Soapbox

There is a saying by JC Penny that "every business is built on a friendship." 

Initiating friendships through an event like the World Choir Games allows us to build on a message delivery system that will already showcase Cincinnati.  The role of the Economic Development Committee is to extend that message to business and government leaders and present what the region has to offer as a business destination. 
In Changchun, our delegation spent the day with the leadership team of a company interested in opening its North American Headquarters operation.  It has a small presence in Cincinnati but our visit was to encourage the leadership to select Cincinnati as its headquarters location. 

How interested were they in learning what we had to offer? The meeting included their Chairman of International Sales, Chief Engineer, CEO of Sales, General Manager of Investment, Managing Director of R&D, Vice Chief Engineer and the Chairman/CEO.  Then, we met with Mr. Ciu Je, the Mayor of Changchun.  He was already familiar with Cincinnati because we will host the 2012 World Choir Games. We toured the plant. Spoke with employees. We talked about needs and interests. Over lunch, we shared stories about our different cities. We got their attention --- and they are interested.

Our visit to Hangzhou was just 14 hours - the shortest visit on the itinerary, but we made every minute count.   We met with Mr. Wang, the Vice Governor of the Zhejiang Province. We talked about our Fortune 500 companies, sports, arts and education because of the Hangzhou residents enrolled at the University of Cincinnati. The city is worthy of another and longer visit.  The Vice Governor was impressed and invited us to return for a longer trip so we could continue the discussion of how we might create deeper business connections.

In Shaoxing, we bonded with business and government officials as our cities have a connection through hosting the World Choir Games.  To leverage that connection, the Economic Development Committee for the 2012 Cincinnati Games hosted a US-China Business Forum to educate attendees about doing business in Cincinnati and Ohio. The Vice Mayor of Shaoxing and Cincinnati Mayor Mark Mallory opened the forum.  Forty attendees from around the Province, heard from our delegates and business representatives but they also heard from a Chinese business owner operating in Cincinnati.  That testimony painted the best picture for the audience.  If every business is built on a friendship, then word of mouth has to count for something. 

In Shanghai, Changchun, Hangzhou and Shaoxing, the delegation wanted to show Cincinnati in the best light and make a favorable impression.  We were successful beyond anything I imagined.  We helped further relationships and created new friends.  We expanded on the awareness about Cincinnati.  If JC Penny's saying holds any truth, we built a stronger foundation for business development in China.  As well, the Economic Development Committee for the 2012 World Choir Games can be a model for leveraging large events, like the World Choir Games, to attract business interest in our region.

On behalf of the Committee, I extend our thanks and appreciation to the members of the delegation for their time and for working so hard to help grow interest in doing business in the region.  Our delegation had representatives from the City of Cincinnati, Duke Energy, Cincinnati Convention & Visitors Bureau, Cincinnati USA Regional Chamber of Commerce, Greater Cincinnati-Northern Kentucky Airport, Ulmer and Berne, SS&G, and Kolar Design.

The delegation was staffed by Committee Co-Chairs: Carla Walker, President of think BIG strategies, llc and Shau Zavon, President of the Greater Cincinnati Chinese Chamber of Commerce.

A lot of people wonder just how much work is done on these trips.  Well, in Shanghai, we hit the ground running – we only had 36 hours to make it count and then we would be Changchun selling for another 24 hours. 
Shanghai began with a visit to the 2012 Expo.  Our delegation was joined by other Cincinnatians in China for the World Choir Games bringing our delegate count to 28 people - a very strong presence.

Visiting the USA Pavilion, we were greeted by Martin Alintuck, the Pavilion President and CEO.  He was familiar with the Cincinnati story and was impressed with the number of people we brought with us to sell the city. 
We were received by the leadership of and in the same manner at each of the four other Pavilions for the seven hours we were on the grounds.  The USA Pavilion, however, holds special significance because their corporate sponsors include Procter & Gamble as well as General Electric.  Yes, a hometown connection but they are also sponsors of our delegation activities.  Five Pavilions may not seem like a lot but for most attendees they see maybe one or two in a day.

