#4

Task Lamps in the Spotlight - New York Times -- I'm fascinated with lamps and light. Without good lighting, you have trouble living in the world of books, art, and ideas. With good lighting, the world opens up.

I also think that paying attention to having good lighting is important for maintaining our full functionality for as long as possible.

I think I really want #4, Richard Sapper’s Halley Compact lamp.

Jonathan Sheffer: a red couch floating in Lake Erie

I heard new sounds tonight. I didn't know you could do all those things with an orchestra. Jonathan Sheffer does.

You can still see That Red Guy tomorrow at 3. It was really quite good, and we bought the book, Cleveland in Prose and Poetry, on which the second part of the concert (a red couch floating in Lake Erie) is based.

As we left the Masonic Auditorium, one line from the concert continued to resonate: "Only when you leave, will you know where you were."

Great show.

a solid trend in Midtown

Crain's Cleveland Business--IT firm Calyx set to move--this is a solid trend we've seen a bit of lately, and it shows signs of ramping up. Midtown has the capacity and a good base of businesses already. See the Calyx blog at http://calyxllc.typepad.com/it_for_healthcare/

Calyx LLC, a provider of information technology services, plans to move its office from Lakewood to a larger space in Cleveland’s Midtown neighborhood this weekend.Calyx’s new office in the Mid-City Building, 3635 Perkins Ave., measures 4,000 square feet. The firm’s old location on Cliffdale Avenue in Lakewood was only about 1,000 square feet, said managing partner Jason Fordu.The three-person company needed space for computer equipment and new hires. Calyx plans to hire about five people in 2007, Mr. Fordu said. The group also wanted the office to be in the city.Calyx is leasing space at the building, which is owned by Rose Management Co.Mr. Fordu declined to release revenues of the 2-year-old company, but said Calyx already in 2007 has generated about half of last year’s revenue figure.“We see that trend continuing,” Mr. Fordu said.

Hunter Morrison unchained

Meet the Bloggers » Midtown Brews: Hunter Morrison--I first became acquainted with Hunter back in the late 1970s; I was recently arrived back in town from Atlanta, a newly minted Realtor with a focus on older properties, hanging out with all the young visionaries promoting Ohio City, downtown living at The Park & The Chesterfield, the reintegration of Hough, Clevelanders for 1,000 Families (Garrett Brodhead), adaptive reuse, and all the other cool things that were happening in Boston and Baltimore. Then, Hunter fell silent for a while, but now he's back, and he's speaking the truth, embellished only by a happy turn of phrase every now and then. This podcast of our February 1st sit over at Webtego's conference room is something we all must listen to, and then listen to again. There's history, hubris, and a glimpse of the future of the region.

Mentioned are his directorship at the Center for Regional Studies, David Sweet, Youngstown State, George McKelvey, the Hough Development Corporation and Kucinich, the planning award garnered by Youngstown 2010, "co-convening," the condition of Youngstown prior (peeling paint, bad attitude, and no place to go but up), Urban Strategies out of Toronto, and the vision statement of Youngstown, which entails the extraordinarily liberating effect of accepting that they're a shrunken, small city. There's also the I Will Shout Youngstown blog, the European experiences from Newcastle and from Dresden, and the idea of dying and reviving cities aligned with the idea of dying and reviving gods in our culture, along the lines of Sir James George Frazier's Golden Bough. I think that somewhere around here comes mention of the old Cleveland networks and David Hoag, Alton Whitehouse, and Joseph Gorman, and a distinction made between the old hierarchical and the new networked structures. Then come Jay Williams, Tim Ryan, Alvin Toffler, and phrases like "a buzz going on," "anomaly of the comeback city," "take the dreams and boil them down to the deals," "you've got to celebrate your successes," "megapolitan areas," "the commutership," and what happens when "the 'me' gets replaced by the 'we.'" He also talks of Jim Rouse and Faneuil Hall, Hope 6, the exploitative history of milltowns and the steel industry, black boxes, identity, Volney Rogers and the first metroparks, intrinsic value, the concept that "retail follows rooftops," values, authenticity, being very siloed and very parochial, and Tim Ryan's basic question of "Who are we collectively?"

