talent : Featured Stories

Young job recruits today want more than a paycheck, says Cincinnati business consultant Chuck Proudfit. They want a chance to make a difference in the world and they want their company to help give them that chance.

A home office offers freedom and flexibility. But it can also lead to isolation, tedium and that gotta-get-out-of-here feeling. For on-their-own Ohioans yearning for professional companionship, coworking may be the answer.

Cincinnati knows a good thing when it sees it . . . and homegrown talent is a good thing. So, in 2005, regional businesses and educators formed a collaborative nonprofit to plug the region's "brain drain" by cultivating students, beginning as early as the 10th grade.

Thanks to work done by folks like Richard Florida and Rebecca Ryan, cities are more aware than ever that the key to economic prosperity lies in attracting and retaining young professionals. Not only that, by reading their books � The Rise of the Creative Class and Live First, Work Second, respectively � we can pinpoint the factors that go into a young person's choice of city. All across Ohio, highly motivated organizations are relying on that data in an attempt to meet the needs of those coveted YPs, or young professionals.

The Indian American Chamber of Commerce of Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky  is neither an ethnic organization nor a social group, President Rayan Coutinho says. Rather, it's an organization "to create a forum and resource pool for Indian and American businesses and professionals." hiVelocity recently asked Coutinho about the new organization and its goals.

Ohio neighborhoods are finding a second � or third � life as hip, new attractions for business, families and young professionals. Drawing on a combination of historic preservation and interest an urban lifestyle -- and tapping into corporate investment and state aid -- more than a dozen such neighborhoods have risen from the ashes

"Compared to all the different community development programs we've tried over the years," says India Pierce Lee, Program Director with the Cleveland Foundation, "Evergreen Cooperatives leaves me more optimistic about opportunities for change than anything else I've seen."