Cleveland+, it is like Swiss cheese all kinds of holes in it.

What is the average income for Cuyahoga County, their site claims $41,696.00.  

When you market a product, then that adds to the cost of the product.  Therefore, you had better sell more or the advertising is waste of capital.  It is not difficult to count sales and see if the advertising/marketing worked.   So, what are the benchmarks for Cleveland+, how do we judge if it is a success or a failure?  Could it be average income, well not really since it is sell a large region, could we do it by growth in employment?   Never mind, it cannot be measured, it’s success cannot, its all subjective and so is much of the information it presents. 

How much vacant land exists in Cleveland?  The Cleveland+ “data center” says ten parcels; that is missing so much it is gross.   Its search engine or index has office space/buildings listed at 600 for just Cleveland, better I think but it does not have a way to query on the CBD, it allows address searchs, but not just a street.  It also lists a single building multiple times.  For instance, it listed the Hanna building at 1422 Euclid 68 times.  So does that mean that over 10% of the available office space in Cleveland is on the corner 14th and Euclid?   No, it means they are only really listing Grub Ellis listings and not all of their lisitngs even.  It also demonstrates that the Hanna Office Building is nearly empty. 

The point is this, it is not a data center, not really, it is not data driven, and it and they have no comprehensive way to objectively and fairly list all available office space.  It is not even close to comprehensive.  In fact, if it lists the same building multiple times it is actually generating false counts.  It may only have 50 our so actual buildings and there may actually be 1000’s available.   Swiss cheese!

I also could say that there is a number, that being the actual number of office spaces, which could be detailed with available sq ft and a percentage that is occupied.  That would be away to benchmark and then advertising, fills that space, a way to measure the value of that advertising.   

What Cleveland+ is doing is what a chamber of commerce would do, just not in a new way and not any better than it has been done in the past.  It is doing things or regurgitating information that already exists.   

If a regional government existed then all office-zoned parcels could be listed, with the sq ft and the occupancy rate.  What is occupied is taxable income, what this represents is an inability to calculate and inherently makes it very likely that much of that actual income is not clearly defined and you can bet it is not likely paying taxes in full. 

It is very unlikely that an individual will choose Cleveland+ to seek office space, it is not comprehensive at all it does is send them back to the agent/broker.  It would have been more efficient for them to attempt to list all brokers.  If a company is looking for 15,000 sq ft they will or should contact many brokers.  This site could steer, it is a not for profit and really needs to be careful.   Who gets to list, funders?  

I really do not care other than it will not improve occupancy ratios, it is not comprehensive and will add very little value, and since nobody is really keeping track perhaps just counting listing, then how does anyone tell if it is working. Perhaps they just say it is and then spread around the feel good.   

Positive is good, but spreading falsities is not, contrived value is actually negative once it become apparent. 

If a system is not data or process driven with systems to benchmark and measure success or failure, it becomes riddled with corruption, or just contrived delusional value.  They sometimes make them selves and their entities existence the most important factor.  It is self preservation, not actually making a difference, just convincing  everyone that they are.        

Look at goggle, does it start page have all kinds of distractions? 

If I go to Cleveland+ and enter offices, assuming its front page is only a data entry field. like google.

The next page offers purchase, lease, or both.

Then I get a map of the county, and click on an area of interest. 

Then I get an option to set limits of either space or price.

But the results need to be every parcel zoned as office and the list include of all spaces recorded as not leased with a contact name/phone/email. 

The county has 500,000 parcels, how many are zoned office?  That list does not exist because a regional government that tracks all parcels their uses and inherent taxability does not exist.

So 3.5 million was invested in Cleveland+ and it addresses what? 

In a month, I could have a picture of every office, how much time and how much money would it take to separate and identify every office space in a database that already exists. 

Is it that we can not have this because an owner of a building may claim they have 1M in receipts from leases, but then we would know they have a fully occupied building that leases at 2M?   

It is theocrats, bureaucrats and touchy feely bullshit, brainwashing.  You want this you need this, I care what you think, we really need to and work together.  I personally would like to remove the veil, lets look at what it really is. 

Cuyahoga is a continuous populated area, it is all Cleveland, we do not need to address a quarter of the state before we can identify what is happening on a parcel of land, do not present me with summarize and then tell me you know they are accurate, you do not have that ability.   If we do not present ourselves as revolutionary, we will not stand out.

The highest and best use, it is also permanent and sustainable. Efficient and environmentally best.  It is a prefecture, it is saying this is the criteria and adhere to it. 

A tiered system of regional government, from a parcel to the county.  All of the information that this entity (Cleveland+) presents would be a function of the data resulting from the process of a regioanl government.  It would change from research to a data query.

  My best friend from college, who hails from Naperville, Illinois (although, he will say Chicago), jokes that he knew he had met the "right one" when his wife-to-be uttered the words "Guess how much I paid for this?"  Right then and there, he knew he could not pass up a beautiful girl from Cleveland, Ohio (as in really Cleveland/Collinwood).  He said that he would one day write a play about Cleveland called Clearance Sale. 

So, people, don't pass up the opportunity.  Life only happens once.

  Don't you know Tim?  Without a link, literary allusions are lost on the Web 2.0 crowd.   They  won't leave their computer for a book.   Is this W.B. Yeats guy on MySpace?  How many friends does he have?

 Good Morning Bill!

That's not a keyboard the officer has his hands on.   No computers at this desk - that's why I included the photo above.     I have been visiting a few of the police facilities lately and I will continue to write about what I have observed and heard and experienced.  

The public safety mantra is for more police to be hired - what about improving efficiency so the same quantity of police get more work completed?  The police operations that I have seen recently are unprofessional and perhaps even intentionally inefficient.

It would be informative if you linked us up with the Cleveland city budget salary info...