A Collaborative Approach

I am pleased to announce two management changes atInside Business and explain why we are more excited than ever about the magazine’s mission.

Effective with this issue, Steve Gleydura, editor of Cleveland Magazine, will also be editor of Inside Business, and Frank Bird, publisher of Cleveland Magazine, will add to his responsibilities the role of publisher of IB.

There are important changes happening in Cleveland and Northeast Ohio, and we believe this experienced, highly successful editor-publisher team can provide the leadership needed for the journey ahead.

Since Inside Business began, its mission has been to cover not only Cleveland but also all of Northeast Ohio. It is a mission that traces its roots back to 1945, when the Cleveland Electric Illuminating Co. launched its famous “Best Location in the Nation” slogan, a campaign that promoted Cleveland-Northeast Ohio as a great place to grow a business.

There were several interesting realities that developed over the course of that campaign, an effort that lasted 30 years. The first was that Northeast Ohio had the best story to tell in the country when it came to proximity to markets, manpower and materials. Within 500 miles, Northeast Ohio accounted for more than 50 percent of every important measure of business success, from population and payroll statistics, to manufacturing and retail sales. It was the region that added up to make us statistically important.

The second reality, amusing to me, is that no one had a clue what Northeast Ohio was. Because I had the opportunity to write ads for the “Best Location in the Nation” in the early ’70s, I can tell you firsthand there weren’t 10 people in Cleveland who had any idea what counties were included or not included in Cleveland-Northeast Ohio.

Nor did anyone care. Since the campaign was financed by a Cleveland-based utility, Northeast Ohio was a euphemism for “the rest of the counties we need to make our story statistically impressive.” Moving businesses to the company’s service area was the goal. (For the record, Northeast Ohio at that time consisted of four counties: Cuyahoga, Lake, Geauga, Ashtabula.)

Of course, that was then and this is now, and the now is what makes the mission ofInside Business so important today. Our region’s past is certainly prologue to its future. What started as a grouping of four counties to make Cleveland look more important is becoming today a serious attempt to transform 10 or more counties into a real region where they come together to solve common problems and seize common opportunities.

Cities such as Akron, Lorain, Youngstown and Cleveland have come to realize that the financial demands of running communities is too great to go it alone. They must find a way to hang together or they will surely hang separately.

Regionalism — true regionalism — is our future. The devil will be in the details, but there is no other way. Our future will be written in acts of regional cooperation.

Sounds like a great mission for a magazine, doesn’t it? What could be more exciting than to cover what has to be Northeast Ohio’s greatest challenge in the 21st century?

With the addition of the award-winning team of Steve Gleydura and Frank Bird, we are recognizing within our company the important role we expect Inside Business to play in the development of Northeast Ohio as one of America’s dynamic business centers.