Tuesday, June 5, 2007

Design is Good

I have to give kudos to David Moss of the Cleveland Institute of Art (“CIA”) for putting on a great design show last Friday evening at the Future Center. As many of you know, I am a huge fan of the CIA and Future. David is always on the bleeding edge of design and technology. This may come as a great surprise to many of you but Cleveland is a huge exporter of design and by this I mean the CIA and other great schools in the area are producing degreed design professionals that are then leaving the area to take jobs at Chrysler, ideo, EA Games, Microsoft and various other design shops. Truth is Cleveland has a competitive advantage in design (the new technology frontier).

Recently, there has been a lot of buzz on the District of Design. This District could be a huge economic benefit to Cleveland. I would like to put out the clarion call for everyone to support this concept and to get involved. Volunteer your time to identify great design shops that would be interested in such a concept. Help Cleveland keep its world class talent. Your new mantra should be, “Design is good.”

Posted by Tech Czar at 20:53:49 | Permalink | No Comments »

Saturday, May 12, 2007

TechNote 2.0

This past Thursday (May 10th), I had the honor of hosting, with Paul Shaia of Ante Up Studios (check out the studio @ www.anteupstudios.com), TechNote 2.0 - an event where the leaders of technology create music, sweet music for the crowd. I always get juiced for an event like TechNote. It is so grass-roots and free. Creativity is abundant (and also free). Events like this always refresh my great sense of the human capacity. I cannot tell you how fascinating it is to watch musicians just huddled together (after never having met) and jam as if it was they were long-lost members of a band and had decided to play thier greatest hits.


People in the crowd included:

-David Moss, Future Center
-Pat Walker, FourWalls.com
-Andy Tabar, Nashville Creative
-Christopher Axelrod, Urporn.tv (great music website, not what your thinking)
-Jim Eastman, aka Vitruvius, Notacon
-Jacob Kash, OSO Beverages (new energy drink)
(Quick note on Jacob.  He brought his nephew to the event who could out right play this Middle Eastern drum and it wasy DYNAMIC.)
-Christopher Galagaza, Project Pathway
-Erik Gerard, Kaiser Permanente (Erik is a great musician and former magician.)
-Tommy Wiggins, Cuyahoga Community College

We had the entire evening recorded (“The TechNote Sessions”) and will soon have all the music up on the Ante Up Studios website (stayed tuned). Certainly, TechNote reaffirmed that some of best networking events for the tech industry can focus on other commonalities that involve the creatitve class. Indeed, this was not your typcial networking event. But a lot of great bonds were made and the love of music may involve some new business and new friendship. 
Posted by Tech Czar at 18:39:52 | Permalink | No Comments »

Sunday, May 6, 2007

The Gaming Paradigm in Cleveland

Last week I had the honor of sitting on a panel discussion at the Future Center that focused on Cleveland’s gaming industry. My fellow panelists included:


-David Moss, Director of the Future Center; 
-Dan Carl, Director of the Northeast Ohio Gaming Initiative; 
-Rich Weiss, Assistant Director of Ingenuity
-Barbara Olney, Interim Marketing Director of Red {an orchestra}

(There was also a professor from the Cleveland Insitute of Art who had a fantastic scope on curriculum and trends in gaming - but, alas, I have forgotten his name.)

The entire evening offered outstanding dialogue on the “overlooked” but growing gaming industry in Cleveland. There are, however, a number of planets that are beginning to align that makes me think that something profound is about to happen. After the panel discussion a few interesting nuggests occured that should be noted:

-Bounty Technology, a Cleveland, OH-based tech company, just released GameGaurdian 1.0. GameGaurdian is slick tool that battles cheating in the massive online gaming systems (“MOGS”). Just another example of a  Cleveland company beginning to offer key solutions to the gaming industry.
-I had lunch Friday with a CEO of one of the fastest growing tech companies in Northeast Ohio where he pronounced his vision of brining Indian gaming companies to Cleveland. His comments were unprompted but very encouraging.
-A gaming committee that I have had working on the GameHub (a unique gaming incubator and entertainment complex) for over a year recently had a meeting with a developer for this concept. The interest is high.
-Notacon, a Cleveland, OH-based national conference, had nearly 300 individuals attend this year with a key focus on gaming and gaming technologies.

I would like to suggest the following steps to position Cleveland for its gaming explosion:

-Hold a gaming summit with the support of NorTech, NEOSA, Case Western Reserve University, the City of Cleveland to map out a master plan for this industry. The growth of gaming in Cleveland, and indeed Northeast Ohio, is just too important for us not to plan for success. 
-Submit a grant application to the State of Ohio to help financially support this plan of action for the gaming industry.
-Hold a gaming tournament in the high schools in Cleveland.

I can only hope of great success in this industry for Cleveland. The great secret is that we can be a world power house in this industry if only we want to be that. 
Posted by Tech Czar at 19:12:38 | Permalink | No Comments »