media and community; crime in Over-the-Rhine

Earlier this week WCPO, Cincinnati’s ABC affiliate station, brought to light a statistic published on Walletpop.com, stating that our Over-the-Rhine neighborhood is the “most dangerous in the country.” Walletpop, a personal finance and consumer Web site, found that someone has a 25% chance of falling victim to a dangerous crime in Over-the-Rhine in a one year period, a higher percentage than any other area in the US.  

http://www.wcpo.com/content/news/saywhat/story/Web-site-Ranks-OTR-As-Most-Dangerous-Neighborhood/Rfx57xDKwEupmKPhynAeyA.cspx

 http://www.walletpop.com/insurance/most-dangerous-neighborhoods

After watching the OTR neighborhood make incredible progress in the past five years - with over 20 million in investment, a new School for Creative and Performing Arts, the relocation of The Art Academy to the heart of the district and the opening and success of many new retail establishments, this news felt like a punch to the stomach.  

“This can’t be true.”  “Why are we punishing ourselves again?”  “What good does this do?”  

For decades the local nightly news and city newspaper have been filled with scary crime news and tales of woeful bad behavior that make a person feel as if the world is falling apart and they should watch their every step.  We all know how devastating this news approach - fueling fear for the sake of profits - has been for our cities.  

The alternative in this market and others like Detroit and Pittsburgh has been a pro-development approach that decidedly focuses upon progress, growth and overall “good news” about our city.  Cincinnati’s good news media is a Web site called Soapbox:

http://www.soapboxmedia.com/

Soapbox is run by former marketers and public relations professionals closely tied to the business community.  There is never a mention of counter views to development such as citizen displacement.

Can there be a balance?  Can we tell good stories without omitting the whole story?  How can media build our communities up in a way that includes all citizens?

think local.

In a discussion with some of my more thoughtful clients yesterday, someone said “there are necessities in life that are simply local.”  With all of this recent talk about online community building and using technology to find commonality, I found this statement refreshing and true.  

So much of what I need and want doesn’t come from my community.  Just today I allowed my daughter to purchase an instant download on Amazon.com of the one television show she couldn’t find on our 100+ cable channels.  Even when I do mundane things like shop at the grocery store or buy clothes, hardware or furniture, I’m almost always buying something that originated outside of Cincinnati, often half way around the globe. 

But there are certain needs that can only be met by a neighbor or a neighborhood.  Safety immediately comes to mind -concern for your home and property is better met by a caring neighbor than the local police or ADT.  Along those lines, who is looking out for your kids while they play outside and you're distracted by one thing or another, if not for a neighbor?  Information about your neighbors and neighborhood is best sourced from the people who live within its boundaries. Then of course there is human contact - the face to face, hand to hand, gesture to gesture contact that you can't get over the Web.  The possibilities that this contact affords are endless, moving us beyond our basic needs to true satisfaction.   

Perhaps the statement, "there are necessities in life that are simply local" resonates more if it’s modified as “if you want a to feel connected, there are necessities in life that you should look for locally."  Too many times we hear news reports about a tragic incident where if neighbors were better connected, the tragedy could have been avoided.  Or, we hear people say, "he seemed like a nice fellow but stayed to himself a lot."  

Think globally, act locally?  Maybe it's time to reinvigorate that phrase. 

the making of a community connector

As I prepare for the 1st interview in a series about people who have shaped our community, I wonder if my subjects will share life experiences and have common personality traits.

grew up as societal underdogs?

born leaders?

sensitive to the plight of others?

entrepreneurial? 

visionary?

How much did our culture in the 60s and 70s shape their activism?  How has their understanding of "community" changed over the years?

excerpt from thought paper on blogs

Creative Space to Commonplace 

the evolution of blogs

With the introduction of blogs, we’ve been witness to the rise of a new self-publishing medium that has fundamentally changed the we participate in the democratic process.  But just as Americans became accustomed to industrialization, a technology revolution and globalization (with a few other innovations and revolutions in between), the Web and blogs will eventually move from avant-garde to average. 

brave new world 

In fifteen years on the web, we’ve evolved from computers talking to one another, to individuals talking to the world. Blogs represented a major change in Internet usage and purpose.  Pre-blog, only those with enough technical know-how and resources could publish on the Web.  Then the paradigm shifted, moving HTML into the background and every-man publishing tools into the foreground.  

