It was a good year for us. We have many people to thank for all the activities and events that we attended in 2016. This blog post includes our year-end thank-you tweets, and the list of all our 2016 blog posts.
As we have done for the past two years, we have created this blog post to remind us of the fun we had this year, and to show our appreciation. There are many people/organizations that we did not have a chance to mention -- to you all, we want to also say thank you!
We had a such a great time at University Circle's 23rd Annual Holiday CircleFest on Sunday, December 4, 2016, that we wanted to share our photos and tweets/retweets of the day to thank all the sponsoring organizations. Unfortunately, Julie only was able to attend the early activities, since she had a choir performance, but Stuart stayed to the very end of the evening activities.
One of the great things about the day is the people who work at the sponsoring organizations, who warmly welcome and talk to visitors. Stuart wants to give a shout-out to the people he met during the day. Their actions show how to effectively engage visitors to University Circle.
I was very impressed with the Flashstarts 2016 Accelerator Class. At the November 30, 2016, Flashstarts Demo Day, the startup founders made their presentations, after which I had a chance to talk to them. I also truly enjoyed meeting other new people and reconnecting to the people I knew who attended this event at The City Club.
It all started when I received an email from Michael Christoff, who is one of the members of the PechaKucha Night Cleveland leadership team. He wrote that he was inviting me to a special first-time-ever PechaKucha Night Cleveland Past Presenters Happy Hour. This would be an event where the 250+ PechaKucha Night Cleveland presenters from the past eight years would be invited.
Although Julie and I have written blog posts about PechaKucha Night Cleveland and attended many of their events, I had never done a PechaKucha talk myself. I was extremely honored to be invited to this closed event for people whose presentations I greatly admired. It meant a lot to me.
As a way of saying thank you to PlayhouseSquare and Cleveland Play House for Holidazzle, and to Downtown Cleveland Alliance, Cleveland Public Library, and Cleveland Public Square for Cleveland Winterfest 2016, we have gathered our photos and tweets from the day. We enjoy these great events every year.
We also want to mention the role that the Cleveland Foundation is taking this year with the new Cleveland Public Square. The foundation is supporting a winter skating program and the year-round Cleveland Foundation Centennial Plaza.
Two months before the Creative Fusion Spectacular, on Saturday, September 17, 2016, my wife, Julie, and I attended an art event of The Cleveland Foundation's Creative Fusion program. There we saw three new Cleveland murals being created as we watched, near Transformer Station in Hingetown.
Then, when I heard that The Cleveland Foundation had arranged with Ohio City Incorporated to have their Creative Fusion Spectacular on Saturday, November 19, 2016, I knew I wanted to attend to take a special tour of the finished neighborhood murals, and see the temporary Creative Fusion Gallery at 2529 Detroit Avenue, Cleveland.
This year, it was fun that the Akron Mini Maker Faire was held on November 12, 1016, since this was the week after the Cleveland Mini Maker Faire. This made November 2016 the Maker month in Northeast Ohio!
Today, November 19, 2016, the third Saturday of this month, seems like an appropriate day to formally announce that I will not be running the Web Development Special Interest Group (Web Development SIG -- WebSIGCleveland.org) any longer. I chose today to announce this because the Web Development SIG has met on the third Saturday of most months for the last 10 years.
The main purpose of posting this today is to thank the many presenters who have made the Web Development SIG a success. You will see some of their names listed in historical content below. Thank you to those who have made presentations during my tenure -- January 21, 2006 to March 9, 2016 -- and to those who worked with my predecessors. I truly will miss learning from you.
The 4th Annual Cleveland Mini Maker Faire took place on Saturday, November 5, 2016, and we have attended three out of the four. It was a day for creative people to share their passion with others.
Again this year, the Cleveland Mini Maker Faire was located in the Cleveland Public Library Main Library complex, and was presented by Cleveland Public Library and Ingenuity Cleveland.
We felt honored that the Executive Director/CEO of the Cleveland Public Library, Felton Thomas, Jr., greeted us by name as we entered the library, and invited us to explore this special Maker event.
We were looking forward to the November 4, 2016, PechaKucha Night Akron Volume 5. From past experience, we knew that PechaKucha Night events were always interesting, and because Stuart had heard of The Bit Factory, but had never visited it.
We were rewarded by our attendance at PechaKucha Night Akron Volume 5 with great talks, interesting location -- The Bit Factory -- and Akron Soul Train art.
A year ago, we were invited via Twitter to go on the final CircleTrek Walking Tour of University Circle for 2015. We really wanted to go, but unfortunately we had a conflict.
We have been very busy in 2016, and it feels like suddenly it is one year later. Luckily, we saw a tweet announcing the "...final FREE #CircleTrek guided walking tour of the season," and Julie signed us up to attend!
It was a brisk morning on Saturday, October 22, 2016, when we found ourselves with a group of other people interested in learning about our city's University Circle. As we were on the tour, we kept finding personal and family connections. This made the tour more interesting to us, as we personally related to the history and current developments of Cleveland's University Circle.
We had a great time at the Wednesday, October 19, 2016, Cleveland Museum of Natural History's Think & Drink with the Extinct, so we wanted to share our photos and tweets from the evening. The theme for the night was "Wildlife," which Stuart knew would be of special interest to Julie. It is always fun to be able to get close to the animals at the museum.
Like many of our adventures, it all started with a tweet!
Through this tweet, we learned about and decided to attend the Akron Art Prize Finale Reception on Saturday, October 1, 2016. We enjoyed seeing all the Akron Art Prize entries first at Summit Artspace, and then attending the awards reception at the Akron Art Museum.
We had such a good time and were so impressed with the artwork, that we wanted to share our photos and tweets/retweets from the event.
I want to begin with a BIG thank-you to BVU Director of Communications and Technology Melanie Meyer for inviting me to attend the inaugural BVU Ohio Nonprofit Technology & Communications Summit on Friday, September 30, 2016, as their guest representing the good work of Cleveland GiveCamp.
The mission of BVU: The Center for Nonprofit Excellence "is to promote business volunteerism and foster excellence in nonprofit organizations." This has led Melanie and me to explore how Cleveland GiveCamp can reach out to the nonprofits served by BVU. As a provider of free tech solutions to Cleveland and Akron area nonprofits, it seemed logical that Cleveland GiveCamp be present at BVU's first tech summit. Cleveland GiveCamp has the largest number of tech volunteers of any of the nation's other GiveCamps.
Thank you to the Cleveland Young Professional Senate, the Cleveland Foundation, and The City Club of Cleveland for the Greater Cleveland Caucus events that took place in 2016. I think this type of activity is very important to our community as a starting point for making positive change and plans for the future.
After attending the final Greater Cleveland Caucus event for 2016, I decided to write this blog post to:
The 2016 IngenuityFest weekend took place on Friday, September 23rd, through Sunday, September 25th. This is the fifth annual blog post I have written about IngenuityFest, plus I have written about other Ingenuity Cleveland-sponsored events.
Every year, I try to live the full IngenuityFest experience by attending all three days and talking to as many exhibitors as possible. It was really great this year to reconnect with some of the artists and techies I met in previous years, and get to know some tech people that I had read about online, but had not met in person. IngenuityFest is like an annual reunion of creative people in Cleveland!
Every year, we visit and write a blog post about the Cleveland Museum of Art's Chalk Festival. It is one of our favorite events in our community. This year, we also visited other art events on the same weekend, so we included our @sos_jr tweets with photos of these events as well. Enjoy!
We think that the Historic Gateway Neighborhood Corporation "Take a Hike" Cleveland tours are the greatest! We recently went on the Warehouse District Tour, in 2015 attended the Gateway District Tour, and have written blog posts in 2014 about the Playhouse Square Tour and Canal Basin Park in the Flats Tour.
Since we did not have time to write a blog post about the tour we did last year, we decided to include our @sos_jr tweets about @GatewayCLE tours from both 2015 and 2016 in this blog post. It is our way to share the experience, and more importantly, to thank the sponsors and partners for these great tours.
At the start of the week of August 15, 2016, we were prepared to write a blog post about how lucky we are in Cleveland to have PechaKucha Night Cleveland (@PKNCLE), which was coming up on Friday, August 19th. As the week progressed, we realized that, starting on Wednesday, we were going to have the opportunity to attend five consecutive free creative arts events! All of these events deserved at least a special mention and a thank-you, while some even warranted a full blog post.
