The rainy weather may not have cooperated, but nonetheless, last week’s Cincinnati Digital Hub Non-Conference turned out to be a smashing success.  From John Battelle’s opening keynote to Peter Kim’s talk on Social Business, the conference was filled with great discussions about the digital landscape.  And even better, the conference really highlighted some of our  best local success stories including the growth of Cincinnati-based Share This, the launch of Bob Gilbreath’s new book, and other tales such as ThinkVine, MomsLikeMe.com and Ample.

But perhaps my favorite part came at the very end when I had the chance to sit on a small panel to talk about Cincinnati’s role as a Digital Hub.  One of the points that I brought up was that Cincinnati has already made tremendous strides…we just need to talk about some of our accomplishments.  For instance, consider the following:

• In Entrepreneur Magazine’s latest ranking of Top Undergraduate Entrepreneurial Colleges, three schools in the Cincinnati area were ranked in the Top 20 (University of Dayton at #7, Miami University at #15 and Xavier University at #19).   And Northern Kentucky University will likely join that list soon will their new $50 million dollar School of Informatics.
• Cincinnati is a Consumer Marketing Hub as the headquarters town of Procter & Gamble, Kroger, Nielsen Online, Macy’s and a host of marketing, branding, design and advertising services companies such as Bridge Worldwide, LPK and Northlich.
• The Cincinnati Social Media group is one of the largest in the country with over 700 active members.
• Cincinnati is one of the most innovative cities in the world with one of the highest rates of patent applications per capita in the country.

And that is just the beginning.  The buzz around the Digital Hub Non-Conference is because of what is already taking place in Cincinnati…not just the potential of what is to come.  The simple fact is that while Cincinnati has been the branding capital of 20th Century, we have every reason to be the Digital Brand Building capital of the 21st Century.

I for one cannot wait to be part of it all.