Event Offers Hope For A Better 'Michigan Emerging'

More evidence that there's plenty of hope for Michigan's future came Wednesday at Michigan Emerging, an entrepreneurial conference held at the Ford Conference and Events Center in Dearborn.

More than 500 people registered for the event, a daylong series of keynotes and panels on emerging technologies, entrepreneurship and business formation.

There are also podcasts from the event at http://wwj.cbslocal.com/category/wwj-plus/.

Opening keynoter Mike Finney, CEO of the Washtenaw County economic development agency Ann Arbor Spark, showed how southeast Michigan is finally putting aside parochial boundaries and operating in unison to back tech-based development region-wide and statewide.

Evidence in Finney's speech included a huge list of Spark's "open source economic development" partners that included agencies in Detroit, Oakland County, and as far away as Traverse City, and the new Business Accelerator Network for Southeast Michigan, a combined effort of Spark, Automation Alley, the Macomb-OU Incubator and Tech Town, funded by $3 million from the New Economy Intiative for Southeast Michigan.

"We're going to share virtually everything we have to move southeast Michgian's economic prospects forward," Finney said.

Finney offered a tech-based economic development top 10:

* Create a common vision among economic development organizations.
* Establish specific goals and timing for the community's support to emerging business. Deadlines force urgency and creativity, Finney said.
* Gain support from state and local government to enact laws and modify policies to be startup-friendly. Finney said Michigan has done a "pretty good job" in this regard.
* Communicate -- create an effective branding message to communicate the region's value proposition, and communicate that with everything from the trade press to other tech hubs, in order to change the narrative -- which in Michigan's case has not been good.
* Boost the connections of larger corporations to startups. So-called 'intrapreneurship,' spinouts from larger companies, can result.
* Boost the connections of universities to startups. Finney said the region's major research institutions do more than $2 billion a year in research, much of which has spinout potential. And universities also have talent, facilities and equipment entrepreneurs need.
* Focus on a finite set of emerging technologies or industry sectors. You can't be everything to everybody.
* Encourage a more entrepreneurial, risk taking culture in the region. "We lost our entrepreneurial mojo years ago," Finney said. In Michigan, Finney said, those who fail in business find it hard to attract support for new ventures, while in Silicon Valley and other tech hubs, "entrepreneurs who have falied are celebrated just as much as entrepreneurs who have succeeded, because people know you have learned something from your failures."
* Link entrepreneurs with early and effective mentoring and coaching -- this reduces the failure rate. And successful entrepreneurs have to be willing to pay it forward by participating as coaches and mentors.
* Provide adequate seed funding and subsequent growth capital.

Michigan Emerging's second speaker, Rishi Jaitly, told the crowd of his effort to establish a social entrepreneurship funding organization to boost Michigan's economy.

Jaitly is a native New Yorker and former Google executive, a self-described nomad who has "lived everywhere." Thanks to his wife, a Michigan native, he said he's now fallen for Michigan, its people, work ethic and potential.

He's gathered an all-star list of business and media stars with Michgan ties to establish MichiganCorps.com, which is simultaneously trying to raise money and identify nonprofits and social and economic entrepreneurs and innovators to fund.

"We believe that if there is one state where you can build a national organization of this type, it is Michigan" Jaitly said. "And if our angel round of financing is any indication we're on to something."

The goal, Jaitly siad, is a portfolio of 10 to 20 "world class nonprofit social entrepreneurs."

More at www.michigancorps.org.

A choice selection of entrepreneurial war stories followed from an emerging sector panel, featuring Michelle Crumm, chief scientific officer of the Ann Arbor fuel cell manufacturer Adaptive Materials Inc.; Kevin Lasser, president of the Michigan Homeland Security Consortium; serial entrepreneur Bhushan Kulkarni; Roger Newton, president and CEO of Esperion Therapeutics Inc.; Jeff Freyer, vice president of business services at Comcast; Robert Malan, chief scientific officer at Arbor Networks; and Gerald Zack, president and CEO of the U.S. Renewable Energy Association.

"There's so many resources in Michigan, but it's a matter of pulling it all together," Crumm said. "There's no road map, and it's so important that those of us who have made it to the second stage help those in the early stage."

Freyer, meanwhile, called Michigan "a beautiful, vibrant area," contrary to the picture painted by media on the East Coast, where he had lived his entire life until coming to Michigan earlier this year.

Michigan State University's entrepreneurship programs were highlighted by Bryan K. Ritchie, director of the Michigan Center for Innovation and Economic Prosperity at MSU.

More at www.spotlightmichigan.com or www.entrepreneurship.msu.edu.

Organizers of Michigan Emerging and the Accelerate Michigan business plan competition also announced the winners of the Michigan Emerging Catalyst Awards and the Accelerate Michigan Tweet Award at the event's closing ceremonies. 

Open to companies and individuals who registered on the competition Website, Tweet Award entrants were invited to submit a 140 character business idea.  Judging was based on originality, ability to communicate the most complete idea, and the ability to capture investors' attention.

CYJ Enterprizes received this year's Tweet Award by submitting a Twitter posting focused on their business product e-CYREN, a free online database of emergency information for schools and daycare programs. Their posting, "In case of emergency first responders can quickly alert loved ones and have access to your vital medical info 24X7 www.ecyren.com," was selected as the winner, and CYR Enterprises CEO Carole Johnson accepted the $5,000 prize at today's Michigan Emerging event.

The Accelerate Michigan Innovation Competition Tweet Award is just one component of the larger competition which will award more than $1 million in cash and in-kind staffing, software and services on Dec. 11 to company and student winners. The New Economy Initiative for Southeast Michigan granted Ann Arbor Spark $750,000 to launch Accelerate Michigan on behalf of the Business Accelerator Network for Southeast Michigan.

For more information about the Accelerate Michigan Innovation Competition, visit www.acceleratemichigan.org

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