Detroit makes Entrepreneur magazine's Innovation Nation list
Source: Entrepreneur, 9/2/2010
Detroit's problems are opportunities, or
at least from the viewpoint of Entrepreneur magazine. It inducted
the Motor City into its list of Top 50 innovative cities.
Excerpt:
Detroit
sits poised on the brink of economic collapse--and on the cusp of a
post-industrial renaissance. Artists and iconoclasts are moving to this
city in droves, purchasing foreclosed properties and relying on solar
energy and other alternative solutions to pursue lives and careers
outside the margins of mainstream society. Officials are looking to
reinvent blighted segments of the city as urban farms. Detroit is
dead--long live Detroit.
Read the rest of the story here.
Forbes recognizes U-M President Coleman's push for student entrepreneurs
Source: Forbes, 9/2/2010
Michigan's colleges should be helping
students hit bottom lines, not just the books. University of Michigan
President Mary Sue Coleman advocates for students to have the tools and
mindset to become business owners and job creators, and for institutions
of higher learning to accommodate this paradigm shift.
Excerpt:
Entrepreneurs
on today's college campuses are no longer only huddled together at the
business school. They are emerging from the hallways in our music
schools and our engineering programs. They are coming forward with fresh
ideas in architecture and medicine.
The educational programs
designed to draw out these innovative thinkers must be welcoming to all
students willing to take a risk on what some might call their "crazy
ideas."
The late President Ronald Reagan got it right in 1988
when he told students at Moscow State University, "These entrepreneurs
and their small enterprises are responsible for almost all of the
economic growth in the United States."
If he were making that
same point today, Reagan might have to address the students more
directly. Instead of discussing "these" entrepreneurs he would need to
say "you" entrepreneurs.
Entrepreneurism is breaking out all over
our college campuses. At the University of Michigan we've learned that
many of our students are creating opportunities for themselves even
before they get to campus. One survey found that as many as 15% of our
incoming freshmen had already started businesses.
Read the rest
of the story here.
Metro Detroit firms grow with film post production work
Source: Detroit Free Press, 8/26/2010
Seeing stars at local eateries and
snagging a part as extra in a film is cool, but Metro Detroiters are
more interested in doing the work that comes after a film shoots. Local
start-ups are scrambling to take on more and more post-production work,
where the real jobs are at in the film industry.
Excerpt:
"Piranha
3D" was filmed in Arizona at Lake Havasu. So why did several members of
the crew spend about six months in Ann Arbor last year?
Because
it was an economical and enjoyable place to do editing on the horror
movie about the vicious fish.
As Michigan strives to become
Hollywood Midwest, much attention is being focused on the filming that's
bringing famous actors and prominent directors to town.
But
there also is an emerging market in film and TV post production -- work
that ranges from editing to sound mixing.
"Piranha 3D," which
opens today, is the first movie to come to Michigan specifically to do
post production work and receive the state's tax incentives for
filmmakers, according to the Michigan Film Office.
Post
production could expand in metro Detroit and the rest of the state.
"I
think the biggest challenge is awareness and getting your foot in the
door," said Allan Rothfeder, executive vice president and chief
operating officer of Grace & Wild Inc., the Farmington Hills parent
company of Grace & Wild Studios, which provided editing equipment
and technical support for "Piranha 3D."
Read the rest of the
story here.
Xconomy profiles NextWave biz incubator in Troy
Source: Xconomy, 8/26/2010
Could Metro Detroit's next generation of
entrepreneur come, partly, from the NextWave small business incubator in
Troy? Xconomy seems to think so in a story about where the new
for-profit incubator is heading.
Excerpt:
Nancy
Skinner, CEO of NextWave Media Studios and part owner of the just-opened
NextWave business space in Troy, MI, describes her new digs as a
“different animal” from your average incubator.
It is more than
just shared office space, she says. “If we deem that your company has
good prospects, then we’re going to throw all of our resources into it,”
Skinner says. “We’re going to help you with building a business plan,
marketing, access to capital.”
Not only that, but NextWave gives
its chosen companies “very aggressive growth objectives” within certain
periods of time, she says. If they succeed, then they can advance and
get bigger and better offices, and even a flag on the NextWave flagpole.
