NEO Next: Chapter One "The Changing Landscape of Public Advocacy: Citizen-Community Priorities and Web 2.0"

Posted by Betsey Merkel.

Public Categorized as Brainpower, Branding Stories, Meeting Notes, Multimedia, Process and Quality places.

Tagged with advocacy, community development, economic development, enterprise collaboration, futuring, live show, networks, open conversations, policy, regional economic development and web 2.0.

It's as if we're writing the Book of the Future in Northeast Ohio. Is it "NEO Next"...?

I think you'll find the transcription of the Oct 2 Midtown Brews conversation (below) reads like a familiar, good book. It's got all the makings of our future in this first chapter describing our finest regional asset: Brainpower.

As you read the Chapter, you'll come across information you might have missed in the live gathering, or simply forgotten. This individual and collective Midtown Brews "community think" describes the breadth and diversity of Northeast Ohio leadership. Like a lighthouse in a storm, Midtown Brews open conversations allow us to continuously adjust to change as we move forward - not loosing sight of land and staying connected.

The story begins with the citizen-community advocates who participated Oct 2 and, in their own words, describe what they're passionate about and where they see the new opportunities. A good first next step toward what we at I-Open refer to as, Strategic Doing.jpg (27.4 KB) - moving individual ideas to action.

We're beginning to see Strategic Doing emerge now across the U.S. Citizens are gathering together to build their networks, leverage assets, and get to scale to make change. With our partners, I-Open, is teaching people new skills and technologies for building networks. Here are some communities you can participate in to build your networks:

Bioscience Regions
Economic Gardening Economies
Energy Regions - featuring A 100-Day Energy Action Plan for the 44th President of the US by Charles Cox, Council of Competitiveness
Innovating Networks - a national innovation network
Map the Mess - a "watering hole" for citizens who want to improve Cuyahoga County
TDL Regions - Transportation Distribution and Logistics
WIRED-Nation - education, economic and workforce development

Looking to the months ahead, we'll focus on Strategic Doing to strengthen our community, identify assets and align to move forward together with:

Coaching and training
Web 2.0
Social network mapping
Asset mapping
Your projects

Thanks for your time and efforts. More soon. Note: if you were an Oct 2 participate, look for your part in the transcription and if you see "[xx]" add your edits/corrections to the Comment tool below for the final copy. Questions? Contact Betsey Merkel.

Midtown Brews Oct 2, 2008

"The Changing Landscape of Public Advocacy: Citizen-Community Priorities and Web 2.0"

We're joined on chat by Matt Bernius, Rochester Institute of Technology and the Social Media Lab; and by June Holley, Network Weaving.

Audio Tape No 1 (105.4 MB)(105.4 MB)

Gloria Ferris: [introduction…] Jeff Friedman shares the hosting duties of Midtown Brews along with Andy Halko (Insivia). Andy is here and also in charge of online chat. We have really moved forward into video and online chat to get the conversation out to more people. I would like to thank Bill MacDermott for reminding us about our two-year anniversary; I hope you will be sure to get some cake. As one of the parents of Midtown Brews, I would like to have Susan (Altshuler) share the words of Michael DeAloia who was our first guest at Midtown Brews and he has actually been here at least one other time – and will be coming again in March 2009. Once a year Michael does a conversation with us.

Susan Altshuler: Michael said he is sorry he cannot be with us here tonight, but he wanted someone to read what he had to say: “I was always humbled by the fact that I was the initial speaker at Midtown Brews. I remember it as a sunny, beautiful day that I got to share with 30 or so people talking about things that I and the crowd love – the City of Cleveland, technology, people, economic development and of course beer. I cannot think of a better forum for the good people of Cleveland to meet with people making a difference in such a wonderfully casual atmosphere. I believe the more comfortable someone is around a group the more they will talk and cajole and argue and debate and offer insight that we rarely get to see. Happy Birthday Midtown Brews! And please a good, hearty toast to the city we all make it happen in…. a toast to Cleveland.” (Applause)

Gloria Ferris: before we start our conversation tonight, I want to have Dennis (Coughlin) who is one of the parents of Midtown Brews – I-Open is the parent – and Dennis is speechless? – Dennis is going to tell us a few words about I-Open and why Midtown Brews is an important part of Cleveland.

Dennis Coughlin: I’m Dennis Coughlin and I am one of the Directors of The Institute for Open Economic Networks, or I-Open, and we started in 2005 when we left Case Western Reserve University and we encourage civic engagement for economic development for Cleveland has a problem with getting people to talk to one another, be collaborative and share Brainpower to develop Quality, Connected Places…just nice places for people to sit down and talk to each other and share good feelings about what works and what doesn’t work. Shortly after we began in Midtown and started Midtown Mornings which was every Friday morning with coffee and bagels and it was with people in the Midtown area sharing their thoughts about what was going on in Midtown and St Clair-Superior and out of that grew Midtown Brews which is collaborative conversations sharing Brainpower…it’s wonderful being a parent and like a parent, you can’t tell anyone what to do, just sort of give them the best you can and let them grow.

