Go jump in the lake, Mayor Jackson.
That’s not meant to be a disrespectful statement. Leaders in other cities got involved in crazy stunts to attract the attention of Google, who says it will build — for free! — an ultra-high-speed broadband network in one or more U.S. cities.
Sure, we have One Community in Cleveland, and if you live around Case Western Reserve University and Hessler Road, you can participate in a free ultra-speed program. But that’s more of a single than a home run.
A citywide ultra-high-speed broadband network would be a blast over the center field bleachers. Speeds of 1 gigabit per second would be game-changing, and to live, work and test products in that environment would convince people to move here.
So a few dips in the frigid lake, like the mayor of Duluth, Minn., did, and maybe we would get the Google network. In March, the city of Topeka, Kan., “renamed itself Google, Kan., to show its commitment to the contest.
Why don’t we do cool stuff like that? Are we too concerned with responding to yet another unfavorable list placement that we miss the real opportunities?
I am more concerned with our placement on Symantec’s recent Norton Top 10 Riskiest Online Cities list than the Forbes Miserable Cities list. The Norton report says the rankings were determined through a combination of Symantec Security Response’s data on cyberattacks and potential malware infections, as well as third-party data about online behavior, such as accessing Wi-Fi hot spots and online shopping.
Cleveland ranks 43rd out of 50, which might seem good. Consider it further, and you discover the Top Ten riskiest cities are Seattle; Boston; Washington, D.C.; San Francisco; Raleigh, N.C.; Atlanta; Minneapolis; Denver; Austin, Texas; and Portland, Ore. All are tech hot spots.
Detroit came in at No. 50. Why are Cleveland and Detroit seemingly better off in this list than Seattle and San Francisco? Possibly because scoring low in the online risk area means that we rank low in access to the Internet and availability of wireless Internet access.
That’s why I was excited about the TEDxCLE event in February. TED, which stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design, started as a conference in 1984 devoted to “ideas worth spreading.” The TED brain trust includes people such as Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, inventor Dean Kamen, Larry Page of Google and futurist Ray Kurzweil.
The annual TED conference, held in Long Beach, Calif., attracts big-name and lesser-known innovators and thinkers who have to craft their message, dubbed a TEDTalk, to fill an 18-minute time slot. The convergence of all these ideas (watch TEDTalks on YouTube) brings energy and innovation to the area.
This year, the first TEDxCLE was held at the Capitol Theatre in the Gordon Square Arts District, a place where risk takers invested in the rundown 1920s movie-palace and turned it into the cornerstone of a neighborhood redevelopment plan.
Organized by Clevelanders Hallie Bram, studio business manager at Adcom Communications and Eric Kogelschatz, senior account executive at Marcus Thomas (see page 14), TEDxCLE featured talks by Chris Yanc of cyancdesign, atomic physicist Josh Silver and others.
“It served to ignite creativity and collaboration among the attendees,” says local social media evangelist Susie Sharp, whose interest was sparked by Aaron LeMieux, of Tremont Electric.
LeMieux invented a floating device with a much smaller footprint than wind turbines that harnesses energy from the lake’s waves to create electricity for 200 homes. He also created a portable version that generates electricity from your walking motions to power USB devices. And LeMieux was just one of many.
Consider Terry Schwarz’s Fixing Broken Cities. The founder of Pop Up City Cleveland and senior planner at Kent State University’s Cleveland Urban Design Collaborative, Schwarz finds joy in the transition of cities. Using the metaphor of how the Japanese mend broken pottery with gold and other ornamental materials that call attention to but also repair the fracture, she offered ideas of mending our city, everything from re-exposing our natural waterways that have been put underground and forgotten to temporary, creative rehabilitation of vacant properties.
Designer Sean Bilovecky of Wrath Arcane apparel told how it’s still possible to manufacture clothing in the United States. Wrath Arcane’s lines are made in Chicago and San Francisco from Bilovecky’s patterns.
“We sort of wear the fact that we make everything in the U.S. on our sleeve,” he told the crowd. “That’s our branding ... not fancy fantasy things. It’s about where the products are made.”
“He’s a great example of an entrepreneurial company in an industry that you’d never guess has its headquarters in Cleveland,” says ThunderTech’s Jason Therrien.
And that’s the point. Be creative. Share ideas. Swing the bat and take a risk. Even if we have to jump in the lake to do it.
Entreprenerd Dan Hanson is willing to jump in the lake for 1 gigabit speeds. Are you? E-mail him at hanson@inside-business.com.