What

Open Source, CLOH.Org and Community Blendings

CLOH.Org formula is a community blending of what Open Source represents and local landscapes. The blending of CLOH.Org and Open Source make for an application of the Scientific Method to community and software. Consider open-source programmers as computer scientists that share the results of their work with the rest of the world. This allows other programmers to build on the work that has already been done. In the early days of computing, this type of collaborative effort was common. It wasn't until many years later that people started keeping the source to themselves, which created the software industry as we know it today. The entire GNU project was based on the desire to return to that sense of cooperation. http://www.gnu.org/gnu/thegnuproject.html

CLOH.Org is a dialoge about what's good about the city

The roundtable for Pittsburgh for Pittsburghers can occur at CLOH.Org. Our reasons and wonders need to be documented. A sustainable conversation needs to be upon Pittsburgh.

City Image

Houston's business and political leaders believe a city's image really does matter. Houston's PR pros have been in a PR fuss about that city in recent years, as have the leaders in Pittsburgher.

First there was the 2000 presidential election, during which Al Gore trumpeted the fact that Houston's air pollution had become the worst in the nation while George W. Bush was governor of Texas. Then there were the other embarrassments: the Andrea Yates child-murder trial, the collapse of Enron, the floods caused by tropical storm Allison. If that weren't enough, a national magazine declared Houston home to the fattest people in America.

The city's chamber, the Greater Houston Partnership, has tried to repair the damage through its annual image-building trips to New York and Washington, D.C.

Different PR Expert Advice

What Houston ought to be doing, said William R. Faith, a professor at the University of Southern California, is holding a citywide dialogue about what's good about the city. Then it needs to take on the problems it can address, like air pollution. "It has to be action and not talk," Faith said. "Anything you say in terms of public relations to give it a gloss is OK, but progress has to be demonstrated, somehow."

Pittsburgh's PR funk can end as Pittsburghers gather and tangle with these ideas concerning our public spaces.

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