Last year I did the Couch to 5K program to get running and I’ve kept it up. So I thought I’d sign up for it again this year. It will be on May 4. Unfortunately due to a scheduling conflict, I won’t be running in it. So I’ll follow the race in spirit. Are you running in it?

But the location sucked. It’s hard to get to and kind of hidden in plain sight amongst some hotels. The building once housed a Cookers and some steak house which I forgot their name.

The next restaurant that goes there better be pretty amazing for it to survive.

I wish the owners of Salvi’s Bistro luck with their take out service. Don’t let the Pasta Salvi die!

Sometimes nature helps spice it up, along with the aid of Snapseed, my favorite photo editing app on my iPhone.

My office is I guess located in Dublin-Columbus since the mailing address is Dublin, but technically it’s located in Columbus.

But at least I can admit that.

The first panorama is the interior of St. Brigid of Kildare Catholic Church in Dublin, OH.

What else can I say about this event? It’s kick ass. Go if you have an interest and haven’t been to one yet. You will seriously enjoy it.

It appears that tickets are still available. If you attend, let me know how it was.

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Tom Dumb, spokesperson for the newly formed Short North Arena-Brewery District said that “the recent combination of Dublin-Columbus showed us the benefits of regional cooperation. Not everyone knows where the Short North is, but if you add the totality of the Dublin-Columbus population, some know where the Arena District is and others know where the Brewery District is. Our research shows that those that don’t know where the Short North is located would benefit by adding the Arena and Brewery Districts to our name. These same people for some reason think that the Short North is in Cleveland or Cincinnati and cannot be bothered to look where the Short North is located on the internet. We thought the added name recognition of the other Districts will attract tens of more visitors to the new Hop.”

But don’t count on those new visitors parking in Italian Village. The Village hired known anti-cooperation advocate and parochialist @wyliemac to speak on it’s behalf. “First, let me state that I am not anti-cooperation or parochial. That tag was given to me as an attempt to marginalize my valid concerns by a highly placed individual. But I was happy to be so attacked, because it shows me that they are afraid of me and my “anti-cooperation” views. Now, to the topic at hand. Italian Village was not approached by the three super districts to be included in the name of the new Gallery Hop. This act of omissive aggression is counter to the cooperation ethic that Dublin-Columbus aspires to. Italian Village declares our right of compete. Henceforth, Italian Village will not allow Gallery Hop patrons to park within our neighborhood. And we plan to start a smaller more intimate event which will feature art only.”

This reporter got tired of hearing @wyliemac ramble on, so he went to the nearest bar in the Short North Arena Brewery District, which wasn’t far because bars outnumber galleries there.

The Short North Arena Brewery District is but one example of the growing trend of cooperation and consolidation within Dublin-Columbus. It is rumored that Dine Originals is very close to announcing that Wendy’s will be joining their group to give the group a much needed hot and juicy marketing push.

No one from Dine Originals could be found to comment, but extrapolating an argument given by a Board Member to @wyliemac on a popular city message board, we surmise that Dine Originals’ reason for brining Wendy’s on board is that your hipsters and foodies know where to go in Dublin-Columbus for original food. But that number drops much closer to 0% with the test market demographic that makes up the general Dublin-Columbus public. Wendy’s brings more exposure to the Dine Original members because it is a gazillion times bigger and more recognizable to the test market crowd that is incapable of using Yelp to search for alternative dining experiences. It’s truly a win-win scenario and shows what cooperation can do.

Forgetting to mention this fact to @wyliemac for comment, this reporter went back to the Italian Village press conference where @wyliemac was still rambling on. Told of this fact, @wyliemac left the press conference dejectedly and tweeted “SMH. I’m taking my talents to Dublin, CA.”

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Obviously, this is a work of fiction.

A note on my previous post, some on the ColumbusUnderground message board pointed out that my post may have unnecessarily thrown Columbus resident’s under the bus. That’s probably true, but that was not my intent. I was writing to try and prove a point, and I truly apologize if anyone in Columbus took offense.

