Three articles in the Sunday, January 14, 2007, Cleveland Plain Dealer really caught my attention. 1. "Power shifts, and a fast-track bill is derailed"; 2. "Gloomy forecast" and 3. "Lost confidence in Bush? So has he"  - especially the last one, where Elizabeth Auster writes, about President Bush, that "he now seems shaken by the prospect that his vision of a free and stable Iraq may be fading along with his power to achieve much else." Because of this, despite "Gloomy forecast", I expect most important aspects of the Cleveland, Northeast Ohio, Ohio, US and global economy to improve dramatically over the next 2, 4 and 10 years. In fact, I can't think of an area where there won't be significant improvements. Think of the growth I expect like when an economy is freed from a dictatorship and people are allowed to be free and thrive - markets open up - that is America, now that Bush has been replaced by democracy.

Cleveland attorney Richard  Herman sent me an outstanding analysis (posted below) of a Duke University study released on January 4, 2007, which is attached to this posting and "concludes that foreign-born entrepreneurs were founders of over 25% of the technology and engineering companies started from 1995 to 2005," and surfaces that "Only 14% of Ohio's tech companies were founded by immigrants, well below the national average." "The study further found that Indians have founded more engineering and technology companies in the U .S. in the past decade than immigrants from U.K, China, Taiwan and Japan combined.  26% of all immigrant-founded companies have Indian founders." "Similarly, the study found that Ohio was successful in attracting only 1% of the Indian tech entrepreneurs and only 5% of the UK tech entrepreneurs." Richard offers three excellent suggestions for addressing this problem, and you should read those and his entire Economic Development Advisory and the attached report below.

 

Outline Proposal for Integration of Aquaculture (hydroponic /soil based organic vegetable <--> fish farm setup)

Introduction

 

Building blocks for bridging digital divide in East Cleveland 

In a recent article on bridging the digital divide in NEO, "It seems time to open up the OneCleveland network vision of Cleveland Heights, to see if there is value for others", I mentioned "An example of a progressive community building a mesh broadband network environment is found in Champaign-Urbana Community Wireless Network (CUWiN), which is a world- leader in such grass-roots broadband community service and technology. That is a model we are exploring in trying to help residents of underserved communities of East Cleveland and Cleveland secure access to broadband services, as carriers have underserved their neighborhoods, and poverty there is a significant issue."

Well, I was pleased to start the first work-day of 2007 with the correspondence posted below, from the Executive Director of CUWiN - globally celebrated community computing expert Sascha Meinrath - who is helping us center in on a viable model for East Cleveland and other undersupported urban neighborhoods in the region to bridge the digital divide here. Read on, as we are clearly on the right track and farther along than anyone may imagine. I'll add related insight and next steps as they develop.

 

This is too cool! I was exploring a site linked to realneo called Left Luggage, and came across a project created by Simon Fildes and Katrina McPherson as part of their hyperchoreography initiatives, described as "An interactive moving mosaic for the web." I can't recall any so engaging places on the web, where an individual creates a new art form - a dancing mosaic. I'll let words from the Ardnamurchan Zillij website describe this further, below, and strongly suggest you check it out - my first effort is shown in a screenshot above, but what I created was actually a living, moving work of art... each of the images that make up the mosaic are short video loops, so each of the images and the overall composition are constantly moving and changing - as a Flash file, I didn't know how to save it, so it was temporary and so personal... give it a try here.

 

 

Since late June, 2006, a growing team of innovative community leaders has been working together with Lamond Williams, the owner of Hot Sauce Williams BBQ, and East Cleveland Mayor Eric Brewer and Community Development Director Tim Goler, and government leadership in Cleveland, to determine how best to redevelop the historic Hough Bakery Complex, formerly the Star Bakery, which Lamond also owns. The objective is to use that redevelopment as a catalyst for transformation of the neighborhoods surrounding that significant property, located on Lakeview, partially in both Cleveland and East Cleveland. On the map above, the Star Complex is in magenta, and the green circle marks a 1/2 mile radius surrounding that - the other colored areas are key neighborhoods and assets within that radius.

The other day I saw, in The Cleveland Plain Dealer and Crain's Cleveland Business, an announcement Case University is funding OneCleveland to put wifi in some high density, affluent commercial and residential rental and home ownership cores of Cleveland Heights. Justifying the expenditure, from Crain's: “Part of the entry into Cleveland Heights is that it’s really an extended community of Case Western,” said OneCommunity chief operating officer Mark Ansboury, and Cleveland Heights law director John Gibbon said. “It’s designed primarily as a trial for the business district, but it certainly will hit a number of residences, as well.” From the PD: "Lewis Zipkin, a major Cleveland Heights landlord" is qouted saying: "It's going to be a terrific benefit for me, my properties and the community". If I were a Case student or trustee, SBC/AT&T, the Cable company or a person living in a less affluent community, I'd have serious concerns about all of this. In fact, as my wife is a Case Ph.D. student being assessed $100s a year by Case for a technology fee, which it now seems is going to Cleveland Heights, I guess I have a right to be concerned myself.

mandriva    fedora    ubuntu    debian    suse  

For the many people who read RealNEO you are, I am sure, aware that we use Linux not only on the servers, but also on the desktop.  In the past there have been a couple distributions used, however in the second quarter of 2006 the Ubuntu distribution was loaded and we have not looked back.