Thus, this blog post has morphed into something different. While focused on PechaKucha Night Cleveland, it will also include mention of the other free creative events, and an additional inaugural arts event. This is our way to publicly thank the following organizations for their work to provide these free arts events:
Wednesday: WOW! Wade Oval Wednesdays - University Circle (@InTheCircle)
Thursday: Edgewater LIVE 2016 - Cleveland Metroparks (@CleveMetroparks)
Saturday: Arts In August - Tremont West Development Corporation (@TremontWest - @ArtsInAugust),
plus the inaugural Flats Festival of the Arts (@FlatsForward) which cost $10.
The Mission of Cleveland GiveCamp is to pair creative and technology talent with nonprofits in need.
Cleveland GiveCamp Weekend on July 29-31, 2016, marked the seventh year of serving nonprofits from the Cleveland and Akron areas. I am fortunate to to be part of Cleveland GiveCamp every year.
Cleveland continues to have many creative people volunteering (over 225 registered for 2016). It is believed that Cleveland has the largest GiveCamp in the nation. It is exciting that again this year there were so many volunteers that the tech volunteer tickets sold out, and a waiting list had to be started.
Another month, another BIG 2016 event where Cleveland shines -- The July 18-21, 2016, Republican National Convention!
July is the third consecutive month in 2016 where Cleveland had a huge event that reflected positively on our area.
While I did not attend the actual Republican National Convention, which was directed to out-of-state convention delegates visiting Cleveland, I did attend related events that engaged many local people and visitors.
With the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame offering free admission, the unveiling of the new Cleveland Public Square, and special programing by the great cultural institutions of both North Coast Harbor and University Circle, there was an amazing amount of activity crammed into four days.
Here it is...
NASA Glenn Research Center Celebrates 75 Years With an Open House
When Stuart saw this headline in a Cleveland Scene article on March 11, 2016, we knew we had to be there! Our first full blog post was about a tour of NASA Glenn Research Center as part of a Cleveland NASA Tweetup in 2012. We were excited to go back for another tour!
We attended the NASA Glenn Research Center 75th Anniversary Open House at Lewis Field on May 21 and 22, 2016. There was so much to see that the two days just left us wanting to see and learn more.
On Saturday, May 14, 2016, the Cleveland Young Professional Senate held their fourth annual YPCLE: Young Professional Civic Leadership and Empowerment Conference at The City Club of Cleveland. This year, it was entitled YPCLE: The Millennial Caucus, and was part of the Greater Cleveland Caucus Series. This series is the result of a partnership between the Cleveland Young Professional Senate, the Cleveland Foundation, The City Club of Cleveland, and others.
I am so glad that I was able to attend this event, and pleased that some college students who I invited also attended. I look forward to learning how the ideas developed at the caucus will be become an action plan for our community.
My goal for this blog post is:
to give those who did not attend information on what occurred
to create a public repository for some of the information I gathered in relation to the event
to remind us of the work yet to be done
We were excited to learn that Earth Day Coalition's EarthFest 2016 would take place on April 17th, the Sunday before Earth Day 2016 (April 22nd). We had a great time last year at EarthFest 2015, and were looking forward to attending again this year!
What made it even more fun this year is that while we were promoting the event on Twitter via @sos_jr, we ended up winning tickets from @GCRTA to attend the event!
Thank you, Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority - RTA!
I have attended the grand opening of the Cleveland Public Library TechCentral MakerSpace. The technology center staff at the Akron Public Library gave me a tour during the Akron Maker Faire. Now, I am pleased to be able to write about the Cuyahoga County Public Library's new Innovation Center at their Garfield Heights Branch. I was fortunate to be part of a special orientation tour given to members of the Cleveland Digital Publishing Users Group (CDPUG) for their March 31, 2016, meeting.
It was an evening of excitement and anticipation!! The announcement of the 2016-2017 KeyBank Broadway Series was a Broadway production itself!
Clevelanders have come to expect PlayhouseSquare and partner organizations to provide great theatre. We think that Cleveland theatergoers who have never attended the 2016-2017 KeyBank Broadway Series Announcement Celebration would be happily surprised by the high level entertainment and engagement of the launch. It is not a simple announcement of the upcoming season, but instead a very entertaining production with musical guests and interesting interviews with facts about the upcoming season's Broadway shows and about PlayhouseSquare.
The announcement of each show was accompanied by a special surprise. PlayhouseSquare presented the evening as a Cleveland event, not just a theatre event, to encourage pride in our city.
The Saturday, March 12, 2016, inaugural Greater Cleveland Caucus: A Town Hall Meeting on Community Solutions engaged over 400 attendees from throughout Greater Cleveland to spend their Saturday morning in serious dialogue about key community issues. In addition, representatives from more than 70 nonprofit organizations staffed informational booths before the caucus started, and then joined the attendees in brainstorming priorities within eight “caucus areas.”
I want to start by thanking the Greater Cleveland Caucus Series partners for this 2016 initiative. I hope that the Caucus Series, and their related events (such as debate watch parties), provides structure for positive outcomes for Cleveland's future, and acts as a catalyst to involve more Greater Cleveland citizens in that future.
UPDATE -- MAY 9, 2016: Videos of the Fred Talks speeches from the March 12 Greater Cleveland Caucus Town Hall have now been added to this blog post!
Like last year, I want to start by thanking my great co-writer and wife, Julie Smith! I always enjoy sharing the journey with her.
It brings me joy to look at the blog posts we did this past year -- great memories of fun times, plus the anticipation of a new year full of possibilities!
Since we have enjoyed Brite Winter for several years now, we are posting our @sos_jr tweets and photos/videos as our way to thank and congratulate the organizers of this unique outdoor winter event in Cleveland.
We visited Brite Winter 2016 during the evening of February 20, 2016, but the full event went from 3:00 p.m. until 2:00 a.m. on the West Bank of the Flats. We did not get to see everything, so be sure to look at some of the tweets we shared from others.
Having seen the incredible ice sculptures last year, we made it a point to attend the second annual Cleveland's North Coast Harbor Ice Fest.
We are posting our @sos_jr tweets and photos/videos from Cleveland's Ice Fest at North Coast Harbor here as our way to thank the organizers.
The Ice Fest was located between the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum and the Great Lakes Science Center. The Cleveland Ice Fest at North Coast Harbor is a great event -- worth taking the time to visit!
PechaKucha Night Cleveland is always a good time, so I want to share with you my photos and tweets from PechaKucha Night Cleveland Volume 27. It took place at the Music Box Supper Club on February 18, 2016.
I don't know if it is possible to capture the full atmosphere of the evening in a blog post. I do hope it will encourage you to go in person to a future event to truly experience it live!
I was very fortunate to see on Twitter an announcement about a very interesting panel discussion. On Tuesday, February 9, 2016, I attended the discussion about recent developments on, and potential future plans for Cleveland's lakefront and riverfront.
By arriving early at Lakewood Public Library, I was able to get a good seat for this function, which soon became a standing-room-only event!
Even though I had heard about most of the projects separately, it was exciting for me to hear about all of them at one gathering! It was great to hear directly from these panel members, who are intimately involved with these projects.
Akron creatives from diverse disciplines present their work in a unique format -- 20 slides of 20 seconds each.
We were excited to spend the evening in Akron at the Akron Civic Theatre, since we had not been to this great venue in years. We attended the second PechaKucha Night Akron on February 5, 2016.
If you have never attended a PechaKucha event at any of the over 800 cities around the world, we strongly suggest you do so. We were very impressed with the second PechaKucha Night Akron. We had already written blog posts about two of the presenters, so it was great to get updated on their current work, and learn about exciting developments from the other presenters.
On New Year's Eve 2015, I decided to continue the tradition that I started last year, by creating thank-you tweets. I have shared these thank-you tweets (and related tweets/retweets) in this blog post to thank the individuals and organizations mentioned, for adding value to my life in 2015, and to remind me of the fun times I had in 2015. Thank you!
I have always enjoyed reading Janet Cho's #SocialMedia Tips articles, so I was honored when she contacted me to be featured in her column.
