(Courtesy of Guest Blogger Paula Maggio, PR specialist with HGR Industrial Surplus)
News of Cleveland entrepreneurship has traveled to Vietnam. It has also spread to Namibia and Turkey and Greece – and to 186 other countries, too.
Michael Goldberg, assistant professor of design and innovation at the Weatherhead School of Management, brought that story back home to Cleveland at COSE’s annual meeting Feb. 24.
He told a full house at the Near West Theatre in the heart of Gordon Square how he taught students at the National Economics University in Hanoi about entrepreneurship in Cleveland. The students he met were eager for the lesson.
“The hunger for what we’re doing here in Cleveland is really strong,” he says, as he flipped through slides that pictured some of the students he met – either in person or remotely – in Vietnam. “People are hungry to learn what we are doing.”
Goldberg says two factors combined to make Cleveland fertile ground for entrepreneurship. Ohio’s Third Frontier Program, which promotes the growth of startup technology companies and became an international model, jumpstarted the effort. Next came recruiting donors to support the economic development that resulted.
Goldberg, a Fulbright fellow, turned the course into a massive open online course (MOOC) that has attracted more than 100,000 students from all over the world and is the top offering on Coursera in terms of video translations. The MOOC, which consists of nine, 12-minute videos, has been translated into 13 languages.
Recognizing leadership
Before Goldberg’s keynote presentation at COSE’s annual meeting, the organization recognized outgoing Chair Rion Safier of Rion Safier Accounting and welcomed new Chair Mike Stanek of Hunt Imaging, LLC.
It also acknowledged outgoing board and executive committee members Darrin Feming, Stratavant; James Harmon, Dawson Companies; Lisa Logan, Logan Clutch Corp.; and Jim McSherry, McSherry & Co., LPA.
Toby Heintzelman of the Driftwood Restaurant Group won the volunteer service award. COSE staffer Adina Magda won the staff service award.
Giving career advice
During the networking portion of the event, COSE members had the chance to meet, mingle and share 30 seconds of advice that they would give to their younger selves if they were just now beginning a business career. Matt William, chief marketing officer at HGR, added his perspective.