3,707.9%

3,707.9%. A large number, don't you think? That is the 3-year growth percentage of Turning Technologies, the Youngstown Business Incubator's marquee company.

Inc.com looked into the future (the story will be published in their print edition next month) and ran a brief story on Mike Broderick and TT. It is the plain and simple on what makes Youngstown an attractive place to do business and how places like the YBI are the right place to plant your flag.

Why is Youngstown great?

• "There are a lot of folks working jobs that aren't up to their potential."
• "This company would be much more expensive to operate in a place like Silicon Valley or Chicago or a major market."
• "We started the business here because the founders are from the area..."

You can check out the entire article here.

Vacation, vacation

Well, some people take time to go to the beach, others go to museums. I went home and decided I wanted to take a small vacation from the blog. Sorry for it being unannounced. I promise to get a few posts a week out now for the foreseeable future.

The "Pro-Yo" movement getting some street cred

The Vindicator has a great story today which seems to blend a lot of things including the blog movement in the city, the "youth movement" centered around such groups as Mahoning Valley Professional 20/30 Club and Phil Kidd's "Thinkers and Drinkers."

The entire emphasis, however, is the fact that people are finally involved in the City. You have bloggers, activists, politicians, developers, young professionals, and retirees all talking about the future of the City. We are a part of the process, which couldn't be claimed five years ago. Then the City was ruled by people closed off to new ideas and were in fact leading this city down a path that wouldn't promote development or change. In my opinion, former city leaders were just using their position as a stepping stone to something else, including a seat at a White House dinner.

We have a mayor who is engaged and engaging (as evident by his own blog - see my links). We have a congressman who grew up in a post-steel Valley and understand the hardships this area truly faces. Lastly, we have an energetic group of young residents who don't want to move out of the city and instead want to leave their mark on the place. It's a beautiful thing to see and I encourage you to get involved.

The link: http://www.vindy.com/content/local_regional/289592890514565.php

Message from the Chief Evangelist

I got a note from YBI Director Jim Cossler about an event that everyone should be aware of hosted by the Mahoning Valley Professionals 20/30 Club.

Young professionals from Cleveland, Akron, Canton and Medina will all be converging on the DeYor Performing Arts Center in Downtown Youngstown at 6:00PM on August 23 for the third edition of Networking in the Middle.

The free event, hosted by the Mahoning Valley Professional 20/30 Club with help from the Youngstown Business Incubator, is an incredible opportunity for us to get the word out to young professionals throughout Northeast Ohio about all the exciting things happening here.

Please...strongly encourage the young professionals in your organization to attend and become ambassadors for the Valley.

RSVP by August 20 to: membership@mvp2030club.org

Check out their website at http://www.mvp2030club.org/index.html

Answer time...

Here are the results from my new banner quiz. Most guesses were dead on; I was very surprised.



Update: I have been informed by a few that the gallery code I used isn't compatible with some browsers. You can also see the images in this Flickr gallery.

New banner, new game

I decided it was time for a real site banner after three years without one. As you can see, it is a copy and paste job from none other than random signs around Youngstown (and one that may be outside Youngstown, but I couldn't be certain).

So, I put effort into creating the banner and now you get to guess which letters came from which sign around Youngstown. This certainly won't be easy. Only two are truly evident in my opinion. Two more are so-so in difficulty. The rest are total mysteries to the untrained eye. I encourage you to guess anyway through the comments section. I think a few of the answers will surprise you. I'll post the answers in a few days.

Good luck!

WFMJ covers bloggers

This morning I got a call from Glenn Stevens of WFMJ. They are doing a story on blogging and Youngstown. Like Tyler Clark of Youngstown Renaissance, I was out of town, which is obvious since I live out of town.

Reglaardless, the story ran on the 6 p.m. broadcast but didn't make the 11 p.m. cut.

YoungstownPride was at least mentioned according to my sources and I know Phil Kidd of Defend Youngstown, Jim Cossler of the YBI, and Mike Garvey of M7 Technologies were interviewed. I have no idea what else they mentioned or who was featured.

If anyone has detailed, email me or drop some comments. Thanks!

----------------------

Update: I found the video. Nice job by Phil, Jim and Mike. The mayor was even featured. Maybe this will be the motivation to get him to post more frequently. I posted the link to the video so you don't have to go wandering through WFMJ's 'crowded' website.

Video link

Oddly enough, I saw a massive increase in visitors to the blog on Tuesday before the story ran, but a much smaller crowd yesterday, the day the story ran. I thought maybe the name drop and the general story on bloggers might push people to check them out. Although, maybe the others did; I didn't.

Artistry needed...

Youngstown Pride has gone three years without any sort of custom header beyond a photo with our name on it. If you have some sort of graphic design skills and want to design the header/banner for Youngstown's oldest and one of its most popular redevelopment/history/awesomeness blogs, please drop me an email at joseph.lowry-at-gmail.com.

The winner gets my respect and the chance to have their custom Youngstown Pride header/banner on the site! What could be better?

Update: I ended up trying something myself but it's a lot of copy and paste. If you can do better, you are welcome to send something over. Thanks!

Be there or be square!

TODAY! Today! today!

The city will be discussing plans for the "redevelopment" of West Federal Street this afternoon. This plan includes removing the medians and changing the current parking arrangement. I encourage all to attend this meeting and voice your support that green space and not more concrete is the way to improve the Federal Street corridor.

Info:
Monday, August 6, 2007, 3:00 pm, at City Council Chambers, 6th Floor, City Hall, 26 S. Phelps St., Youngstown, Ohio.

I have no idea how this video ended up in my gmail inbox, or who Mark and Betty Duncan are, but they apparently made it. I present Charles Montgomery Burns in "Downtown Denial!"

Riassetto del territorio di Youngstown

The Voice of America is now on the bandwagon as a media outlet covering Youngstown. The Federal government's external media arm, sending its signal to countless countries in 45 different languages, discussed our shrinking city plan. Check out the link below for the story or download the audio.

Story

MP3 audio

Read this

Whoever you are, whatever situation you’re in, I am trying to persuade you to believe in this.

WorldMegan

The "this" in her case is the same as my "this": Youngstown