So, it’s not any sort of “official” WOSU day, but it may as well be for me.
I’ve been invited to return as a guest on All Sides with Ann Fisher this morning at 11am. This will actually be her first “on site” show, and seeing as the topic du jour is The Short North, the broadcast will be set up at the MoJoe Lounge on the I-670 Cap. Feel free to tune online HERE if you’re not near a “snail radio” at 11am today.
The reason for the focus on the Short North is due to today’s public premiere of the WOSU Columbus Neighborhoods documentary series at 8PM. Be sure to tune in at home, or… if you’re in the mood for some camaraderie while watching, we’re hosting an official Columbus Underground Viewing Party in the back room at the Surly Girl Saloon. Stop by if you’re in the neighborhood and check it out!
During the week of March 8th - March 14th, Dine Originals restaurants will feature a special fixed price menu for either $10.10, $20.10 or $30.10. This is a great opportunity to enjoy a new restaurant or revisit a favorite!
I’ve been tinkering around with Google Buzz a little bit over the past few days. Not sure if I’m sold on it yet or not. Always fun to play around with new toys though regardless, eh?
The first of three Downtown Strategic Plan Public Meetings was scheduled to be held tonight (the snow canceled it, and it should be rescheduled soon) but I can’t help but think that yesterday’s Dispatch article about the North Market by Robert Vitale was timed intentionally for this event.
The article starts off by looking back 20 years to compare the opening of City Center with the move of the North Market into their current location. Both were large projects taking place at the same time, but each has seen a much different fate. The City Center is being torn down, while the small business community in the North Market is doing better than ever… despite the current economic recession. Additionally, the article points out that the The North Market is now fully self sustaining and hasn’t received city subsidies since 2007.
Furthermore, the North Market has successfully served the city as a small business incubator. Several businesses that have started there have grown outside the market either physically or with a stronger online/shipping sales component. Jeni’s Ice Creams, Nida’s, Lac Viet and CaJohn’s are just a few examples of that type of growth. These are new businesses that are generating new tax dollars for the city, and providing new jobs to Central Ohioans. Granted, their numbers may be small, but it’s probably not too far fetched to imagine Jeni’s quickly becoming the next type of Wendy’s-sized local employer with hundreds of Central Ohio jobs headquartered here.
It’s my belief that Vitale wants the readers of his article to consider the North Market as an example of a successful publicly-funded project, and focus our attention on similar types of business incubators for the future. There are a variety of business sectors that could benefit from increased small business support: food services, technology, creative design, architecture, medical, biotech, and so on and so forth. In some instances there are existing incubators that could benefit from additional/public funding, such as Sandbox or the Kitchen Incubator program at ECDI. In other instances there may be room for new a public-private partnership between existing entities such as Battelle, OSU, COSI, OhioHealth, TechColumbus and other businesses.
Just imagine what Columbus could look like in another 20 years if we had a dozen other North Market type facilities in the heart of the city, each churning out new jobs, businesses, ideas, and innovation, each in a different field. That’s the type of creative city that I want to live in.
This has been available on OhioChannel.org for quite awhile now, but I forgot to post up a video link to it. So here it is. If you’d like to reminisce about the state of Downtown Housing back in June 2009, then click on the image below to watch.
The guys at Palestra Creative put this video interview together during an event I attended a few weeks ago. They did an amazing job, and I’m really happy with how it turned out.
I’m going to be presenting the first annual “Arch Award” at Columbus’ 198th Birthday Party on Feb 18th! This award will recognize a modern-day Columbus icon who is working hard at making the city a better place to live!
This place just opened up in the old Pesto spot on Friday (Link:”Shish Kebab Express Opens at Gateway“) and I decided to stop by on opening day to grab some dinner to take home.
The layout is still pretty similar to the way Pesto was set up, but with the kebab’ed meats on display in the front it reminds me a bit of Lavash Cafe as well. The owner (Ahmet Karaca) was there when I stopped by and we chatted a bit. He sounds really excited to have this new centralized location, and said that their opening lunch was really busy.
I ordered the Adana kebab (ground lamb) wrap, an appetizer of hummus, and Ahmet threw in some free deserts to try, some Baklava and Kazandibi. The wrap was awesome, and the hummus was pretty good too. The wait for the food didn’t take very long considering that they grill your meats to order. Everything was really fresh. Anne & I both loved the Baklava, and I was a bigger fan of the Kazandibi than she was. All in all, some really excellent food, and good prices. Sandwiches & wraps are in the $6-$8 range, so it shouldn’t be too hard to leave with a full stomach for around $10.
Last Week, the Urbanophile featured a great post titled “Want Talent? Drink at Lunch!” where author Aaron Renn proposed one small idea that he hopes could change corporate culture in the midwest and help to attract young talent to regional companies. Some additional commentary followed HERE on Columbus Underground, and I emailed some of this information to a few colleagues at the Columbus Chamber of Commerce and at City Hall where we continued to discuss this concept.
After mulling it over for awhile, I still think Aaron’s initial drinking angle makes for a sharp contrast to what is typically acceptable for lunch-time behavior in a corporate environment. So it does a great job at bringing to light the overall strict boundaries associated with business lunch hours, even if the encouragement of drinking at noon doesn’t sounds like a very feasible program to try to implement.
Having spent nearly 10 years in various white-collar work environments, I’m all too familiar with the 3,600 seconds allotted to each employee for spending during designated lunch periods, and the reprimands that can follow if the rules get stretched too far. Of course, some managers can be a little bit lax on the rules, but in many environments, being chronically late coming back form lunch is grounds for some form of work-place punishment.
Things completely changed for me once I started working for myself. Earlier this week, I had a leisurely lunch with a friend to chat about a new arts initiative I’m conceptualizing for 2010 (more on that later). There was no beer involved at our lunch, but the fact that we both work in environments where we can take a 90 minute lunch break meant that our time spent collaborating on a creative idea wasn’t bound by a time limit.
Of course, not all lunch breaks are spent working on ideas to help make the world a better place, but the end result can be the same after something more casual. After my particular extended lunch, I found myself energized, excited, and feeling even more productive once returning to my desk. It was invigorating to not be bound by the strict regulations I’ve faced elsewhere, but it’s also frustrating to know that I’m probably in the minority. I’m willing to bet that younger folks who are able to take a relaxed lunch make up less than 1% of the professional workforce. If you’ve ever attended a Columbus Metropolitan Club luncheon, you’ve probably noticed how few of those coveted “young professionals” are able to take that 90 minute lunch break. It’s only the upper-management who give themselves that leniency. I find it disheartening that even when it comes to something as specific as engaging in a civic forum and becoming more involved in community affairs, flexible scheduling is something that most workers have to officially request in advance, if they’re even allowed to take the time at all.
Perhaps a re-education aimed at upper-management is in order to help them understand why relaxing a bit on the rules could:
Help foster creativity through encouraged mid-day civic engagement
Decrease stress related to the lunchtime “rush”
Increase mid-day productivity with a more reenergizing meal time
Provide a better “workforce culture” that could serve our city as a more attractive environment to find a job
I’m guessing that the hardest part would be the implementation of a program like this. Anyone have any thoughts on how we can turn something like this into a widely accepted change in corporate policy?
So, it’s not any sort of “official” WOSU day, but it may as well be for me.
The first of three Downtown Strategic Plan 
I’m going to be presenting the first annual “Arch Award” at Columbus’ 198th Birthday Party on Feb 18th! This award will recognize a modern-day Columbus icon who is working hard at making the city a better place to live!
