Posts Tagged ‘TED’

TEDxCLE Get your Room Service

Saturday, March 6th, 2010

<I have to preface these post with a shout out:  the images are from Kyle Roth, a local photographer who does beautiful work and who is a big champion of Cleveland, be sure to read his blog at North Coast Lifestyle and Epstein Design Partners.

If you have ever thought about opening your own business then you know what Danielle DeBoe went through before she opened her fantastic shop in Gordon Square that is known as Room Service. I won’t go into here how much I like her shop.  I have already waxed poetic on a number of occasions about the great shops on Detroit near W. 65th and why I love them.  Instead I want to comment on Danielle’s talk, Living A Passionate Life.

Following what you are passionate and committed to what you really believe in, led her to this spot in her life.  She did everthing that she did to the best of her ability and made it happen, whether it was working in the film industry in LA, to set design, to interior design, to merchandising and buying for stores both large and small.  All this led her to buying and opening her own store.  Little did she know that when she started to look back on her life, she realized that all she did was follow the path laid in front of her, and she was daring enough to follow it.

She spoke about her trip to Paris and enjoying a dinner party of strangers at the home of Jim Haines. She talked about how she was on a buying trip to NYC and while the streets were so crowded, she could easily have been alone as no one seemed connected to one another. That is what she loves about her current spot in Gordon Square. This is a real neighborhood. She knows her clients and she knows the guys who make her coffee by name. She knows her neighbors and considers them friends. Knowing all these people around her makes the world a little bit smaller. A world that is just a little bit smaller is a great thing, s it makes us better and the world a brighter place.

The gist of her entire talk was to follow your passion. Do what you love and are good at, and do it to the best of your ability. Be passionate and enjoy life. next time you have an idea, don’t think “That’s a cool idea, somebody should totally do that.” Instead change just a couple of words and say, “That is a cool idea. I am totally going to do that!”

Danielle’s shop, Room Service can be found on Detroit Ave just west of W.65th. She is a strong supporter of local business and artists. She followed her passion to open her store and with a desire to promote local products, and stared the great event Made in 216. This is an event that features the best arts, artisans, and producers in Cleveland. The first event was such a huge success that she had to expand to a larger space and hold it across the street. Now venodrs and shoppers alike flock to Gordon Square for this event.

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TEDxCLE…Repairing Broken Cities

Thursday, March 4th, 2010

I have to preface these post with a shout out:  the images are from Kyle Roth, a local photographer who does beautiful work and who is a big champion of Cleveland, be sure to read his blog at North Coast Lifestyle and Epstein Design Partners.

One great speaker was Terry Schwartz of Pop Up City Cleveland and the Kent State’s Cleveland Urban Design Collaborative. She was challenged with teaching urban regeneration in 15 minutes. She spoke of Japan and their pottery. When something of value is damaged, rather than repairing it seamlesley or throwing it away, it is often repaired with more care and made to honor the repairs that were done. This often gives the repaired item more value and elevate the end product. So here is where we are. Cleveland is one of a number of cities across the country that could be considered “broken.” While so many people are just running away to the suburbs or to other cities across the country, we need to believe that Cleveland is worth fixing. Just the fact that so many people are trying so hard to do it, shows that it is worth our efforts. It shows that there is an inherent value to this town. We have a tendency to want to repair a city as quickly as possible. Put it back the way it was. But here in Cleveland, we are in the ideal spot to repair this town in a way that elevates it to something even more valuable than it ever was.

Then she spoke about Pop Up City. The concept behind this effort is to take someplace broken in the city and make it better. Sometimes it can be made better for a single night, sometimes a weekend, sometimes longer. But if we can take a broken location around town and just “fix” it, even for a few hours, it might inspire us to try and fix it for a little longer. Then perhaps longer. Then perhaps we can be inspired to fix something once and for all in a more permanent way. I found out about them a few years ago, when they hosted a party in an abandoned building. They had something to do with one of the first Bizarre Bazaar events, as well as an evening on the Tremont footbridge. I highly applaud their efforts and their “out of the box” creative approach. I hope that we can help them plan a temporary park or cool event! They are just moving into their new digs by Playhouse Square, so stop by and visit them! And visit their site to see more cool stuff!

