Soapbox Managing Editor, Jeff Syroney switches hats this week to talk about the 6th Annual Cincinnati Fringe Festival which opens on May 26, 2009. The twelve day festival represents a celebration of the innovative spirit of contemporary performing and visual artists from around the country. It also affords Cincinnati the opportunity to demonstrate how it values artists interested in pushing the envelope. You never know what the Fringe Festival will deliver, but you can be sure it's going to be interesting.
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SoapBlog 1- Don't let the door hit you
Posted By: Jeff Syroney
8/4/2009
Sometime after my 35th birthday, I was just easing into my new career as a Market Research Consultant with Ipsos Understanding Unlimited, my first foray into the for profit sector. Any free time I had was invested in preparing for my upcoming wedding or volunteering at the Know Theatre of Cincinnati. Although busy, it felt for the first time in a long time that I had finally created a healthy work/life balance.
One phone call from Eric Avner thankfully changed all that.
Eric, one of the city's most driven and well connected movers and shakers, can only be described as infectious when bitten by a big picture idea. His sincerity and his passion compel people around him to become as excited as he is about change. Not that this particular project he was calling about needed much lobbying for me to see that this was going to be big.
Eric had been in talks with Brian Boyle, a hurricane of a man that had bet the proverbial farm on the creation of an online publication promoting Detroit as a cool place to live. He believed that people would not only read it, but it would challenge Detroit's home grown negative media coverage in a way that would breed actual civic pride. It continues to do just that along with a growing number of other cities that have adopted the model. Eric called to tell me that he would be pushing hard to make Cincinnati one of those cities.
The premise sounded so simple. Focus on the positive, create new conversation around challenges that promote real change, and push the case for growth by demonstrating a region's talent, innovation, diversity and environmental assets. Eric explained that he was assembling a team to help launch the publication and assured me once we were up and running I could bow out gracefully. I was not completely convinced until he introduced me to the rest of the players:
Dacia Snider, the indefatigable publisher whose drive and belief in the project would keep it going through its most difficult times.
Scott Beseler, Pan incarnate. Fiercely independent with a photographic eye unlike any other I had seen. Scott's photographs set Soapbox apart from all other publications. His spirit and easy going attitude would endear him as one of my favorite people.
Dave Holthaus, the quiet Post writer who understood that a small business hiring three people is just as powerful and game changing as a large corporation hiring 10,000.
Kevin LeMaster, another quiet writer with an unwavering passion for and knowledge of Cincinnati's rich architectural history.
The staff has grown and changed over the last year and a half and I am now proud to call my colleagues the talented Feoshia Henderson, Randy Simes and Soapdish columnist, Casey Coston. They, along with an impressive line up of Cincinnati free lance writers, have helped to make my job manageable as well as immensely pleasurable. I will miss the daily interaction with all of these urban heroes.