Ohio 2.0 - Thought Leaders, Community Building and Inspiring Convervsation

In August I wrote about the momentum that was building in Columbus around Social Media and the Tech sector

Another postiive notch to this momentum happened last night with a gathering called Ohio 2.0 held at the Polaris Hilton. The event was organized in Web 2.0 speed (four weeks) by Angela Siefer and Ben Blanquera and a team of great volunteers and sponsors.

The event was a showcase for inspiring presentations and conversations from Thought Leaders from Silicon Valley and Washington, DC.

The participants included Reid Hoffman, founder of LinkedIn, Judy Estrin, author of Closing the Innovation Gap: Reigniting the Spark of Creativity in a Global Economy and former CTO of Cisco, and Mike Nelson, who among his numerous credentials is the Chief Tech advisor to the Obama campaign.

Lara Kretler was live blogging much of the event and offered these excellent comments about the speakers:

From Judy Estrin-

Judy says the fundamentals of innovation are trying and testing, assessing and learning. It’s a messy, iterative process. You need to be willing to invest without knowing the outcome. And talent matters - a combination of skill, aptitude, passion and drive. Diverse perspectives are critical to innovation.

From Reid Hoffman-

Three things come together for innovation. First, the germ of an idea - which must then be refined through other people. This is why networks are so important - the application of expertise of those around you. The other two elements are capital and execution. The process of how you execute your ideas has to continually improve and adapt.

From Mike Nelson (talking about his role working with Obama)-

He’s here from Washington to listen to us. He wants to hear what we think about how technology can help create jobs and innovation for this country. He gave us his email address so we can contact him with ideas (email me if you want it) and says he will gladly share our suggestions with the Obama campaign.

My biggest, of many, takeaways from the evening were Judy's comments The Innovation Ecosystem (see the graphic) and her take on the Core Values of Innovation:

• Questioning
• Risk
• Openness
• Patience
• Trust

Estrin explained that Innovation means having the capacity for change.

I hope to write more on Reid Hoffman and Mike Nelson in further posts, as well as touch on Craig Newmark's (Craig's List) appearance and several of the others who I had the opportunity to meet during this special evening.

Finally, if you're interested, I've posted a video from a talk that Judy Estrin gave to Google employees a couple of weeks ago if you're interested in hearing more from her.

A Columbus Social Media Summer

As the Summer of 2008 draws near its end, I can safely describe the last few months as A Columbus Social Media Summer.

The momentum started last year as WOSU started engaging the blog community in Columbus with the Social Media Cafe. This, of course, occurred following the great success of Columbus Underground in building a loyal community.

But it seems to have just exploded over the last few months with the community of individuals and organizations embracing the Social Media movement.

Perhaps is was the visit by Doc in May thanks to Resource Interactive that real kicked the momentum into high gear because that was followed by PodCamp Ohio, Tweetups, Meetups, and Startup Weekend Columbus (see the article below), and BarCampOhio. Comfest has embraced Social Media has have many in our local media --- particularly by our friends at NBC4 with its strong Twitter presence (of course WOSU has had a Twitter presence for more than a year!).

As we move from summer to fall, I expect the energy to continue to move forward quickly. This past week, my friend Andrew Miller put together a meeting to share his vision of Convergence Columbus that was embraced by many diverse sectors in the Columbus community.

It's examples like this, where one or two people come forward with an idea, that the power of social media takes hold. It was Alvin for StartUp Weekend, Angelo for PodCampOhio, and Andrew for Comfest.

I have come to appreciate living in an area where individuals - particularly individuals who do not necessarily sit in the traditional positions of power within the community - are able to bring about positive change that makes our region better better. This is what the power of social media is by giving influence to the individual, no matter who they are and where they come from if the idea they have resonates with others.

Here's hoping there's a lot more of this to come to Columbus in the coming months.

Columbus Monthly SWC 2008 article - Upload a Document to Scribd

Read this document on Scribd: Columbus Monthly SWC 2008 article

Tonight's Social Media Cafe

Columbus Social Media Cafe newcomers Ken and Elise talking about tonight's Social Media Cafe.

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A postscript: Ken and Elise owe their relationship to Social Media as they met through the Columbus Meet Up Flickr Group.

The Greatest Concert I've Ever Seen

A couple of weeks ago I had a chance to see Bruce Springsteen for the first time, and I've spent a whole lot of time since then wondering why I had never taken the opportunity to see Bruce prior to this concert in Columbus.

It was, simply put, the greatest concert I've ever seen. It also helped clarify some important life lessons that maybe I've been missing as of late.

