Detroit is known as a place where things are made. This looks like it will turn out to be a good thing when the world economy recovers and demands more products from the U.S.

Excerpt:

From auto parts shipped to Canada to a soccer stadium designed for a South Korean city, metro Detroit firms are among the nation's leaders in exporting goods and services to other nations.

A study to be released today by the Brookings Institution, based in Washington, D.C., ranks metro Detroit ninth among the nation's 100 largest metropolitan areas for the dollar volume of its 2008 exports, $26.9 billion. Detroit ranks fifth in export-related jobs, with 239,910 area residents producing goods and services for export, the study said.

Detroit's exports are heavy with auto parts, but increasingly include professional services. As Detroit struggles to reinvent its economy, the potential for service exports to contribute is enormous, said John Austin, a member of the state Board of Education and a nonresident fellow at the Brookings Institution who contributed to the report.

"It's easy to see car parts moving around the world. We're doing great in Brazil, and GM's doing fine in China," he said. "But we don't see this growth share of our exports to the world in high-end knowledge services -- medicine, design, accounting, deal-making.

"The fact that Detroit is really one of the top places and punches above its weight shows the future of an economy."

Read the rest of the story here.

People often talk about the need for Metro Detroit to harness its vast musical culture. It actually works the other way around with local musicians harnessing the region's culture to drive musical innovation. The most recent example is how a Metro Detroiter invented Techno and how local musicians are still harnessing it and the region for inspiration.

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Berry Gordy Jr., founder of Motown Records, claimed that Detroit’s assembly lines inspired the sound of his label’s music. The originators of techno dance music, which also got its start in the city, were subject to these surrounding influences, as well, though the mood of the town had changed dramatically by the early 1980s.

"Detroit is a cold place with a heart made of metal," said Michael Banks, a producer and co-founder of Underground Resistance, a politically charged techno outfit in Detroit.
"For me, the car industry affected techno music by its efficiency aspects," Mr. Banks, who also records under the name Mad Mike, explained.

Juan Atkins, a Detroit music producer, is widely credited with inventing the techno genre. He coined the term in 1984 from the novel "Future Shock" by Alvin Toffler. That same year, Mr. Atkins released the song "Techno City," a recording that popularized the word in Europe.

Read the rest of the story here.

Polka. Piracy. The long arm of the law. The northern suburb of Warren made the news as one of its citizens was caught in a daring undercover police operation.

Stephen Colbert of The Colbert Report investigates the sordid facts a segment entitled: "Nailed 'Em: Polka Piracy"

Watch it here.

What Metro Detroit entrepreneurs don't have in an entrepreneurial ecosystem, they make up for with their work ethic and solutions-based attitude. At least that's the way one third party observer sees it.

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I've met a lot of engineers and entrepreneurs from Detroit and there's an underlying vibe that resonates from all of them: a specific attitude or work ethic – possibly left over from the automotive industry – that either causes them to try to work harder than their fathers or go against the grain trying to figure out how they can live life to its fullest.

As Jay Adelson takes his first break from work in 20 years, we get to time travel with him go back to the land of Henry Ford (the ultimate Detroit entrepreneur) to see where people like Jay come from.

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PixoFactor Entertainment sees video games and animation, rather than film production, as having a more positive permanent impact on the economy. Xconomy's Detroit bureau is the latest to recognize the entertainment firm's strategy for success.

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Michigan's highest-in-the-nation 42 percent tax credit for filmmakers is often called the "film incentive," but if you ask the folks at PixoFactor Entertainment in Royal Oak, MI, the bigger beneficiaries are those who work on videogame and animation productions. Plus, they argue, those jobs are longer-lasting and more local than movie production.

That's why Sean Hurwitz, PixoFactor's president, is in the business. "We feel like the digital side of this incentive has greater potential to create jobs and economy—or, Xconomy [Hurwitz motions over to me, and smiles]—here in Michigan." A Hollywood film crew comes in for a short time with their own directors and actors, "underpays a lot of interns and a lot of local crews," he says, shoots the film and then leaves. But it takes nine months to a year to produce a videogame, with local animators and programmers working the entire time.

Read the rest of the story here.

