It is the human experience to carry around all sorts of odds and ends of truncated thoughts, unanswered concerns, unacknowledged prejudices, lingering denials and observations of the work place that are rarely expressed in the work place. And the positive side often is overlooked. One's business acumen, among other things, depends on how good you are at shepherding your bundle. In a civilized society there are places to take such dis-affections and turn them into affections. Ryze Cleveland is one of a few event stagers in Cleveland that provide a crowd with inspiring insight-into-self through others.

I appreciated my good fortune in finding the Oct. 20th Cleveland Ryze Business Networking Mixer at a new "non-corporate" location at Buzz Gallery, 1836 W. 25th Street. Three of Buzz's six owner-operators hosted the event: Colin Toke (a Ryze member), Andrew Kaletta and Bridget Ginley who made scrumptious finger food. We had a preview of the Wor(l)ds Apart, a show of handmade books that opened the following Friday and will be open through Nov. 19.

The Ryze Cleveland organizer is George Nemeth, a Cool Cleveland operative, as well as a knowledge and collaboration coach with Cleveland-based Smart Meeting Design. The firm's motto: creating the space for new conversations.

At first the mixer consisted of meeting people through unstructured conversation. Information came along randomly. I met Ronald McDaniel, principle of Kent-based Liquid Learning Inc.?, which provides a service that he said put some Web developers out of business: online magazines produced fully by the client. Soon someone else mentioned Worldchanging.org. Later I looked it up. Its motto is Models, Tools, and Ideas for Building a Bright Green Future, and seems worthy of another visit.

After about 40 minutes of informal conversation, George Nemeth called the attention of the crowd and announced the main event. He pointed out that they had only a few places to sit. This is to encourage people to move around and meet each other. He asked for the guests to volunteer topics. Three were quickly picked. One was about poverty in Cleveland and another was titled Appreciative Leadership, which I joined.

Jack Ricchiuto, corporate coach at Smart Meeting Design lead this discussion. As author of the recently published book, "Appreciative Leadership," he is well suited to lead such a discussion. With a quizzical face, he said to the group around him: "I suspect a lot of business conversations you've had start with a statement similar to 'When are we going to talk about what's wrong?'"

"I suspect you do too much about that (at business meetings)," said Mr. Ricchiuto to our group. We included Mr. McDaniel; Kameelah Nureddin, an accountant and principle of K.N. Enterprises; Gloria Ferris, a broker with the benefits and retirement planning firm The Ferris Group; and Chris King principle of the human development business Creative Keys and a couple other people.

Ricchiuto stated, "The questions to build on is, 'What's working and why?'" I wondered, "While focusing on what's going well, what is done with what's going wrong."

"It is easier to complain about something than say what is alright," said Ms. King.

"How often do you analyze what's good?" said Ricchiuto. "Doing this will make you happier and more open to possibilities. It is mythology that if we become too happy we will become lethargic."

"Redefine failure," he said. "The only real failure is the failure to learn."

"Don't build on anything negative because negative things can't support anything positive," he continued. "People tend to dream small. Dream big!"

Someone gave Christopher Reeves as an example of someone dreaming big and making a contribution. Reeves is the actor who played superman and became a quadriplegic when he fell off a horse. Reeves publicly stated his goal was to walk again. While he did not walk again Reeves stirred up a lot of interest in research to help people with paralysis. Only a strong spirit and a big dream can bring such interest.

"If you are healthy," said King, "you won't stay in a dysfunctional relationship for long. It is not sustainable."

"Teach people to cut losses and move on," said Ms. Ferris.

King suggested a book: "Now, discover your strengths," by Marcus Buckingham and Donald O. Clifton.

"How to leverage our strengths almost never comes up in many business meetings," Ricchiuto drove the message home.

"Part of this is do to with people not being able to handle directness," said Ferris.

"Weakness is a poorly timed strength," Ricchiuto said.

"Keep telling people what good they are doing and they help each other more," said King.

Then Nemeth announced the end of the small group discussions. Various members gave accounts of the discussions they just completed.

Someone said, "Different income levels living close enough together to make it possible so poor can know middle class and or rich is important. There is very little of this in Cleveland. If people of different classes know each other better it would be easier for poor people to escape poverty."

Someone else said, "You don't know if you have an idea whose time has come until you get people together and talk about it."

"Network. Don't ask permission," someone said.

A book, "The future of work," by Thomas Malone was suggested. "Our work relationships are moving from a hierarchy-based to network-based," someone said. "Lateral working between equals helps generate useful ideas. (In well operating businesses) most useful ideas bubble up from the workers. They are not passed down from on high. Bottom up is how productive changes happen."

"If you wait for someone else to forward the ideas today, you are screwed," said Timothy Ferris, an investment advisor for FSC Securities Corporation for northeast Ohio.

"Eventually we'll teach the young not to work for someone else. We'll teach them to work with someone else," someone said.

I was so busy talking with people I neglected to speak with others. These included Frank Mills, principle in the intriguingly named "Urban Paradoxes." The mission of the Urban Paradoxes blog is to create and defend sustainable, vital, dynamic neighborhoods by discovering, understanding, and properly utilizing the paradoxes functioning within the neighborhood.

I"ll have to attend another Cleveland Ryze mixer to dig into useful paradoxes with Mr. Mills. And I thought through what to do with what's wrong while focusing on what's going well. Learn from the positive and apply to the negative. from Cool Cleveland contributor Lee Batdorff Lbatdorff@adva.com (:divend:)