Jordan Wolfe is that guy. The one Michigan's politicos and business leaders are talking about "retaining and attracting". Come to think of it, "retaining and attracting" could become our new state motto given all the talk that's centered around the need for more young professionals.
Well, the state got another one. And luckily, Wolfe wants us to get a whole lot more.
Metro Detroit raised and Indiana University educated, Jordan Wolfe did what an endless list of young Michiganders do: Moved away. He spent a year in the Netherlands studying international finance at
Maastricht University, then hit the West Coast where he took a job with
Mainsail Partners, a small private equity firm in San Francisco, where he invested in software and service companies. On the side, he says, he did a little land investing in Atlanta and "did quite well."
And then he came back to Michigan. Family issues. Not exactly the reason local leaders talk about but given the state of things, they'll take what they can get. Maybe that could be Michigan's back up motto: "Come back for your family issues."
But then something odd happened. Not only did Wolfe return, he decided to stick around, settling in in Royal Oak. While establishing
uwemp.com an educational software start-up, Wolfe was asked by Scott Kaufman, now CEO of the
Jewish Federation of Detroit, to become part of an initiative to... wait for it... attract and retain young talent in Michigan. And Wolfe said yes.
"It's community building, it's education, it's all the stuff I do anyway," says Wolfe. "From that I started delving into the community, into the city of Detroit and I realized how connected I got within just a year of coming back."
What sealed the deal was Wolfe's experience with last year's
TechNow. Along with two entrepreneurial friends, the 27-year-old decided to throw a launch party for their companies. And with an eye on networking possibilities the trio decided to open their doors to local professionals and companies.
"Now, I didn't know anyone here," Wolfe explains,"So we rented out the music theater last year and focused on local start-ups. My goal was how do I get a bunch of people together with a positive mindset and attitude. I know the mantra is jobs, jobs, jobs, but without culture we're not going to get anywhere."
Wolfe and his cohorts cold-called everyone in the area that would take a meeting and learned very quickly who got it and who didn't. Then the three put the event together, called it Technow, and crossed their fingers that enough people would show up. 800 people did.
"It was amazing. And we didn't do that much," he says."I mean, I don't want to downplay it but I just put people together. There's a huge huge supply and demand imbalance in this town. Huge."
At TechNow, Wolfe and partner
Zach Lipson met and hit it off with current partner
Adrian Pittman. "Within 15 minutes of meeting we were on the same page and envisioning something bigger." The idea that has become the Future Midwest Conference quickly took root.
Billed as a two-day technology and knowledge conference,
FutureMidwest (April 16 & 17) features TED-style presentations, networking events, a keynote by Jay Adelson (former CEO of Digg), and social media workshops.
Wolfe sees the lectures, workshops, and programs as a way for Metro Detroit's older guard, which he calls 101s, to better understand the technological and online social landscape of younger professionals (201s).
I sat down with Jordan Wolfe and asked him whether Michigan can achieve 2.0 status, and how it's doing with the digital revolution and the generation that owns, develops and utilizes these technologies on a daily level.
Putting aside your personal investment in the event (if that's possible), why should the Metro Detroit business community attend the Future MidWest conference?Obviously there's the networking opportunity, creating relationships with companies and professionals. That's a small component. But there are two more important things: First, there's the programming aspect to the conference, the idea that there are these tools –social media, digital communication, etc-- and how do you really use them? There's such a need in the region to understand that it's not just about putting up a Facebook or Twitter page, there's a strategy behind it. ...People here think things have changed. The fact is, we're only at the very beginning of that change.
If there are ten steps, we're at step one of what this digital revolution is going to mean from an economic value standpoint.
The second aspect of the conference --especially for me personally-- is to [highlight] that there's a demand for young people, and the people in the city on the 30th floor on Woodward who have all the resources, they don't know how to activate us. I want this to be the beginning of the conversation between the young creatives and the people with most of the resources. I'm focusing on how we can be a conduit to make this happen. There's a reason Ford, GM, Verizon all provided resources for the conference. They realize how relevant what we're talking about is, and how important it is for them to associate their brands and operations with us.
My question is: How do we empower this movement with the right stakeholders so that we can do it the right way? Because if we don't do it the right way... if it's about the city and Detroit is saying "hey, here's a $100M to bring 50 entrepreneurs to come downtown..." it isn't going to work. It has to be natural and organic.
What is the right way? I think it's a philosophical issue. Not since the days of Woodstock have you had such a generational culture difference. What the younger generation wants out their life is significantly different than what the older gen wants out of theirs.
So, you're saying that while there was a big divide between the generations in the 60s, over the last 40 years interests converged and now, for the first time since then, there's a real divide in what each generation expects from their life?Yes, exactly. If you look at suburban sprawl, big box retail, the idea that "bigger is better", McMansions... the way people view the American dream.... it's changing. And there's nothing wrong with that. My parents' way afforded me great opportunities. But we've hit a different cycle, and we're deciding what's important in our lives and it's different.
Now, couple that with this fundamental shift in how business is done today and how you reach the consumer... the idea that people want it now and they want to be hands-on in the process... this shift in culture and business and how we work as people, it's a monumental shift.
The historical way things were done is that an executive sits in an office and makes a decision --this could be any business-- "we're going to do this marketing campaign, we're going to sell things this way and consumers will follow". That doesn't really work any more. Why don't you go ask your consumers, the people you're targeting, what they want? That's a huge consumer insight. That could be a question the City of Detroit is asking, or GM, or a small creative agency. Instead of getting a creative decision by putting real smart people in the room, why don't you go ask people what they want?
