Ryan Rybolt is the COO of Infintech (Innovative Financial Technologies), a Cincinnati based company providing consultative payment processing solutions, product technologies and services to merchants, banks and non-profit organizations in nearly every industry throughout the nation. Beyond work, Ryan spends his time as the co-founder and director of Give Back Cincinnati, a 2000+ member social volunteering organization. Ryan was recently recognized as one of Cincinnati's top 100 Creative People and offered a position on the Greater Cincinnati Chamber of Commerce's Regional Leadership Forum.
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Ryan Rybolt Blog #3
Posted By: Ryan Rybolt
2/22/2008
About Living in Cincinnati
As we reach the end of my first blogging experience, I hope my thoughts provided some insight into what running a small business in Cincinnati is like. I’d like to end by sharing my perspectives on Cincinnati, in general, and what I believe it will take to advance our region.
Let me start by saying that Cincinnati fits my ideal profile of a quality city. Cincinnati has relatively low crime rates, affordable housing stock, minimal traffic congestion, and is headquarters to multiple Fortune 500 companies. We also offer all the amenities that a “big city” should, while remaining manageable in size and proximity. Cincinnati is home to many unique neighborhoods, major league sports teams, a plethora of arts experiences, world-class Parks systems, major universities & medical facilities, and…the worst self image imaginable. During my 33 years in Cincinnati, I can rarely recall seeing a positive news story take precedence over a shooting or robbery on local television.
Unfortunately, this has produced a generation of citizens who believe Cincinnati is a racist, crime-ridden city that is 30 years behind the rest of the nation. I’m not in a position to determine whether these perceptions are factual or not, but I believe Cincinnati faces the same challenges that other cities do.
An example of this came during a recent trip to Boston where I noticed that local news media rarely covered stories about crime. During my visit, I mentioned to a civic leader that after four days of seeing little reported about law-breaking in Boston, I assumed there was none. My friend corrected me by saying “If we were to cover all the crime that takes place each day, then we wouldn’t have time to cover other news.” I’m still not sure how to take this. On one hand, is it a complement to Cincinnati that we can cover our criminal activity in addition to sports and weather in a ½ hour? Or should we hope that our regional crime rate grows to a point where the local news can’t cover it all, so they cover nothing. Obviously, I’m being facetious on the latter, but it goes to show that Cincinnati is a small town where perceptions travel quickly.
How do we change those perceptions?
Cincinnati is blessed to have amazing business & civic leaders who are passionate about creating a community that not only improves our image, locally and nationally, but also fosters an environment of inclusiveness and tolerance for all walks of life. At the end of the day, these leaders want to build a community where each resident feels their voice is heard and we can all be proud of our region.
Referring back to my consensus-based leadership comments - Cincinnati is recognizing that the talent we want to attract CHOOSES to live wherever they want. Our ability to attract that talent improves if they feel they have a voice in the direction of our community.
Efforts such as Vision 2015 and Agenda 360 are underway to guide us down this path. Each visioning project is intended to establish a set of priorities for our joint region (NKY & Cincinnati), based on the feedback from residents throughout those areas. For Agenda 360, public engagement sessions have included everyone from young professionals to correction facility residents. Collectively, these visionary projects will align our resources to lead our region down a path of collaborative success. The emergence of media partners showcasing Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky’s assets will elevate the visibility, attractiveness, and respect our region deserves.