Smarter #SocialMedia Tips from #HappyinCLE Stuart O. Smith Jr. (@sos_jr)
Although it is a very busy time of the year, and we had visited the Cleveland Museum of Art and University Circle recently, when we heard about the Ohio Blogging Association's University Circle Holiday Night Out, we knew we had to make the time for this special night. We know that we will remember this fun evening for a long time!
The Smiths have a family tradition of driving to GE Lighting's Nela Park two weeks before Christmas to see their annual Christmas lights display. Of particular interest to us is seeing each year at Nela Park the replica of the National Christmas Tree. We also enjoy discovering each year's decorating theme.
This year, the Nela Park holiday lights display featured Cleveland landmarks. Therefore, we decided to not only see GE Lighting's Nela Park, but also to see the holiday lighting at the landmarks themselves.
![Case Western Reserve University's think[box] Thinkapalooza!](/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/Thingapalooza.jpg?itok=ON_8zP0F "Case Western Reserve University's think[box] Thinkapalooza!")
On October 27, 2015, we were very fortunate to be invited to attend Case Western Reserve University's think[box] Thinkapalooza!
Even before the new think[box] space opened, we had heard about how great it was going to be. Thinkapalooza was part of the grand opening of Case Western Reserve University think[box]'s new space for promoting innovation and entrepreneurial enterprises. Its new name is the Larry Sears and Sally Zlotnick Sears think[box] and it is located in the Richey Mixon Building. It is one of the largest centers of its kind for an academic institution.
think[box] is a resource that will first focus on the students, faculty, and staff of the university, but will also be open to others in the surrounding community.
The Smith family has a tradition of going to Pumpkinville each fall. This year, on Sunday, October 25, 2015, Julie and Stuart also went to Holden Arboretum after visiting Pumpkinville. We decided to write a blog post, since this year, there were some special situations to note.
Since it was Pumpkinville's 50th anniversary year, we wanted to include a few of our photos to congratulate them. 50 years in business is worth noting! Pumpkinville is located in Kirtland, Ohio.
We also had reasons to make special note about our fall visit to Holden Arboretum. We were especially excited about experiencing the new Murch Canopy Walk and Kalberer Emergent Tower. They had just opened on September 6, 2015, and they were incredible!
We want to take this opportunity to congratulate the Cleveland Play House on their centennial, and for earning the 2015 Regional Theatre Tony Award!
During the 2014/2015 program year for Cleveland Museum of Natural History, I remembered hearing about Think & Drink with the Extinct events. Since I have attended astronomy programs and other public events at the museum, I was intrigued, and started promoting the events in my @sos_jr tweets. Promoting events/meetings is the reason I starting using Twitter.
I did not think that it would take until Fall 2015 to finally have a night that I could attend. I decided to share my photos and tweets from the evening to thank the organizers of the event, and to encourage others to attend. I will not attempt to fully express what the event is like -- it is something you need to experience for yourself -- but I will say that if you like having access to extremely bright people from whom you can learn, then you should attend.
On October 21, 2015, the Cleveland Museum of Natural History (@goCMNH) had their monthly Think & Drink with the Extinct (#ThinkandDrink). The evening's theme was "Paleontology - Fossils and Ferments." October 21, 2015, just happened to be Back to the Future Day -- somehow it seemed right to be in a museum to celebrate.
I have been writing blog posts about Ingenuity Cleveland's IngenuityFest since 2012, and attending long before that. IngenuityFest is the perfect marriage of my interests in arts and technology.
Cleveland Technology + Art = IngenuityFest Weekend 2015!
I went to all three days, October 2-4, of IngenuityFest 2015. I am sharing my photos and tweets from the weekend in this blog post as my way of thanking all the presenters. I made a point of talking to many artists in their installations, and local tech leaders at their booths. I can't include everyone I spoke to, but will mention a few in this post.
I have also included my tweets from the inaugural Hingetown Hoedown, which took place Saturday night. It was incredible to see so many people attend this first-time event!
On Tuesday, October 20, 2015, we had a great time attending the Ohio Blogging Association's Cleveland Bloggers Dinner at Sterle's Country House.
While we enjoyed the food, and the old-world ambience of the restaurant, the main reason we attended was to interact with fellow Cleveland Bloggers! If you are a blogger, we highly recommend you attend future Ohio Blogging Association events.
I was fortunate to have Kevin Lockett present a talk entitled So You Think You Know Podcasting at my October 17, 2015, WebSigCleveland.org meeting. Kevin's podcasting talk also provided resources and creative ideas beyond podcasting, which is why I decided to gather my notes, tweets, and Kevin's slides, and create this blog post.
My notes on the presentation are included in my @sos_jr tweets I did during the meeting, so I have embedded them in this blog post.
This is the seventh blog post I have written about a Cleveland.com TweetUp, and my wife, Julie, and I have attended many more. They are always about having fun in Cleveland while making new friends and meeting old Tweetup friends. I saw some people I had not seen in a while, so it was great to reconnect.
Like the February 5, 2015, Corner Alley - Uptown TweetUp, the September 24, 2015, Cleveland TweetUp at the The Big Bang Cleveland was about welcoming a new entertainment venue to Cleveland. It was again hosted by Kristel Hartshorn and Troy Smith. I suggest you follow them on Twitter, and read their Cleveland.com articles, since they write about Cleveland entertainment.
Every year, we enjoy viewing the artwork at the Chalk Festival at the Cleveland Museum of Art. As in 2014, Stuart was glad he was able to participate by adding his chalk drawing to the weekend display.
The weather was beautiful, and there was a huge turnout of Cleveland artists. Please read on to learn about an act of kindness and generosity by some children at the festival.
September 19, 2015 -- what a day!
I am a person who likes to attend a lot of events, but this day was unusual even for me! I got up at 6:00 a.m. to prepare for the day, and did not get home until late at night.
The reason for sharing my day with you, the reader, is twofold:
I learned about a lot of interesting things.
I want to thank everyone that made the day's events a grand success. Most of the people involved are donating their time to make our community better.
Here is how I spent my day:
My weekend plans went from nothing planned to really fun when I learned about two free events via Twitter.
I had not planned on writing this blog post about the weekend. I even told people I talked to at the events that I was not going to write about the weekend. However...
After the weekend was over, I decided I wanted to capture the information I learned about local adventures. I also wanted to thank NEO Cycle and the Cleveland Pops for the good time.
EASTSIDE GREENWAY
The Eastside Greenway seeks to connect the east side of Cleveland with 18 Greater Cleveland municipalities through a unified trail network that will link neighborhoods to employment centers, transit and existing green spaces. The communities within the study area include East Cleveland, Cleveland Heights, Shaker Heights, Beachwood, Pepper Pike, University Heights, Richmond Heights, Highland Heights, Highland Hills, North Randall, Mayfield Heights, Mayfield Village, Euclid, South Euclid, Lyndhurst, Bratenahl, Orange Village and Warrensville Heights and eastern portions of Cleveland.
The Eastside Greenway project is a great idea, but in some ways I feel that it might be too early to write about it. Today it is just a great idea -- a concept for the future. I look forward to writing again about how the work of today's leaders made a difference in the quality of life.
On the evening of Tuesday, September 8, 2015, we knew we both needed to be on the second floor of the Terminal Tower. A grand opening was scheduled. The event by itself could have been just another gathering of talented people that we often attend in Cleveland, but what was opening represented much more -- the foundation for future Cleveland entrepreneurship in a centralized hub connecting startups to critical resources.
It was fascinating to meet and learn about the Flashstarts 2015 Accelerator Class at the Flashstarts' Demo Day, Wednesday, August 19, 2015 at House of Blues Cleveland. I find it very enjoyable to engage in conversation with such creative Cleveland entrepreneurs.
Biomimicry! What an interesting topic -- as is expected when you attend one of DXY's Tangent events!
Biomimetics or biomimicry is the imitation of the models, systems, and elements of nature for the purpose of solving complex human problems.
On Tuesday, August 11, 2015, we attended the DXY Tangent entitled: The Things We Mimic...
The Mission of Cleveland GiveCamp is to pair creative and technology talent with nonprofits in need.