There's incredible value in this podcast. There's also passion, concern, and a bit of outrage. This is one of the more significant offerings of the MTB "portfolio"--make sure you listen to it soon.

Linked In: from the NYT Dealbook

LinkedIn: Press Releases: LinkedIn Names New CEO--LinkedIn, a Web site that allows users to create online networks of business contacts, said Monday that it hired a new chief executive to replace Reid Hoffman, one of Silicon Valley's most active angel investors.
Go to Press Release from LinkedIn>>
Go to Article from CNet News.com>>
Go to Item from GigaOm>>
Go to Previous Item from DealBook>>

The Krum Kult [sic] of Personality

Last Thursday I mentioned we had a great day with Meet.The.Bloggers, and it started in the middle of the afternoon down at the Akron-Canton Airport (CAK) where we talked to two other bloggers, Fred Krum (View from 1228' at http://www.akroncantonairport.com/person2.htm) and Kristie Van Auken (It's a Trip at http://www.akroncantonairport.com/person1.htm). We met Kristie in September at the Akron Marketing Association presentation we gave on business blogging, and she said we just had to meet Fred, because he was a genius, and an early adapter, and could therefore understand implicitly what we were trying to do with MTB. She was right.

The podcast of the interview will be posted soon, but I wanted to alert you to it, and how Fred began years ago to combat the rap that CAK was a place to find "small planes, high fares, going nowheres." We sat in a newly revamped terminal that just felt good, and found out about the values available from carriers such as AirTran and Frontier, and the great fares to great places like New York City, Boston, Atlanta, Orlando, Tampa, Fort Lauderdale, and Fort Myers. Fred focuses his staff on providing a "great experience" replicating best practices, and partnering with the best that there is. He is clever and raised by Jesuits and uses phrases such as "a charisma bypass" alongside sayings such as "the only thing that brings freedom is discipline." He points to the fact that CAK may be a market-maker for low-priced fares in this region, and that it has "made commuting possible" between this area and Florida, and perhaps even NYC. One CAK early innovation is something sensible they call "the cell phone lot." Gloria uses the phrase/slogan "a better way to be best," and we go on to the fact that CAK is an extension of the Akron/Canton Chamber of Commerce and does some heavy local advertising promotion, unlike Hopkins where we get all the national ad things we see everywhere else we go. The CAK brand is also its philosophy ("A Better Way To Go"), and they acknowledge that the first rule of leadership is "You gotta get excited." There's no doubt that free wifi is one of the first things to implement in a place that wants to attract and serve the public, and the session wraps with reiteration of the first rule of life: "You gotta know what you want and then go after it."

This session is a short course in leadership, service, public relations, and promotions, all integrated and timely and on time, too.

Our next stop that evening was at Midtown Brews, hosted by Jeff Fridman and Webtego, to talk to Hunter Morrison. And speaking of brews, CAK has Great Lakes Brewing Company as a showcased, featured business partner & vendor.

the day the music died

My friend Jay up in Boston just informed me that I missed a lick this past Saturday in not observing a moment of silence for an event that occurred on February 3rd back in 1959, The Day the Music Died. Join with me now as we remember, or at least commemmorate, three wild guys with a vision and a purpose.

if you get to talk about the money, you get to talk about everything

George has the podcast posted for the Jim Rokakis session last Wednesday, and Gloria, Jeff/Yellow Dog Sammy, and Wendell, and George, too, have already brought forth commentary to bear on the content and spirit of the talk we had. I think it's one of the better ones thus far, over the year and a half that MTB's been in play, but it can be argued that I'm biased, so you be the judge.

One of my favorite parts is where Jim recounts his running for county treasurer and getting comments from other politicians about why he'd ever want to have that job, where you only dealt with money. Jim's take is that, if you get to talk about the money, you get to talk about everything, and he does. Enjoy.

