how to market the assets of northeast ohio.
That's the question recently posed to Hunter Morrison, Director of the Center for Urban and Regional Studies at that ol' University in Youngstown. You can watch his response here:
"(northeast ohio) is a phenomonally rich place."
but how to connect ". . . the networks that are there around which you build a unique regional identity - a unique sence of place that had to find strength in diversity" ?
Thanks to George for posting it to his website today.
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Mr. Morrision mentions over and over again in this short clip the substantial amount of assets spread throughout the non-Cleveland cities of northeast ohio. But how to get those folks from Akron, Cleveland, Lorain, etc., to hear about our events, and to get in the car and drive here is an extra challenge.
A previous post on this subject lamented the poor design of a local site, city-arts.net, to do just that.
The site serves as a gateway to other websites, but as of today, there are plenty of links contained within it which are broken. Many other fine and performing organizations and events out there are simply not a part of City Arts. Maybe it's time to either change the format of the site, or retire it.
In the meantime, here are two of the better sites displaying what is going on in Youngstown:
Defend Youngstown contains things to do every week in the city, including hikes through Mill Creek Park, hockey, arena football, and the performing arts. His list might be the best one out there, but to be sure there are many other little smaller events which may be of interest to special niche groups which are too numerous for one person to report.
Maybe an open-source format would work best, like the calendar at the Mahoning Valley info site. A site like this though, is only as good as the regular contributors make it to be. So if you are a reader of this blog from around the state (which I know there are) and you are a reader of the blog associated with groups who do not have updated events on this site (which I know there are), maybe this site could become the best starting point for all those out there who want to see just what in the heck is going on in Ytown.
I checked the schedules and here's my list of recommendations of things to do outside of the sports-music-theater categories in the month of march:
Lewis Black - march 2nd - Powers Auditorium 7pm
Alvin Toffler/Revolutionary Wealth book lecture - march 8th Stambaugh Auditorium 6pm
Blue Man Group - march 8th - Chevy Centre 7:30pm
Steven Levitt/Freakonomics book lecture - march 26th - Stambaugh Auditorium 6pm
perhaps I will see you there...
The Easy Life on Cruise Control
2 weeks ago
3 comments:
So much of what Morrison said has been on my mind lately. I was talking with a friend in Japan who lives in a city there with similar problems as Youngstown, and she told me about some of the easier solutions they've come up with for that city to market itself based on what it has that makes it authentic and unique, and then emphasizing those qualities, fleshing them out even more as an economic value, and then bringing people into the city to participate in whatever those things are. I have some ideas I've been tossing around about this that we can talk about at the next T&D's meeting. See ya then.
You're welcome. There's a ton of calendering sites out there. Upcoming .org is sort of an old standby for me, which is why I started using it for MTB.
Thank you for the regonition of the event calendar. I agree - this is an important issue and one that warrants much more discussion (agreed: T&D would be an ideal opportunity). I've recived a number of comments regarding my events calendar, mostly from individuals who were unaware that these events were taking place but then attended once they knew. They also duplicated the information and passed along the information to their friends or family who then attended. A consolidated source is needed.
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