I don’t think the powers that be that made the Dublin-Columbus decision really want to hear my input, given that they really did try to marginalize me. But as I wrote above, I’m cool with and honored by that. It is a moral victory. Why else would they do that if I didn’t touch a nerve? I messaged that person on Facebook and truly laughed about it with him. We are cool. At least from my perspective. He’s a great guy that has contributed many many things to making Columbus a great place to live. Much more than I have contributed. I can’t touch a candle to his contribution.

I still want to talk to Experience Columbus and hear what they say though.

I really won’t blog about this issue anymore, unless something blog worthy pops up. I won’t really say too much more about it on my main twitter account. Emphasis on main.

I know that my chances of getting the President’s Cup to be properly identified as being in Dublin, Ohio is nil. But I will keep a stiff upper lip and …

KEEP CALM AND MOCK ON …

on the @DublinColumbus Twitter and Instagram accounts.

I will promote the heck out of the President’s Cup and will be proud and grateful of the contributions of EVERYONE that helped bring the event to Dublin. I would love to volunteer for the event. If the organizers want my help, they know where to reach me.

And I will still buy official President’s Cup gear, even if it says Dublin-Columbus, Ohio. I’ll just have to make a patch to cover up “Columbus” and perhaps scrawl in its place DMFO. Unless I’m volunteering, and in which case, I won’t do such thing.

It is not an earth shattering issue. Nor an important one. But it’s something that is related to the theme of this blog. So here I write.

Backstory. Last November, I learned that The President’s Cup, the biennial golf tournament that pits the top American golfers against the top non-European golfers of the world, will be played at Muirfield Village Golf Club in 2013. Boy was I excited. Dublin is yet again playing host to a prestigious golf event.

Beaming with civic pride and bravado, I shared the news with my Facebook and Twitter friends simply stating “Suck it Columbus”. [Back backstory: you all know I am a Michigan alum and any time I get an opportunity to tell Columbus to suck it, I will do it.]

Little did I know, Columbus would laugh and tell me to suck it.

As I watched coverage of the 2011 President’s Cup from Melbourne Australia, a commercial came on to advertise the 2013 President’s Cup at Muirfield Village Golf Club located in …

Dublin-Columbus, Ohio.

What. The. Bleeeeeeeeeeeep.

Incensed, I rewound to make sure I wasn’t hearing things. Nope. I wasn’t. So I rewound again, taped the commercial and put it up on YouTube. I was prepared to go on a social media diatribe, but something must have distracted me.

Fast forward to yesterday. Given that it was the first round of the Masters (from Augusta, GA, not Augusta-Atlanta, GA), I was inspired to look up the President’s Cup on the web and saw that the official PGA site said that the event will be in Dublin-Columbus, Ohio.

That prompted me to draw a quick venn diagram to in fact depict that MVGC is definitively and definitely not within the confines of Columbus, Ohio.

One thing lead to a conversation with the Experience Columbus twitter account which tried to argue that many organization put in a lot of effort into brining the event here, yada yada yada, and that both Dublin and Columbus will benefit, yada yada yada, and shouldn’t Columbus also share in the exposure. Or something similar like that.

My answer is simply, NO. MFNO. No. No. And No.

I appreciate all of the effort Columbus and the various corporate and non-profit entities put into brining the President’s Cup to Dublin, Ohio. In fact, I am very proud of that and applaud them. They will get their exposure and glory. They will get their fluff tourism spots showing how great Columbus is to the world. They will get the benefit that they so well deserved.

But Dublin-Columbus, Ohio crosses the line.

When they decided, and I was told it was a consensus decision, to, for lack of a better word, market it as Dublin-Columbus, Ohio, they didn’t take into account how the proud citizens of Dublin, Ohio would react. Well, at least this proud citizen, because I can only speak for me. The fact that such a prestigious event is coming to our town with millions of people watching our city is a great source of civic pride. Adding Columbus to the city name dilutes that pride. It takes away our sense of place identity.

In essence, it’s saying, suck it people of Dublin, we are Columbus, we are bigger than you, and you’re putting our damn name next to yours. And you’re gonna like it.

Well guess what? I don’t like it. And I’m telling the world. SUCK IT COLUMBUS. TAKE YOUR DAMN NAME AND TAKE IT OUT OF OURS.

