March is national Women's Month, and Cool Cleveland is featuring female entrepreneur Anita Campbell in this week's Cool Cleveland People interview. She's President of Anita Campbell Associates Ltd, a consulting firm making a difference for small businesses in Cleveland. Read her in-depth ideas and answers below.

Cool Cleveland: What's your vision of how Cleveland should look and feel?
Anita Campbell: I envision a city that "feels" more positive about itself, and gets good at celebrating the "small wins." There are some fabulous business successes going on here, but because they are not Fortune 500 companies they are barely acknowledged. To get past this tendency to overlook small businesses, I think we need to change our lexicon and our media reporting to place much more emphasis on industry sectors, and how we can grow those sectors, rather than individual companies. In other words, compile statistics that show how many jobs are being created in the sectors, and publish those regularly and talk about the sectors. A few jobs here and there at small companies means a lot more when they are aggregated.

CC: When you boast to people outside Cleveland about Cleveland, what's on your list?
AC: There's so much. I usually tailor my comments to interests the other person has expressed (e.g., arts and nature). Here are some of the attractions I've mentioned to people, especially as small talk on planes:
Cleveland Museum of Art: one of the world's great encyclopedic art museums. My husband and I especially like the Asian collections.
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: most people have heard of it, and it tends to perk up people's ears. You'd be surprised how many people you will sit next to on planes who are coming into the city for the weekend just to see the Rock Hall. Stan Hywet Hall in Akron: Going through it is like being in a period-piece movie. And lots of people have seen it on TV specials.
Lake Erie: It's more like an ocean than a typical lake and is often underrated as a destination.
World class art galleries. There are a lot of them around. Just to name a few: Don Drumm Studios in Akron -- many people will travel hours by car to visit this top quality craft gallery. And some of the galleries in Little Italy are especially notable: the Riley Galleries, a world-class art glass gallery which carries work by Dale Chihuly and other world-class artists and often brings the artists to town.

CC: What's your vision of how Cleveland should look and feel?
AC: I'd like to see many more covered walkways downtown. That would attract more downtown foot traffic. Other cities like Minneapolis and Toronto have learned not to fight their climate. Instead they tame it. I envision a waterfront that is better developed, with more things for people to do near it. Lake Erie is a powerful natural attraction. The area near the Rock Hall is a start. But give people more reason to come to the Lake's edge. They'll need things to do, i.e., the ability to walk along it, with covered walkways and heat lamps for inclement weather, good lighting, lookout stations, etc. Make the harbor a true foot-traffic destination. Then tie it together in a fashion similar to "hiking trails" with other downtown destinations like the Rock Hall, Science Center, Tower City, etc. So if you went downtown for dinner, you could walk along part of the harbor or shoreline afterwards, making it a true night out for people living downtown.

Also, I envision a city that "feels" more positive about itself, and gets good at celebrating the "small wins." There are some fabulous business successes going on here, but because they are not Fortune 500 companies they are barely acknowledged. To get past this tendency to overlook small businesses, I think we need to change our lexicon and our media reporting to place much more emphasis on industry sectors, and how we can grow those sectors, rather than individual companies. In other words, compile statistics that show how many jobs are being created in the sectors, and publish those regularly and talk about the sectors. A few jobs here and there at small companies means a lot more when they are aggregated. In other words, talking about creating 500 jobs in nanotechnology sounds a lot more meaningful than talking about one small company hiring 3 people.

I'd also like to see more entrepreneurs engage in smaller-scale networking (e.g., between a half dozen talented people), and see more ventures naturally develop out of those networking meetings. We've got talented entrepreneurs who are working alone in their homes, and their enterprises never have the chance to scale up because they are limited by the time and energy that a single entrepreneur has available. Two people with complementary skills working in the same direction can get farther than one. To get the entrepreneurs out of their homes and working in groups where they have a chance of achieving their full potential, Cleveland needs to create an atmosphere that encourages "pick-up entrepreneurial ventures." For example, things as simple as more "free to the consumer" WiFi in coffeshops and public places will encourage ad hoc networking.

I'd like to see more cooperative efforts throughout all Northeast Ohio. For instance, more "package deals" between hotels in the city of Cleveland and day excursions to attractions outside of town.

CC: What are your passions and how does it manifest itself in your life?
AC: Art and books: they exercise parts of your mind that make you more creative. The Internet: we're in an especially exciting time right now. We are going through another Internet revolution with the proliferation of personal publishing tools and weblogs, which has put more people on the web to publish than ever before. For a couple of years there the Internet became the bastion of large companies putting up huge eCommerce ventures (Walmart.com). The individual didn't have much of a role other than as a buyer of goods. But in the last year or two, things have opened up in exciting new ways. Now, the tools for creating websites are so much better and less expensive - even free - that a single individual can do more on the Internet than ever before. And the whole social networking movement has encouraged people to connect online. People are expressing themselves and creating online networks of contacts like never before.

CC: What has your best contribution to Cleveland is/has been?
AC: It's yet to come!

CC: Do you have favorite quotes or sayings you live by?
AC: You are what you think about. (Meaning, that if you think like a defeatist, you are defeated. If you think about success, then success comes much more easily.) From a tiny acorn the mighty oak grows. (Meaning that with anything in life you are building, just start small and if you stick with it, eventually it will grow large, strong and mighty.)

CC: What's the best learning/experimenting you've done in the last 5 years?
AC: Being in a serious car accident, which alters your priorities about what's important in your life. (2) Failing, which is an incredible learning experience.

CC: What's the best advice you've been offered?
AC: Life is a quest to feel good about yourself, and people respond if you try to make them feel good about themselves.

CC: What was a significant failure in your life and what did you learn from it?
AC: I've had too many to count. I've learned something from each of them. The hardest thing I've learned is to strip out the useful lessons and let go of everything else -all the emotional baggage surrounding failure that can hold you back. I've had to learn how to consciously forget about the negative aspects of failing and put my mind forward to the future.

CC: Where are you most likely to hang out in Cleveland?
AC: Cleveland to me is Northeast Ohio, so here goes: Cool Beans in Medina (free Internet access).

CC: How do you think Cool Cleveland can continue being successful?
AC: I'd like to see CC add more information about business meetings. There is so much going on in this town, and I'd like to see events be better tracked. A "push" approach through a newsletter is a much better way to get the word out about events than relying on more passive methods.

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