In the News

Silicon Valley company finds Metro Detroit just right

Tech Crunch Thursday, December 20, 2012

Silicon Valley's Stik moves to Detroit because of the region's resources - particularly talent.

Excerpt:

"“We had a great network the last two years in the Valley. But the employee side was more advantages here in Detroit being a much bigger fish in a smaller pond of startups. We didn’t start here 2 years ago because we didn’t see the network of investors and advisers that we knew existed in Silicon Valley. But that was 2010.

Now, in 2012, there’s a lot of resources here between Quicken Loan’s major investment in the tech scene and an investor group in Ann Arbor that has been very helpful.”"

Read the rest here.

State awards $5.25M to SE Michigan to fuel tech innovation

Crain's Detroit Business Thursday, October 11, 2012

Tech entrepreneurship doesn't just happen. Sometimes it needs a push or helping hand. The state has awarded strategic funds to organizations like the Institute for Research on Labor, Employment and the Economy at the University of Michigan, the Michigan Manufacturing Technology Center in Plymouth, and the Macomb-Oakland University Incubator in Sterling Heights.

Excerpt:

"The awards, which are designed to help organizations fill gaps in entrepreneurial service areas, were among several items approved Thursday by the Michigan Strategic Fund.

A total of $3.25 million in assistance will help Next Energy in Detroit, the Macomb-Oakland University Incubator in Sterling Heights and the Michigan Small Business Technology & Development Center, housed at Grand Valley State University, to provide commercialization matching funds to companies receiving federal technology research grants. Next Energy will receive $700,000 over three years; Macomb-OU will receive $766,036 over two years, and the Small Business Technology & Development Center will receive $1.75 million for one year, according to state information."

Read the rest here.

Pure Michigan Singalong shows off Metro Detroit, becomes a web sensation

YouTube Thursday, September 20, 2012

Come on, you gotta have a heart of stone not to be touched by this clever Pure Michigan promotional. And at nearly 2 million views in less than 2 weeks that's a helluva successful campaign.

Let's see if I caught all of our region's reps. There's the Erebus' ghouls (Pontiac), a high falutin' toast in Rochester, Royal Oak's polar bears, a Southfield weatherman, The Henry Ford (Dearborn), Ann Arbor's Big House, Detroit's Comerica Park, Lions, DIA, and Fox Theater, an ice rink in Novi, and the Ypsilanti Water Tower. Did I miss any?

Check out the video below.

Five Metro Detroit communities make 100 best places to live list

CNNMoney.com Thursday, August 23, 2012

Metro Detroit represents! Accounting for 5% of the 100 best mid-sized places in the country to live (pop 50K-300K) ain't too shappy. Who in the Mitten ranked highest? Ann Arbor squeaked in at 100. Shelby Township was 78th, Macomb Township was 84th, West Bloomfield Township was 37th, and Troy kicked butt coming in at 26th.

Carmel, Indiana took the very top spot.

Excerpt:

Like many places near Detroit, Troy suffered during the recession, but good times seem to be back. Auto companies' profits are rising and formerly vacant office space in Troy is filling up. Detroit's woes mean housing in the area is a bargain: The median home price is just $166,000, and property taxes are ultralow. That's a pretty good deal for a city that's been rated the safest in Michigan for 10 of the past 14 years, has great schools and the best community sports program in the state."

Read the rest here.

Coldwell Banker picks 5 metro Detroit cities as hippest in Michigan

Coldwell Banker Real Estate Thursday, July 26, 2012

Coldwell Banker Real Estate has started to enter the "Best Of" game, ranking communities by what they think their customers are seeking. For their first (of five) lists they evaluated the social scene in cities around the country and picked the places they thought were hippest. Nothing in Michigan made the Top 10, but within the Mitten Ann Arbor, Birmingham, Huntington Woods, and Rochester came out as tops.

Check out their list here.

Richard Florida asks: Is Detroit becoming a suburb?