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TEDxCLE…A seat for one

Wednesday, March 3rd, 2010

Outside in the lobby of the theater was a unique vehicle. I have seen it before and never get tired of seeing it. It is a three wheeled electric car made by Myers Motors.  I first met Dana Myers briefly at an E4S event in Akron.  The car in the lobby is called the NmG and stands for No More Gas.  It is an all electric vehicle and perfect for a guy like me.

Dana Meyers took the stage to great applause, so apparantly I was not the only one in the room to have heard of the NmG.  We know that Cleveland and NE Ohio know how to make cars.  Never planning to be in the car business or retail, but he decided to jump in full force and make an all electric car.  We need electric vehicles like these for several basic reasons.  First there is a finite amount of oil on the planet.  The world took  125 years to use the first trillion barrels of oil and the the next trillion will only take 30.  All electric vehicles cost less to drive no matter the price of oil.

Secondly there is the issue of congestion.  In 1900 only 25% of the world’s poulation lived in cities.  We are around 50% and by 2050, we can expect that number to rise to about 75%.  Not only is there not enough pavement for all these commuters, there is precious little real estate for parking.  It is expected that we will have 1.4 billion cars in the US by 2030.  If you have even been in traffic in LA at rush hour, or tried to find a parking spot in Chicago you can see the advantage of a tiny car like the one created by Myers Motors.  No matter what you try to tell people, most daily commuters get into their larger car all alone and drive 10-15 miles to work.  The NmG has a range of about 50 miles at 70mph, and seats just one.  Their real goal is not to replace everyone;s car, but to get every two car family to make their daily commuter car an NmG.  To address those who travel to work in pairs or who might want to use their car a little more often, they are planning the release of their DUO-a cute two seater.

Thirdly there is the obvious environmental issue of pollution caused by petroleum based vehicles.  Electric vehicles have no CO2 emissions.  Sure there are emissions generated from the power plants that generate the electricity to charge electric vehicles, but that is a fraction of the amount of pollution emitted by today’s autos.  Furthermore, as we add more and more highways and roads, few people talk about noise pollution cased by so many big cars on the roadways.  Electric vehicles are quiet.  If you think they have no pick up, you are wrong.  Some electric cars are being used in racing and tested against traditional vehicles.  The NmG gets up to 75 mph, and since it has immediate pick up, can reach higher speeds quicker- a plus at the on ramps.  Other advantage of the NmG over other electric cars is the size and weight.  When you try to take a standard car that seats 4, you need more batteries, more power, all adding more weight and thus needing more power….  The simple idea of a small commuter car makes it extra efficient.  It can plug right into the household electric to charge.  Most electric cars being developed operate on 220 and need a converter box to charge up.  That converter is expensive and neither your utility or your car salesman want to pay for it.  Besides, a few of these big cars means adding huge capacity to the existing infrastructure.  If all households adopted one NmG, about 80% could easily be charged at night on a daily basis without any extra infrastructure being necessary.

Lastly, Myers Motors is good for the economy.  They are all built in Ohio.  They use local talent to build their cars.  Through efficienies and economies of scale, they have managed to get the sales cost down from about $30K to $23K.  The largest cost of any electric vehicle is in the batteries and as we see advancements in batteries, we can expect that price to drop even further.  Myers has a commitment to keeping production right here in the US.  When they analyzed the cost of shipping the finished cars from China, they realized they could produce them for the same cost right here, and put Americans back to work.

Susie Sharp shows off the NmG from Myers Motors

You can order your NmG or DUO from Myers Motors here.  The only question left is what color do you want? They have 3 shades of purple.

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Posted in Arts & Culture, Cleveland, Green | 4 Comments »

TEDxCLE lawyer is not a bad word

Tuesday, March 2nd, 2010

Here is a list of addresses, emails and phone numbers that you can use to support SB157 and HB 427.

I have to preface these post with a shout out:  the images are from Kyle Roth, a local photographer who does beautiful work and who is a big champion of Cleveland, be sure to read his blog at North Coast Lifestyle and Epstein Design Partners.

The most moving and inspiring talk of the entire TEDxCLE event was Patrick Perotti, Esq. While normally the word lawyer makes people cringe, Mr Perotti and his firm, Dworken & Bernstein company actually are giving lawyers a good name. They founded a group called Lawyers Give Back.

