Lyons (Richfield), are working with other elected officials to draft a proposal and conduct a vote of the people on just such an idea.  You can learn more about this proposal HERE.  The simple concept is that any new business that moves into Northeast Ohio (or relocates within Northeast Ohio) would pay a portion of its tax base to a regional pool.  This pool would be used for regional infrastructure projects, regional business attraction efforts, and other regional services deemed necessary.  The purpose of this effort is to level the playing field by creating a system that does not encourage one community to offer more incentives than another to attract businesses.  A high tide raises all ships sort of thing.

The reality is this: employees of Eaton (or any other company) do not limit themselves to the amenities of one municipality.  Eaton must rely on the assets of the entire region (parks, dining, theater, sports, etc.) when recruiting talent; not just those located in Beachwood.  The CEO of Eaton does not have season tickets to the Beachwood Indians or enjoy the fine music of the Beachwood Orchestra; rather, he will work in Beachwood, live in another community (I assume), and entertain clients/executives in dozens of municipalities.

It is time that the local tax structure insert this “modern” lifestyle into how municipalities compete for and tax businesses.  I encourage everyone to review the revenue study being proposed by the Northeast Ohio Mayors and Managers Association and encourage participation by their individual municipality.

It’s been a busy day for Bob and social networking tools.  This morning the City Club was approved for their group and Identi-fyi: Cleveland launched on facebook…woo hoo!

First off, both are a work in progess so keep the comments coming.  The goal of each tool is to spread the word on the amazing assets of Greater Cleveland and both are “open” so I encourage you to join up if you’d like to be kept in the loop.

Click HERE to add the “Friends of the City Club of Cleveland” to your LinkedIn profile.

On Facebook, seach “Identi-fyi: Cleveland” to add this awesome group to your FB profile.

Also, feel free to leave a comment regarding either group…

Socially yours,
Bob

The City Club of Cleveland, the oldest continuous free speech forum in the country, now has a group on LinkedIn.  Click HEREto join the group if you’re a friend of the City Club.  No need to be a member to join the group on LinkedIn as the City Club is open to everyone and anyone.

Keep an eye out in the future as the City Club continues to reach new audiences utilizing different technologies.  I was recently elected to the City Club New Leaders Board (those under the age of 40) as the Outreach Chair and will be focused on this effort along with the City Club staff.  Have an idea on how the City Club can be more effective in reaching out to the Greater Cleveland world?  Let me know…I’d love to hear it…

Enjoy!

Thanks to “The Moderate Voice“ for bringing this to my attention.  I think that author Michael Hais did a great job in summing up my generation with two words: civic engagement.  He took it one step further:

“they are a generation that is not intent on — as other types of generations are — not intent on implementing their own personal moral values, but rather in rebuilding civic institutions, in acting together as a group to resolve political problems, which we expect the Millennials to do, problems such as health care that have really bedeviled the U.S. political process for the last 40 years or so.”

Obviously this quote is geared towards the political ramifications of the actions of Millennials (as is their book) but we are seeing this philosophy carried out every day in many areas.  Yesterday, after the Collaboration Technology Conference, I posted about how web 2.0 technology should be utilized in the recruitment of the millennial generation.  That effort needs to occur, but during the conference I was listening to speakers who are using this same technology to make a difference in the civic realm.  From community organizing to personal blogging, the speakers were civically engaged and many were of the “millennial” generation.

Think of the challenges that we are able to quickly solve when we open up a question to our Facebook or LinkedIn network.  I’ve posted several technology related questions on LinkedIn and typically have multiple solutions within half a day.  Wikinomics, a book on this very topic, outlines several challenges/opportunities that have been solved through crowdsourcing.  Corporations are using web 2.0 technology to source new products or improve existing products, community groups are using weblogs to quickly disseminate information, and college students are using Facebook to stay in touch with friends across the globe.

With the Millennial generation growing up surrounded by technology I wonder how this “phenomena” will continue to grow and in what ways it can be utilized to address the civic issues that we’ll be facing in the coming decades.  Could crowd sourcing lead to a design for a center to house conventions, or the future of an educational systems curriculum, or could we even modify our own behaviors based upon the general input from a large audience, such as the entire population of the internet.  This example gives you a small idea of what that could look like.

Do you feel that you are civically engaged?

Enjoy,
Bob