A 2008 Technorati study showed that there were over 112 million blogs in existence, not accounting for the over estimated 70 million blogs in the China Network Information Center.  While it’s been difficult to accurately track blog creation, certainly blog use has exploded.  Early adopters have taken advantage of the persuasive stage a blog provides - businesses build communities of customers, budding journalists publish without big start-up costs and artists have a virtual gallery.   It appears that people are actually reading blogs as well - blogs that house compelling content or are persistently and creatively promoted.  

it’s just my life - on the web

Early adopters of blogs tended to be young, male and affluent but blog use is already shifting to a more general populace.   Early on, blogs were lists of links and resource tools; today they often serve as a journaling tool, a place to house information the writer wants to push out to an audience.  

As blog creation really takes hold in the mainstream, the purpose of a blog will become less about selling an idea, a business or a story and more about a having a place to house who you are and what you’re doing - no matter how mundane - through various phases of your life.  Instead of creating a blog for say, your thoughts on global warming to promote your energy business, or creating several separate blogs for different interests, each person will have one central Web site where they can house anything they want - general biographical information, an address book with different “groups,” a résumé or CV, a business profile, a personal profile, pictures of the kids, recipes, vacation itineraries, yoga moves or simply a thought for the day.  Each personal Web site can be as unique as the person that it belongs to and from day to day, as things change in a person’s life, different content can take center stage.  If this sounds like a complete abandonment of privacy, it probably is, but just as it became an expectation for businesses to have a presence on the web, it will become commonplace for people as well.  There is already a generational gap in how we view privacy.  Today’s adults tend to be more sensitive while kids post anything - from who they “like” to what kind of sandwich they just ate - out for public consumption without a second thought. 

Blogs and personal websites offer a segue from the beehive that is Facebook and MySpace to people having their own sites and building their own communities for different reasons.  I’ve read several articles in mass-subscription magazines recently that encouraged people to purchase their names as a url.  Many of us made this move long ago but it will be interesting to someday see people compete for the real i.e. “SuzanneBeane.com.”  It will take identity wrangling to a new space.   Perhaps we could consider phone numbers as domains. I don’t know if this is possible, but some people may like for their cell phone and domain name to be the same. 

Blogs have already given power to the people - but only some people thus far.  As adoption broadens as it surely will, there will be a time when blogs / Web sites will be used for very common reasons by very common people.

Business. Community.

For four years I have worked with The City of Blue Ash, just 15 miles north of downtown Cincinnati.  Today, we hosted our second Life Sciences Collaborative event.  This one focused upon FDA-imposed Risk Evaluation Mitigation Strategies (REMS).  The symposium was to help pharma companies and research organizations understand how to tackle new regulatory standards in the US and abroad. 

Blue Ash is home to some of Cincinnati's most prominent Life Sciences companies and its doors are open to other firms looking to expand and do business here.  Rather than spend money in traditional "Site Selection" magazines, the Economic Development Director chose to nurture the companies already in Blue Ash.  She has effectively helped the life science business community forge connections with educators and clinicians while promoting the region through Web conferences and through strategic PR.    

Today, the term "community" meant getting interests aligned, sharing education and working together to produce what we all want -  more success, quality work and knowing we took an innovative path to get the job done.

http://www.blueashadvance.com/juneevent

#IranElection - Community Activism, 2009

I firmly believe that technology's true value is its ability to support the progress of human beings. I've never been one to be enamored with technology itself and always ask what technology solves or contributes to relationships, business or life.  

In the past several days, technology has been instrumental in advancing the protest movement in Iran.  Social media is not just passively supporting the effort, it's playing a starring role.