The tech and design volunteers at Cleveland GiveCamp 2015 really "wowed" the nonprofit partners served this year with some incredible projects. The many tweets I embedded in this blog really give a flavor of the weekend. I recommend scanning through them and reading those that pique your interest.
When we got to EarthFest 2015 on Sunday, April 19th, things were hopping!
We arrived in the afternoon, and thus missed the opening ceremony. After seeing the large number of displays, we wished we had come sooner. Even though the EarthFest was now being held at the Cuyahoga County Fairgrounds, we did not know that it would be so big. We did not think that so many of the fairground buildings would be used. We were pleased to see so many people attending -- it was quite a crowd! -- and so many participating environmental organizations.
We were thrilled when the Digital Communications Manager Stephanie Anderson from PlayhouseSquare invited us to their big event announcing the 2015-2016 KeyBank Broadway Series! We have been attending many of the shows and events at the many theatres and surrounding venues of PlayhouseSquare, but have never attended a PlayhouseSquare Broadway Launch Party. We already knew that Cleveland's PlayhouseSquare is the second largest theater venue in the United States, but this evening we learned how Cleveland is the #1 city for touring Broadway shows, with 32,000 season ticket holders!
2012 to 2015!!!
First and foremost, I want to begin by thanking my great co-writer and wife, Julie Smith! I enjoy sharing the journey with her.
When I look at the titles and images associated with the blog posts from this past year, I get really excited. They not only bring back memories of all the enjoyable things we did this past year, but also make me anticipate the potential of the coming year!
What more can we say? Cleveland knows how to have fun in the winter! We had a a great time at these two outdoor winter spectaculars!
On Wednesday, February 11, 2015, LaunchHouse transformed its building into a showcase of experimentation and experience, as the latest LaunchHouse Accelerator companies demonstrated their original product ideas at the LaunchHouse Accelerator Expo (LHXPO).
I use the word "experimentation" because this year, the focus was on hardware products and the science behind them. The active involvement of NASA Glenn Research Center with this year's LaunchHouse Accelerator supported this new level of experimentation.
I also use the word "experience," since attendees could get up close and personal with many of the products by actually trying them out.
It was a fun evening, and I particularly enjoyed meeting new people. I have been to other Cleveland TweetUps, and it seemed like there were more first-time attendees at this one.The great thing about a #CLEtweetup is that you can walk up to strangers, find out you have something in common, and look forward to seeing them again at the next #CLEtweetup.
The Northeast Ohio Software Association is now OHTech!
The new name, OHTech, reflects the change in the composition that has already occurred within the membership of OHTech. No longer is the organization limited by the word "software" in its name. It is a professional association that supports the full gamut of the technology arena, not just software development.
The "OH" reflects a new strategic emphasis -- to grow to be a resource throughout the entire state of Ohio.
Having heard at the end of January 2015 that Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler had planned on using the February 26, 2015, FCC Open Commission Meeting to vote on the issue of net neutrality, I decided that now was the time to write a third blog post on this issue.
I was fortunate to attend TechPint Cleveland V: Winter Jam on January 22, 2015, at the Beachland Ballroom. As the name implies, this was the fifth TechPint in Cleveland (there have also been Akron TechPints).
As in the past, the interesting location is also part of the draw of the event. Beachland Ballroom allowed for a creative atmosphere. With tickets sales exceeding 300, it was great that the Beachland Ballroom was able to open their back room to accommodate an additional 50 attendees. I heard that TechPint came very close to selling out all 350 tickets -- a big congratulations to the TechPint leadership team!
I've been to several Codemash conferences and highly recommend them. This is the Codemash-Part Two blog post. It will include resources from the Friday, January 9, 2015, sessions I attended. Also included are my tweets/retweets from Friday and from after Codemash, plus links to other people's blog posts about Codemash. Please also read the Codemash 2015 - Part 1 of 2 blog post, which includes photos of the entire event.
My goal is to share some of the flavor of the event and some of the useful information developed for the conference. I hope you find these two blog posts interesting, if not useful -- enjoy!
I've been to several Codemash conferences and highly recommend them. In this Codemash-Part One blog post, I will share tweets from before and during the first part of Codemash 2015, along with my photos from the entire event. Codemash-Part Two will contain tweets from my last day, and after the event, along with a list of other Codemash blogs. I will also share some of the resources from conference sessions I attended.
My goal is to share some of the flavor of the event and some some of the useful information developed for the conference. There are over 300 tweets/retweets regarding @Codemash. Be sure to take a moment to review them. Some reflect the unique humor that develops when you gather such a large group of creative people together. Other tweets provide links to useful technology resources, and blog posts developed for Codemash 2015.
I enjoy the conference every year -- I am writing this blog post as my way of thanking all the many people who volunteer their time and financial support to make it a success.
After attending six of the Cleveland Foundation's centennial events in 2014, Stuart was disappointed that he would not be available on December 30th for the final event due to work commitments.
Then, unexpectedly, he was given two extra days off from work! This allowed him, on December 29th, to enjoy a day of hiking on the Buckeye Trail in the Cleveland Metroparks and Cuyahoga Valley National Park. On December 30th, he was able to return to both parks and University Circle for Cleveland Foundation's Family Fun Day.
What follows is information about this final centennial event, and our photos/tweets of our activities of the day. Before we share our experiences from this one day, we want to share with you, the reader, Cleveland Foundation's "Enduring Trust" video. Understanding the worldwide importance of the first community foundation is more important than our thank-you message for one day of family fun.
As we ended 2014, I took some time to review the year. 2014 = good year.
The following are my New Year's Eve thank-you tweets and some other tweets/retweets. I decided to save these in this blog post to remind me of the fun year and as a record of those that I appreciate for adding great value to my life in 2014. There are many more people/organizations that I did not have a chance to mention -- to you all I want to also say thank you!
I was not able to attend the City of Cleveland and OneCommunity's November 21, 2014, announcement. I watched it via Twitter, and thought it was very important to write this blog post to say:
Congratulations, @CityOfCleveland and @OneCommunity...
...for making Cleveland the first city in the United States to have a commercially available 100-gigabit fiber network!
I have been to the LeanDog boat many times for tech meetings or for Cleveland GiveCamp-related activities, but when I received my invitation to attend the Arras Keathley and LeanDog boat christening celebration, I knew that this would be different -- that this would be big!
The christening invitation for the Thursday night, October 23, 2014, event indicated that Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson, Arras Keathley President Jim Hickey, and LeanDog President Jon Stahl would all take part in the champagne christening. I also heard that famed Cleveland singer Alex Bevan would be performing. I was excited to hear this, since I had never seen him perform in person.
Robots! 3-D Printers! Hackers! Mobile Broadcasting! Makers! Astronomy! Circuits! Kites! Make A Telescope! - Akron's October 2014 Mini Maker Faire had all of this and more!
Congratulations to the Akron-Summit County Public Library staff for this year's success! They doubled the attendance this second year of the event, with over 1,500 attendees.
On Wednesday, October 1, 2014, I was invited to attend two events about the positive things going on with the growth of technology in Northeast Ohio, and the new challenges created. In this blog post, I will share my notes and the related tweets. Since I could not capture all that occurred, I recommend reading the tweets, particularly for the Tech Town Hall event. We had some pretty impressive live tweeters for this Cleveland event.
Cleveland Technology + Art = Ingenuityfest Weekend!
Every year, the tribe of people interested in supporting artists and technologists in our community comes together in an annual gathering called Ingenuityfest. 2014 marked the 10th anniversary of this gathering.
My goal is to share a little bit of Ingenuityfest 2014. To truly experience it, though, you must attend this annual Cleveland event.
On Saturday, September 27, 2014, despite already having planned to spend the day and evening at the Cleveland IngenuityFest, we added attending the Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District Open House and Southerly Wastewater Treatment Plant tour to our day's schedule. The day before the event, we received an email stating that they had over 500 people registered for the tour. We had no idea that so many others would be interested.
Our main interest was twofold. First, we wanted to understand the technology behind how all the wastewater for our region is handled. Secondly, and most importantly, we had already learned about the importance of the Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District from the Cleveland Foundation Centennial Gift: Weekends on the Water cruise and wanted to learn more.
September 13 and 14, 2014 -- Stuart's second and Julie's first Cleveland's One World Festival. We had such a great time enjoying the international diversity of Cleveland coming together as one community, that we wanted to share our photos and tweets about the day.