Gloria Ferris: Okay, then, thank you for a great lead-in. Tonight we’re going to discuss advocacy and you are probably wondering why it is me and not George here tonight...I asked George to be on the other side of the table tonight because he is one of the – well, maybe not the, social media gurus of Cleveland because he is always on the cutting edge of what is new in that development, he shares it freely with people and I believe that when you ask questions tonight he will have suggestions for you about how you can optimize what we all do. That is what I would like to see…our conversation tonight is about advocacy. All of you came here for one thing or another, some of you were invited to share what you do in advocacy and others came on your own volition because you thought it was something you wanted to become more involved in or you are and we didn’t know about you. So what I would like to do is truly have a conversation and this may be difficult given so many of you. We started in a circle and kind of pushed out, but I would ask each one of you why you think advocacy is important and what you do in your life as an advocate or if you are just starting as an advocate – share with us and share what you want you have about a minute and then we’ll have open conversation, please ask questions and let’s just get started. George, I am going to ask you, I know you are a wonderful advocate for a lot of things …

My name is George Nemeth and I think my claim to fame is starting a blog called “Brewed Fresh Daily” since then I have started a bunch of other things. It’s funny; I don’t think I ever considered myself an advocate, although I guess I tend to have [xxx] people. Brewed Fresh Daily really started out of a passion and interest in stuff that’s going on here in Cleveland, the good news, the bad news, and I really wanted to invite participation, I didn’t want it to be my blog, I wanted it to be a community blog and so I worked a lot doing that.

Gloria Ferris: That’s great. Jon?

Jon Eckerle: My name’s Jon Eckerle and I think wondering around the City of Cleveland and what I have been trying to do, is I see a lot of wonderful ideas and what I’m advocating for is a structure to express them…those ideas. To share those ideas is to interconnect people like yourselves and all your friends in all aspects of the community in one piece of software; one communication vehicle and I have been working on the Observer Project on that.

Gloria Ferris: That’s a good segue to Ken Warren…

I’m Ken Warren, I’m Director of Lakewood Public Library and my advocacy begins with the library as a platform for increasing the level of resourcefulness in the individual and in the community. And in attempting to advance my advocacy and my own agency as a Public Library Director, I realized that in Lakewood we were not able to achieve that force of advocacy through the present existing community channels. I got involved with the Lakewood Observer. So, my advocacy involves the public space of the Library, the advocacy for story, the advocacy for place making, the advocacy of community and ultimately, you start to move into the psycho-demographic terrain of a community’s psyche in that process, Having been at the project and the interface of Public Library and civic journalism now for about four years, the psychological dimensions of that experience right now are the ones that I think most interesting. So, the advocacy level of a dream, demon, psyche, unconscious, and ego are all part of the mix that I think a sophisticated perspective on advocacy will need to take into account.

Jim O’Bryan, Lakewood Observer, and my part of advocacy I would say is creating a platform that empowers people to achieve their dreams and go farther. We’ve created a software package that allows you to take an idea, shepherd that idea through to both the power of print media and online media with the financial backing of the stores in the neighborhood to create what we call community building software across all platforms. We reach out to non profits, commercial groups, students, just about everything and allow them to have a crack at something most people can’t afford to do which is publish a paper and get the [xxx]

Marnie Urso: I’m Marnie Urso and I work with Audubon Ohio. I am, right now I work to basically train people how to become advocates around Great Lakes restoration policies and global warming policies…

Audio Tape No 2 (96.6 MB (96.6 MB)

Marnie Urso: (continued) [break in tape] …non profit environmental organization and sort of being segue between someone new and really cares about something and giving them the opportunity to do something to make a difference policy-wise.

My name’s Ed Hauser. I started this about ten years ago (working to save Whiskey Island as a green quality, connected public place). My background is computer process control engineering and I went to my first meeting the first public process ten years ago. I saw the processes were broken. Ten years later it’s getting worse and worse in Northeast Ohio community. We have the Port Authority who wanted, is taking over the Lakefront. We went through this Three Year Plan with Mayor Campbell and that’s in the garbage can, we spent all this time and money and now we’re doing it again. What I focus on, I have my opinions about what is important in this community…but I follow how the government and the business community run the processes here to develop our community. And it’s broken – completely broken. And that is what my mission is, as I tell my story, but along the way I try to inform everybody we need to do things differently but we’re going to continue to fail, we’re a failing city and if we don’t change things and people don’t get involved and really dog our public officials and leaders, we’re going to continue to fail, because the processes are broken.

Gloria Ferris: Marc?

Marc Lefkowitz: Ah, that’s a tough act to follow (laughter from the room). I’m Marc Lefkowitz; I’m the web editor for Green City Blue Lake, which is a new Institute within the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, formerly known as EcoCity Cleveland. My background is a journalist. I switched over to writing in an advocacy mode a few years ago; talking about the general topic we call sustainability. And, what we’re interested in advocating around how do we transform every aspect of our society to meet the greatest challenges of today? At the top of the list would be global climate change. That being said, I’m very interested and I am here today to figure out how all of us can work together and toward a common purpose because we have a lot of energy and we’re all sort of all going in the same direction. So, I’m very interested in seeing how we can recapture some of that energy that has worked within the blogging community to actually facilitate some conversation…which is beginning about advocacy, and following a topic through…filling in those gaps where the traditional mainstream media hasn’t. That’s where I hope we get to this evening.