Art and beer arm wrestle for crowds in Washtenaw County, wanna guess which will win? In one corner you've got downtown Ann Arbor's Art Fairs (four art fairs that are generally thought of as one). In the other corner you've got the Michigan Brewers Guild Summer Beer Festival in Ypsilanti's Riverside Park. Personally, I'm putting my money on the the fest that gets me feeling happy quickest.

Excerpts:

ART FAIR:

"Well, we all knew it was big, but when Google takes notice, it must be really big.

The Ann Arbor Art Fair was holding down the No. 4 spot on Google Trends' list of Hot Searches this morning. That's the top searches in the entire nation. The art fairs — technically it's four fairs, though the most likely search term is in the singular — was sandwiched between Clemson quarterback Kyle Parker and Georgia election results.

An estimated half-million or more people are expected in Ann Arbor over the next four days."

Get more coverage here.


BEER FESTIVAL:

"Or maybe you've said to yourself, "Well, I'd like to try some of that craft beer but I have no idea what I'd like and I don't want to waste my time and money ... oh how I wish there was someone to help me!!!!"

Well, your wish has come true! (Sorry, I can't help with those other wishes you have ... and those are kinda off-color, don't you think?) You can be a beer adventurer, kids! Kind of like being guided by a Boy Scout -- but with beer!! For the low price of $10 (a festival ticket is still required), you will get to enter through the VIP entrance at the beer fest and meet your adventurer guide. I've gone through this VIP entrance and that in and of itself is pretty cool ... no lines, for one, and you're a VIP! That's cool! Your guide will meet with you and up to four other people and plot your battle plan. And trust me, these battle plans will make the ones from "Red Dawn" (the original, not the remake) look like a Tic Tac Toe game."

Read the rest here.

LED lights have been a catchphrase around southeast Michigan for years as a way to save local governments boatloads of cash in energy savings. Now they look like a way for Michigan firms to make boatloads of bucks while adding even more jobs.

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Before the "Great Recession," the state of Michigan was in its own one-state recession of sorts thanks in part to our well-documented over-dependence upon the struggling auto industry. Yes, the economy is still recovering, and things are still dark, but I can see the light! Yes, dear readers, I have seen the light at the end of Michigan's proverbial economic tunnel, and that light shines bright with LEDs. Can I get an "Amen"?!

Read the rest of the story here.

We have seen all of the big headlines and stars that come with major film and TV productions, thanks to the new tax incentives. But, quietly, videogame makers and animators are flocking to Metro Detroit to take advantage of those incentives. And they're bringing lots of jobs along.

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Video game developer Nathaniel McClure had never been to Michigan before he began scouting the Great Lakes state last year as a possible choice for relocating his company.

After seven visits over six months, McClure was sold. The 34-year-old uprooted his life in Los Angeles and moved to Michigan to open a digital studio.

The attraction was simple: He could do the same work while taking advantage of the state's steep film industry tax breaks.

"Forty-two percent is a lot of money," said McClure, CEO of Scientifically Proven Studios, which opened this year in Farmington Hills.

Read the rest of the story here.

Detroiters know how to hustle. Bizdom U knows how to run a successful start-up. Quicken Loans Founder Dan Gilbert is putting the two together in an effort to reinvent Metro Detroit's economy. The New York Times takes an in-depth look at the initiative.

Excerpt:

James Smith Moore, the son of a single mother on Detroit's east side, knows how to hustle.

He started a lizard-breeding business at age 15 and sold more than 500 hatchlings online for $15 to $80 apiece.

At 16, after local stores ran out of a certain popular Nike sneaker, he hired a manufacturer in China to supply him with knock-offs, which he sold for $80 to $200 a pair on his own Web site as well as eBay and other auction sites. Four months later, he received a cease-and-desist letter, but he had made a $14,000 profit, enough to buy his first car.

This bootstrapping spirit got Mr. Moore, now 21, accepted into Bizdom U, an intense boot camp for aspiring entrepreneurs who aim to start high-growth businesses in Detroit. Bizdom U is the brainchild of Dan Gilbert, a Motor City native who is founder and chairman of the online mortgage lender Quicken Loans. He also hopes to help revitalize his hometown.

Read the rest of the story here and more here.

The Wall Street Journal's Deputy Editor-in-Chief Gerard Baker sits down with Bill Ford Jr., chairman of Ford, for a series of videos to talk about a number of projects ranging from government bailouts to the role automakers can play in energy independence to becoming a truly global automaker.

See them here.