Anglers are people, too. With all of the water surrounding Michigan and all the lakes and rivers and streams inside Michigan, there are a lot of fish swimming around and there are a lot of people with poles and waders looking to catch them. Uniting them will not only help preserve their sport but possibly the environment and also give Michigan an economic boost through fishing tourism.

Excerpt:

Michigan sells more than a million fishing licenses each year. Yet despite an estimated value to the state economy of $1 billion (according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service), sportfishing is largely ignored by state tourism promoters.I think far more people come to

Michigan to fish, and spend much more money doing it, than come to play golf. Yet you'd never know that if you were to look at Travel Michigan or other Web sites that promote the state as a tourist destination.

Read the entire article here.

Royal Oak's Mark Twain Dog Park has been so successful that city officials are thinking about opening up a second one. In the meantime they are improving this one.

Excerpt:

The Royal Oak City Commission approved installing two security systems, one at the front and one at the back of the park, plus offer year-round park passes and keys to residents and non-residents.

It's estimated that 75 percent of park users are residents. Each year, 500 annual passes will be offered. Residents get first dibs at a cost of $40 per year. After a 60 day time-period, non-residents will have the chance to purchase the pass for $65.

Keys to the park will be sold for $10 each.

Each pass will be activated for 365 days upon purchase.

"Our park functions well, people love it. This takes is to the next level," City Commissioner Mike Anderzejak said.

Read the entire article here.

Bastone, one of Royal Oak's biggest and most popular restaurants, had to switch a few things up to stay one of Royal Oak's biggest and most popular restaurants.

Excerpt:

Ritchie says Bastone is one of the largest restaurants in downtown Royal Oak and in order to help it through the recession, it needed something of a makeover.

So he created a new menu that was easier to afford and less European than the menu that first got he restaurant noticed. “We eliminated 19 items and added 19 items to the menu,” Ritchie said.

Gone were some expensive entrees, replaced with less expensive items. “We added more comfort food,” he said, noting the new menu includes items such as thin crust pizzas, grilled cheese and a macaroni cheese dish.

Read the entire article here.

Winning anything that's gold is a pretty sweet deal. Gold medal, gold watch, gold tooth... and a gold seal, which is exactly what four Oakwood Healthcare System hospitals have won.

Excerpt:

Oakwood Healthcare System has been awarded the Gold Seal of Approval from the Joint Commission, the nation's accrediting body measuring safety and quality in health care.

Oakwood is the only organization in the state to have four hospitals receive the award for its hip and knee joint replacement surgeries. Overall, seven hospitals in the state offer knee and hip replacement, including the four Dearborn and Downriver area Oakwood facilities.

Read the entire article here.

It's something new popping up to the old question of transit. In Washtenaw County there is a push toward a fully integrated public transit system that includes buses and commuter rails. Of course it's still in discussion and all the communities and counties have to jump on board but, still, at least there is the talk.

Excerpt:

Irwin makes it clear that he prefers an integrated system that includes expanded bus service and both the proposed Ann Arbor-Detroit and Ann Arbor-Howell commuter rail lines, possibly all overseen by AATA.

"I would like to wrap all that in and have a complete, countywide transit system," Irwin said.

AATA expects to hear soon from an attorney investigating how it might change itself from an agency chartered by the city of Ann Arbor to an authority for a wider area.

Read the entire article here.

Cheeseburgers are good and strokes are bad. Unfortunately, when it comes to fast food cheeseburgers - as in fast food restaurants - the two might be linked according new data compiled and put together by researchers at the University of Michigan.

So, cheeseburgers are good but a healthy lifestyle is better. (Depending on the cheeseburger.)

Excerpt:

Researchers at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor looked at stroke data from the Brain Attack Surveillance in Corpus Christi Project and found that between January 2000 and June 2003 there were 1,247 ischemic strokes in Nueces County, Texas (An ischemic stroke is caused by a blocked artery to the brain depriving the brain of blood and oxygen, resulting in tissue damage.). They also found 262 fast food restaurants in the county.

Researchers found that those who lived in areas with the most fast food restaurants had a 13% higher relative risk of stroke than those who lived in areas with the least fast food restaurants, after controlling for demographic and socioeconomic issues.

For every fast food restaurant in a neighborhood, the relative risk of stroke went up 1%.

Read the entire article here.

Hear it loud and clear: Non-profit (and new Detroiter) Allied Media Projects calls for the city to focus on community media.

Excerpt:

Allied Media Projects (AMP) is the local host of the annual Allied Media Conference in Detroit, which attracts North America's most creative and skilled media makers and social justice organizers…

Through the conference, AMP has fostered conversations about community media potentially transforming Detroit and other "dying cities" throughout the world. Folks in Detroit -- or anywhere that requires a hustle to survive -- know that creativity is an abundant and renewable resource. We can build on that. Here are some key steps we can take to use community media to rebuild Detroit’s economy for the 21st century.