Gloria Ferris: I do too, Marc. Let’s all keep that thought in mind.

I’m Michael Lehto, and I’m…my background is as an artist and designer and I’ve worked with Marc and Ed before in different kind of sustainability projects. What I’m really here tonight is wearing the hat of faculty member of the Cleveland Institute of Art. Wondering how we can get the Institute not only in the 20th Century, but in the 21st Century and bringing creativity and design to the things that this City has a lot of potential there for the energy that that school has that is completely untapped.

Gloria Ferris: That’s great. That’s great.

Sean Gesing: I’m Sean Gesing and I’m relatively new to the concept of advocacy so hopefully…I’m a college student by the way at Lorain County Community College. So hopefully some of the knowledge I gain here tonight I can take back and act in some shape or form on my campus.

Gloria Ferris: Bill?

Bill MacDermott: I usually introduce myself as a Midtown Brews groupie and an I-Open groupie. I blog on REALNEO, I am interested in solar and wind, and was one of the space ship earth people back in the 70’s, I was afraid we might pass up this planet. I’d have rather have been wrong. So, but I’m into all sustainability things and need to promote… lest I get carried away and make a fool of myself, tonight I am promoting the Solar Tour and I will actually be on it with Green Energy Ohio. It’s a chance – it’s this weekend – so it’s a chance for people to come and see things people are doing, trying to be more sustainable – solar, wind, green houses – there is a straw bale house, this is just one of the tours. But, there are a bunch on the Green Energy Ohio website if anyone is interested in their local area. And this a part of the National Solar Energy Society one so anybody who is out there in radio land can go to the American Solar Energy website and maybe find a solar energy tour in their area which is pretty neat.

Gloria Ferris: Stefanie?

I’m Stefanie Spear; I’m founder and executive director of Earth Watch Ohio. Our newspaper’s current issue just came out yesterday (and there are some copies in the front). The mission of Earth Watch Ohio is to educate citizens about current issues and sustainable practices people can use in their everyday lives. Virtually, the publication calls for a sustainability movement across our state. So, we’re working on providing solution based sustainable projects in our publication, so that people can learn 1) how to get involved and 2) they can use those sustainable projects as a model they can implement in their own community. Another project of Earth Watch Ohio is we’re working to expedite the renewable energy future of our region. We’re doing this in a lot of different types of projects. We now have an energy issue button on our web site so you can check that out. So that is one of my passions now, is to try to get us off of coal and onto re-newables. But, I really feel that there is so much work to be done and we need to engage with everyday individuals throughout our state and our community to encourage them to get involved as well.

Gloria Ferris: Is that Eric back there?

I’m Eric Purcell and I’m with Insivia, I’m one of Andy’s little worker bees here, as an advocate here in Cleveland I am also on the Board of Directors for Cleveland’s professional 20/30 Club. So, I’ve been a long time advocate of all things great in Cleveland and attract and retain the talent. The great people we have in Cleveland and showing them what we have to offer. I’m kind of here tonight as a learning experience as well as to learn a little bit more about the environment. I’d also add thanks to hear your thoughts – maybe I can take some of those things back with me to my membership amongst the 20/30 Club and share with them and [xx] even further out of Cleveland.

Gloria Ferris: Jim?

Yes, my name’s Jim Herget, I’m an entrepreneur in Midtown and also a physical fitness nut, I’ll be on Medicare next year when I turn sixty-five and my main interest in advocacy is repurposing of life for those individuals over sixty years old – we’re de-marginalizing people over sixty. So, we’re sons of the sixties…sons and daughters of the sixties and we’re still as cantankerous as ever and working with Gloria and Tim and a fella whose not here, on a project to…the re-purposing of life after sixty, re-engaging, staying engaged and staying in shape physically and mentally. Our initiative is called “Act Three” and that means 0 to thirty you’re Act One, and thirty to sixty is Act Two [xxx] and Thirty to Sixty you try to raise a family and after sixty is “My time.” It’s time for me to do what I want to do and re-engage and re-purpose and drive forward. We’re all going to live to – if Dr. [xx] is right, we’re all going to live to be one hundred, we’ve got forty years…can’t hang it up. Got to do something. Make contributions.

Gloria Ferris: Julie?

My name is Julie Morris and I am here with Jim. I am a CIA graduate and a CWRU graduate. So, perhaps I can contribute some way.

Audio Tape No 3 (99.3 MB)(99.3 MB)

Jeff Schuler: Also a son of the 60’s and a member of the space ship earth, and on a solar tour. I’m trying to figure out how I do that advocate thing. When I first moved to Cleveland [xxx] information technology and I was interested in those technologies. There is a little more I have to find out about that and so now I’m looking to see how I can use those technologies to put in combination with other things of my own: environment, arts, social justice, etc, but really for to fix a lot of the broken things we see here and how that can empower and give voice to people here who don’t have voice or maintain the new medias that are coming out for the use of everyone. Right now I’m happy to be working with the folks at REALNEO and trying to keep that moving along.