I've been searching for a further way to explain the feeling and energy that carried me through this concert, and I finally found it in a review by Gary Benz, who's review appeared in BlogCritics Magazine:

There was a stretch in Monday’s show, beginning with "Something in the Night" (a tour premiere) and culminating with "She’s the One," where I felt like this was absolutely the best concert I had ever seen. This particular grouping of songs, which also included "Because the Night," "Reason to Believe," and "You’ll Be Coming Down" (also a tour premiere), itself provided an effective mini-retrospective of Springsteen’s career. But the overarching message, delivered in note-perfect passion and urgency, was that anything worth doing is worth doing well. Another great life lesson.

Gary added, There’s something about 18,000 plus singing “because the night belongs to us” in unison that is life affirming.



And I felt the same exact way.

The concert has sparked an internal challenge for me to begin assessing and affirming some aspects of my life as I grow ever closer to the half century mark.

Since the concert, the Springsteen lyrics that keep playing over and over in my head are those from his song Into the Fire:

May your strength give us strength
May your faith give us faith
May your hope give us hope
May your love give us love

Strength
Faith
Hope
Love

Four essential ingredients to our lives. Four essential ingredients that should not and can not stand alone.

Benchmarking Columbus 2008

Today at the Columbus Metropolitan Club, the presentation focused on the highlights from the Benchmarking Central Ohio 2008 report commissioned by the Columbus Partnership and undertaken by Community Research Partners.

The report assesses how the 8-county Columbus metropolitan area is doing, in comparison to 15 other metro areas, using a panel of 60 diverse indicators. The indicators focus on four broad areas—population vitality, economic strength, personal prosperity, and community well-being—each of which describes a facet of the community that contributes to economic competitiveness.

There's all sorts of information in the report, but a couple of things jump out at me:

1. Columbus ranked at the bottom (#16) in change in public transit usage and had a low ranking in the number of wi-fi hot spots (although in my travels Port Columbus is one of the few airports with free wi-fi).

2. We are ranked high (#4) in the number of Fortune 1,000 companies but last in the percent of very small businesses (fewer than 20 employees) and 13th in "births" of very small businesses.

3. Not surprisingly we do well in housing affordability, but, unfortunately, rank near the bottom in persons below the poverty level and persons receiving public assistance.

4. We are 2nd in library circulation but then ranked at the bottom in the number of arts establishments. This despite the fact that we are younger community in comparison with many of the cities we are benchmarking against.

The complete report has a wealth of interesting data that should help shape future planning to make Columbus a better place. Link here to download the entire report.

Light/Commuter Rail in Columbus

Light Rail in Columbus
Back in November, th0m posted the map above on the Columbus Underground site as a demonstration of what a light rail map for the Columbus area could look like if regional planners were to try to take on such an ambitious project.

As th0m notes, there are no routes to the northeast side of the metro leaving Westerville and New Albany out of the plan.

I also wonder, whether you like Easton or not, if it should be included in any rail plan solely on its growth not only as a retail hub but because of the number of corporate offices located there -- and given the Disney feel that you get from Easton, maybe a Disney-like Monorail is more appropriate. Probably running a branch from CMH would do the trick.


Commuter Rail In Columbus
To carry the idea further, Transportation Engineer John Wirtz proposed another map today on the Xing Columbus site that extends rail transportation into more a Commuter Rail system stretching out to Delaware in the north, Newark in the east, London to the west, and Athens to the southeast.

Being a suburbanite that drives to OSU every day, I would gladly trade the freedom of a car for the convenience and cost savings that would occur from a rail commute into Columbus.

For the most part, these maps utilize existing tracks that make the reality of this concept something within reason - albeit a significant community investment.

Put a coffee shop by the rail station in Powell and it would mean a painless and much more productive trip into the city each day.

It's now been several years and $2.00 more per gallon of gas that these ideas were first discussed and discarded. However, now, at this moment, there seems to be a growing need to renew the conversation on this issue with the combination of growing congestion on the freeways and the cost of filling up a tank of gas.

Streetcars Are The First Step
The first step seems to be to develop a Streetcar line that will initially run from the OSU campus down High Street to the Courthouse just north the 70/71. Mayor Coleman will detail the financing plan for the Streetcars at a meeting in the City Council Chambers on Thursday, March 27th at 6:00 pm.

Columbus Mayor Michael Coleman has been strong advocating for this idea for quite some time and spoke about it extensively at his State of the City speech earlier this month as well on WOSU 820's Open Line with Fred Andrle on Friday.

Hat tip to Walker for his strong advocacy and aggregation of information regarding this critical transportation issue.

Tonight's Columbus Social Media Cafe

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