OneCommunity's work is interesting and important!
ABOUT ONECOMMUNITY
MISSION: OneCommunity is expanding high-speed broadband access and adoption to strengthen Northeast Ohio.
VISION: Advanced digital capabilities and effective use of technology will help transform the region and establish Northeast Ohio as a national hub for innovation and economic growth.
In this blog post, I write about OneCommunity (formerly OneCleveland) and the exciting things OneCommunity is doing in Cleveland today!
We are very fortunate to have been among the 6,000 Clevelanders who received free tickets to an educational cruise on Cleveland's largest excursion ship, the Goodtime III. On Saturday, September 13th, we joined a joyful crowd on the docks at the end of East 9th Street near Voinovich Park. A light rain did not dampen the spirits of those waiting to board the ship.
Thank you, Cleveland Museum of Art, for your 2014 Chalk Festival. As always, we had a wonderful time! We attended on Sunday, September 14, 2014, and want to say...
Congratulations on
25 Years of Chalk Art!
This blog post was originally intended to be a short description of a pleasant Sunday morning tour of part of the Flats area of Cleveland. However, as we learned more about Cuyahoga River-related developments, we kept finding additional important facets about which to write.
On July 17, 2014, I wrote to Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Tom Wheeler in response to his call for comments regarding net neutrality.
.@sos_jr next we are taking reply comments up until 9/10 & then we reads all & start 2 figure out our course. #netneutrality
— Gigi Sohn (@GigiBSohnFCC) July 14, 2014
It is NOW September! The date for submission has been extended to September 15th! Time to take action!
RT @FCC: The #netneutrality reply comment period will be extended from 9/10 to 9/15. Tell the @FCC what you want in new #netneutrality rules
— Stuart O. Smith, Jr. (@sos_jr) August 30, 2014
Thank you, Cleveland Foundation, for another great centennial gift to the community! We enjoyed seeing Singin’ in the Rain on August 23 , 2014, at the world famous PlayhouseSquare. To celebrate the 100th anniversary of the first community foundation in the world, at the second largest theatre district in the United States and world’s largest theater restoration project, says a lot for Cleveland!
We keep hearing from people we talk to that there is so much going on in Cleveland. One of the great ways to learn about what is up-and-coming in our city is by attending a PechaKucha Night Cleveland. All PechaKucha Night Cleveland events are special, but on August 7, 2014, it was combined with other events happening in our community that made it all extra special -- AHA! Cleveland events and Gay Games 9.
The fifth annual Cleveland GiveCamp took place over the weekend of July 18-20, 2014 at LeanDog and Burke Lakefront Airport. In 2010, the first year there was a GiveCamp in Cleveland, our tech and design community set a record for having the largest first-time GiveCamp in the nation. Today, Cleveland GiveCamp (@CleGiveCamp) has grown to be one of the largest (possibly the largest) GiveCamps in the United States.
This blog post will share the involvement of Mike, Kevin and Stuart Smith, plus links to resources shared during the weekend, and links to other blogs about the weekend. We highly recommend reading through the tweets from the event, since they will give you a taste of the weekend. If you have never participated in a GiveCamp, we highly recommend volunteering your talent to help local nonprofits. It is a lot of hard work, and more fun than you would imagine.
The INITIAL public comment period to the FCC has been extended to Friday, July 18, 2014. If you have not submitted your comment yet, and it is before July 19th -- what are you waiting for?
.@sos_jr 2 contact re: #netneutrality, file comments in our electronic comment filing system online or send email openinternet@fcc.gov
— Gigi Sohn (@GigiBSohnFCC) July 14, 2014
7/18 is new deadline to submit initial comments on #NetNeutrality. To submit comments go to http://t.co/EjFcs6Ng9K & click Proceeding #14-28
— The FCC (@FCC) July 16, 2014
If you are reading this blog after Friday, July 18th, then I recommend following the @FCC, @TomWheelerFCC, and @GigiBSohnFCC on Twitter, and watching the www.fcc.gov website for details. There will be opportunities for additional comments up to September 10, 2014, per...
.@sos_jr next we are taking reply comments up until 9/10 & then we reads all & start 2 figure out our course. #netneutrality
— Gigi Sohn (@GigiBSohnFCC) July 14, 2014
Thank you, Cleveland Indians, for inviting us to watch the May 30, 2014, game against the Colorado Rockies from the Indians Social Suite. We had a great time watching the Tribe win the game with a score of 5 to 2!
We enjoyed a fantastic view of the game from the Social Suite, and as a special treat, watched a terrific post-game fireworks show from the visitors dugout! Our photos and videos will give you a sense of the fun of the evening.
Even though we are very familiar with the institutions surrounding Wade Oval, it was great to visit them again as guests of The Cleveland Foundation.
In addition to sharing our photos and videos from the Wade Oval event, please see the information on the next Cleveland Foundation centennial gift of free Tri-C JazzFest outdoor concerts on June 27 and 28.
Here are this week's Cleveland tech, entrepreneur, and social media meetings this last week in May! These meetings don't seem to be slowing down at all as we enter the summer month.
Bal Ingénieux 2014 was a fun fundraiser for Ingenuity Cleveland, which took place on May 3, 2014. It included vaudeville entertainment, music and comedy.
After the main show, I went down to where a DJ was playing music, and where many of the people dancing were wearing masks. It made for a fun environment where people danced freely with partners and as solo dancers. My videos show a very spontaneous occurrence that ended up being one of the most unique happenings of the evening -- shadow dancing.
I'm having a busy week again, so I know that there are more meetings to add to this list that I have missed. Please feel free to add a comment below, or mention to my @sos_jr Twitter name, if you know of a Cleveland tech, entrepreneur, or social media meetings that I should be promoting this week.
I also heard good news regarding Cleveland nonprofits signing up for Cleveland GiveCamp. Please take some time to help spread the word to local nonprofits that the Cleveland GiveCamp application process is now open! Please retweet and forward this message...
The #Cleveland #GiveCamp #Nonprofit Application is now available: http://t.co/DUfC9fWP4o Plz spread the word! #CleGC pic.twitter.com/44gYvvckoY
— Cleveland GiveCamp (@CleGiveCamp) April 16, 2014
Please join my on Saturday, May 17th for my WebSigCleveland.org on Integrating UX in Agile. In this session Carol Smith (@carologic) will share best practices that she has collected through her own work, as well as through attending training and workshops with advanced UX/Agile practitioners.
Here is my weekly listing of Cleveland Tech, Entrepreneur & Social Media Meetings I track. Please share this blog post with others who are interested in any of the following meetings. If you are on Twitter, please retweet those meetings that you find interesting to share with others. Thank you.
Cleveland's Playhouse Square "Dazzle The District" event can be seen as the accumulation of years of work, which came to a climax at the huge outdoor party on the evening of May 2, 2014. Playhouse Square, as the second largest theater district in the country, was already a significant destination. The new outdoor elements further define Playhouse Square as a Cleveland highlight.
Dazzle The District was promoted as a once-in-a-lifetime event, and it lived up to and surpassed expectations! The 19,740 people who attended were truly a part of history. We were moved to see so much pride in Cleveland. It was amazing to see this huge crowd of people smiling, laughing, and dancing in the street!
If you are like me, your month of May started off very busy, but please take some time to help spread the word to local nonprofits that the Cleveland GiveCamp application process is now open! Please retweet and forward this message...
MT @CleGiveCamp: #Cleveland #Nonprofit Application is now available http://t.co/6nibl0LqPu Plz spread the word!#CleGC pic.twitter.com/YrEaasLzDr
— Stuart O. Smith, Jr. (@sos_jr) May 5, 2014
Here is my weekly listing of Cleveland Tech, Entrepreneur & Social Media Meetings I track.
We attended and greatly enjoyed the Akron Mini Maker Faire on November 2, 2013, so we were excited to be able to attend the Cleveland event this year. (We missed the first Cleveland Mini Maker Faire last year.) As the date of March 29, 2014, approached, we heard that the Cleveland Mini Maker Faire was going to be huge -- and it was!