Hi, I’m Susan Miller and I started here with a lot of you… really just thought I’ve known David Beach since our children were small and I don’t know sometimes it gets out of hand and then other times it really fades into the background, but I’m in between dreams, I spent thirty years working in the arts in Northeast Ohio which is…the scars on my forehead have cleared up…but trying to figure out what is next. So, its not quite Act Three based on your calculations but it’s Act Three for me. But I don’t know how the stage is set…

Gloria Ferris: Well, set it yourself…

Hi, I’m Rich Brhel, I’m Library Director at Myers University, now Chancellor University and my interest is in open access to information and as a librarian, I also say I am here to learn about advocacy.

Hi, I’m Laura Wright and I work here at Insivia and actually I would say I am by and large and advocate of good design. I don’t know if people have seen ballots in the last ten years or so, but I think there’s a little example there about presenting information clearly and really empower people to make informed decisions when they’re learning or deciding and also, I think they can make them beautiful to [xxx] joy…

Evan Wilhelms: I suppose you could say I’m an advocate for the Commons – both Creative Commons and Natural Resource Commons – but I guess you might also just say I’m a Midtown Brews groupie.

I’m Toni Chanakas and I’m a designer agreeing with design…I post things on Brewed Fresh Daily, so I’m kind of new advocacy, but I’m passionate about the City and sustainability and to do all that we can do about our City.

Bruce Missig, my advocacy is just teaching people simple little ways to make simple little changes to enhance our environment – simple little things, you don’t need … each person can make a small contribution to help change our environment.

Suzie Wernet: I’m an advocate here for Bruce and Shaklee – to enhance the environment, protect the environment [xxx]

Hi, I’m Tim Ferris; I’ve been married to Gloria for a long time. I profess to be a planner, but for the last few years, as soon as we met George, we just quit everything and started work on Meet The Bloggers and, because we realized there were a lot of things undone in the City. [xxx] And everybody that we talked to had a good piece of the solution and they knew pretty much how to fix it and as a group they definitely knew how to fix it. So, working with Meet The Bloggers for a couple of years we did surface some of the things. And my whole goal, from a professional viewpoint is to integrate concepts with the government, the economy, with assets so we have healthy communities, healthy lifestyles…because it’s just not financial planning any more, its life planning, it takes a conservation, preservation, sustainability, green – it’s the whole nine yards.

I’m Lee Chilcote; I work at Progressive Urban Real Estate, which is an advocate for urban living in the City’s neighborhoods. I’m also involved in Cleveland Collectivo which is a grass roots giving circle and we’re really an advocate of getting people involved and changing the City and supporting projects to change the City.

I’m Mary Holmes and I’m an advocate somewhat by accident because when I moved here in 1990, I was looking for a farmer’s market and no success in finding one and ended up starting one in Shaker Square – I hope you have all visited it – but that’s been a life changing simple solution for me because now I am a local food advocate now that I understand [xx] food comes from and its impact on our economy in Ohio. So, I am just about to launch a blog, so I am very interested to hear from George how to engage people and how to get them …it’s called “Bounty of the Western Reserve.” The goal is to help people understand what the resources are we have her.

I’m Scott Sanders, I’m Executive Director of the Earth Day Coalition in Cleveland – we work on a variety of programs: transportation, student leadership programs in the high schools, neighborhood and environmental justice issues [xx] and we’re also involved in Dike 14 Preserve [xx] and I guess on a personal level I’m very interested in all things sustainability and beyond that, exploring what it means to do regenerative design – as opposed to just sustainable design… I think that is kind of the next step, taking a holistic view in a sense of place [xx]

Hi, I’m Susan Altshuler and I’m with I-Open and I’m very passionate about the work that we do, as I am sure my colleagues would agree with me. We feel that our work is so important for moving forward to getting people to be able to get their ideas out and into projects and to be successful for anything they would like to do. I feel that we provide the neutral, open spaces where people can come in, feel comfortable, build trust, and meet people, make the right connections they need to move forward. And also to see that there is some hope that they can move forward and that the doors are not always closed to them. And I also personally believe in legacy building, what am I leaving to my children and my grandchildren?

Audio Tape No 4 (92.8 MB)(92.8 MB)

Hi, I’m MaryBeth Matthews. I’m an advocate for about 54,000 public school students...I’m a teacher, I teach at Max Hayes High School, I’ve been writing a blog about my experience as a teacher in Cleveland called, “Street Smart” – what I’m for? I’m for students and for kids…remembering that the money should go to students and that the schools are not about the teachers, they’re not about the buildings, they’re not about [xx] they’re about the kids. I’m an advocate to make sure that the kids come first. My experiences of almost thirty years of teaching…the kids…even though you get a lot of lip service…

Good evening, my name is Peter McDermott. I work at Entrepreneurs for Sustainability, and I’m an advocate for what’s possible, I guess; specifically for building a sustainable, regional economy and the culture that goes along with that. One of the things that I’m personally and professionally interested in is how online social spaces can really increase the connection to national [xx] to the people nationally who are working to build this new economy. And so my particular interests lies, like Mary in local food systems, and I recently started an online social network called, “Local Food Cleveland” that’s kind of an experiment as to how are we going to start to shift the energy around Web 2.0 only being sort of personal networks, to be purpose driven? And how are we really going to get to action on what it is [xx] and so, I am about this idea of what is possible. That’s what I think.

