Since our founding, in 2004, REALNEO has become a groundbreaking free, open source social network of global interest – recently recognized as one of the top networks of our type in the country, by the Knight Foundation.

In 2008, the members of REALNEO.US formed REAL COOP, an Ohio legal cooperative, which now owns and operates REALNEO.US and REAL.COOP. We are unique in the world of social computing, and a global innovator in the evolution of information systems.

From the REALNEO.US homepage:

Thanks to Laura McShane for posting this morning a comment linking to Will Allen's "Good Food Manifesto" on his Growing Power blog. I, and millions of other people, became aware of Will last Sunday, when he was featured in the New York Times Sunday Magazine article "Street Fighter", but folks who follow local foods best practices surely knew of Will long before.

Over the past 20 years, I've spent most of my "professional" time as an entrepreneur, with world-class expertise conducting multi-dimensional, multi-client relational comparative data and best practice analyses of any aspects of the world's largest and best global enterprises, environments and systems, and developing and consulting on innovations and total quality improvement. This work has generated a wealth of knowledge on large general systems, with a unique expertise in information systems and telecommunications. REALNEO is a product of this highest level expertise, drawn from the best practices of the best organizations on Earth. What REALNEO has developed for Cuyahoga County - what has been generated out of the REALNEO-generated Real Cooperative - takes general systems innovation to a whole new level of making us the brightest greenest place on Earth. So, we really do have a purpose to Cuyahoga County owning the Breuer, and the vision is beautifully expressed in this great rendering above, to be REAL COOP citizen headquarters of the open source capital of this brightest greenest state of Earth.

Information technology pioneer and visionary - and Oberlin graduate - Marc Canter helped me launch REALNEO.US, in 2004... from San Francisco. Now, five years of social community and technology building and innovation later, I've convinced Marc to personally return to Northeast Ohio to collaborate with government, citizens and organizations in the community to make the open web a core economic and social strength of our region, at the global level.

Location

I was thrilled to see all sorts of green sprouts and now colors appearing in our yard this week - and the header of the day features some of the first daffodils on Daffidil Hill, in Lakeview Cemetery - a few blocks from my house in East Cleveland.

I'll let you know when and where are the best flowers in my part of town - you let us know what's popping up around you - let's have a REALNEO virtual garden tour!

I was surprised to see a letter to the editor printed and on-line in the Sunday, March 22, 2009, Cleveland Plain Dealer - "A flag of peace is found out of order at the St. Patrick's Day parade", by Lou Pumphrey. It starts: "Being half-Irish (on me mudder's side), off work on St. Patrick's Day and knowing the day would be sunny and warm, I vaguely considered donning my 41-year-old U.S. Army dress uniform and joining the St. Paddy's Day parade downtown, carrying my flag." But there was no accompanying picture of Lou or the Flag of Peace.

In the print edition, there was a file photo of a parade, but it was hardly relevant.

Drupal is free and open-source software. Anybody can download, use, modify, repackage, and redistribute it (event at a price,) freely. Open source is not only key to its distribution but also its development, culture, and very nature.

The Drupal brand of geek is to me a tasteful breed -- a nice mashup of programmers, designers, and administrators -- and those for whom these interests/skills overlap.

I've never been able to relate extremely well with the hardcore Linux kernel hackers. Folks with that incredible sort of domain-specific brilliance definitely abound in the Drupal community, but, (I may piss off said hackers to say,) the Drupal folks tend to have their heads more in this world.

DrupalCon is the official Drupal (un-)conference that attracts the most talented open source developers and innovative web shops in the world and brings them together to share knowledge, make decisions on the future of Drupal, and get to know each other in person.

It's also the premiere opportunity for Drupal users to learn what they can do with Drupal, find partners for future projects, and meet the people behind the code.

Location

EDWARD J. "CITIZEN" HAUSER, beloved son of Walter and Theresia; dearest brother of Harold, Sylvia, Thomas, and Caroline Widemann (husband Reiner); dear uncle of Nicole and Erik; dear friend of Cathy Stahurski; dear nephew, cousin and friend to many.

Ed Hauser died suddenly November 14, 2008. Northeast Ohio has lost its most ardent, studied and tenacious citizen activist.

