CHANGE OF CONTACT INFORMATION FOR WENDELL ROBINSON

Our friend Wendell Robinson has a new business identity and contact info, as noted below. Wendell first met us through an interview for Meet.The.Bloggers when he ran against Jimmy Duh for county commissioner. Wendell was right in a lot of ways, and he ran a good blog.

 

Beyond the global nature of the medium, the blogging connection has also been local for me.  Without the encouragement and support of my friends in the Meet the Bloggers network, I would never have conquered the code and process that makes blogging a great people-powered platform (by the way if you haven’t done it, you really should scroll down the list of podcasts over at the MTB site - it’s a monument for what a REAL oral history is all about).  I would be remiss when writing about local bloggers if I didn’t single out the blogopimp of Northeast Ohio, George Nemeth, and his place over at Brewed Fresh Daily.  George has been brewing up a fine pot over the last few years and without his incessant percolation, this page would have been significantly less.

 

From: Wendell Robinson [mailto:Wendell_Robinson_rgsvwzz@cmpgnr.com]
Sent: Friday, February 27, 2009 1:34 PM
To: TAFerris@gmail.com
Subject: CHANGE OF CONTACT INFORMATION FOR WENDELL ROBINSON

 

WENDELL HAS A NEW EMAIL ADDRESS, PHONE NUMBER AND... A NEW VENTURE Dear Tim - I hope this email finds you well as I prepare to take a new and substantial step in my professional life. You may know I have devoted the majority of my work time the last two years to a partnership with Bobby George and Chris Cole in helping them develop the sports marketing and management firm - ColeGeorge Sports. As last year came to a close, it became apparent that our team was heading in separate directions (Bobby actively building his restaurant group, Chris doing more direct work with college programs and me focusing on political projects, event management and marketing activities). While our organization made some strides (working with athletes like Brady Quinn, Braylon Edwards and Troy Smith has been an unbelievable experience), I felt the time had come for me to leave the company's Managing Partner role and pursue opportunities more in congruence with my goals and interests. And while I will not be working with Bobby or Chris directly in the immediate future, I will continue in a project management capacity with one of the George family's other entities on a political project. The result of this transition is the formation of my new firm - The Victory Box, LLC. Even though The Victory Box is a new venture, in many ways it will be an extension of the work I've been doing for the last few years - focusing on the needs of our clients to help them maximize their success. Please do not hesitate to contact me (as you will see I've got a new phone number and email address) should you have any questions, comments or simply want to re-connect. I look forward to speaking with you in the near future. Cheers, Wendell Wendell W. Robinson, Jr. The Victory Box, LLC Email: W@TheVictoryBox.com Direct Dial: (216) 333-3322 The Victory Box "exceptional solutions for extraordinary people and exclusive projects"

Bus.The.Bloggers road trip

SENT VIA EMAIL

Dear Blogger Pals--

Would you believe that nobody has stepped forth to write a check for $50,000 to send a busload of bloggers and community-dialoguers from Cleveland to Akron to Columbus to Cincinnati to DC and back again?

Can you even begin to imagine that nobody as yet wants to sponsor an exercise to bind Ohio together, in wholly public discourse, from the road and from the capital and then from the road again, over 4 wired and connected days from January 18-21? To have the content posted forever on the internet as blogs and tweets and podcasts and videos? To usher in the new intergenerational Woodstock on wheels?

I offered the Greater Cleveland Partnership the opportunity to write a half-check for $25,000 to send us on a one-way trip and not come back--something I thought they might snap up-- but nobody got back to me.

My rolodex was out of date when it came to calling Mike White down there with the alpacas or the llamas, so I called around and found everybody else had trouble reaching him, too. I was hoping he would be able to make the call to Sam Miller so that Sam could get behind the "participatory democracy" he holds so dear.

I tried to get a news operation to partner with us by sending along embedded journalists; the blog-based Huffington Post didn't seem to understand, and one of their blogger/journalists, Paul Krassner, is still too bunged up from a 70s police beating to put in 4 days on the road (Paul knew Magic Bus people like Ken Kesey and Wavy Gravy and is a piece of walking/limping history himself). I was going to try to embed Dick Feagler, recently available, I hear, because of his prior successes at interfacing with the blogosphere, but I didn't want to ask him outright until I had the trip paid for.

I've established a couple of things, or a few:

--Nobody who wants to ride the bus has enough money to carry the whole thing off, and doesn't know anybody who could help at the last minute

--There are no civic-minded sugar daddies out there who specialize in making seminal events happen, at least not among our contacts

--There may be more than one way to skin a cat.

Therefore, it's now time for all of you who think that the Blogger Bus needs to roll out of here tomorrow to begin to ASK SOMEBODY TO GIVE US A BUS FOR 4 DAYS. Dan Gilbert over at the Cavs might have one, or the Dolans may have one that's not being used next week, or the Browns organization may have one that needs to be exorcised by having joyous riders for a change.

After somebody gives you the bus, then ask them where's the food going to come from? Then, ask to borrow their air card. It's simple. Like back in the days when everybody went to San Francisco.

Hey, I've blogged this a bit at--

http://timferris.blogspot.com/2009/01/january-18-21-blogging-from-bus.html

--and I've Facebooked it at--

http://apps.facebook.com/causes/192544?m=49f3b4f1

I've asked some of our politicians, but some were immobilized by fear of conflicts and others thought that, if this were a proper thing to do, their brilliant Washington staff would have already told them about it.

Gloria this morning told me to leave this whole thing alone, that people would start thinking I was crazy, and I thought, "Yeah. So what else is new?"

It's been fun. Call me or email me or tweet me when you get a bus, or a check for food for 40 people for 4 days, or blog it or make a video and stick it up on U-Tube, or even call WKYC or the PD first--I don't care. What I do know is that we can fill the bus in a heartbeat, create a heck of a lot of good will, create great content and post it for time immemorial to the internet, and bring three generations together on a very favorable basis, conducive to telling stories that need to be told and tales that need to be kept in the public consciousness.

I'm going to the market now, before it closes. I have no Plan B yet. I still have faith in Plan A's being executed by a group of bloggers and other people of good will on a bus, somehow, so open-source it and see what happens.

Tim Ferris
taferris@gmail.com
216-255-6640
http://timferris.blogspot.com