Gloria Ferris: Valdis?

Hi, I’m Valdis Krebs, I run a small organization called Orgnet.com that provides software, consulting and training in networks…in human networks…are popularly known today as “social networks”…and I’m interesting in advocating an activity in Cleveland and I’m glad to see situations like this and Blogs like Brewed Fresh Daily and other events…E4S is probably one of the best networking organizations in this whole area, if not in all Ohio, so I’m glad to see organizations like that connecting others and we all get stronger [xx]…

George Nemeth: I think June Holley might have something to say about that…

Valdis Krebs: Well…I’ve seen both and I vote for the one I said.

Gloria Ferris: John?

Hello everybody, my name is John McGovern. Nice to see you all…I’m a professional advocate actually, I work for the Earth Day Coalition that Scott was talking about a few people before me, I run the Clean Transportation Program and what I do is I educate and advocate fleet managers to help do away with petroleum based fuels. Sometimes those adoptions are renewable and sometimes not, there are a host of cleaner options out there.

Gloria Ferris: And you’re also a member of Cleveland Collectivo, right?

John McGovern: Yes, I really thought we just supposed to say what we’re advocating for. (Room laughter…) I just wanted to keep it under a minute.

Gloria Ferris: I can’t see who is next to you…is that Steve?

Steve FitzGerald: Sticking with the theme, advocacy…I’m really not doing a lot of advocating lately, I’ve been facilitating. I’m a professional consultant in the areas of community building both geographic and profession. I have a lot of experience in advocacy and [xx] public relations and lobbying efforts for a Union and that was interested in making progress in Washington, DC for legislation to make things safer in the workplace as well as for the public, health care as well and we were successful in reaching our goals…and from there I went to advocate for the City of Lakewood – being their community relations official and advocating for what should have been public policy…from there I went to United Way and advocated to get into your pockets to support 333 partnered agencies in the Greater Cleveland area…and from there on, and for the last eight years…trying to wrap this up…about eight years ago I started a community relations experiment [xx] City of Lakewood called “ClevelandBuzz.com” – that is still going strong and growing [xx] everyday…about three people everyday, so that’s pretty cool. I also started a non-profit news wire and I also publish Roldo Bartimole…the easy URL for that is ReadRoldo.com. So, lately, I’ve given up my blog, or the Plain Dealer gave up my blog…I did that for four years on Cleveland.com, and I was telling George earlier that I’m looking forward to 2009 when maybe my New Year’s resolution will be to start finding my voice again instead of just helping others to find theirs.

Jennie Agin: My name is Jennie, and I grew up in Cleveland…and then I decided to go to school in Wisconsin and I got a degree in Environmental Studies and after I graduated I traveled in [xx] I WOOFED, which is an acronym for Willing Workers on Organic Farms, and since coming back to the states now living in Cleveland I’ve been trying to figure out a way I can carve a niche for myself as an environmental advocate [xx] seeing in Cleveland and I’m going to begin volunteering with Earth Watch.

Gloria Ferris: Kevin?

Kevin Cronin, lawyer in Midtown and advocate with a group called “Cleveland Bikes” which does cycling advocacy…supporting all forms of cycling as a healthy sport, reaction, transportation…because when Cleveland Bikes, Cleveland Benefits.

Gloria Ferris: And, Ed?

Yes, my name is Eric Kramer; I’m a web software developer here at Insivia. I’m actually brand new here in Cleveland. My wife and I just looked on a map and decided where we wanted to live and it was Cleveland so, I’m usually known as [xx] the job came after, so…so, I guess I advocate technology, that’s my background…I come from Athens, Ohio and [xx] that’s just about everything you guys have been talking about, so [xx]. I guess I bring a fresh look, a fresh outsider view to Cleveland.

Gloria Ferris: Bill? Dennis, did you want to say…

Dennis Coughlin: Well, actually I just wanted to remind…there are so many passionate advocates here in this room and I just want to remind people think about how you can connect to other people here and move the conversation forward, but always keep it in the back of your head, “How can we move this conversation forward? And next month be able to come back and say, “I’m connected with so and so and this is what we’re doing…we’re working collaboratively.” So, build those collaborative networks and actually move forward with your connecting. Those are the things I’m advocating all the time.

Gloria: And you know what, that isn’t advocacy in Cleveland…

Audio Tape No 5 (92.4 MB)(92.4 MB)

Gloria Ferris: Bill?

