For the last seven years Eric Avner has served as the Associate Director of the Cincinnati Business Committee. Prior to that, he directed the downtown revitalization efforts for Newport, Kentucky. Professionaly active around town, he says he’s more proud of community efforts he’s spearheaded “out of the office” such as the creation of the Purple People Bridge, co-chairing the Know Theatre’s Capital Campaign, and – yes – initiating a new media outfit called Soapbox.
Assuming the role of “Citizen Avner,” he will use this space to share his thoughts on Cincinnati's prospects.
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Eric Avner Post #1 - Why a Soapbox?
Posted By: Eric Avner
2/12/2008
Why a Soapbox?
Over the last 16 months, I’ve been discussing, meeting, planning and plotting with a varied group of people to create this new media source called Soapbox. Why would we spend so much time on something like this? Simply put, because our region needs it.
We need to move beyond a damaging “Rust Belt” narrative that obsesses over topics like disinvestment, crime, and bad schools. We need a sustained, authentic, and compelling way to communicate our region’s remarkable transformation so that we can retain and attract talent. We need to create positive momentum.
The need for Soapbox became crystal clear last fall during the Regional Chamber’s benchmarking trip to Charlotte, North Carolina. Ann Caulkins, the publisher of the Charlotte Observer, explained that all the newspapers she’s worked for have relied on a “Master Narrative;” that is, a lens through which the newspaper reports the region’s news. That lens for the Charlotte Observer was “Land of Opportunity”. When she asked our group what Cincinnati’s Master Narrative was, there was a troubling silence. We spent the rest of trip unsuccessfully trying to answer that question, at least in a positive way. The features and stories written for Soapbox will reinforce our region’s talent, innovation, diversity, and environment (physical, cultural, and natural). In time, I am hopeful that our regional Master Narrative will emerge.
Something else became clear in Charlotte: the necessity of creating buzz about a region. For whatever reason, Charlotte is red hot. Everyone’s talking about Charlotte. Charlotte’s buzz has enabled them to sustain rapid growth, largely from a massive influx of young talent. Charlotte’s buzz has allowed them to overcome a location not in the mountains or near the ocean. Somehow it doesn’t matter that their cultural assets pale in comparison to what Cincinnati can offer. Their downtown’s architecture was largely sterile, lacking any historic landmarks or local distinction. Nevertheless, everyone conveyed a can-do attitude with their eyes firmly focused on the future.
Soapbox intends to shift our collective focus towards our incredibly promising future. The writing you’ll find here will push us to dream bigger, and refuse to accept the status quo as “good enough.” By creating original content every week that is designed to spread over local and national social networks, and to be used widely in regional stakeholder communications, we feel we can help rebuild Cincinnati’s buzz. We can regain our swagger. Sixteen months was a lot of time to get this started, but we all felt it was worth it for an opportunity to share the Cincinnati story.