This video explains their work better than I can, but I will give it a shot. Dworken & Bernstein settle class action law suits. If you have ever gotten one of those long papers in the mail, then you know that for a couple of bucks, it hardly seems worth the effort. Thus, many times that money gets left behind. Plaintiffs are not found, paperwork is not sent in, people move or pass away. So when the lawsuit is settled, usually only 20% is actually paid to the plaintiffs. Where does the rest go? Usually back to the company that was paying it out. If you think that doesn’t seem fair, then you are right. Dworken & Bernstein uses something called cy pres to take that left over money and use some or all of it to give to charity.  They do this not because they make any more money, but because it is the right thing to do.  In fact, they make less money, because a cy pres lawsuit takes more time and effort to settle for the same fees.  Checkout Patrick’s explanation:

In a time when there is less and less money to go around, why not get those corporations who are supposed to be paying, to pay their settlement to charity? It only makes sense, but many lawyers do not take the extra time and effort to do what is right. Corporations hate the idea of cy pres, because if money is left unclaimed, they can get it back. Knowing that, they will settle faster and for more money, knowing that most will come back to them. But watch this video to see why this is so important.

Want to know how you can help? One letter. One phone call. That is all it takes for you to express your support of the bills in the state legislature. Here is a sample letter. Here is a list of addresses, emails and phone numbers that you can use. The Senate bill is 157 and the House bill is 427. Surprising to me is sponsors of these bills come from both sides of the political aisle, because it is the right thing for people and for Ohio. 60 million dollars is left on the table in Ohio and $12 billion across the country, so let’s put that money to good use. Last year, $14 million dollars was donated to 34 charities. Find out where it went in the video:

What more needs to be said here? If you need more reasons to send your support to the state government, then go to You Tube and search cy pres and you will find some great charities that being helped by this money. If you want to know more check out Dworken & Bernstein.

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TEDxCLE an experiment in open source

Monday, March 1st, 2010

I have to preface these post with a shout out:  the images are from Kyle Roth, a local photographer who does beautiful work and who is a big champion of Cleveland, be sure to read his blog at North Coast Lifestyle and Epstein Design Partners.

Chris Yanc was one of the speakers at the TEDxCLE event. Before entering the event for the day, there sat upstairs an interactive light table. you could draw or write with your fingers, make waves in a pool of water, and a host of other cool things. It looked familiar to me, as I had seen something similar at Ingenuity Fest. There is was being used to control a selection of videos that were played in order of votes, and you could vote on the videos by touching this giant touch screen. The reason it seemed so eerily similar was that it was the same table. What made it such a great project is that it was built and made by Chris Yanc for pennies on the dollar, compared to similar products on the market. Even better, he told us how he did it. Being a techno geek deep at heart, I loved hearing him speak. He was witty and fun. Of course he did not go into too much depth about his table, but he did share the basics. Why? He spoke of open source. Open source means that developers and creators share their work with the world, not for the almighty dollar, but in order to collaborate and create and make things better. You can find out more about him at cyancdesigns, where he even has a host of tutorials to inspire and educate. THAT is a page I am bookmarking!

I don’t know what else to tell you about this talk, except that Chris is a cool guy, with cool ideas, and he likes to share. Imagine a world where everyone were willing to share. What could each person accomplish if he could rely on his cohorts to help him figure out the hard stuff and have his fellow sharers inspire his ideas. What a world that could be! You don’t have to imagine it, you can see what open source can mean to the world with this video that was shown at the TEDxCLE event. This was one of the most inspiring things that I have seen in long time.

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TEDxCLE

Saturday, February 27th, 2010

I have to preface this post with a couple of shout outs:  the images are from Kyle Roth, a local photographer who does beautiful work and who is a big champion of Cleveland (check out Epstein Design Partners);  Thanks go out to Lev Gonick, CIO of CWRU whose ticket I was able to use at this sold out show; Susie Sharp, who hooked me up with the ticket and escorted me in; and to Hallie and Eric who managed to get this show together and interest enough Clevelanders to fill the Capitol Theater on a snowy day in February.