My name is Bill Callahan and I blog at Callahan’s Cleveland Diary which I’ve been doing since 2003 and anybody who reads it knows I off on some tear on some issue I want somebody to do something about every three days…varies from month to month…I’m one of the founders of Meet The Bloggers which morphed itself into Midtown Brews, I think. That’s two things and one of the things in my life I’m proud of…I’ve actually spent the last forty years working as a professional community organizer in one form or another, I actually moved to Cleveland to take a tenured job as the Energy Program Director for, what was then, the Ohio Public Interest Campaign, now Ohio Citizen’s in Action. And since then, at work in community organizing and community development and in the last ten years a lot of work on the technology training…Digital Divide work and so on. So, what all of that, added up, for me, about is understanding what Valdis said about networking is the critical civic element and the critical element for poor people and the critical element for the health of the community…and people have been doing it in one form or another for a very long time with or without computer mediated devices, but in Cleveland we do it poorly and we particularly do it horribly up and down the social ladder. So, an awful lot of what I am concerned about is ways that we create opportunities, create capabilities, and create actual events of network building in a way that actually empowers people who need to be empowered for a variety of reasons. And the reason I got into blogging and the reason we began doing computer training and Internet training in a low income neighborhood on the west side in 1995, and the reason that I pay attention a lot to what everybody else in the room is doing is because I think that technology is an incredible tool that is way underutilized for generalized empowerment…empowerment for network building. The only other thing I should mention, because it is the immediate thing that I’m…this week and the reason I’m going to be a downer if we get into a real discussion, is that for the last year I’ve been helping to convene the Foreclosure Action Coalition which is a bunch of folks in town…been dealing with that…so, I’ve been trying very hard for the last week to figure out how to use what network capability I have to affect what was going on in Congress and I now have one of those invaluable experiences of, “I tried it, and it didn’t work.”

Gloria Ferris: Mike?

It’s Mike Gesing. The advocacy I’m involved in and started up last summer is called the Northeast Ohio Citizen League. And my own involvement started about ten years ago actually, I was working with Cleveland.com and I was reading a white paper on regionalism and the economy and I kind of wondered why there was no dot com economy in Northeast Ohio. And I gave that to Richard Shatten at REI – you may have known Shatten, he was at REI, and that lead to being involved in a lot of things here in Northeast Ohio. And I met, following that I got involved in REI with Ed Morrison and the last few years have been very interesting and there have been more and more issues that have come up in front of all of us in Northeast Ohio, but the citizen’s voice, as we’ve all heard this morning, has been missing on things around here. So, we started to look at what was going on and there are some really good examples elsewhere and Citizen Leagues have been pretty active up in Minneapolis, St Paul, Minnesota and make some things happen one example of fifty years even, so, we figured down here in Northeast Ohio we’d try a Citizen League for the region instead of just a city. There had been one in the City for a hundred years but it collapsed in the last 90’s. So, we fired this up this past summer and we’re making some headway as well, we’re working on a local neighborhood forum here in a Cleveland Ward right now and we’ve also made some progress in trying to push forward an actual Citizen’s League lead forum on that issue we all know and love around Northeast Ohio, the Convention Center Med Mart. And that is the most interesting one as well because that is, because you all realize that that issue has not been heard the way it should, a lot of the facts are not there…just need to look at a real, unbiased, un-partisan approach to gathering all of the facts on that sort of an issue. We want to set this up as a model and look at more projects like this and have a larger impact on the region. And there is a lot more to it, but that is the nutshell.

Gloria Ferris: And, Andy, was the one who brought up the question of advocacy and does businesses…yes, you did…does business have a place with advocacy? Should businesses be thinking about advocacy? And something, we’re all on the citizen’s side of it…but Andy, why did you think that advocacy was a good topic?

Andy Halko: Well, I think that as a young entrepreneur, someone who owns a business in Cleveland and is, hopefully, up and coming, I’m really interested in how economically we’re going to change Cleveland. I think every topic that people brought up affects the economy of Cleveland from green to design to art, and everything else we talk about and that is what interests me and how we can bring all these things together to change what is obviously a major topic here in Cleveland. That’s how we do it. And as a business owner, it’s pretty important, so that is what I’m trying to bring to the table.

Gloria Ferris: We had Brian Cummins who came in…but now he’s…so, we’re going to skip you for a bit, Brian. But, we are talking about advocacy, and why we’re all advocates, and Brian is actually working with…Tim, you keep pointing to…

Tim Ferris: Who’s the girl in the yellow?

Gloria Ferris: Betsey…I missed Betsey, the advocate, yes.

George Nemeth: She doesn’t advocate for anything…(joking)

Gloria Ferris: So, what do you want to add?

Betsey Merkel: Okay, Hi, I’m Betsey Merkel and I work with I-Open and I’m a colleague to all the wonderful people we’re meeting here this evening.

Stefanie Spear: And, it says on this blog, she is a “supreme networker.”

Bill Callahan: ...You network with the Supremes?

