North Woodward Tech Incubator

[tangerine]

The North Woodward Tech Incubator [[located in Troy) has recently been formed to provide free office space and other services to very early stage technology startups. Applications are now being accepted at www.northwoodward.org. An article about the incubator appeared in Crains recently.

If anyone has suggestions for how we can get the word out, I'd appreciate hearing from you.

[Bearinabox]

Think of a more appropriate name, for one. Last I checked Woodward doesn't run through Troy.

[MIRepublic]

Tangerine, how are you connected with this, and why do you think it most appropriate to ask this forum to hawk this incubator of all that SmartZones and such that exist in the state? What makes this one more worthy than any other one? I'll admit, I think tech incubators, while they can be an important tool, are largely over-hyped for what they ultimately produce most of the time. As far as economic development tools are concerned, these ranks pretty low in on the totem pole in my book.

[jt1]

I prefer TechTown. Please send the businesses there.

[ThaFuzz]

Think of a more appropriate name, for one. Last I checked Woodward doesn't run through Troy.

It would, if it were for that meddlin' Birmingham!

[tangerine]

Bear in a Box: Our focus is in serving the North Woodward corridor, hence the name. The space that was donated is in Troy [[apx 1 mile from Woodward) so that is what we have to work with.

MI Republic: I co-founded it. We're not "hawking" anything, we're providing free help to small business. We haven't taken money from the state or anyone else. We coordinated our offering with the other nearby incubators to address the needs of company's that are too new to acquire space in the more established incubators.

Jt1: The tenants in our incubator are located in the suburbs and many do not qualify for Tech Town.

I see that in the year I've been away the positive, can-do attitude of this board has not diminished.

[Bearinabox]

Positive, can-do attitude? Whaddya think this is, PortlandYes?

[dcmorrison12]

I understand that the entire region is struggling to retain/create jobs but I'm not supportive of an effort to create jobs 15-20 miles away from a struggling city center. On the other hand, these jobs may end up benefiting Detroit in the long run, since we all depend on each other in this region - we are all truly inter-connected. Either way, I'm 100% behind Tech Town and I'm not too interested in this suburban version.

[iheartthed]

Think of a more appropriate name, for one. Last I checked Woodward doesn't run through Troy.

North Woodward sounds so much more classy than Big Beaver Road.

[jt1]

Hey, the leaders in Troy have previously stated that Big Beaver should be the true downtown of SE Michigan. Yuo'll have to forgive me if I don't do backflips when someone is pushing Troy on a pro-Detroit board.

[detmsp]

you all need to chill, things like this are good for the entire region. too much of the success recruiting businesses in this region involves either luring companies out of detroit [[too many to mention) or luring companies into detroit [[quicken). that's a zero sum game for our region and amounts to reshuffling the deck chairs on the titanic.

but an incubator like this is about creating something new, and that's what the entire region desperately needs right now.

[MIRepublic]

Who's arguing against the general idea of business incubators? I'm not crazy about them, but recognize them as part of the puzzle to revitalization. That said, there is an important point to be made about spreading oneself too thin. There are existing SmartZones and tech incubators in the region.

But, even more importantly than whether one agrees with this particular one or not is the question of what exactly we are being asked to do? I don't think it's most appropriate to ask DetroitYes to 'spread the word' about this, especially when the ultimate result of something like this would be decentralizing and already ridiculously decentralized metropolitan area. I'm hardly convinced this is anything more than encouraging job sprawl in an era where concentration of most every aspect of this metro [[population, employment, etc...) a choice, but the only choice in even hoping to reverse this metro's decline.

And idea? Try seeing what you can do to make yourselves known to Troy's civic leaders. Or, try getting the ear of the Oakland County Exec.'s office. Given that Patterson was involved in the founding of Automation Alley, I'm sure he'd be more than happy to hawk this. This doesn't strike me as being something that fits with the lean of this forum. And this:

I see that in the year I've been away the positive, can-do attitude of this board has not diminished.

isn't exactly how best to shill for support.

[irish_mafia]

The appropriate response to Tangerine's announcements is "Yeah. Thank you!"

All other responses are emblematic of why Southeast MI and specifically, Detroit cannot attract business.

[tangerine]

All.. thank you for your comments. We actually got an inquiry from a group that may want to use the facility to hold periodic meetings, so I'm grateful for the opportunity to reach out on this board.

Let me say this since we are talking about Detroit and our little incubator is very much a part of that.

I am firmly committed to the recovery of the city of Detroit, the city I was born in and will always love. In my opinion, the region will not do well without a strong center city. If I were Bill Gates, I'd drop the whole $24 billion on downtown Detroit. But, I'm not and have to contribute as best I can with the tiny resources at my disposal, which right now consist of 15,000 sq. feet of office space in Troy.