If you have never heard of TED, don’t feel too bad, as many people have not.  From the website:

TED is a small nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design. Since then its scope has become ever broader. Along with the annual TED Conference in Long Beach, California, and the TEDGlobal conference in Oxford UK, TED includes the award-winning TEDTalks video site, the Open Translation Program, the new TEDx community program, this year’s TEDIndia Conference and the annual TED Prize.

Basically, the idea is to inspire innovation and thought by sharing cool ideas.  Going to a TED event or listening to a TED talk might inspire you to do something cool and exciting.  When you do it, you can share with your own TED talk, and like the shampoo commercial used to say, “and they’ll tell two friends, and so on, and so on, and so on…”  It has been so successful, in fact, that one person’s idea was to hold their own TED event outside the usual locations.  Thus TEDx was born-the x stands for independently organized TED event.  Now you do not have to live in California to hear cool ideas, you can hear from the people in your own local area that are doing cool things and inspiring the world.

The organizers for our event were Hallie Bram and Eric Kogelschatz.  Hallie and Eric moved to Cleveland from the Boston area.  Being a transplant to Cleveland myself, Eric and I chatted briefly about Cleveland’s potential and future as a revitalized city.  Hallie was a Cleveland native, and was thrilled to come back to do her part in revitalizing our fantastic city.  In addition to their day jobs, they also founded shark and minnow and TEDxCLE.  This is the kind of youth and energy that Cleveland needs to foster and support to breathe new life and vitality back to Cleveland.  If you a fan of bringing talented and energetic young people back to Cleveland who will invigorate the NE Ohio region, stop by shark and minnow and drop them a line.

The speakers for the event were from all walks of life:  Dr C Martin Harris of the Cleveland Clinic; Benson Lee of Technology Management, Inc; Terry Schwartz of Pop Up City; Patrick Perotti, Esq, from Lawyers Give Back; Chris Yanc of cyandesigns; Aaron LeMieux of Tremont Electric; Michael Ruhlman, author; Danielle LeBoe, owner of Room Service; Sean Bilovecky of Wrath Arcane; and Dana Myers of Myers Motors.  There were some clips of other cool things out there to break things up.  Each of these speakers had great ideas and a ton of things to say, so I want to try and highlight them all separately.  My personal thanks goes out to all the speakers who made my day so great, to the Capitol Theater for hosting the event and to Pheonix coffee for providing the much needed Ethiopian coffee to start my day.  There was an after event at Stone Mad Pub, which I stopped by, but unfortunately had to leave to do some work, so I hope everyone had fun there as well.  So where will the next event be?  I am all in!

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TEDxCLE an experiment in open source

Tuesday, February 7th, 2012

I have to preface these post with a shout out:  the images are from Kyle Roth, a local photographer who does beautiful work and who is a big champion of Cleveland, be sure to read his blog at North Coast Lifestyle and Epstein Design Partners.

Chris Yanc was one of the speakers at the TEDxCLE event. Before entering the event for the day, there sat upstairs an interactive light table. you could draw or write with your fingers, make waves in a pool of water, and a host of other cool things. It looked familiar to me, as I had seen something similar at Ingenuity Fest. There is was being used to control a selection of videos that were played in order of votes, and you could vote on the videos by touching this giant touch screen. The reason it seemed so eerily similar was that it was the same table. What made it such a great project is that it was built and made by Chris Yanc for pennies on the dollar, compared to similar products on the market. Even better, he told us how he did it. Being a techno geek deep at heart, I loved hearing him speak. He was witty and fun. Of course he did not go into too much depth about his table, but he did share the basics. Why? He spoke of open source. Open source means that developers and creators share their work with the world, not for the almighty dollar, but in order to collaborate and create and make things better. You can find out more about him at cyancdesigns, where he even has a host of tutorials to inspire and educate.  THAT is a page I am bookmarking!

I don’t know what else to tell you about this talk, except that Chris is a cool guy, with cool ideas, and he likes to share.  Imagine a world where everyone were willing to share.  What could each person accomplish if he could rely on his cohorts to help him figure out the hard stuff and have his fellow sharers inspire his ideas.  What a world that could be! You don’t have to imagine it, you can see what open source can mean to the world with this video that was shown at the TEDxCLE event. This was one of the most inspiring things that I have seen in long time.

Amplify

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Posted in Arts & Culture, Cleveland, Technology and the internet | Comments Off