A recent article on MLive.com pointed to a new social network being built for the creative class of Southeast Michigan. While L.A., Seattle and New York are more commonly thought of for "creative class" workers, the article cites one of our studies that shows that Detroit has the fifth highest concentration of creative workers in the United States.

The article notes that "the study broadly interpreted the term 'creative' and included jobs in fields like public relations, advertising and marketing, design and architecture, and the arts, said Sabrina Keeley, vice president of the nonprofit."

The article goes on to describe the larger Creative Corridor project, saying it "aims to establish high-density physical spaces along Woodward Avenue from Detroit's downtown to the New Center area to locate public arts and streetscape projects, locate creative businesses and establish a creative-business accelerator and incubator similar to Ann Arbor SPARK or Automation Alley. Detroit Renaissance also has hired a consultant to help devise a recruitment strategy for creative businesses, Keeley said.

'The more that we can do to grow attention and show what we've got, I think the better,' she said of the new networking site."

The social networking site is called DeepCanvas. You can check it out here: http://www.deepcanvas.com/ 

 

Yesterday, Daniel Howes of the Detroit News looked at the recently announced Delta/Northwest Airlines merger from a Detroit perspective.

Howes noted that Delta CEO Richard Anderson (who will lead the combined company) is a "secret weapon" for Metro Detroit and "more deep-dish Detroit" than many.

As many in Metro Detroit will remember, Anderson was CEO of Northwest Airlines back in the late 90s. He worked in health care for a while and has been CEO of Delta for about seven months.

Howes quotes Detroit Renaissance CEO Doug Rothwell saying, ""I was really impressed with the fact that he was able to envision what the world gateway (at Metro) meant not only for Northwest but for the community." Doug was president of the Michigan Economic Development Corporation at the time the new terminal was built, and worked on the incentive package that helped make it a reality.

However the Delta/Northwest merger turns out, both generally and for Detroit, the knowledge Anderson has about the value of Metro Airport should bode well for the region.

Read the rest of Daniel Howes column here.

 

Northwest Airlines World Traveler magazine recently featured Detroit in their publication, with a long feature called "Spotlight on the D: The birthplace of the auto industry and the Motown sound, Detroit is making a new name for itself."

The full-color 41-page PDF is available here, and it's worth taking a look at, printing out and sharing widely.

As anyone who has flown on Northwest Airlines knows, the monthly World Traveler magazine is distributed in seat pockets on all Northwest Airlines flight, where it enjoys high readership with an attentive audience.

Detroit Renaissance is mentioned on pages 11, 36 and 40 of the PDF. Thanks to Northwest Airlines for the feature.

After over 20 years, Kieth Cockrell has returned to the place where his professional career started: Southeast Michigan. In this week's "50 CEO's on the D: Detroit Renaissance Reports", Kieth covers the challenges that face the region, his personal commitment to bringing change to the area, and his company's long-term plans to support and grow the region.

Cockrell, president of the Michigan Market for Bank of America, speaks with Doug Rothwell about the company's recent acquisition of LaSalle, an acquisition Cockrell believes will both continue and grow LaSalle's impact on the region.

As Cockrell explains, he holds a positive outlook regarding the recent changes taking place in the region and wants to continue this movement further with Bank of America's new role in the community and its commitment in supporting the growth of small businesses.

Listen to the podcast to hear Kieth's take on how Southeast Michigan residents, business owners, and economic leaders can make a change in diversifying and growing the area's economy.

Listen to the podcast here, or subscribe via your RSS reader or via iTunes.

 

Cynthia Pasky talks about how to fix Detroit's image, in part by creating the DNewsBureau, on this week’s “50 CEO’s on the D: Detroit Renaissance Reports” podcast.

Pasky, of Strategic Staffing Solutions, speaks with Doug Rothwell about the importance of image. This "soft" measurement tool is often dismissed in an age of hard metrics, but Pasky notes that a solid image is key to making it on the short list of new development projects.

As Cynthia explains, the DNewsBureau will not develop marketing campaigns, but will instead act as the public relations arm for the region, just as any significant corporation has a media relations team.

Listen to the podcast to hear Cynthia's take on how Southeast Michigan can work with the media to help ensure balanced stories that reflect all aspects of our economy.

Listen to the podcast here, or subscribe via your RSS reader or via iTunes.

As a founding member of One D, Detroit Renaissance has worked in collaboration with other Detroit civic organizations to work efficiently to serve the community. Recently One D hired Kathleen (Kat) Owsley as its director. Kat recently posted the following blog on Model D/MetroMode. This post very clearly defines the work of the organization, so we wanted to share it here:

Just what the heck is One D anyway?
Posted By: Kat Owsley, 3/19/2008

I think there's a lot of confusion out there about One D so I'm here to set the record straight.

To be honest, we're not too concerned that you actually know who we are or what we do. Instead we'd rather you know about the work we care about.

For instance, we'd rather you know that metro Detroit's "entrepreneurship ranking" is 29 out of 50 ...when compared with other U.S. metro areas (Source: Entrepreneurship Magazine "Hot Cities for Entrepeneuers, 2006").

We'd also rather you know that our region ranked 50th out of 50 when compared with other large metro areas in terms of job growth for 2005-2006 (Source: US Census Bureau).

Furthermore, we'd probably rather you know that according to the 2006 MEAP results, 18% of 6th graders in the tri-county region-not the city of Detroit but the region--- are not reading at their grade level.