I called the incuabator "North Woodward" because I believe smart play for our region is Woodward. Please allow me to explain. I think the entire Woodward Avenue corridor, from Downtown to Pontiac can be a virbrant, high density zone for urban living and technology-related business. If you take a mile on either side of woodward, you have a 48 square mile area, about the size of San Francisco. This can be the high density backbone of the region.

Birmingham and Troy to their credit are working on a shared transit station in anticipation of light rail from Detroit. In my mind, the left hand washes the right hand and strong, TOD along Norh Woodward will start to move south to link up efforts in downtown and midtown.

What is exciting about this strategy is that it leverages both Oakland County and Detroit and does not rely on their cooperation so long as [[critical IF) there is a transit line. As each place prospers, the whole network gets stronger.

In the 48 square miles that define the woodward coordior, we have evey last person, building, dollar, institution, business, whatever, that you need to have first rate, globally competitve "CITY". But the darn resources are spread out too thin. It's like starting a fire, but your pieces of charcol are spread out on a beach, each one 2 feet from the other.

By stitching togeher the historic, architectual, transit, cultural, human and financial assets strung along Woodward [[DIA, Crankbrook, Birmingham money, Royal Oak hipsters, Downtown Detroit) we could forge a critical mass out of these assets. Once the ignition takes place, the fire will burn. Maybe its starts in Royal Oak. Maybe its starts in Midtown. But it will start and it will have no place to go but up and down that line until every node prospers.

[Cooper]

I think the entire Woodward Avenue corridor, from Downtown to Pontiac can be a virbrant, high density zone for urban living and technology-related business. If you take a mile on either side of woodward, you have a 48 square mile area, about the size of San Francisco. This can be the high density backbone of the region.

You make a persuasive case, but the fractionalization along the route seems like a major road block, especially to mass transit. How many government units operate along Woodward? Detroit, Highland Park, Ferndale, Pleasant Ridge, Huntington Woods, Royal Oak, Birmingham, Bloomfield Hills, Pontiac, Wayne County, Oakland County ...

[tangerine]

This is such an interesting topic, I took the liberty of starting a second thread to continue the disucssion.

[Red Devil]

I think if you need critical mass of one thing, it would be critical mass of brilliant, driven people who create hi-tech startups. If this region is serious about creating high technology and green jobs, I'd look into establishing [[or revamping Lawrence Tech into) a private research technological institute that could someday rival the likes of MIT, Caltech, Stanford's Eng. departments, or at least the Carnegie Mellons and Georgia Techs of the world. Of course, such an institution would require years, even decades, to build up and it is definitely a very long term solution. However, it could position Detroit as the technology capital of the midwest [[a position which I currently see as vacant), serve as a catalyst for new jobs, help retain the midwest's brightest young people, and slowly help bring the region out of the economic abyss.

[DetroitDad]

Great news!

I think it's important for suburbanites to understand Maslow's Hierarchy, in that an individual cannot worry about some things when basic needs aren't being met. Detroit as a community is not meeting it's collective basic needs, so it's hard for Detroit to worry about regionalism, or many issues in it's government. If Detroit is taught/learns how to fish and meet it's own basic needs with what it has and will have, you will have a formidable alley and possible leader for the region. Don't do that, and you will kill our region and create more Monicas and Kwames.

This is why I like the idea of villages and consolidation, it's a move to get Detroit stable. EVERYONE in our region should be supporting it, or offering alternative advice.

[Downtown diva]

Great news!

I think it's important for suburbanites to understand Maslow's Hierarchy, in that an individual cannot worry about some things when basic needs aren't being met. Detroit as a community is not meeting it's collective basic needs, so it's hard for Detroit to worry about regionalism, or many issues in it's government. If Detroit is taught/learns how to fish and meet it's own basic needs with what it has and will have, you will have a formidable alley and possible leader for the region. Don't do that, and you will kill our region and create more Monicas and Kwames.

This is why I like the idea of villages and consolidation, it's a move to get Detroit stable. EVERYONE in our region should be supporting it, or offering alternative advice.

i agree! dont know who Malisow is, but I agree with him.

[Irvine Laird]

Our next golden age will begin here when "Detroit" is regional rather than municipal.

Bitterness is our worst enemy if it gets in the way of sharing our resources to generate synergy. We have everything we need in this region to prosper. We need to get it together. Our sectional grudges are the biggest, meanest, ugliest troll standing in the way of progress.

I commend you folks in Troy for making an investment in entrepreneurs and I commend you for reaching out to share it with people in Detroit.

[darwinism]

tangerine: You may also follow the same lead as this example at the Univ. of Michigan [[http://www.wwj.com/Not-Their-Parents...ncubat/4651265). In your case, perhaps reach out to the engineering and computer science students at Oakland Univ., or Lawrence Tech.