Betsey Merkel: Yeh! (Snapping fingers, dancing)

Andy Halko: Well, Midtown Brews is over, thank you everyone! (Joking and laughter)

Gloria Ferris: This is, like, amazing. I mean, wow! What Andy said about design and policy…you’ve got Ed Hauser…Bill with Public Policy…the sustainable people…we’ve got the libraries here, we’ve got the colleges…and we’re all kind of concerned about how do we all network together and how do we make our voices stronger…I think that is what Marc’s question was, so…does anybody have some thoughts, or ideas about how we can build a stronger…

Jon Eckerle: …Gloria…we all go to all these groups and see each other in Cleveland and part of this is about how do we expand the circle? It’s not just about how we interconnect better, but how do we expand the circle…Stefanie’s publication is a perfect example, Green City Blue Lake, REALNEO, the Observer Project…how do we create structures to bring more people in? To let people know about the ideas that are circulating here? So many ideas are talked about in the circle, that they don’t make it out of the circle. How do we connect with the great unconsciousness?

Audio Tape No 6 (83.5 MB)(83.5 MB)

Bill Callahan: I actually…I’m not sure they don’t make it out of the circle, I think what it is, is that we are not sure how far it makes it out of the circle. The reason I say that is because a whole lot of people in this room, including the ones we’ve mentioned, have wider audiences or a set of associates in the network to speak to, or, interact with, including everybody is writing a blog…and the whole point about networking is that nodes interact with nodes. So, that when I said earlier, I think that people have been building strong communities by building networks for a long, you can trace that and find and institutional and informal social networks in communities long before they were mentioned in the media. So, my blog has probably, four or five hundred people who read regularly…not very big, but, for some reason they read it and they are a number of people who don’t talk to any of you guys, and everybody is in that situation. The interesting thing about that though, and I think what’s happened to blogging in the City in the last six months [xxx….xxx] and I can give you an illustration of this: the way that I built up a lot of my relationships early was…first George (Nemeth) linked, and then some other people picked it up and linked and then there was a lot of interlinking and of those blog rolls were actually crackling along and being active. George played an enormous valuable role in prompting a lot of that interaction – a lot of which also occurred in meeting rooms – blogs need a lot of reinforcement. One of the things I think it is important to think about is, in answer to your question (Jon Eckerly) “How do you raise that up? How do you spur more of it?” The truth is, anything that gets people talking a lot in a circle of people who are nodes is going to reach a lot more people who also have their own nodes. And whether or not you can trace it you really can have an impact. The question I have about all that is, where are the places where there are no nodes?

Tim Ferris: Bill, another thing too to get back to this question, we found out working with that Meet The Bloggers format that all people aren’t ready to join on at the same time, all people are not ready to receptive, listen at the same time, but eventually everybody comes around to it. Also, all the things we’re used to with TV and ratings and newspaper readership, it doesn’t matter in the blogosphere…it’s not how many people read it, it’s the right people read it. And George has more or less perfected that, and the other thing that George discovered and I don’t think that anybody else has had, I don’t know how George came to do this, I think it was out of necessity or something…but I don’t know of any other place that has had an aggregator like George that brings everybody in and allows them to do things and then had the sense or intuition, to go ahead and see that people were polarized because of blogging arguments or snarky, but then he brought them together in the Cleveland Web Blogger Meet Up and Ryze and then pulled them apart again and then they weren’t as bad. The thing is that he found out that the interaction on the blogs has to be if you are going to build good community, has to be supplemented with face to face contact and socialization – and Bloggapalooza. That was a community building, that was a heck of a fan club and all kinds of things we’ve all tried and on the blogs too that have worked and I don’t know of any other place in the country that has done this and I think it’s because of the fact we’re hungry or needy or dire necessities.

Gloria Ferris: Let’s talk about…Peter (McDermott) talked about a purpose driven online community versus a personal blog and I think that there is a lot of us here that are purpose driven – they may be for different reasons, but we are purpose driven – does that make…?

George Nemeth: Can I make a comment real quick?...because I don’t think you can have a personal blog and sustain it, it has to sort of become something outside of yourself because you are going to loose interest in things. I was just talking with a guy a lot of people probably know, Bill Barrow who works at CSU (Cleveland State University) and he’s the Cleveland History Project…and he was saying he was really excited about blogging and he hit it really hard for about a year and because he didn’t have a community active around him sending him e-mails like, “Hey, you should blog about this…cross this…” he just kind of lost interest in it and he wasn’t able to sustain it. I think it’s really important to connect with other people. I always kind of look at it as the first order of becoming a blogger is just going out and reading blogs, and reading the stuff you’re interested in; then you kind of like, “Well, maybe I should comment on this.” You’ll think about commenting but you won’t actually comment. And then you’ll start leaving comments about stuff and then eventually, like Valdis, you’ll start your own blog.

Tim Ferris: You know George, you find out too that unless you start blogging that if you can carry it our, you can’t like Bill put the whole thing on your shoulders and carry it. The one thing you found out early on is that it’s not about George, it’s not about Tim, it’s not about Gloria, it’s everybody, and at that point you cede control and the more you cede control the more powerful that blog becomes. You were the ultimate in ceding control.