So now that you know all this, maybe I can tell you a little more about how One D fits in and what we hope to accomplish.

One D is not an organization but a collaborative that is made up of six founding CEO's: Doug Rothwell (Detroit Renaissance), Dick Blouse (Detroit Regional Chamber), Larry Alexander (Metro Detroit Convention and Visitors Bureau), Maud Lyon (The Cultural Alliance of Southeastern Michigan), Shirley Stancato (New Detroit) and Michael Brennan (United Way for Southeastern Michigan).

This group came together to eliminate some of the redundancies in the work their organizations were doing individually and to address five priorities identified through extensive community surveying in southeast Michigan.

What did these survey results reveal? Well, first of all, that people want to see more regional collaboration. But they also identified five particular areas where they would like to see improvement in the region:

• regional transit
• quality of life
• economic prosperity
• educational preparedness
• race relations

And so the six founders of One D created a vision statement, objectives and supporting strategies for tackling each of these priorities.

For example, one of our objectives in Educational Preparedness is to achieve a rank in the top 10 of 20 largest metro areas with individuals with post-secondary education (our current rank is 18). Both our economic prosperity and our educational preparedness work supports this objective with strategies such as retaining college educated talent in the region through an aggressive, regional internship program or linking college graduations to entrepreneurial opportunities.

Here's another example, we have an objective to increase the number of third graders who can read at grade level. We often hear (especially from Mike Brennan!) that by third grade you should be reading to learn not learning to read. So part of One D's work is to raise awareness about how many kids are not reading at grade level and to continue to measure and report those statistics, to share that information with the region so we can create community will toward changing this problem. And finally, One D can help facilitate the recruitment and mobilization of volunteers to work with students on a weekly basis as reading tutors in the schools (to find out more on how to get involved click here)

The work we do every day in pursuit of those objectives is really the heart of One D. Our measure of success will not be whether the "man on the street" can identify what One D is, but rather if we can move the needle forward toward achieving those objectives.

This week’s “50 CEO’s on the D: Detroit Renaissance Reports” podcast addresses the national problem of energy supply and demand and the deregulation of the energy industry.

David Joos of CMS Energy speaks with Doug Rothwell particularly about how deregulation has affected Southeastern Michigan since its inception in the late 1990’s.

As David points out, it is not only necessary to evaluate the strain individuals feel from the growing energy crisis, but also how the industry affects the stability of a region as a whole.

Listen to the podcast to hear David’s take on how Michigan can work to re-establish regulation of the energy industry to ensure more reliable, cost-effective sources of energy needed to power the Michigan economy.

Listen to the podcast here, or subscribe via your RSS reader or via iTunes.

 

 

Our friends at the Detroit Orientation Institute at Wayne State University have told us that they are accepting applications for their next session. Here's the essential info from their announcement:

The sessions are scheduled on three consecutive Tuesdays, April 15, 22 and 29, 2008. For more information, visit the DOI Web site at www.doi.wayne.edu.

Among this spring's highlights will be the featured luncheon speaker on April 29 Faye Alexander Nelson, president and ceo of the Detroit Riverfront Conservancy, a special tour of the renovated Detroit Institute of Arts; a discussion of crime and public safety in a 36th District Court Room; and a visit to the T-Plex where Henry Ford designed the assembly line.

The DOI, now in its 17th year of operation, offers a historical perspective and candid look at Detroit and the metro region. The sessions, each restricted to 50 participants, are especially beneficial to newcomers or anyone wishing to learn about the city and metropolitan area. Business executives, professionals from nonprofit organizations, university faculty, high school teachers and administrators, government administrators and journalists typically attend.

Each participant receives a CD-Rom that includes more than 200 pages of background information, which is updated annually, and is written exclusively for the Institute by Wayne State University faculty, local journalists and community experts.

Meals and transportation are provided for a tuition cost of $900 per person. Registrations are accepted by phone or fax; however, full payment must be received by March 25, 2008 to secure a reservation. Program registration forms are available at: http://www.doi.wayne.edu/forms.php.

The next scheduled session will not be offered until Fall 2008 - October 14, 21 and 28, 2008.

A $750,000 grant from Detroit Renaissance to the Downtown Detroit Partnership will help support a new marketing program that will leverage and promote downtown's growth.

The Detroit Free Press reported on the campaign in a recent article, noting that: "A new marketing campaign touting downtown's restaurants, shops and other attractions will be unveiled today by the civic group Downtown Detroit Partnership at its annual luncheon."

The campaign was unveiled by DDP chair (and Detroit Renaissance board member) Roger Penske.

Doug Rothwell is quoted in the article saying, "The program will be designed to really build on the positive momentum downtown recently."

Read the whole story here.

The Oakland Press on Sunday called the Detroit Renaissance State Reform Plan "a blueprint for Michigan lawmakers," saying that it is "a relatively simple agenda that could reasonably be enacted this year."

The editorial adds: "Aside from the practical good it would do for the people, there are many valid political reasons for carrying out the proposals this year. Most important, there are many lame-duck lawmakers who are term-limited, so they may be able to take risks they otherwise wouldn't be positioned for if they were seeking re-election."

The paper quotes Doug Rothwell saying that we have to keep the drumbeat going to ensure that these reforms get passed.

The Oakland County-based paper also notes that 22 of our 55 board members are CEOs of Oakland County based organizations.

Read the editorial here, and then read the state reform agenda we proposed in its entirety by clicking here.