The Atlantic Cities Thursday, July 26, 2012

In a provocative article, the Creative Class guru talks about the distinction between city and suburb today. He compares Motown to Urban-burbs like Ferndale, Royal Oak, Birmingham and Ann Arbor, metro Detrtoit communities that are evolving their urban design to adapt to changing community standards.

Excerpt:

"The old distinctions between "city" and "suburb" do seem to be blurring. Urban neighborhoods are improving safety, upgrading schools, adding parks and bike lanes to their existing urban fabric, while suburban ones are adding density, walkability and mixed-use districts to their existing safe streets and good schools."

Read the rest here.

Beaumont and U-M Hospital top U.S. News best list

U.S. News & World Report Thursday, July 19, 2012

Those U.S. News chaps sure do like their lists. Must be some money in them, huh? Seems they've changed their creteria and that has resulted in a shake-up of sorts (reputation is no longer weighted). Along with ranking Michigan hospitals for their quality of care they've picked U-M in Ann Arbor (ranked 17th overall) as among the best in the nation. Beaumont in Royal Oak came in number 2 in the Mitten with 10 nationally ranked soecialities.

You can see the rankings here.

Crain's has a write-up here.

Paste Magazine lists 12 Michigan bands you gotta listen to

Paste Magazine Thursday, March 01, 2012

Okay, let's start off by mentioning my intense love of Lightning Love, Chris Bathgate, and Dale Earnhardt Jr., Jr. But that's just the tip of the local music worth owning iceberg. Paste spotlights a dozen Mitten-based bands that you should be spreading the gospel about.

Excerpt:

"Lightning Love is a trio that features siblings Aaron and Leah Diehl along with guitarist Ben Collins. Aaron’s simple, appropriate drums are a great backbone for Leah’s tongue-in-cheek lyrics that explore subjects that range from every day routines (“Everyone I Know”) to the more ridiculous (“Friends”). The band just released the excellent Girls Who Look Like Me EP on Quite Scientific Records."

Read the rest here.

University of Michigan ranks 14th in tech transfer revenue

MedCity News Thursday, December 15, 2011

Tech transfer has become big business for universities, adding millions to a school's bottom line. Michigan had only one school crack the Top 20. Looks like our other institutions might want to take a look at what the top ten are doing that they're not.

Excerpt:

"2010 was a bit of a bounce-back year for U.S. technology transfer programs, as licensing income inched up 3 percent to $2.4 billion, compared with the prior year.

Still, that level of licensing income was a far cry from the halcyon days of 2008, when technology transfer programs reported $3.4 billion in licensing income, according to the latest annual survey from the Association of University Technology Managers (AUTM). 2010′s tally represented a 30-percent drop from 2008."

Read the rest here

New Economy Initiative funds international student retention programs

The South End Thursday, August 18, 2011

The URC � Wayne State, Michigan State and the University of Michigan � has launched the Global Detroit International Student Retention program. Funded with a three-year, $450,000 grant from the New Economy Initiative for Southeast Michigan, the effort hopes to diversify metro Detroit's economy in more ways than one.

Excerpt:

"The program aims to complete four objectives outlined in the Global Detroit study. These include marketing the region to international students from orientation to post-graduation, recruiting area businesses to build working relationships with international students, working with students to navigate international legal barriers and developing relationships between students, businesses and universities.

Jeff Mason, executive director of the URC, said retaining international students is a critical step in the economic revitalization of Detroit."

Read the rest of the story here.

Seed for thought: Is the Midwest the new Silicon Valley?

Huffington Post Thursday, February 17, 2011

Yes, the Midwest is much bigger than Silicon Valley. Yes, the Bay Area has a huge head start when it comes to a new economy-based entrepreneurial ecosystem. But that doesn't mean the Midwest, and Michigan in particular, isn't making strides. TechTown, the Ann Arbor SPARK business accelerators and the new angel investor tax credits are real-world proof of where Metro Detroit's economy is heading in the 21st Century.

Excerpt:

While all this activity is still eclipsed by the activity in Silicon Valley, it's the start -- actually, more than the start -- of a transformation occurring across the Midwest. And it's probably why the CEOs of venture-backed companies were most bullish on company growth in the Midwest compared to any other region in the U.S.