That evening, we hosted eighty guests - from throughout the Province  - at our Shanghai-Cincinnati Business Reception.  We were joined by Mr. Wang Lie, the Vice President of the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade.  The program was brief but included comments from Mayor Mallory,  Vice President Lie; both P&G and GE spoke about their connections to China and Cincinnati; and the Convention and Visitors Bureau touched on the 2012 World Choir Games and invited guests to visit Cincinnati for the Games in 2012.
Day two of our itinerary included a half day in Shanghai.  Our morning was filled with meetings.  First with Mr. Zhou Muyao, former Deputy General Director of Shanghai People's Congress and former Deputy Mayor if Shanghai.  He and his staff spoke of the opportunity Cincinnati has in hosting the games in 2012.  Following our banquet luncheon, we visited the Zhangjiang Hi-tech Industrial Park where we learned of the Park's climate of innovation from the Director, Mr. Ping Li.   The Park is home to more than 5,000 businesses and has a focus on international businesses. Li is interested in developing relationships with businesses in Cincinnati so we look forward to continuing that conversation when he sends staff to the GE Aviation Learning Center in Evandale later this Fall. 

Shanghai in 36 hours. 5 Pavilions, 1 reception, 80 guests, 9 meetings.  We have lots to follow up on. That's a lot of work selling our region. 

Go Team Cincinnati!

Some people work better under pressure so let start the clock now - our region has less than two years to take advantage of one of the biggest opportunities.  If you do not know by now, Cincinnati will host, for the first time in this Country, the 2012 World Choir Games.  Quite simply, they are the Olympics of Choral Competition.   From July 4-12, 2012, 20,000 participants and 200,000 attendees from around the world will attend the Games.   This will be the largest event in our region's history.

Dan Lincoln, President  & CEO of the Convention and Visitor's Bureau, has been working to make sure that everyone is aware of the opportunity Cincinnati has by hosting the Games.  He and his staff are building the local organizational structure to successful y execute the Games. 

His message has been that the Games themselves will be a big event but there exists a larger opportunity to leverage the event and transform our community on any number of levels - one of those levels is business development.

Between now and 2012 there are choral competitions around the world where Cincinnati will be hailed as the 2012 choral destination.  We can just let that happen or we can actively link a business development strategy to the Games that encourages foreign investment by selling our region as the global business destination we are.  I vote for option two.  That is why the Economic Development Committee of the Cincinnati 2012 World Choir Games was formed. In conjunction with the planning for the 2012 Games, the Committee will strategically promote the region as a destination for foreign businesses by creating awareness of and elevating the region's status as a place to live, work and do business and increase Cincinnati's global presence.   I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that Cincinnati USA Regional Chamber and the separate international Chambers are doing an incredible job promoting our region - the creation of the Committee does not imply otherwise.  In fact, representatives of those organizations sit on the Committee which will use the Games as a rallying point to collaboratively and purposefully focus resources.

First stop, China where a delegation of Cincinnatians, led by Mayor Mallory, is attending this year's World Choir Games in Shaoxing.  The Mayor and the Economic Development team have a series of business meetings in four cities to showcase Cincinnati.   I'm writing this on the flight over to Shanghai where I'll meet up with Committee Co-Chair Shau Zavon to manage the preparation for the Economic Development delegates and their 8-day business mission. 

Go Team Cincinnati!

As LPK's Culinary Creative Director my primary responsibility is to direct food photography for various brands. Making food look delicious in a photograph is tougher than it sounds, and every meal I am served, as well as every meal I cook, informs that effort, as I study those meals to determine what exactly it is that gives them visual appeal.

When I came to Cincinnati last summer to begin working on a series of projects with LPK, I made an effort to learn about the city's food scene, from Findlay Market in Over-the-Rhine, Taste of Cincinnati and Octoberfest downtown, to the Locavore movement statewide. Several groups and organizations promote sustainability, regional specialties or local chefs and there are many outstanding festivals that celebrate Cincinnati's unique food heritage and local flavors. Just as interesting is the great assortment of grocery stores here, ranging from the humblest neighborhood chain to the wild and crazy Jungle Jim's in Fairfield. After surveying the food scene here, my impression is that Cincinnatians take their grocery shopping very seriously.