That same idea applies to how you engage young people. ...What does Detroit mean to young people? What do they want out of Detroit? Don't guess. Talk to us. Have us involved. Before you build a new innovation center or new building get the people you want to attract involved. Have them help you. Don't just put a Rite-Aid in there because you think they'll sign a 10 year lease.
So, how does our region measure up when it comes to businesses effectively leveraging the Internet? And how do you benchmark that?I can only speak about what I see on the ground, but we're way behind the curve, as far it goes with using the tools effectively. That goes back to developing the right mind set and activating the culture change.
And the biggest issue related to that is our idea of failure. Out west if you talk to someone who had a start-up company and it didn't work, they failed --maybe they didn't get money or it went belly up-- people will say, "What did you learn?"
That's not the mindset here. People here are afraid to fail, because if you're an executive and you fail here, you're done. So, I think we're way behind the curve because people aren't willing to take chances. ...Technology has enabled us to do so many things in relation to cost and we need to embrace that instead of buying a $100,000 ad in a magazine. You know what I could do with $100,000 digitally? About 20 different things. So, go try 100 things. Maybe you'll fail at 30 of them but who cares. The cost differential will cover it from a business stand point.
Traditionally, Michigan has been a very cautious state when it comes to new technologies and cultural shifts. Are we ready and able to adopt the changes you're talking about?Are we ready for this? If you had asked me a year ago I would have said I don't know if we are. But because of the economic situation now, because our backs are up against the wall --and those walls are still pretty thick-- they're starting to break down a little bit. You're starting to find people in companies and government that are starting to get it and embrace it. You look at someone like Rick Snyder in the governors race --and I'm being apolitical here-- and how he's using technology and he just comes out of nowhere to poll at 18 percent in just two months. That's a guy whose team understands how to use technology. That's a great example of someone who gets it. And there are other government entities that do too, like Ann Arbor SPARK, who is doing some amazing things. They get it. And that's the take away: We have to get it or we're screwed.
So if we're way behind the curve are we in danger of remaining behind? The common wisdom is that, except for Chicago, the Midwest is 10 years behind the coasts. So, even if we eventually get through "the wall" can we ever catch up? Both younger people and the global market are a lot less willing to wait around these days. If you look at Boston or Silicon Valley over a period of 30 or 40 years they built a hub of innovation and technology. To say we're going to build that in the next five years is not realistic. I think we can definitely narrow that gap, however. But the only way that's going to happen is with public-private partnerships, so you can get the right people the resources they need to change the culture.
...And you're right, we're losing young people really fast. We're going to continue to until we create a culture and a lifestyle that they want to be a part of. College grads will go work at a restaurant or odd jobs just to live in the place they like. That's a first step here. We need to create a place young people want to live in.
If young people have a different way of viewing the world –where they want to live, how they want to work, what they want from their lives, how much do things need to change for us to establish an evolving and dynamic workforce?
It's starting to happen. Especially at some of the bigger companies. Their HR departments are starting to pay more attention to work/life balance issues, being more flexible, maybe allowing people to work from home more. I think that they are getting it. The problem with the rest is that they need to understand how our generation operates. Instead of fighting it they should embrace it because it can be very powerful for them. Just because we do something very differently than traditional methods doesn't mean there aren't significant gains to be had.
So, what's next for Michigan when it comes to social media? Where do we need to go in both the short and long term?I think the next 2-3 years are going to be huge with regard to education. We need to start helping companies transition from the traditional way they operate and communicate with their consumers. Internally, they need to start shifting their operations and actually invest in those areas. The Fortune 500 and 1000 companies, they're already doing it. What's important is how do you get the 200-and 500-person companies to make the change? Education and investment in resource allocation are going to be crucial.
Longer term, it's tough to say. Things move so fast. What I would love to see is that local businesses make digital communication central to the way they communicate. So, that means the way they operate needs to be digital-centric. It doesn't mean you get rid of print or traditional advertising, It means that they become the additional strategies rather than the main strategy. In the middle of the diagram it needs to say "digital". There shouldn't be a digital marketing team. Your marketing team needs to be digital by definition.
Where do you think social media, in general, is going next?(Laughs) I have this fantasy that at some point Twitter and social media and information all the time at any time will suddenly all go away, that we'll say, "I don't need all this," and we go back in time. But really, what I think will happen is that the novelty will become status quo. The hysteria will calm down and the digital environment will mature. Like I said, we're just at the very beginning of this way of thinking, but it is here to stay. That means the idea of a communication dept at a large company is going to fundamentally change. The agency world is going to fundamentally change. You already see that happening, they're operating in a model where you have 30 contractors all bringing unique skills and expertise instead of 30 employees. It's no longer about taking someone's $10M budget, keeping your 20 percent nut, then have half your employees sit there shocked because you spent their money. Business models are going to shift, and on a large scale.
We've had some people say of the conference that it's for marketing and communications people, it's not a part of my business. Listen, marketing and communications is a part of every type of business. Twenty years from now, people will look back and be surprised that this was even a question.
Jeff Meyers is the managing editor of Metromode and Concentrate. He is also an award-winning film critic with Detroit's Metro Times. Send your comments here.Full disclosure: Metromode is a supporter of the FutureMidwest Conference.