Wednesday, May 10, 2006

CAAO Auction

If you don’t know about the Consortium of African American Organizations (CAAO), you should. You can hear a podcast interview with their Executive Director Connie Atkins on the Great Lakes Geek site.

One of their most interesting events is their annual executive auction which is going on now till Thursday May 11th at 11PM.

You bid on time donated by bigwigs from the Clinic, UH, Key Bank and other institutions that you probably would never get to schmooze with otherwise. Or go for a fun bid like watching a Cavs game with Dan Gilbert in his loge or shooting hoops with Eric Snow or getting a tour of the Rock Hall from Terry Stewart.

Connie told me that winning bidders have generated over $5 million (much more but many are private about giving out numbers) in new business from the relationships they made after winning a bid.

So if you don’t golf with Henry Meyer or belong to the same clubs as Dan Gilbert, here’s your chance to sit down with them.

Friday, May 05, 2006

Blame AC (not Austin Carr)

On the way to hear Dick Pogue speak at a Neosa event last night I saw a bumper sticker on a car on 24th and Payne that said “Who is John Galt?”

Of course, that’s the expression used in Ayn Rand’s classic “Atlas Shrugged.” Great to see something like that on a car instead of the usual “If you’re rich, I’m single” tripe.

Mr. Pogue gave kind of a history lesson starting before his arrival in town in 1957. One thing he said I had never considered before. We all know that in 1950 Cleveland was the 6th largest city with a million people. What I didn’t realize was that the proliferation and economy of air conditioning made it possible for a lot of our manufacturing jobs to move to the South and West. Before AC those climates were just too hot for a lot of the work that we did up here.

Of course there are numerous other reasons we started to slide but that’s one component that was new to me.