A friend sent me an interesting article on one way intelligence circles collect information on suspects... they download (or activate) software on cell phones that allows them to turn on the microphone of the cell phone, even when it appears to be shut off, and have the phone connect to them, making your cell phone a surveillance device against you. A BBC article from 2004 reported that intelligence agencies routinely employ the remote-activation method. "A mobile sitting on the desk of a politician or businessman can act as a powerful, undetectable bug."

Thanks to Brewed Fresh Daily, I checked out an article in the 12/03/06 New York Times magazine section online about "Open Source Spying", which is fascinating in many respects. While primarily an analysis of how top US security agencies are using web based tools like blogs and wikis to integrate intelligence information and sources within the secure environment of their shared role in protecting our "homeland", the observations on culture issues read true for how organizations within Northeast Ohio must look to technology, and the barriers still in place here preventing "open source" information and relationship sharing from having the transformational benefit possible. The problem in NEO is the "Iron Majors" and "Little Barons"... missing are the "officials at the very top... intrigued by the potential of a freewheeling, smart-mobbing intelligence community." Read some insightful paragraphs from the lengthy NYTimes analysis below:

On next Wednesday, December 6, 2006,  it will have been two years since I proposed to Northeast Ohio that we can easily and inexpensively bridge the digital divide for East Cleveland, and other communities in need in the region, by deploying mesh wifi networks here and distributing recycled computers running open source software (see original posting below, and linked with other related files here). I called this vision ECHO - originally "East Cleveland Homes Online", renamed "Extending Community Home Online". While I've driven some ECHO progress, over these years, especially deploying to people in need recycled computers running Ubuntu, the mesh is still to come. The time has come.

I don't usually choose to sit through interviews with Microsoft CEO Bill Gates, as I really don't like the enterprise, world or software he has helped create. But, Thanksgiving night he was interviewed by Charlie Rose and he often does a good job bringing interesting insight out of people, so I stayed tuned in. After the expected blah blah about Bill's foundation saving the world, etc., Charlie asked Bill what was the deal with Microsoft getting involved with Linux, and the response was revealing.

In a striking change of direction the USEPA has decided to regulate an ever growing part of consumer culture....  pesticides built into our products.

As you may have noticed you can get just about anything these days in "antibacterial" form.  Windex, socks, deodorant, zebart tidycar antibacterial car wash, hell even my keen sandals have "no odor footbeds" impregnated with what Ray Anderson CEO of Interface calls " Microbial Inhibitors".  Dont be fooled fellow citizens for the fancy terms used in place of the regulatoraly defined word pesticide.  That word, with all this organic food fan fair can cause negitive vibrations.... rightly so, maufacturers are shying away.

 

I've had many "chicken or egg" discussions about the digital divide with many people over many years. To some, the divide is about economics and access to technology and the Internet. To some, it is about environment and culture. To some it is about usability and functionality. I believe a person's position relative to the digital divide is influenced by all these factors, over time, influenced by personal capabilities, and I tend to view the challenges to be overcome to bridge the divide in about that order, starting with economics and access to technology and ending with functionality of technology, applications and information services. I'll point to my 19 month old tech native son Claes and some friends and family to explore this issue further. 

Panelists will discuss the current transformation and the future of news for traditional mainstream radio, television and print at noon on Thursday, November 30, 2006, at The City Club of Cleveland. Denise Polverine, editor-in-chief of cleveland.com, will serve as moderator for this first in a series of four programs.

Location

 

Over the past few months, Phillip Williams and I have been working with one of the world's most important art galleries, Material Matters Contemporary Glass Gallery, in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, to develop their virtual community. The site has been up for about a month now, and has generated lots of global traffic (and congratulations to the gallery on that), and this weekend the site really paid off, as we can attribute a first major sale of art by Material Matters to the fact the new website exists - the buyers (from Cleveland, as a matter of fact), saw two major works by an amazing Canadian glass artist they otherwise would not know, and they bought his only available work I know of in the world. The Canadian glass artist made money, the gallery made money, Phillip and I made money, and the collectors in Cleveland got two amazing works of art (for a great price), shown in their new NEO home above. This is just a small beginning for Material Matters' virtual community, which already represents the greatest glass artists of Canada, as they are in the process of going glocal in many important ways, in the process improving Toronto's Glocal arts economy. NEO arts leadership may learn more here...