Location

Thanks to Sudhir, I had the opportunity to check out the Flobots at Peabody's, Sunday night. If I'd browsed the Cleveland Scene Magazine concert preview, beforehand, I probably wouldn't have bothered going. The 100s of fans who enjoyed the show agreed that would have been a mistake.

REALNEO team meeting and fun and games at  HQ, in Shaker Heights, July 11, 2008...other than insane mosquito infestations this year, it's been a great Summer for backyard planning...

When people wonder what is the value of a local daily newspaper, I must point to the story of Shaw High School Band, which was invited to China to perform but could not afford to do that. The Plain Dealer article "Bang a Drum, Proudly", by Connie Schulz, raised enough attention and funding to get them there, from where they just returned in triumph (nicely covered in the PD here, today)... a $500,000 whirlwind phenomenon all occurring in less than 6 months!

Is REALNEO safe for lurkers?

Identity is a crucial part of social software systems, but it can (and should) take time for an identity to reveal itself. Certainly, you can be invited to join an existing community by a friend—and that’s something we specifically designed for—but, even then, when you start to reach out from your “safety blanket,” your own identity comes to the fore. What do you do when you first hear of a new site to visit? I don’t know about you, but generally I’ll head on over and perhaps even sign up. As I poke around, I’m essentially anonymous. I have no ties to anyone or anything, and am free to move about without any recognition. This anonymity is important. It allows a new visitor to look around and get a feel for the place, and choose when and how to get started.

-- George Oates, Community: From Little Things, Big Things Grow (A List Apart)

How are we encouraging the lurkers to ditch their safety blanket and begin to participate?

During the very cool Meet the Bloggers spin segment I saw televised after the Obama/Clinton Cleveland debate, one of the bloggers said the response in the blogsphere was split on who won - 50% Obama and 50% McCain. Today, a different window into NEOs cyberspace opened for Obama (and McCain), with endorsements on CoolCleveland. If you visit REALNEO often, you know where I stand... I am one REALNEO member strongly supporting Obama. But I am only one small voice in REALNEO, and I'm curious how other "bloggers" and cybercats in NEO stand on the primary... no matter what, this is an historic election, so why not speak up with your vote, voice and support for whomever you like, while you can really make a difference.

So, please, use this posting to add a comment of support for your candidate. If you have a blog or place in cyberspace where you voice your feelings about this, feel free to link that in. Note, to leave a comment you must be a REALNEO member... use the create account link to request an account and we will confirm that for you as quickly as possible.

Location

I can understand why Jeff put up the sunny, happy sunflower header, on such a glum day, as I'm sure we'd all love a lift... but the reason we are feeling glum is not the weather or lack of flowers but the injustices we see all around us. My replacement header is not intended to cheer people up but to cheer on injustice-buster Buster in his pursuit of liberty and freedom to take pictures in public places and justice for all.

7GEN is pleased to provide a Drupal virtual community for the historic Cleveland Club of Washington, D. C., and they have used the technology very well - visit their clean, effective site here. If you frequent D.C., or have friends or family there with a "keen interest in Cleveland", connect with club President Brooke Stoddard at their online presence here. Their next event is this private tour of the U.S. Capitol, July 11, 2007, which will be exceptional.

Location

Located in the heart of the historic Hough Bakeries Complex is the Inner Circle, a weekend club and reception facility operated for the past 7 years by the Hot Sauce Williams family. Starting shortly, operation of the Inner Circle will expand to extended hours every day, featuring a cybercafe, meeting space, computer terminals, free wifi, independent film, the Linux Cafe, art, culture, and great food, coffee, and even wine tastings, via a broader partnership of friends. This pan is from the deck and patio area, and features Guyanese chef and reggae performer and DJ Edwin, who will help operate the Inner Circle, shown with Hot Sauce Williams founder LeMaud Williams, as well.

I recently received an email from ClevelandSGS giving props to realneo, with a link to the ClevelandSGS space on Flickr. I hadn't heard of ClevelandSGS so I checked it out and was awed - it is an amazing assemblage of scanned historic documents and current photos of signage and scenes in Cleveland - a significant community asset in those respects - and a powerful gallery of "Mash-ups" not to be missed. But I still don't know what is ClevelandSGS. Do you? It is the Art of the Day, so read on