Read the rest of the story here, and a story about Michigan's new angel investor tax credits here, and a story about how the future of the Great Lakes State's economy lies with start-ups here.

Venture capital gains traction in Metro Detroit

Huffington Post Thursday, February 03, 2011

Venture capital is starting to gain some momentum in Metro Detroit. A couple of stories, both local and national, are talking about how local VC funds are gaining more and more investors. Could the VC ground hog finally overcome the fear of its shadow and help thaw the financial markets for local start-ups? Some prominent people are starting to think so.

Excerpt:

"Leading the cleantech revolution," or "Leveraging the intellectual property of our major research universities" -- such hopeful and visionary statements are just a sampling of various mantras that have echoed the chambers of Midwestern capitals and filled the pages of local newspapers for the past several years. In the face of the recent economic despair that has besieged the regional economy, numerous Midwestern politicians, economic developers and regional venture capitalists have been, somewhat counter-intuitively, touting the notion that Midwest states like Michigan actually present excellent, yet overlooked, venture capital investment opportunities (including yours truly, as I did in "America's Midwest: Cashless Chasm or The Valley of Opportunity?").

Skeptics (which predominantly include frustrated Midwesterners, some business journalists and dismissive coastal venture capitalists) have generally disregarded such optimistic economic proclamations as desperate political hand-waving and hopeful, yet hollow hype to win votes, mollify the economically depressed and justify their own existence. I can understand why one would be doubtful -- it is easy to be negative these days. But today, I write to tell you that the skeptics and defeatists look to be wrong, and we have some early evidence to prove it.

Read the rest of the story here and a Crain's Detroit Business story about how investing in local venture capital firms is trending upward here.

Metro Detroit scores nation's first regional patent office

Federal News Radio Thursday, January 13, 2011

One of the big reasons Toyota set up its technical center in Ann Arbor decades ago was so it could be close to an EPA facility there. Toyota now employs more than 1,000 there today. Imagine what the U.S.'s first regional patent office could do for Metro Detroit.

Excerpt:

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office is adding to the list of agencies with satellite offices outside of the D.C. region. It's part of a new hiring program that will add one hundred people to USPTO's ranks.

"For the first time in our 230-odd year history we are going to be opening an office outside of the Washington DC area and the city that we've chosen for that is Detroit, Michigan."

David Kappos, Director of the USPTO and Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property, definitely sounded excited when he told Federal News Radio about the expansion.

"...One of the main reasons we're doing this is to get access to the talented workforce of professionals in the Detroit area, people who have the right qualifications to be patent examiners in an area where the cost of living is very attractive, where there's access to great universities - the University of Michigan among them..."

Read the rest of the story here, and more here and here.

Metro Detroit malls appear in New Yorker cartoon

The New Yorker Thursday, December 09, 2010

Somerset, Oakland, Westgate, Jackson, and Briarwood malls all made the cut in one of the most recent cartoons in The New Yorker. The cartoonist, Dave Corley, lives in Ann Arbor and received a bachelor's degree in both philosophy and imaginative writing from Eastern Michigan University.

Check out the cartoon here.

U-M prepares to launch student built satellite

Detroit Free Press Thursday, November 18, 2010

Students at the University of Michigan are known as the leaders and the best. Now they're taking that reputation from this world to the next as the university prepares to launch its first student-built satellite into space.

Excerpt:

It's only 6.5 pounds and about the size of a loaf of bread. But when it launches into space, scheduled for Friday night, it will make history for the University of Michigan.

At 8:24 p.m. Friday, a group of U-M engineering students will be focused on a launchpad in Alaska as they wait for the satellite they spent two years building to blast off. It will be a nerve-wracking experience for the team.

"I certainly get goose bumps when I think about it," said James Cutler, an assistant professor of aerospace engineering at U-M.

It will be the first craft completely built by U-M students to launch into space. And when it gets there, it will conduct experiments on space weather.

Read the rest of the story here.

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