 When the Iranian government began cracking down on communications, effectively blocking Web sites like Facebook and limiting cell phone transmissions, protesters developed a work-around by configuring web browsers to connect with servers outside of the country.  The New York Times reported today that a 25 year old IT consultant in San Francisco is running his own private proxies to help Iranians and advertising the service on Twitter.  The most tweeted address over the past few days has been #IranElection.  See Social Networks Spread Defiance Online,

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/16/world/middleeast/16media.html?ref=world

This is thrilling.  There's been a lot of discussion over the years about whether or not technology has advanced democracy or been a friend or foe of community.  Today we see a beautiful example of how people are using the fastest, broadest social media tool available to advance their own will and move their country forward.  

Technology, in my opinion, is not nearly as sexy as many venture capitalists and media professionals often purport it to be.  But there are days when I'm in love with the social benefits it affords.  Today is one of those days. 

Community

We're hearing the word "community" a lot these days. Perhaps our economic malaise has allowed us to look at ourselves and our neighbors in a new way. "Community" has taken on new meaning in the online communications realm as well.

Here are my references for community:
1. For getting inside of community and empowering people and associations, Peter Block's 2008 book, Community: The Structure of Belonging, is my resource. Peter is citizen of Cincinnati, best-selling author and nationally respected consultant. His work centers on strengthening the fabric of community through the power of small groups and accountability. Peter is a personal friend and will be featured on this blog sometime in the near future.
http://www.peterblock.com/commun.html

2. My perspective about community through a business lens is rooted in Ran Mullins' 2002 executive white paper entitled, Community Experience Development™ (CED): Empowering Sharing, Participation, and Fellowship Among a Body Politic. The paper outlines the CED business philosophy centered on the paradigm shift of the branding "push" mentality to the community "pull" concept. Community Experience Development™ (CED) combines the essential elements of technology, brand strategy, and inclusion to deliver an absolute marketing environment. Here's more: http://metaphorinteractive.com/content.jsp?articleId=152

about affinity

My life in the branding and marketing business over the past decade has been quite a ride. 

The firms I worked for or managed were boutique in size and character, so I learned to do everything from win new business to write web copy.  But if I had to sum up my work in one word it would be "storytelling."  Certainly that's been the most enjoyable aspect.   

Most of the clients who have trusted me to help them over the years have made their living growing companies or shaping our city in some way.    I've gotten to meet some truly fascinating people - characters if you will - so a good story was always close at hand.

The purpose of my Affinity blog is to do more of what I've enjoyed so much in my professional life - telling stories about interesting human beings that touch our lives.  Since there is no shortage of story-worthy people, I'm outlining some criteria.  The first is criteria is that my subjects must have lived in Cincinnati for at least part of their lives, leaving some kind of imprint here.  The second, for now at least, is that they're over 60 years of age.  

Recently, as my husband and I were talking about our community and the people who have shaped it, we realized that we have been personally mentored, befriended or just genuinely amused by a large group of Cincinnatians who are 60+.  Everyone wants to feature the "YPs" and in doing so show the youthfulness and potential of a community.  While I'm keenly aware of the importance of this approach from a development standpoint, my personal interest is getting to know the hearts and minds of people who have been here awhile.  

I'm partly doing this because it will be fun - interviews, photographs and the whole journalistic searching thing without the realities of deadline pressures.  I'm also doing this to capture the lives of some pretty remarkable people who have touched this city, to help them leave a legacy. 

Let's see how it goes....

west meets east on the south bank

Last evening, thirteen friends met at a home in Newport, KY to listen to Buddhist monk Geshe Tandhar talk about the path to enlightenment through buddhist teachings.  As we awaited Geshe's arrival, we talked of remodeling, gardening, working, not working, colleagues and soon-to-come summer journeys.  We wandered through a lovely 19th century row house and browsed collections of copper pots, rose-colored glass.

When a painfully thin but beautifully-robed Geshe finally arrived we gathered together.  

Some wanted an education - to understand the structure of Buddhism in relation to other religions. "How are your organized?  Is it like Catholicism?" Others wanted guidance - help with shedding the material life.  Geshe answered our questions by telling illustrative stories that often included a childlike laugh - sweet yet startling.  

I was thankful for the opportunity to simply breathe deeply and observe the community that had formed around me.  Busy people, full of wants and words, seeking something more.  One person, the community connector in the group, decided to share teachings that widened her world.  And we came, from our own Cincinnati neighborhoods, to listen, learn and consider how we might grow.