As we enter May, I want to remind you to please spread the word to local nonprofits that theCleveland GiveCamp application process is now open! This is the fifth year in Cleveland where members of our incredible tech community volunteer their time each year to help local charities at Cleveland GiveCamp. Cleveland area charities can find details to sign up at: ClevelandGivecamp.org/nonprofits/
Here is my weekly listing of Cleveland Tech, Entrepreneur & Social Media Meetings I track.
When I first arrived, I was amazed by the size of the event and how the Cleveland Museum of Art made a great venue. (I subsequently heard that it was the largest entrepreneur expo in its history.) The large and varied group of people added to the excitement. My only regret is that I did not get around to all the many booths.
Can you believe it is mid-April already?! This year is going so fast!
It is mid-April and that means I want to focus on these three items before my weekly listing of Cleveland Tech, Entrepreneur & Social Media Meetings I track:
First, as I mentioned last week, this is NEOSA's Tech Week (April 11-18) in northeast Ohio. Learn more about it at NEOSATechWeek.com for more events beyond what I list below.
At my last WebSigCleveland.org meeting, I indicated that there might not be a meeting this month. However my schedule conflict did not happen, so please mark your calendars and share with others this week's topic: Saturday, April 16th @ 10:30 a.m. - Write the Right Words for the Internet – Words People Read® with Deborah Chaddock Brown, founder and president ofAllWrite Ink and The Social Media Roadmap
In Cleveland, members of our incredible tech community volunteer their time each year to help local charities at Cleveland GiveCamp. Please tell the nonprofit organizations that you know that the application process starts April 16, 2014! Charities can find details to sign up at: ClevelandGivecamp.org/nonprofits/
Thank you, Cleveland Foundation! We had a great time at the March 24, 2014, Cleveland Foundation free day at the Cleveland International Film Festival (CIFF)! While we could make this blog only about the good time we had, and the films we saw, of more importance is how this day represents more than just one good day. The day was one of this year's monthly activities honoring the 100 years of good work of The Cleveland Foundation.
Friday officially starts Tech Week in northeast Ohio, but to my experience, most weeks in Cleveland/Akron are tech week. Take a look at all that is happening this week!!!
(Learn more about NEOSA Tech Week April 11-18 at: NEOSATechWeek.com.)
We want to take this opportunity to thank Bizdom Cleveland for the Cavs tickets we won at the Brite Winter event. We are also using this opportunity to share our experiences at Brite Winter. When you view our photos, videos, and tweets, you can see what fun we had at these events.
For this weeks blog post I not only list the meeting that are happening this week, but also wanted to share some other interesting happenings in our community.
If you did not see my Saturday, March 8, 2014, two-year "Blogiversary!" blog post, please take a look at the "call for action" suggestions I made. We have so many people working to improve our community, I wanted to use my Blogiversary to make note of it. My Blogiversary included a list of 140 groups I track (I bolded the ones I have added since last year).
At the same time I was celebrating my second Blogiversary, I with the help of my son and wife, completed several blog posts in a very short time! Please take a look at all my blog posts at: sosAssociates.com/blog/
It was great to be able to attend the TechPint Akron II - "And All That Jazz" event at Jilly's Music Room in downtown Akron, especially after I had featured one of the speakers, Eric Wise, in my TechPint Cleveland III blog post.
I had never been to Jilly's Music Room, but after checking out the ReverbNation website, I was interested in seeing their venue.
On Saturday, March 8, 2014, I celebrated my two-year "Blogiversary!" Be sure to take a look at the list of 140 groups I track (I bolded the ones I have added since last year), and the "call for action" items.
I hope the post inspires others to do more to thank leaders, and assist in promoting these free or low-cost tech, social media, and entrepreneur meetings in our community. Our community is much stronger for having these opportunities to learn from each other.
As I mentioned last week, in addition to my 3/8/14 Blogiversary: Two post, I had a busy time posting the following four items:
3/2/14 Cleveland Tech, Entrepreneur & Social Media Meetings Mon 3/3 - Mon 3/10
(This is one of my regular weekly blog posts.)
What a great way to celebrate my second anniversary -- completing so many blog posts in such a short time! Please take a look at all my blog posts at: sosAssociates.com/blog/
This being the third week of the month, I also want to invite you to my monthly WebSigCleveland.org meeting this Saturday at 10:30 a.m. All meeting are free and open to all, so please help me spread the word by inviting others. Please mark your calendars and plan on attending:
Two very fun and active years have passed since my first "Hello, World! My First Blog Post!" message!
Last year, for my first Blogiversary, I listed 120 organizations that I tracked. I have found that in the last five months, I have not been able to keep up with all the exciting growth in Cleveland and Akron, but I try to do so in my weekly tech blog posts.
In addition to my weekly tech and social media blog posts for our community, I (and sometime we -- my wife and sons co-write with me) also write about other items that interest me. Please check out all the blog posts that I have completed these past two years on my "Blog sosAssociates."
On a cold Saturday night, Stuart and Julie arrived at the theater in excited anticipation! It was another Social Media Night, this time for Deathtrap at Playhouse Square's Hanna Theatre! Stuart had seen the play years ago on Broadway for a college theater class, but had forgotten the details of the show. He only remembered that it was a great show, and he was glad to see it now as a Great Lakes Theater production.
Weekends and weekdays -- we have found that there is so much going on in Cleveland! We want to share with you here two events that we attended last weekend.
The first event, attended by Julie and Stuart, PechaKucha Cleveland, was something we have enjoyed many times in the past. Knowing the history of the location, The City Club, added an interesting dimension.
The second event, attended by Julie, Kevin, and Stuart, was a gift to the community from the The Cleveland Foundation as part of their 100th birthday celebration -- a free day at the Great Lakes Science Center.
This is the second installment, entitled FREE! Great Lakes Science Center
Weekends and weekdays -- we have found that there is so much going on in Cleveland! We want to share with you here two events that we attended last weekend.
The first event, attended by Julie and Stuart, PechaKucha Cleveland, was something we have enjoyed many times in the past. Knowing the history of the location, The City Club, added an interesting dimension.
The second event, attended by Julie, Kevin, and Stuart, was a gift to the community from the The Cleveland Foundation as part of their 100th birthday celebration -- a free day at the Great Lakes Science Center.
This is the first installment, entitled PechaKucha Cleveland at The City Club.
A slow week in Northeast Ohio! (Sarcasm intended - there is always more to do in Cleveland than I have hours in my week!) At the time I am writing this, I know of only about 21 technology and social media events happening in the Cleveland and Akron area. Please help me learn of more by adding in the comments any that I may have missed. I will then share with others on Twitter. Thank you!
Julie and Kevin were intrigued after reading Stuart’s blog post about the grand opening of the new Cleveland Public Library TechCentral MakerSpace, and decided to see it for themselves. They joined Stuart at the Greater Cleveland PC User Group (GCPCUG) “field trip” to TechCentral last Saturday, February 8, 2014, where they learned that so much is happening at the Cleveland Public Library!
The group of about 30 people was warmly welcomed by TechCentral Manager C.J. Lynce and TechCentral Coordinator Sam Tripodis about half an hour before the library opened to the public for a private tour of the new MakerSpace. They gave a very interesting introduction to the different pieces of equipment that make up TechCentral and its MakerSpace.
On November 21, 2009, I arranged for a special field trip to the Cleveland Sight Center, where we learned about their good work and had a WebSigCleveland.org meeting on Website Accessibility. We have also in the past covered the topics of search engine optimization (SEO), and website user experience (UX).
With all the changes in technology that impact these fields, it is important to keep current with the latest trends. That is why I am pleased to ask you to mark your calendars to attend, and invite others to the the listed WebSigCleveland.org meetings.
Here are this week's tech, entrepreneur, and social media meetings that I track.
So far in 2014, I keep hearing about more and more happening in Cleveland and Akron. Please, if you know of any meetings that I may have missed, please share in the blog comments section. I will then also share them on Twitter.
TechPint: A mini tech conference. In a bar. With pints.
Kismet -- I think I was meant to attend the sold-out January 23, 2014, TechPint Cleveland at Mahall's 20 Lanes in Lakewood, Ohio.
Cold in Cleveland today (again!!), but luckily we have hot meetings in Cleveland! Here are this week's Cleveland tech, entrepreneur, and social media meetings!
