I feature our fair state often in my posts and workshops about local seasonal foods. For some reason I never thought about including a cbus or ohio reference in the blog. I'll be incorporating one soon.

Thanks for shining a light on our lovely city!

I love being in Columbus and often include the fact that I live, love and work in Columbus in many of my online interactions. There is more room to do so, though! Thanks for the challenge, Nate! I will be brainstorming ideas on how we can better promote Columbus. Share soon

I think we need to have a central blog that has a good mix of contributors from different sectors including tech, marketing, and entertainment. The 2 biggest problems that you immediately run into is egos (aka high school) and time commitment (aka Time Value of Money).

I would really like to have a centralized blog that talks/feeds from and about local restaurants, entertainment, tech innovations (techlife & techcolumbus), small business / entrepreneurial (coworking) and events listings for all to keep track. In order to really do something like this you need to have a paid staff. another hurdle.

I also think while that is a good base. We need to bring more outside attention with regards to heavy hitters in those specific industries to get more exposure. Mike does a good job with OGS speakers, but we also need to hold our own nationally recognized social media, tech, and business summits. While OGS and WordCampPodcastColumbus are great we also need ones like Jason Keath's SoFresh who has contacted me in the past about having one here.

Thanks Cheryl, and I agree. Seems like Greatest City of All has a TON of potential to make this work. Question is – how do we (as Columbus) get there?

I think the collaborative blogs are a great starting point. In addition to http://www.greatestcityofall.com, we also have thecentralohionetwork.com which is run by Rocky VanBrimmer. (Full disclosure – thecentralohionetwork.com is also an MJB Foundation supporter.)

It all starts with one voice Nate. Kudos to you for leading the charge!

Thanks for getting those in there as well Jimmer. Good local platforms.

I definitely think that 'startups' prefer the coasts, more specifically SF, NY, BOS, and a few other cities to a lesser extent. Many of their revenue streams (or plans) are “get bought”. I think that leads to people starting around their potential revenue streams, and that's a self-replicating cycle.

If I were making some hot new insurance auditing software (i know, seems a stretch), I might specifically do it in Columbus.

We're in Columbus (and more generally, Ohio), because we're building a business here, as are many other people. Our customers are here.

We (as in, Columbus) have all of the right pieces, and lots of cool things are happening to help Columbus get better. Our farmers markets are busy, the justice gardens project is breathing green, belly-filling, life back into forgotten urban areas, and previously dying areas are beginning to grow again.

To me, a better analogy is not to shine the light on Columbus, but to work together, and solve our problems in such a way that we, as a people can't possibly be ignored.

Columbus is a first-rate Midwestern city, with the exact same problems, and same resources as every other Midwestern city. I think that synergy would be solving these problems in novel ways.

I've been watching Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution. Lame, I know, to get inspiration from modern television, but I think that the same sort of approaches could be taken to things like urban travel (how many miles, collectively do we drive, between live-work-play… all in the same directions? how could that be less painful?)

We have lots that NYC or LA doesn't have.. agriculture for one. Tons of corn. We also like the idea of bio-degradable corn plastics. We (Akron) also has one of the best plastics research programs in the country. These are opportunities where the idea of synergy comes together I think. I'm certainly not an expert in this area, but its an exciting idea to boot-strap and solve our problems as a community.

Since Greatest City of All focuses primarily (but not always) on events I thing I need to implement the ability for anyone to add or suggest an event, not just the 6 bloggers writing on the site. That would get more coverage and get more people engaged in things in Columbus and not just the main stream events and few niche things that hit our radar.

The way I see it, Columbus is as much a part of our identity as anything – and we should all be working to hype up our local community as much as possible. Look at people from New York, Chicago, Philly, etc. Where their from isn't just where they live, it's a part of their culture and everyday life. I see no reason why Columbus should be any different.

IT would seem that the combined efforts of all the security agencies in the country may not avail in the April elections, if synergy, intelligence gathering …