Read the full story here.

Royal Oak-based Beaumont Hospital's new commercialization center helps to bring new medical devices to life.

Excerpt:

Beaumont offers services from prototype development and real-world testing to regulatory approval preparation. Unlike similar efforts usually on a university level, the Beaumont Commercialization Center is a for-profit endeavor that offers access to a high-volume hospital system.

"The end goal is better products for Beaumont, as well as others," said John C. Shallman, director of strategic business development for the commercialization center. "We can bring to bear actual clinical, practical, economic decisions ... into the design process."

Read the full story here.

In what could give a new look to the wet bikini contest, a Roseville firm designs temperature-sensitive apparel.

Excerpt:

Their catalog includes T-shirts that glow for up to eight hours, hoodies that sprout designs when exposed to cold, and could add bikinis that change color in water for the Down Under market…

Body Faders began four years ago when Karl Clayton and his wife Lori Monley made the jump from glowing necklaces to color-changing fabrics. Since then, the company has grown from a 2,000-square foot space to a 16,000-square-foot facility with nearly 20 employees. They work with a variety of clients, including Sears, Kmart, and Honda, according to Clayton, vice president.

"People have a big fascination with things they don't comprehend," Clayton said. "Touching a piece of fabric that instantly changes color is 'Wow.' "

Read the full story here.

In a new outsourcing trend for the region, insurers, banks, and health care companies are entrusting local data centers to manage critical business information.

Excerpt:

"It's one of the secrets of Michigan," said Yan Ness, Online Tech's CEO… "Right now there's a downslope in the banks and the credit markets. Companies that basically help other companies avoid capital deployment are acutely in demand."

For businesses, the ability to outsource the hosting of enterprise resource planning (ERP), customer relationship management (CRM) or supply chain management software to offsite data centers adds up to money saved on IT staffs and server banks.

Read the full story here.

Innovation is a state of mind – and body. Area exercise classes are turning fitness groupies into drummers and Hindi movie dancers. Oh Slumdog Millionaire, what have you wrought?

Excerpt:

A class called "Bollyfit" in Ann Arbor merges culture and fitness by incorporating Bollywood dance into workouts. Farmington Tennis Club and Birmingham Racquet Clubs offer cardio tennis, a combination that puts less emphasis on technique and more on drills, rallies, and an aerobic workout. And Vixen Fitness in Detroit makes workouts of belly dancing, salsa, pole dances and even lap dances.

Read the full story here.

Southfield-based PR firm brings social awareness to clients' digital media campaigns.

Excerpt:

…Airfoil's staff has an average age of 28. And that is exactly why Airfoil's clients hire them, said President Janet Tyler. They know Airfoil's employees will know the difference between a phonebook and Facebook…

For example, Airfoil's newly formalized Digital and Social Media Department aims to connect all of Airfoil's clients with Web 2.0 communications, such as blogging, Twitter and Facebook…

While the economy has slowed business for public relations companies generally, Airfoil is doing well and has high hopes for a bright future in Michigan and California, where it also has offices.

Read the full story here.

Now that Michigan will be the set for nearly 70 Hollywood movies in 2009, new film schools in several Detroit area communities are offering classes to train crew members.

Wanted: Gofers for George Clooney and Hilary Swank.

Excerpt:

Six weeks ago, Ferndale resident Julie Goode was making $54,000 a year working as a textiles designer and engineer for supplier Lear Corp. Then, three days before Christmas, she was laid off. Goode, 28, now is preparing to start a new career.

She is one of hundreds of Michigan residents who have enrolled in a film industry training program, at least four of which have sprung up across the state since last April...

“The first thing (film production companies) ask is, "Who do you have for a crew base?'” said Jeff Spilman, co-founder and managing partner of S3 Entertainment Group, which is offering classes in Ferndale in a partnership with Oakland Community College.

Read the stories here and here.

The market for solar energy is hot (pun intended). Energy Conversion Devices in Rochester Hills offers commercial – and soon, residential – clients a ray of hope: less costly, thin-film solar panels that convert sunlight into electricity.

Excerpt:

Harin Ullal, a solar expert and senior project manager at the National Renewable Energy Laboratories in Golden, Colo., says he expects thin film's share of the solar-power market to increase to 25% by 2015, compared with the 10% to 15% market share thin-film manufacturers say they have now...

In addition to being cheaper to manufacture, thin-film panels perform better in low, diffuse light and in blistering hot  weather, when crystalline silicon panels can lose as much as 25% of their efficiency. Thin-film panel makers such as United Solar, a unit of Energy Conversion Devices of Rochester Hills, Mich., say that because their products work in partial shade, customers don't have to remove trees to generate electricity.