A busy week (as always) in Cleveland and Akron! Note that I am posting this list on Wednesday, which is why I recommend watching my daily @sos_jr tweets and retweets to be sure you don't miss a thing. There has been a large increase in activity, and I would hate to think you would miss out. If you are not on Twitter, you can still see it all at: https://Twitter.com/sos_jr
Here are this week's Cleveland tech, entrepreneur, and social media meetings! Please share this blog post with others who are interested in any of the following meetings. If you are on Twitter, please re-tweet those meetings that you find interesting to share with others. Thank you.
I had fun last Saturday! After attending the great Codemash conference last week, I did not want to experience post-conference technology withdrawal symptoms, so I decided to attend yet another technology-related event.
The grand opening of the new TechCentral MakerSpace at the Cleveland Public Library showcased some exciting technology. What makes the MakerSpace truly remarkable is that these tech resources are now accessible to anyone with a library card.
Despite the record cold start to 2014, things are still hot in Cleveland's tech, entrepreneur, and social media meetings! Plus, in nearby Sandusky, Ohio, there is the Codemash conference -- technology geeks at a water park in winter. How great!
We are posting our photos and sharing Stuart's @sos_jr tweets from the day as a way of thanking the University Circle museums that opened their doors for free for the Cleveland Holiday CircleFest 2013. Just as we wrote in our blog post about the Cleveland Winterfest, the best part of the Cleveland Holiday CircleFest is that most all of what we saw is still happening in Cleveland's University Circle through the end of the year. If you missed this event, you can still go to the circle for winter activities.
We were so excited! This year, in addition to our annual visit to the great Cleveland Winterfest (which seems to be getting bigger and better each year), we were invited for a private backstage tour and viewing of Great Lakes Theater's production of A Christmas Carol. This was a special Social Media Night at A Christmas Carol tour for Cleveland bloggers to learn about the 25th anniversary production of this great Cleveland tradition.
Here are this week's Cleveland tech, entrepreneur, and social media meetings! Tonight, I shared on Twitter any tweets I saw from leaders of the groups listed. I encourage group leaders to promote their meetings on Twitter -- I will retweet in addition to my daily promotional tweets.
Here are this week's Cleveland and Akron tech, entrepreneur, and social media meetings! I can't believe it is December already! I have so much to do before the end of the year, and I am activity lining up speakers for the first quarter of 2014 for WebSigCleveland.org. 2014 already looks like it will be a great year.
Please share this blog post with others who are interested in any of the following meetings on Twitter, Facebook, and your other favorite social media. Thank you.
What can we say about this event? It was VERY impressive! We saw more 3-D printers in one place than we have ever seen before. Lego robots, University of Akron robotics and aeronautics teams, The Akronist drone, and much more -- all this made for a great tech afternoon in Akron. There was so much to see that we were not able to get to everything, so we are looking forward to going again next year to see more!
Computers, metalworking tools, a 3D printer, and woodworking tools are just a few of the resources available at SYN/HAK, Akron's hackerspace. However, as we learned at their open house, the most important resource at the location is the synergy and creativity of the people who make it their second home.
This being Thanksgiving Week, there are tech events and entrepreneur meetings in Cleveland and Akron area only on Tuesday and Wednesday, but there is still a lot happening in our community on those days.
With the start of the Christmas season, this Saturday the Great Lakes Theater has a special social media event which is open to Greater Cleveland bloggers. The Social Media Night at A Christmas Carol #ChristmasCarolCLE25 be on Saturday, November 30, 2013, at the Ohio Theatre at PlayhouseSquare. Space is limited and subject to availability, so Cleveland bloggers should RSVP early.
After a very busy week last week, this week is just normal busy for me. Here are this week's Cleveland tech, entrepreneur, and social media meetings! Please let me know what you found useful, and please share with others.
The first annual Cleveland Entrepreneurship Week took place November 4-8, 2013. These are the events I attended:
What a great problem I have! On one of the nights this week, there are multiple meetings I want to attend. Isn't it great to have so much going on in our community?
Here are this week's Cleveland tech, entrepreneur, and social media meetings that I track. I also want to extend a special invite to you all to attend my WebSigCleveland.org meeting on Saturday, November 16th. Sam Nasr will be presenting on Developing Win8 Apps with HTML5 at 10:30 a.m.
We really enjoyed ourselves at Cleveland Museum of Art's MIX: Underneath on the night after Halloween. In fact, it was so great that we felt compelled to share our experience via our photos and tweets/retweets of the evening. We have attended several of the museum's MIX events, but we had the most fun at this one. The "spirit" of the evening was great, with seeing all the costumes and art-related activities, going on the museum's Underneath the Frame "ghost tour," and chatting with friends.
In addition to all the meetings/events I normally promote, there are two special events happening this week:
Cleveland Entrepreneurship Week
Unleashing Digital Learning: An Exploration of Digital Learning, Gigabit Broadband and Federal Policy Development
Please share with others this week's Cleveland tech, entrepreneur, and social media meetings!
It is interesting how the number of meetings I track per week has grown this fall. More groups are having weekly meetings. Thus, even though Halloween takes away one meeting night this week, there is still a lot happening!
Due to this increase in meetings, I have decided not to do my weekly Sunday or Monday night tweets of all the meetings, as I have been doing for the past four years. I plan to continue lunchtime tweets promoting same-day events, and listing all the meetings here in this blog post.
I had planned to post the list below of Cleveland tech, entrepreneur, and social media meetings on Monday night, but I received a better offer! I was able to get a ticket for Apple Co-Founder Steve Wozniak's lecture at Akron University. A big thank you to Gaurav "G" Saxena for the ticket!
Last night, as I was listening to Steve Wozniak (Woz.org - @SteveWoz) talk about computer clubs hacking together technical solutions years ago, it struck me that it was appropriate that I was sitting next to G. G is one of the leaders of SYN/HAK, the Akron Hackerspace. From what I have heard about SYN/HAK, I think it provides a creative environment similar to the one that Steve Wozniak was describing.
Here is this week's list.
This Saturday (October 19, 2013 @ 10:30 a.m.) is the monthly WebSigCleveland.org meeting. The topic is Introduction to HTML5 Part II, which is a continuation of a talk by Sam Nasr from last June. All WebSigCleveland.org meetings are free and open to all, so please invite others to attend this Saturday.
We were ready for an exciting night of theater on Friday, October 4, 2013, when we were guests of Great Lakes Theater for the opening of one of our favorite shows, Sweeney Todd!
It was Social Media Night, and also Director’s Night, where we were able to attend a pre-show discussion with Producing Artistic Director Charles Fee and Sweeney Todd Director Victoria Bussert. We learned lots of interesting behind-the-scenes “tidbits” about the show. For example, this show is considered a masterpiece of Stephen Sondheim, and is a crossover between musical theater and opera, with elements of both. The show has been performed by both musical theater and opera companies.
This production of Sweeney Todd is exciting and fast-paced. Go and see it for a “bloody good” time!
Here are the Cleveland tech, entrepreneur, and social media meetings for Monday, October 7, 2013 through Monday, October 14, 2013. October is another busy month. Please shared those meeting you think others would be interested in attending.
Anyone who has known Stuart for any length of time knows that he enjoys going to technology and arts events. IngenuityFest is his favorite event of the year. Most years that Stuart has been able to attend, he has gone all three days -- he tries to live the event, and drink in all that it has to offer.
Julie, Kevin, and Stuart attended much of the weekend's activities, but found that there was more to do than anyone can fit in one weekend.
Here are this week's Cleveland tech, entrepreneur, and social media meetings!
Anyone who knows me for any length of time knows that I enjoy going to technology and arts events. Ingenuity Cleveland's "IngenuityFest:Festival of Art & Technology" is my main event during the year! That is why I was excited when I learned that the three-day event now had a prequel - the IngenuityFest 2013 Preview Party!
Can you believe this is the last week of September? Here are this week's Cleveland tech, entrepreneur, and social media meetings that I track.
One of the great Cleveland events I enjoy every year is the Cleveland Museum of Art's Chalk Festival. I have not been able to fully participate for two years now, since it has been held the same weekend as the IngenuityFest.
I did enjoy visiting and seeing the Cleveland art work that was created. Here are the photos I took of the pieces that I liked the most.