A great example is the enormous Kroger Marketplace in Anderson where I am always astonished to find a full, sit-down sushi bar, a wine bar, a jewelry store, and a furniture and housewares department. That store, similar to the new Kroger in Newport, also has the wonderful Murray's cheese shop. I don't know about you, but I love finding a full service cheese store inside my grocery store! I also like to shop at Fresh Market and the posh Dorothy Lane stores where I recommend taking a break from your shopping to enjoy something from their wonderful bakery. And of course Jungle Jim's, which defies description- chock full of hard-to-find foods from all over the world, great wine shop, eclectic atmosphere . . . you just have to go.

Most of these stores are starting to stock more local, organic, sustainable, cage-free, cruelty-free, pesticide-free products, and it's great to see demand for these options rising. This time of year, it's easy to find local, organic produce at the many citywide farmers' markets, and some of them also have organic eggs, meat and poultry. But once the seasons change and the markets close, we are back indoors and pushing a cart down an aisle. Consumer demand is the only thing that will drive grocers to source products that are not damaging to the earth or cruel to the animals we depend on. Paying a little more for them now is a bargain in the long run.

And respect for beautiful ingredients is the first rule to achieving that picture perfect plate.

When we made the decision to move permanently to Cincinnati, my husband and I began to search for a place to rent, feeling like it was too early to buy until we knew the city better. Gordon is a keen (and obsessive) researcher and he found a listing for a property on the edge of town, an old farmhouse on 3 acres, surrounded by 20 acres of woods. I didn't expect to like it since it was farther from the city than I wanted to be, and didn't have window coverings or a fence for my two dogs. My realtor was skeptical too, uncertain that anything that large existed in that area just inside interstate 275 near Milford.

But we found it, and as we pulled down the long, tree-lined driveway, I was transported. The property is pastoral, gracious, a step back in time; an old white house surrounded by acres of hayfields and flanked by two enormous oaks, two charmingly dilapidated barns, acres and acres of lawn. I worried it was completely impractical since I would be there alone for as long as it took us to sell our house in L.A., I didn't yet own a car to make the 14-mile commute to my job downtown at LPK, and I couldn't be sure how to keep my city dogs from disappearing into the woods. But there was no question of walking away. I was home.

I knew Cincinnati would be different from Los Angeles but my new home is not just different, it is a complete 180 from life in the Hollywood Hills. I can't see any of my neighbor's houses. A herd of deer raids my bird feeder nightly. Turtles meander across the lawn toward the creek. Bunnies eye the newly planted herb garden. We have a bird list numbering over 40 species, including the spectacular pileated woodpecker. Foxes, raccoons, chipmunks, squirrels, coyotes. Frogs, loud ones, lots of them. Fireflies, like twinkling tree lights against the pitch-dark woods.

As far as I can tell, a home like this just another lovely advantage of living in Cincinnati. My fascination with Ohio and its beautiful landscape is nurtured here and it is such a privilege to live in this house, on this farm, in this charming city, in my new home state.

Standing in the middle of a bridge over the Ohio River watching the July 4th fireworks, I took a moment to reflect on my new hometown and how much has changed for me in the past year. The view is beautiful in every direction, and the fireworks show is spectacular, but in fact I relocated to Cincinnati for a career opportunity, not because Cincinnati was where I wanted to be. Discovering that it is such a vibrant and interesting city is the icing on the cake, the cherry on top, the gravy . . . (sorry, food metaphors come with the territory in my line of work as Culinary Creative Director at LPK.)

My previous job as photo editor at L.A. based Bon Appetit magazine meant a lot of travel between Los Angeles and New York, and ignorance about everything in between. So there's a long list of things I've been fascinated to learn and embarrassed to admit that I didn't know. Like: the Ohio River is the border between Ohio and Kentucky, and the airport is actually in, well, you know. That Cincinnati's been nicknamed Queen of the West, Porkopolis, and more recently "the Nati". The Reds were the nation's first pro baseball team. Cincinnati has an Opera company, a symphony, a ballet company and a lively theatre and museum scene. That liberals and conservatives co-exist here and even have civil conversations about politics, but not about which brand of chili is best.

