You know how people get together to brainstorm ideas? Businesses send their staff to retreats to come up with plans for the next year & brainstorm new projects; people get together over coffee to plan parties; students break up into groups to come up with ideas to answer questions or solve problems presented by the teacher. We all do it. Today, the spokespeople for
The Euclid Avenue Design Project explained why they had a better idea. Instead of having people get together once in a while to do this, why not have like minded creative types all located in one core section of Euclid Avenue. Then a free and creative exchange of ideas could occur across the board at a moment's notice. If one company team is trying to solve a problem with one of their metal designs and they know that in the next building a design team used a similar thought process to solve one of their issues on plastics, they can call and set up a meeting. It's as if everyone on the panel came to the same conclusion: sharing good ideas and resolutions to problems can only make all of the businesses better, instead of keeping good ideas close to the vest so to speak, they will share openly.
I found out about all this by attending a Forum called
Design District: A Progress Report, held in the
Levin College Atrium at Cleveland State University yesterday. Speakers on the panel were passionate, progressive thinking leaders in their fields. I'll try to do a synopsis here.
At least this is my take on it.
Cleveland already has a 'position' or 'branding' in the world, as a manufacturing leader. 40 top consumer brands (like
Moen for example) are already here. Each of these companies or brands spend time and money, a lot of each, developing new ideas, fixing product issues, testing products. Shorten the time involved and save money on it, if everyone is within walking distance of each other already. If we are a leader in this area, why not capitalize on that position and become even more of a leader. As they put it,
The Milan of the Midwest. Put an 'idea design center' on Euclid Avenue (roughly, around Playhouse Square), aggressively recruit other companies to establish their idea design centers here, and have the buildings that house these places be storefront showrooms instead of in office buildings scattered hither and yon.
One of the panel speakers, John
McCann from
SAECO gave a good example.
SAECO was founded in Milan Italy in 1981 (I guess that is where they got the idea for the Milan of the Midwest). Their USA 'arm' is headquartered in Solon. Their idea design team would be located in the Euclid Design District.
SAECO is to
espresso makers and coffee vending machines as Mr. Coffee (another Cleveland company) is to drip coffeemakers.
SAECO markets around the world; they need design ideas, creative problem solving and consumer 'testers.' So he envisions a storefront showroom open to consumers who would come in and test products, taste coffee, help them with their future plans.
SAECO's design staff would be right there, on Euclid Avenue, having close interaction with other design teams from the other companies as well as instant daily feedback available from their 'testers' at the jazzy showroom coffeehouse. Then imagine other 'brands' also having their showrooms. Now, not only would those of us walking in off the street visit, but people from other companies around the world would come to this 'Corridor' to see all the new or proposed products available in one location. No offense to Chicago, but apparently Chicago's 'Merchandise Mart' is a
windowless, foreboding structure that does not add to the vibrancy of the neighborhood in which it resides, even though it obviously provides an excellent service to businesses.
What other types of 'designs?' This gets us to the next question this group has been tackling: how to retain the best and the brightest in each field here in Cleveland after they graduate. Rob
Swinton - student at Cleveland Institute of Art(
CIA) was a panelist. Along with his brother Matt, they have won prestigious awards for their
house ware designs. The panelists asked Rob: What would it take to keep you here in Cleveland? He answered honestly, that the free lance work he has been doing so far has been free flowing and kept his design interest. For him to live and work here, there would have to be more of it, or he would have to feel as if the 'flow' would not stop because there was enough work 'to be had.' The Design Partners are tackling the 'student retention' issue as well.
Some other areas that seem to be a focus for idea design relocation here would be medical or bio design (because it already exists here) and architectural design (already here). So it's a spectrum, that would not try to compete with certain areas of design (I think furniture was one type listed in this category) that are already '
hubbed' elsewhere.
Along with the Idea Design showrooms would be live/work spaces and the
Silver Line RTA (already in the works just try to walk on Euclid Avenue now
LOL). Since we have institutions of higher learning like the CIA,
CSU,
Tri C, this Partnership wants another area of focus to be improving training in design.
For now, they will be spending a year or two working on getting a
sizable core group of 'brands' to commit to moving to the Euclid Avenue Design District. They feel this is critical and needs to happen before they focus on other things needed to make this project happen. The only other thing I will mention, is the 'elephant in the room'
Clevelanders have always dealt with, and that is the 'hassle' of dealing with City government when you try to get things done here (we can all relate to that one). The panelists seemed to think that our Government is becoming more 'hassle free.' Now that sounds like a better idea! Peace Out - 3C
First let me say how happy I am to utilize a PR newswire report since they moved so many of their workers to Cleveland a few months back! Now the news: 