In my presentation to WebSigCleveland.org on "HTML5 Video: Why & How," I covered:
The slides, HTML samples, and text were originally created for my oral presentation.
Here is a list of this week's Cleveland tech, entrepreneur, and social media meetings that I track. This week I want to announce the fall lineup of www.WebSigCleveland.org meetings since the first one is this Saturday. Please mark your calendars for:
9/21/2013 Intro to ExtJS and Sencha Touch - Durlabh Jain (@Durlabh)
10/19/2013 Introduction to HTML5 Part II - Sam Nasr (@SamNasr)
11/16/2013 Developing Win8 Apps with HTML5 - Sam Nasr (@SamNasr)
12/21/2013 Exploring Web 3.0 - Marc A. Majers (@LeadingHands - @DontFearForward)
Kicking off 2014 with
1/18/2014 Team Collaboration - Jonathan Knapp (@CoffeeAndCode)
GV Art + Design in Lakewood was the place to be on September 4th! Everyone shared in the excitement and anticipation of the Cleveland Browns’ opening game of the 2013-14 season at the “Brown and Orange TweetUp” sponsored by NewsChannel 5 and GV Art + Design. As we walked in the door, we received a T-shirt to show off our Cleveland pride! The GV Art + Design store was filled with apparel and more, featuring artwork and slogans promoting our great city.
Here is a list of this week's Cleveland tech, entrepreneur, and social media meetings that I track. First, I want to announce the fall lineup of www.WebSigCleveland.org meetings. Please mark your calendars for:
9/21/2013 Intro to ExtJS and Sencha Touch - Durlabh Jain (@Durlabh)
10/19/2013 Introduction to HTML5 Part II - Sam Nasr (@SamNasr)
11/16/2013 Developing Win8 Apps with HTML5 - Sam Nasr (@SamNasr)
12/21/2013 Exploring Web 3.0 - Marc A. Majers (@LeadingHands - @DontFearForward)
Kicking off 2014 with
1/18/2014 Team Collaboration - Jonathan Knapp (@CoffeeAndCode)
While I will miss all the free outdoor summer arts/cultural events that I promote over the summer (this is in addition to Cleveland's tech events that I promote year round), this fall is looking like a lot will be happening in Cleveland. Be sure to watch for information on Ingenuity Cleveland the weekend of September 20-22. Also, I have announced all my WebSigCleveland.org fall meetings. Please go to the www.WebSigCleveland.org website and mark your calendar!
Here are this week's Cleveland tech, entrepreneur, and social media meetings as we start September and the fall season.
WebSigCleveland.org has announced all of its fall meetings. Please go to the WebSigCleveland.org website and mark your calendar!
Here are this week's Cleveland tech, entrepreneur, and social media meetings as we close out the last month of summer.
Here are this week's Cleveland tech, entrepreneur, and social media meetings for August 12th through August 19th.
Cleveland GiveCamp, which took place over the July 19-21, 2013, weekend was truly a remarkable event. Amazing work was done by over 200 volunteers providing tech solutions for nonprofits. This being the fourth year of Cleveland GiveCamp, the whole operation felt like a well oiled machine.
Here are this week's Cleveland tech, entrepreneur, and social media meetings as we enter the eighth month of the year 2013! Plus I also list some free summer outdoor arts events. Be sure not to miss all that is happening on Cleveland!
Here are this week's Cleveland tech, entrepreneur, and social media meetings! Plus some free outdoor arts events are listed and the "save the date" for Cleveland GiveCamp 2014.
Over the summer I like to promote a few of the free outdoor arts events in which I am interested. This week, in addition to WOW Concerts and Cleveland Shakespeare Festival, I have learned that the Cleveland Museum of Art is having free concerts and films at their new space for contemporary art in Cleveland -- Transformer Station.
Cleveland GiveCamp - ClevelandGiveCamp.org - This is a special week in Cleveland in which over 200 tech volunteers meet once a year to assist local nonprofits with their technical needs.
This week I list 7 new northeast Ohio tech meetings -- some free arts events, plus Cleveland tech, entrepreneur & social media meetings.
Can you believe we are in the last week of June? So much happening in Cleveland that time is just flying.
Here are this week's Cleveland tech, entrepreneur, and social media meetings! Plus over the summer I track some of my favorite free outdoor arts events.
Here are this week's Cleveland tech, entrepreneur, and social media meetings for Tue 6/18 - Mon 6/24!
As we enter the last week of May 2013, here are my list of Cleveland tech, entrepreneur, and social media meetings I track.
Here are this week's Cleveland tech, entrepreneur, and social media meetings!
Great start to the first full week of May 2013!
Here are my tweets announcing the Cleveland tech, entrepreneur & social media meetings I track for this week.
If you have seen my sos_jr Twitter bio, you know that I am interested in both technology and art, so IngenuityFest is an event that I really enjoy! Ingenuity Cleveland's Bal Ingénieux fundraiser is a costume party with vaudeville circus, burlesque, music, dance, and more.
Here are the Cleveland tech, entrepreneur & social media meetings I track for this week that we enter May 2013.
Here are the Cleveland tech, entrepreneur & social media meetings I track for this Happy Earth Day week.
Here are the Cleveland tech, entrepreneur & social media meetings I track for this week. I hope to see you all on Saturday, April 20th, at the WebSigCleveland.org presentation on Adobe Photoshop Elements.
Here are the Cleveland tech, entrepreneur & social media meetings I track for this week. Plus I since I will not have time next week to post to my blog, I have added some future meetings to this blog post.
I also want to take this opportunity to ask you to mark your calendar, and let others know that the 4/20 WebSigCleveland.org presentation will be about Adobe Photoshop Elements.
I also want to take this opportunity to announce my April WebSigCleveland.org topic. Please mark your calendar, and let others know that the 4/20 presentation will be about Adobe Photoshop Elements.
"Code for America is a new non-profit, and a new kind of organization. Our team is made up of web geeks, city experts, and technology industry leaders. We are building a network of civic leaders and organizations who believe there is a better way of doing things and want to make a difference."
Also for those of you who missed it last week, please share with others the information I gather in my Blogiversary blog post.
Please share this blog post with others who would be interested.
Here are this week's Cleveland tech, entrepreneur, and social media meetings!
I want to bring to your attention two meetings for those of you interested in open source content management systems, plus ask you to share with others the information I gather in my Blogiversary blog post.
Here are this week's Cleveland tech, entrepreneur, and social media meetings!
Here are this week's Cleveland tech, entrepreneur, and social media meetings!
If you are on Twitter, please re-tweet those meetings that you find interesting to share with others. Thank you.
Here are this week's Cleveland tech and social media meetings! It's a very busy week in the Greater Cleveland area. If you are on Twitter, please re-tweet those meetings that you find interesting to share with others. Thank you.
Here are this week's Cleveland tech and social media meetings! It's a very busy week in the Greater Cleveland area. If you are on Twitter, please re-tweet those meetings that you find interesting to share with others. Thank you.
Also, I hope you come to my WebSigCleveland.org meeting this week: Saturday, 1/19/13, Rethinking SEO – Facts, Figures & Data with Chad Pollitt (@CPollittIU)
Sharing here photos and videos of our experiences - Thursday, January 10th, CodeMash 2013.
Sharing here photos and videos from our experiences - Wednesday, January 9th, CodeMash 2013.
Here are this week's Cleveland tech and social media meetings!
In addition to the incredible CodeMash conference happening this week, there is also a lot happening in Cleveland.
Today, I also updated the listing for my WebSigCleveland.org meetings.
Here are this week's Cleveland tech and social media meetings!
This is my first 2013 blog post of the Cleveland tech and social media meetings that I track. I am expecting many great things to happen in this new year, so please come back to my website each week!
This event was the perfect combination of my interests:
We wanted to share with those that attended, and those that could not, the good times in Cleveland!
Here are this week's Cleveland tech and social media meetings! For the week before Christmas still a lot happening early this week.
This looks like it will be the last Cleveland tech and social media meetings i track for 2012. I am looking forward to more great things happening in 2013!
Here are this week's Cleveland tech, entrepreneur, and social media meetings!
This week, there are at least four meetings each weeknight, plus my WebSigCleveland.org on Saturday. Have fun, Cleveland!