Read the full story here.

Turn on the radio. Can you tell where you are? In an era of increasingly generic programming, WDET is putting the Detroit back into Detroit radio.

Excerpt:

Detroit Public Radio WDET-FM (101.9) today will announce changes in programming that will bring back veteran music host Ann Delisi and infuse the station with more Detroit music and attitude.

The changes will go into effect the week of Feb. 23.

At a time when commercial stations like Clear Channel's WDFN-AM (1130) "The Fan" are replacing local air personalities with syndicated programming that lacks the flavor of the city, WDET general manager J. Mikel Ellcessor says his station is choosing a different path.

"When more of Detroit's radio is coming out of town, WDET is drilling deeper into the city," Ellcessor said. "At a time when so much of the world is talking about Detroit, and Detroit is absent from that conversation, the people in the city who are being talked about are like props in a play. It's vital to get their voices back up into that national dialogue."

Read the entire story here.

In the interest of wiping carbon footprints from the dirt, and to support the local economy, the Michigan Department of Agriculture and the Michigan Economic Development Corporation have formed the "A team" to support the efforts of agricultural entrepreneurs.

Excerpt:

It was the sign that caught Don Koivisto’s eye as he started to drive back to Lansing from the Chelsea headquarters of Jiffy Mixes. There, in front of the New Chelsea Market on South Main Street, a sign boasted more than 300 Michigan products. Koivisto stopped the car, went inside and saw a cornucopia of homemade “Michigan made” labels on sauces, wines, even eggs on display.

Two of the three legs of Michigan’s economic tripod are tottering. The domestic auto industry is in freefall, while the tourism sector has been pummeled by high fuel prices and the deterrent impact of fiscal hard times on business and pleasure travel. But agriculture, the third leg and a $64 billion-a-year powerhouse, holds steady, insists Koivisto, the state Agriculture Department director since September 2007.

Read the full story here.

A recent Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America study illustrates the importance of growing the state's biosciences sector; thousands of its high-paying jobs are in Wayne and Oakland counties.

Excerpt:

Biosciences remains a "big business" in Michigan, accounting for nearly 100,000 jobs and generating $9.34 billion in economic impact, according to a new study…

Michigan "has the assets to support and grow bioscience," particularly with the presence of large research universities and initiatives such as the Tri-Technology Corridor, said University of Michigan researcher George Fulton, one of the study's authors.

Read the full story here.

Regular unleaded never tasted so good. And now it's local! Come fill your tank with liquid caffeine at one of Detroit's newly opened coffee stations.

Excerpt:  

Tim Hortons, Bearclaw Coffee Co. and the Book Cadillac's in-house WBC Coffee recently opened for business downtown. Biggby Coffee in Midtown and the independently owned Mercury Coffee Bar in Corktown are also new additions to the scene.

The new shops are a "positive sign" that entrepreneurs are heeding Detroiters' "pent up demand for retail and restaurants," Stella said, noting that coffee shops brighten any community as places to congregate and share ideas.


Read the rest of the story here.

Spider-Man, Spider-Man, friendly neighborhood Spider-Man. And, the neighborhood might soon be near you. Director of the Spider-Man series, and Michigander, Sam Raimi says he's bringing the fourth installment of Spider-Man here to Michigan.

Excerpt:

"Spider-Man" franchise director Sam Raimi will be bringing a few cameras back to his home state of Michigan for "Spider-Man 4" next year. "I'll be looking at Michigan for our second-unit photography on the new 'Spider-Man' film," Raimi told The Oakland Press. Born in Royal Oak, Michigan, Raimi also has plans to shoot his new thriller "Room 205" in Michigan during 2009. However, "second-unit" photography likely won't bring along any of the upcoming Spidey cast members, such as the mystery "Spider-Man 4" villain.

Read the entire article here.

Abandoned structures aren't pretty... at all. But for SE Michigan, and especially Detroit, that might be a thing of the past. As the movie industry grows it is expected that these empty eyesores could be bought up and occupied by the filmmakers.

Excerpt:

But here's the other exciting thing: The new facility, which will be run by Raleigh Studios, will move into the old General Motors Centerpoint truck plant and office complex.

Yay!

That, I hope, will be the next big trend that southeast Michigan embraces. As a matter of fact, I hope that the Detroit Regional Chamber has already created a glossy catalog of all the abandoned buildings that can be had for a song for a bustling new industry.

It's already catching on.

A day after the Free Press broke the news about Motown Studios came the news that Wonderstruck Studios will move into the old MGM Grand Casino. WDIV Local 4 reports that Wonderstruck, which will become Detroit Center Studios, will bring $86 million and an eventual 413 jobs to the region, studio head Michele Richards, a Michigan native, told officials this week.

Read the entire article here.