Wednesday, November 13, 2019
Rising from Within: The Cleveland Rising Summit
by Thomas Brooks, Brick 42
I prepared myself for the Cleveland Rising Summit by reading through the clippings my father had selected from the local press and by discussing the various initiatives of local institutions to chart a course to “accelerate economic growth, equity and opportunity.” As a recent returnee to Cleveland after decades overseas, I was eager to contribute my perspective on what it means to be from Cleveland when you are elsewhere and what it is like to come home to Cleveland after a life elsewhere. If I was a time capsule from the past, the Cleveland Rising Summit was a time capsule into the future.
I arrived early on the first day curious to listen and open to sharing, if asked. As I watched my fellow sumiteers find their assigned places it became clear that the Cleveland Rising Summit had bigger plans for me and for us. This was not going to be just another public planning exercise, and no one would be allowed to remain silent.
By encouraging and facilitating a diverse group of stakeholders to openly express their dreams and aspirations of a future Cleveland, the meeting format challenged each participant to also imagine a future version of themselves. We established our visions of the city together and we asked each other, “What will you be doing tomorrow to achieve our shared future?” It is this individual, internal work, this “self-imagining” and self-responsibility that sets this meeting apart from others. By the close of the first day, both exhausted and energized, my initial passive skepticism had been transformed by the energy in the room to optimism. I was eager to get back into the room on day two to see where we would go.
Creating and expressing a shared vision is difficult. Transforming that vision into action is difficult. We were taken care of during the process by excellent facilitators (and caterers). There were difficult moments and there were tensions. The process was messy, at times chaotic and at times stifling and overly formal, and yet by keeping the process open and dynamic as long as possible, we were allowed to move, literally and figuratively, through the ideas in the room, challenging our own assumptions and thought patterns.
After engaging with several groups, I settled on the future of Cleveland as a “national treasure for minority-owned businesses." Together with Shana Black, we developed a concept of a Ramen Startup Kit, a packet containing everything a business needs to get started. Our Ramen Startup Kit also contains a special packet, the flavoring, containing CLECoins, a digital currency to be spent on local services to get the company up and running and at other startup companies in the area.
I am grateful to everyone who funded, organized and participated in the Cleveland Rising Summit. The teams I worked with have already set up a calendar of meetings to turn our dreams into action.