As a photo director I've developed a keen eye for beautiful imagery, which this city obligingly provides. The aforementioned bridge is just one of many that grace the river and the lush landscape here provides a stark contrast to my arid former home and it's nearly year-round fire season. Spending many workdays inside a photo studio (many with no windows) makes me so appreciative of places like the Loveland-Madeira bike trail, the Cincinnati Nature Center, and destinations like Yellow Springs and Clifton Gorge. Not to mention the creeks, woods and ponds near where I live in Clermont County.

In spite of much change in my life, the new job and moving to a new city, I have found it easy to settle in. Cincinnati has welcomed me, and standing on this bridge I realize how lucky I am to be making these discoveries.

When I first became involved with the School for Creative and Performing Arts building planning team in 2001, the plan was that the building would face on to Central Parkway toward WCET and would be next to Music Hall.  There was not a great deal of discussion regarding how the new building might influence the OTR community, just that the new building would reflect the architecture of the surrounding area.

I was not involved with the project for four years until December 2009 when I was chosen to be principal, but soon learned that the new building was being looked at as a "gateway" to the new Over the Rhine neighborhood.  While I understood what that meant, I had no realization of the magnitude to which the new school location and building were being counted on to help renovate and rejuvenate the community.

In past weeks I have come to have a better understanding of the impact people are hoping the school and building will make for everyone.  I have had the opportunity to attend meet and greets at various locations, most recently at the Emmanuel Community Center which hosted a reception to welcome me as the principal of SCPA to the community.  While the event was an opportunity for me to explain my vision for the school in its new location, it was the question and answer period following my presentation that allowed me to fully appreciate the faith individuals and community groups are putting in the school.

Questions ranged from how the school plans to interact with the community at large; to how the building will operate in general; to does the school have plans to bring community children who are not SCPA students into the building for after school kinds of programs or possibly as students in the future.

The questions were all very legitimate, and ideas expressed were wonderful.  What I left the meeting with was a fuller understanding of what the community and organizations within the larger community expects of SCPA. 

It is early in the process, and I did not have answers to all of the questions asked, but the one thing I can say is that SCPA wants to be a good neighbor, we want to interact in positive, productive, and beneficial ways to and with the community, and we want to help make the Over the Rhine community a better place for everyone.

Last December, I was informed that I had been chosen to be the principal at the School for Creative and Performing Arts beginning June 1, 2010.  I want to thank those who made the decision for their confidence in me.  I also want to acknowledge that this is a once in a lifetime opportunity with great challenges ahead.

Any school administrator will tell you that opening a new school is a tremendous project in and of itself.  Administrators will also tell you that merging two schools into one is a major challenge by itself. Doing both at the same time is an undertaking of enormous proportions.

The School for Creative and Performing Arts and Schiel Primary School for Arts Enrichment are both respected institutions within the Cincinnati Public Schools system, however, they are both schools that have operated independently of one another.  Each school has had its own culture, its own set of processes and procedures, and its own philosophies which have been alive and well in each school. The challenge is to bring both schools together in the common mission of doing what is best for students.

To begin this process we have had staff members from each school working on a variety of committees to begin to build relationships that will continue on as we move toward the opening of school in August. 

Communication has also been identified as a focal point of my efforts as we move toward August.  Throughout the budget development process in January and February when I worked with both staffs, to the identification of classroom spaces for all staff, and continuing currently as we plan for the opening of school, I have made it a point to communicate accurate and up to date information as often as possible so that all stakeholders know what is happening and feel that they are part of the merging process.

What will help the merging of the schools is that I was the principal at Schiel for five years.  The time I spent at Schiel, as well as the time spent at SCPA since December meeting staff, working with the Instructional Leadership Team and some committee members, has given me insight into the two schools.  With that insight I am confident that we will successfully merge the two schools and be ready when students arrive for the first day in August.