The NY Times has caught on to what I've been proposing to NEO leaders for two years as a cluster for future economic and workforce development here (don't expect this story in the PD). Can we now show some common sense and give smart IT a try here - connecting social computing, artificial intelligence and cognitive science within our context of regional development... read on and read all the historical links throughout the TOPSOIL area of this site, and let's move on to be leaders in this important sector of the global economy.

 

Dozens of best practices to be learned in this posting... From the North Coast of Lake Ontario comes the following story of an entrepreneur for sustainability in Toronto who has found “There is no longer a paradigm conflict, Renewable energy doesn’t have to cost more”. This entrepreneur, Alex Winch, found his strategy for retrofitting a run-down Laundromat to solar has paid off... "He’s kept prices low—lower than his competition—while tripling revenues and charting an annual 10% rate of return on investment." I'm exploring working with Alex and Toronto-based glass and neon artist Alfred Engerer to use solar and perhaps wind to generate the electricity for a major off-the-grid, hand blown neon installation in Toronto, while, in the big picture, Mondial is looking to go public. As you'll read below, "Alex Winch puts his money where his mouth is and, these days, he laughs all the way to the bank." For all the attention leadership of this community puts on renewable energy, what do we really have to show in the community. Perhaps a NEO Solar Laundromat would be the best next step.

Steven Litt shared very exciting news today in the Plain Dealer - the Cleveland Museum of Contemporary Art (MoCA) has announced their choice of architect to design their relocated facility in University Circle, and the potential for something spectacular is astounding. The choice is Foreign Office Architects, of London, which Litt calls "one of the hottest young architecture firms in the world", and their portfolio shows some exciting designs from around the world (some examples posted above and below) - it seems the MoCA project will be their most important ever in the USA... they will be working with Cleveland's Westlake Reed Leskosky. Also mentioned in Litt's column, University Circle Incorporated seem to be making progress working with MRN, Ltd. (developers of E. 4th Street), and Zaremba, Inc., for remaining planning of the Triangle area, so a complete development picture for this important zone is coming into focus.

Last week, my lifelong Republican now Democratic parents told me there is a promising candidate for President in 2008. Barack Obama. They are entusiastic, and even gave me a Time Magazine about Barack. I hadn't had a chance to think too much about this until today, when I got an email from Barack encouraging my support for the Democratic ticket this year. So I went to his website, and saw something very positive about the man... "Since coming to Washington, Senator Obama has made the elimination of childhood lead poisoning one of his top priorities." Add to that, "Senator Obama has been a strong supporter of the Great Lakes Regional Collaboration and is a cosponsor of the Great Lakes Environmental Restoration Act (S. 508)" "He is a cosponsor of the Climate Stewardship and Innovation Act (S. 1151)"... etc.

Two weeks ago saw the second birthday of REALNEO. I started REALNEO in October, 2004, to provide “Regional Economic Action Links for North East Ohio” and implement for the region some exciting open source social networking technology. While the outcomes have not been entirely what I expected, and these years have in ways been rough, I've been thrilled to help drive and support some great developments in the community.

 “Even when it comes to a problem as big as global warming, doing Just One Thing can have an enormous, positive impact on our planet. For instance, replacing four light bulbs with compact fluorescent bulbs will keep a ton of carbon dioxide, the greenhouse gas that causes global warming, out of the air. And if everyone in the U.S. unplugged their electronics, such as TVs, computers, DVD players, and stereos when they're not using them, we'd prevent 18 million tons of carbon from being released into the atmosphere. Just One Thing is so easy--and so effective.”

Trick My Vote: Science, Intellectual Courage, and the Battle for America's Soul" is the topic of a free public lecture by Ken Miller, biologist at Brown University, expert witness at the Dover, PA "Panda Trial," and author of the book Finding Darwin's God. He will explain why every college student must vote. Program will be from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m., Thursday, October 26, in Ford Auditorium, Allen Memorial Medical Library. Visit /scholars/Events.htm for more information.

Location

Today, at WVIZ IdeaCenter, Ingenuity Festival founder and director James Levin hosted his peer Steve Dietz, director of a remarkable "sister" arts and technology festival ZeroOne San Jose, along with a group of NEO arts leaders, for intimate planning for the 3rd Ingenuity Festival, which will be held around Playhouse Square and Cleveland State University in 2007. James introduced the discussion by explaining he had been in San Jose last month for ZeroOne and is working with the organizers of that event in his brainstorming for our festival, which is one of the most exceptional of its type in the world. And, based on what was presented and discussed today with Steve Dietz, Ingenuity Festival is about to get much more exceptional... James is looking and partnering very globally and focused on strengthening the integration of "technology" into Ingenuity 2007. This was clearly a strength in the exciting artistic expressions of ZeroOne, as presented in an impressive overview by Dietz.