Rev. Robert Drinan, former head of BC Law, dies at 86

Congressman priest dies at 86 - Politics - MSNBC.com--Here's a story about one of those Jesuits who helped change the community dialogue and form our nascent social consciousness in Boston in the '60s. It's priests like him, on the front lines, who lent their ideas and influence to the movement that helped form such tax-credit-oriented development firms as Boston Capital and The Community Builders. Here's the middle of the article:

An internationally known human-rights advocate, Drinan was elected on an anti-war platform and represented Massachusetts in the U.S. House for 10 years during the turbulent 1970s.

He stepped down only after a worldwide directive from Pope John Paul II barring priests from holding public office.

During his Congressional tenure, Drinan continued to dress in the robes of his clerical order and lived in a simple room in the Jesuit community at Georgetown.

But he wore his liberal views more prominently. He opposed the draft, worked to abolish mandatory retirement and raised eyebrows with his more moderate views on abortion and birth control.

“Father Drinan’s commitment to human rights and justice will have a lasting legacy here at Georgetown University and across the globe,” said Georgetown President John J. Degioia.

“Few have accomplished as much as Father Drinan and fewer still have done so much to make the world a better place,” said Alex Aleinikoff, dean of the George University Law Center.

Drinan, dean of the Boston College Law School from 1956 to 1970, called for the desegregation of Boston public schools during the 1960s and challenged Boston College students to become involved in civil rights issues.

“He’ll be remembered in the country for his advocacy for the poor and underprivileged,” said John Garvey, the Boston law school’s current dean.

noosphere vs. cyberspace

Noosphere - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia--I'd noticed in grazing through Chris Corrigan's material that he has a fondness for the term "noosphere," as did Teilhard de Chardin. The wikipedia entry is a good place to start on a refresher, or an introduction, as the case may be. I find it comforting to find people who have similar ideas on their back burners.

The noosphere can be seen as the "sphere of human thought" being derived from the Greek νους ("nous") meaning "mind" in the style of "atmosphere" and "biosphere". In the original theory of Vernadsky, the noosphere is the third in a succession of phases of development of the Earth, after the geosphere (inanimate matter) and the biosphere (biological life). Just as the emergence of life fundamentally transformed the geosphere, the emergence of human cognition fundamentally transforms the biosphere. In contrast to the conceptions of the Gaia theorists, or the promoters of cyberspace, Vernadsky's noosphere emerges at the point where humankind, through the mastery of nuclear processes, begins to create resources through the transmutation of elements.
The word is also sometimes used to refer to a transhuman consciousness emerging from the interactions of human minds. This is the view proposed by the theologian Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, who added that the noosphere is evolving towards an ever greater integration, culminating in the Omega Point—which he saw as the ultimate goal of history. The noosphere concept of 'unification' was elaborated in popular science fiction by Julian May in the Galactic Milieu Series. (more)

through George, through Chris Corrigan: Art Of Hosting - The Principles

Art Of Hosting - The Principles--Here's a killer blogsite that came to my attention through George Nemeth and through Chris Corrigan, whom George has linked to a bit lately. Maybe I'm just dazzled or starstruck with all the new awarenesses or consciousnesses that are popping up out there, but here's another really good one, one that frames the practice as "hosting," and all of them seem to somehow be speaking in the same voice, or singing the same tune.

Robert Anton Wilson: never rule out any possibility

The Blog Paul Krassner: Literary Loss The Huffington Post from Paul Krassner, on the death of Robert Anton Wilson: In 1964, I ran another front-cover story by him, "Timothy Leary and His Psychological H-Bomb," which began: "The future may decide that the two greatest thinkers of the 20th Century were Albert Einstein, who showed how to create atomic fission in the physical world, and Timothy Leary, who showed how to create atomic fission in the psychological world. The latter discovery may be more important than the former; there are some reasons for thinking that it was made necessary by the former....Leary may have shown how our habits of thought can be changed...."

And from The New York TIMES:

Mr. Wilson contended that people should never rule out any possibility, including that lasagna might fly. On Jan. 6, in his last post on his personal blog, he wrote: “I don’t see how to take death seriously. I look forward without dogmatic optimism, but without dread. I love you all and I deeply implore you to keep the lasagna flying.”

Two good articles about a fascinating fellow help to begin to put our culture into perspective, finally. Tune in.