I’m not saying that Columbus is not a worthy city. It is a great city, with lots of great events. Dublin would not exist but for Columbus. I can’t say the opposite is true. I’m proud to call Dublin home. I’m proud to live in the, ahem, Columbus Region (and that’s another topic, why the rebranding away from Central Ohio to Columbus Region?).

Let’s just call things as they are and let the localities keep their identities. Don’t let the corporate interests dictate how we view our sense of place.

The Memorial Tournament is in Dublin, Ohio, not Dublin-Columbus, Ohio. The Little Brown Jug is in Delaware, Ohio, not Delaware-Columbus, Ohio. Whatever’s in Hilliard is in Hilliard, Ohio, not Hilliard-Columbus, Ohio.

The Columbusization of the Columbus Region will genericize and homogenize Central Ohio. Unless we don’t let it.

Alvin Borromeo
Dublin, Ohio
DMFO

P.S., the folks at Experience Columbus have graciously offered to have someone call me that was involved in the planning of the President’s Cup. I accepted their offer and asked if someone from the Chamber and the Columbus Partnership could be on the call as well. They made no promises, but they will ask. I hope after this blog post that the offer still stands. I truly want an open dialog on this thing.

But none of the Startup Weekend Columbus events have produced the break out and sustaining startup that other Startup Weekends have produced.

It’s not because of a lack of effort though. We’ve had some folks come out of Startup Weekend and made a go at it. A serious go at it.

And it’s not because of a lack of quality ideas.

At the last Wakeup Startup, I ran into a friend and he mentioned that during a past Startup Weekend Columbus, he was on the team that came up with 141it. He said that Zaarly was essentially the same as 141it. Zaarly started a year or two after 141it at the Startup Weeend Los Angeles event. The big difference is that Zaarly attracted investors, including Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore (who were judges at the Startup Weekend LA event), and got built, while 141it did not.

While I do see the similarities between 141it and Zaarly, hopefully this will serve as motivation for the teams to continue building their products beyond the weekend. We can come up with quality ideas that resonate beyond Columbus. We just need to execute a little better.

Here’s some thoughts for the teams this weekend.

1) Just build it. You have a weekend to essentially build a prototype. It’s not going to be perfect. Don’t expect it to be. Start building early in the weekend so on Sunday, you’ll have something to show off. In this regard, listen closely to Dan Rockwell’s talk about protobaking. He’ll inspire you to just get some stuff done.

2) Be in it to win it. On Sunday, you will be judged. Someone will win the weekend for best project. It might as well be you. But even if you don’t win, there will be plenty of people in the room to impress. Investors will be there. Potential co-founders will be there. So do your best to impress.

3) Network. The folks that attend Startup Weekend with you share an interest and passion for startups and technology. No where else will you find such a concentration of like minded folks. Here, you’ll meet potential co-founders, mentors and friends. Take advantage of that. This is where it all starts.

4) Investor types lurking. On Friday, expect a few non participants to hang around and watch the pitches. At least, I hope they will be. These are the folks that might fund you in the future. Seek them out and chat them up. Outside of the Startup Weekend event, they are hard to find. IMHO.

Here are some observations about Columbus’ startup scene and why it’s an exciting time to be involved.

a) Startup Weekend. This upcoming event will be the sixth Startup Weekend event since 2008 exposing another 50 to 70 people to the Columbus startup community.

b) Wakeup Startup. This is a new monthly event held in the wee hours at Mason Hall on the Ohio campus. (The Ohio that’s located in Columbus.) The format is for three startups to pitch their business to a crowd of approximately 100 people and get feedback from a panel and the audience.

c) Check out accelerator programs such as 1492 and 10x. And others like Founders Factory.

d) Investors are kind of low key in Colubmus. They are out there, you just have to know where to find them. TechColumbus can help. Go to AngelList and search for Columbus based angels. Contact the Ohio TechAngels. The more you get involved with the community, you’ll find the investors. Or they’ll find you.

e) Seek advice from TechColumbus and/or the Ohio SBDC. It’s free.

f) Check out Venture Highway to learn more about entrepreneurship.

g) Check the TechLife Ohio list of technology events in Columbus. There are a ton of them.

h) Finally, subscribe to the Columbus Startup Digest list for startup news.