Audio Tape No 7 (102.9 MB)

Gloria Ferris: Wait a minute, Ed Hauser had his hand up, Jim and then you’ll be next, okay?

Ed Hauser: A few observations and some experience. I’ve been involved in these billion dollar projects that are going to change the face of Cleveland: Lakefront planning, Cleveland Convention Center, Innerbelt, and some historical preservation types…and the way I’ve approached it is being a foot soldier, going to these meetings, doing public recording plus getting up and Brian Cummins probably knows me at City Hall and just being relentless. But, I don’t see a lot of other people by my side…getting up to microphones, writing letters to the Commissioners…so there needs to be a plan for getting foot soldiers out and really getting involved, going to the meetings. It’s difficult if you have a day job and if you do have a day job you’re burned out to do this so…but, how do you get this network of Bloggers from different web sites and get people to get to these meetings? To the bigger issues…and it doesn’t have to be a million dollars…just something significant, but that’s what we have to figure out how to plan.

George Nemeth: The thing of it is, is that people are going to go to the things they are interested in. They’re going to…not everybody is interested in saving Whiskey Island, although it’s a real good thing to do. My attitude has always been, there have been plenty of Meet The Bloggers where it’s been me, Tim and Gloria and the person we’re interviewing. I started Meet The Bloggers as a participatory event, so…talk about being a foot soldier, we had to sort of soldier on without the expectation of other people participating.

Ed Hauser: I guess the point I wanted to make was that blogging, once you get the word out, people listen…it’s opinion, it’s observations of a person, but if there’s things we really want to make change here in this City…there has to be a combination of both…if you just read someone’s opinion…and they’re intelligent opinions, but…until you get into the Mayor’s face, the Commissioner’s face, the Governor’s face…there has to be a blending of that somehow.

Tim Ferris: You don’t get anybody to do anything and that’s the thing and that’s the old way…[xx] you can’t compel [xx] they’ll do it at there own speed and that’s how it’s different in the blogosphere is that people have it laid out [xx] but…

Gloria Ferris: I said [xx] because Jim O’Bryan has been waiting to say something…

Jim O’Bryan: I just want to say that we’re talking about bringing people together, Meet The Bloggers, and I-Open and all that…one of the things I noticed early on was that a huge disconnect. A lot of people don’t have computer access, a lot of people can’t get out, how do you get word to them, so that’s one of the reasons we developed a very low cost way to turn blogs into web sites and into print to get it out. The other thing George and I have talked about is that Meet The Bloggers is a great idea because you are able to put all of these ideas together [xx] but it’s just a sustainability issue, how can you afford to keep some of these websites going, some of these projects going? It’s truly a labor of love, but not a way to make an income. So, what we’ve found out is that in print you can track the advertisers to get the money to underwrite the project and let it grow. So, while we’re all talking blogging because we’re all blogging and online, let’s not forget the people without computers. I was working with Norm Roulet out in East Cleveland and he’s saying that 10% of the citizens have computer access. You can’t leave those people at the gate; you’ve got to drag them. How do these people even know there is free-use computers if they don’t even have a computer? So, as I always like to put it, I’m a 53 year old fat man that when they put me in the ground there’s going to be newspapers. There’s ways to use it, let’s use it for advocacy.

Jon Eckerle: I think it’s more about what is the message we’re trying to get out. Media – which is all these – whether it’s blogging, whether it’s Stefanie’s newspaper, the Observer newspapers, I think we need to think about how do we network together and how can we develop these structures, not just blogging, but how can we develop all these interconnections and different forms of media to reach out and say these are great ideas let’s talk about it?

Gloria Ferris: Bill?

Bill Callahan: The last three comments have made clear that I didn’t actually say clearly what I intended to say before which was that you have a room full of people that by definition of the subject have something that they want to say to other people…and a wider audience and a wider potential circle of allies, of turn out, of whatever it is you want people to do about whatever it is you want them to do. The value added in the last ten years on top of community newspapers and other kinds of [xx] forms, has been the digital media. The issue to me, and I’m pointing to Valdis’s kind of method because in a sense doing the network model and doing the network map and figuring out who is not in the network map, where the nodes aren’t to get to other people, is to me a critical element of building a new network of multimedia in a community that makes it possible for everybody to have a wider audience. That is what I was really getting at. So, yes it’s true that I blog and some people read that and I have an e-mail list and I send it to people, but I’m also still out there calling people on the phone and having meetings…interacting with people CDC’s, interacting with people in the neighborhood and so are a lot of other people. It is true a lot of people can’t do the computer stuff - which is why it’s important to get out there and train them and make it happen. But what I was getting at, is if you look at this as a big complex set of interacting media network possibilities and you think about how to build it and strengthen that then everybody from every corridor has the opportunity to amplify what they’re trying to do and you also find there is a lot of overlapping agendas, so you may find other allies that you didn’t know.

Gloria Ferris: Valdis has been very patient in the back and I know he has something to tell us…

Valdis Krebs: Well, I think what Bill is saying is very important. One of the ways to strengthen your network is to diversify your network.

(End of tape)