Best-kept secret gardens open for fun

I discovered the Cleveland Cultural Gardens many years ago when my then-husband took the family exploring. And for years, every time a visitor from out of town came around, I'd take them on a tour of those beautiful creations in Rockefeller Park along--gosh, I can't remember what that road used to be called before it became MLK Drive.

Well RTA has teamed up with a bunch of other folks to create a community event called Walk and Roll Cleveland (nice pun..." ). Ride the RTA over to the area and bring your bikes, skates, picnics or walking shoes--they're closing it off to cars and making it one huge playground for the day. On Sunday August 6 and Sunday August 13 from 11 to 5 pm. If you've never been there, please go and see what a treasure that area is. If you've driven through there before but never had a chance to stop and really check the gardens out, I urge you to do so.

The Gardens are one of Cleveland's treasures. Volunteer. Learn something. Ride. Play. Look up at the trees. Climb the hills. If you're a hard-working entrepreneur, take a break and join the party. Read more here.

Capitalist Cleveland celebrates 5 years with Gorilla Group

If you've never attended a Gorilla Group meeting on a Tuesday at the Market Avenue Wine Bar, you're missing a dynamic networking opportunity. Entrepreneurs in every stage of their businesses get together and listen to the story of the "guest drinker" that night.

Every Guest Drinker of the last five years has been invited for the meeting next week. You'll hear guests from the Capitalist Cleveland radio show--founders of great Cleveland companies like Manco, Thermagon, Hyland Software, Newkor, Orbital Research and lots of others.

And YOU are invited to join your fellow North Coast Entrepreneurs to make this an evening of fun, food, and sand. At the 5th annual Gorilla Group summer beach party you're invited to tell everyone about your latest conquests--"LOIs, LBOs, MBOs, Start Ups, Victories and Adventures." Get to know some new colleagues and relax.

Tuesday, August 1 - 6:00 PM
The Reventment behind the Carlyle on Lake Erie
12900 Lake Ave Lakewood Ohio
Fully Catered BBQ and Bar
Cost $30/ Per Person

You will not leave hungry or thirsty. The grill will be expertly manned, and the Great Lakes Brewing Company's products will be well represented! Sorry I'll have to miss it this year.

Sunshine and blue skies

You can't beat the morning sun over the Cuyahoga on a warm July Sunday. After rolling past the street destruction in Public Square and enjoying a scrambled-egg-bacon-muffin-marmalade feast at the Ritz, I'm settling in for the second leg of my second round trip experience with the new Megabus service between Cleveland and Chicago.

Look for the story behind this unique leisure-travel concept in an upcoming issue of Crain's. I talked to the CEO and I'm writing the story as we speak.

Good ideas are everywhere. It's knowing how to make 'em work that matters. And these guys know what the're doin'.

Cleveland priorities?

You know, I wrote a post a while ago about how nice it was to see our airport looking so much more welcoming since Frank Jackson took over City Hall.

And it's nice to learn that Cleveland is one of the first cities to set up a mobile response unit for fighting bio-chemical attacks on the city. But I can't help wondering how this could take priority over solving our school problems, re-energizing our downtown, and helping our entrepreneurial community.

Well, maybe Mayor Frank's strategy is to come up with a lot of high-visibility things to make Cleveland look good right now--and hope that the world will take notice of us as a trendsetter (or something) and then send us more people and more businesses that will help fund the repairs on the more important things. Could be the cart before the horse, but who knows? If you put enough hay into the cart, the horse might get the picture faster...

Anyway, Mayor, I hope you didn't spend too much time on this one.

Eye on Blogs - CEOs

Starting today, I'm going to start taking a regular look at some of the Cleveland area's most interesting blogs. This, from Don Iannone's Economic Development Futures blog, absolutely blew me away.

Crazy. I think we all knew CEO salaries and perks were growing, but I had no idea just how out of hand this trend has gotten in relative terms. What do you suppose has contributed to a CEO suddenly in 2006 being 821 times more valuable to a company than a frontline worker compared to the 50 times more valuable he (and we can safely say that) was in 1965? (As late as 1978, CEOs were only supposedly only 78 times more valuable.) What makes the job so much harder? Technology flooding us with information and speeding up the work world? Companies growing massive through mergers and acquisitions? Globalization forcing us to embrace other cultures and conquer impossibly challenging logistics?

Probably all of those. But it could also be partly a case of runaway ego--there's just so much more cool stuff you can buy nowadays that the cost of being on top has just gone way up.

Well, fellow entrepreneurs. We have our work cut out for us.

Entrepreneurial Goodtime III good move

Have you ever been on the Goodtime? It's a fun place to entertain out-of-town guests who just can't get over the bridges of the Cuyahoga...

I'm delighted to say that the owner, Captain Rick Fry, has just announced a tremendous new feature--parking on the pier. If you've been on the ship any time in the last several years, you know you practically had to bring a backpack for your lo-o-o-o-ng walk from the nearest parking lots. But now, for 8 bucks you can reserve a parking space on the pier.

Good thinking, Cap'n. Good for business. Check it out here, and make a reservation!

Ingenious ingenuity

Second time's the charm. So hope the founders of the second annual Cleveland ingenuity Festival taking place this month July 13 to 16. Reports I heard from last year were that performance quality was a bit spotty and organization was lacking, but hey, that's the way it often goes with the first of anything.

They describe 3 events on the site--a dance performance, a multimedia performance, and an interactive video game. But they say you'll be able to see the work of 90 artists. Interesting approach having everything on the website--including all type--done as a graphic rather than HTML text. Anyway, you'll notice how unusual the typeface is on the events page--each "i" is a little smaller size than the other letters; each "g" is goes a little below the line and is kind of scrunched vertically. While not the easiest to read on screen, this typeface is very creative--maybe one of the iNGENUITY participants invented it.

Got big sponsors this year--Cleveland, George Gund, and several other foundations. Hope this year's celebration generates all the hoped-for response.