“It’s
not a ‘Survivor’ ‘you’re off the island,’ but it’s not an indefinite
‘we’re going to support you forever’ kind of thing,” Skinner says.
Read
the rest of the story here.
Pure Michigan ads rake in awards, national attention
Source: USA Today, 8/19/2010
Michigan is setting
the standard for branding the right way and gathering a lot of positive
attention while doing so. The Pure Michigan ad campaign continues to win
awards and remind people how special the Great Lakes State really is,
yet it's still having a hard time finding funding. Now that's Pure
Michigan.
Excerpt:
PORT
HURON, Mich. — This state's tourism ads make people feel good enough to
cry. They give hope to the jobless and goose bumps to the jaded. Daily
they win new fans on Facebook, new followers on Twitter. When they come
on the radio, they inspire listeners to turn up the volume.
They even get people to visit Michigan.
The ads are the stuff of "Pure Michigan," a
campaign to replace images of gutted cities and shuttered factories
with visions of vineyards, lighthouses, waterfalls, sand dunes and the
nation's longest fresh water coastline.
Designed to boost out-of-state tourism, Pure Michigan has
boosted in-state morale.
"It's given Michiganders something to be
proud of — a bit of redemption in the eyes of the nation," says Dan
McCole, a Michigan State tourism professor.
Pure Michigan is a prime example of state
"branding," the process by which a state (or any other place) plants a
readily identifiable notion of itself in the national imagination. The
goal is to make people visit, move there, do business there, or buy its
products.
A
branding success such as Pure Michigan, which has made www.michigan.org
the most-visited state tourism website,is "not just a marketing
campaign," says Mitch Nichols, a Phoenix-based consultant.
"It repositions the very identity of the
state."
Read the rest of the story
here.
Drumroll, please, for the Michigan Corps!
Source: The Wall Street Journal, 8/12/2010
Google has long played a part in helping diversify and boost Michigan's economy, the biggest example being installing its AdWords headquarters in downtown Ann Arbor. Now some of its executives and others from Silicon Valley are taking serious initiative. Read: A New Yorker moves to Detroit to start the Michigan Corps; finally, the money flows the other way.
Excerpt:
To Rishi Jaitly, Michigan is America's state.
The New York native and former Google executive this week launched Michigan Corps, a national nonprofit intent on boosting Michigan's economy and creating wealth for its residents. Founding board members include Google's chief executive Eric Schmidt, CNN's chief medical correspondent Sanjay Gupta, author Jeffrey Eugenides, and former Digg CEO Jay Adelson.
Read the rest of the story here.
Xconomy looks at Quicken's move to WEBward Ave
Source: Xconomy, 8/12/2010
Downtown Detroit is becoming more and more
of a tech-based place. It doesn't hurt that Quicken Loans is moving
there and rebranding the city center's main drag WEBward Avenue.
Excerpt:
Dan
Gilbert, the chairman and founder of Quicken Loans, is hoping that if
he declares Woodward Avenue, Detroit's main drag, to be a new,
tech-centered "WEBward Avenue" often enough, it just might come true. It
also doesn't hurt that he has the money and clout to perhaps make it a
self-fulfilling prophecy.
That's why the businessman, who also
owns the Cleveland Cavaliers, is screaming to the rafters today about
something completely unrelated to LeBron James's move to Miami. Gilbert
announced yesterday that Quicken's sister company, Quizzle, will join
Quicken when it moves into the Compuware building in Detroit later this
month. Quizzle is a financial website with more than 500,000 registered
users, according to the company, that helps consumers manage their
personal finances.
Read the rest of the story here.
BoingBoing tackles Maker Faire Detroit
Source: BoingBoing, 8/5/2010
Maker Faire Detroit drew inventors and
onlookers from all over Michigan. It also attracted a few rays of the
national media spotlight.
Excerpt:
I was in Detroit
this past weekend for Maker Faire Detroit 2010. It was held at the
Henry Ford Museum (look for an upcoming post about this incredible
museum) and I'm guessing 20,000 people showed up. There was a great deal
of excitement and energy in the air, and I went home with the feeling
that Detroit is going to rise to greatness again very soon.
I met
a lot of terrifically inventive makers in Detroit, and I managed to
take photos of a small fraction of them.
Read the rest of this
story here.