Downtown : Innovation + Job News

On July 1, in partnership with the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, online business directory Thumbtack released its annual small business survey of U.S. cities. Minneapolis-St. Paul finished in eleventh place and earned an overall "A" rating, falling behind several cities in Texas and smaller Mountain West towns like Colorado Springs and Boise.

The Thumbtack-Kauffman survey subjected the Twin Cities to more than a dozen measurements, based on responses from surveyed small business owners.The region earned an "A" grade for ease of starting a business and an "A+" for the availability of training and networking programs. It earned decent"'B+" grades for environmental and zoning regulations, and a "B" for health and safety. Licensing rules and employment, labor and hiring protocols came in at the '"B-" mark, with the local tax code and ease of hiring scoring "C+"

The Cities' rankings showed marked improvement over the past two years. Minneapolis-St. Paul's overall rating was "B+" in 2013 and "'B" in 2012. The change in availability of training and networking programs was particularly noteworthy, with a jump from "C-" to "A+" between last year and this year. The overall regulatory environment and ease of hiring improved significantly as well.

Although the Twin Cities could have scored higher in some areas, the region fared great next to some well-known locales. Buffalo, Providence, Sacramento, and San Diego earned "F" grades for overall business friendliness, and many other East and West Coast cities failed to clear the "D" bar. At the state level, California, Illinois and Rhode Island earned failing grades.

The survey also sourced subjective opinions from business owners across the Cities. Some of these were glowing: A Minneapolis-based designer reported that "I'm in a great location and have a lot of room for growth." Others were more skeptical of local governments' role in business, with a Minneapolis pet sitter complaining about the state sales tax on dog-walking services. 

Relatively high taxes, coupled with byzantine regulations, were a common complaint. But some respondents actually argued for a more hands-on approach by local regulators, including a Minneapolis voice teacher who complained that hands-off licensing was creating room for scam artists in the field.

Thumbtack's survey collected reponses from about 12,000 U.S. small business owners (in the Lower 48 only) over a two-month period in early 2014. For a copy of the full report, contact [email protected].

 

As part of the redevelopment at the Schmidt Brewery site, Blue Ox Mini Golf is leveraging a $350,000 grant from ArtPlace America and the proceeds from an ongoing GiveMN campaign to fund its new course on West 7th Street. The course sits amid the site’s 260 residential units and multiple commercial spaces, all of which are part of a $120 million project that’s wrapping up early this summer.

The course “will add art each year in the form of new holes, amenities and supplemental programming,” according to the Blue Ox website. All will be designed and installed by local artists. The course’s permanent features are also artist-designed, creating “multiple points of entry for everyone from committed art-ophiles to the random passerby on the way to the bus stop.”

Blue Ox is taking a page from the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, which has constructed several art- and architecture-focused mini golf courses in the past 10 years. Like its St. Paul counterpart, the Walker’s Artist-Designed Mini Golf regularly incorporates new artist-commissioned holes, examples of which include a foosball area replete with garden gnomes and a “gopher hole vortex.”

Although Artist-Designed Mini Golf is only open during the warm season—May 22 through September 1 this year—its most popular holes enjoy permanent status amid the newcomers. Blue Ox, which will shut down each fall and reopen in late spring, will also recycle perennially popular holes.

The similarities between Blue Ox and the Walker’s course aren’t accidental: Blue Ox’s Christi Atkinson previously served as the Walker’s course director, and Jennifer Pennington, the initiative’s marketing director, is married to the designer of one of the Walker’s most engaging holes. The Walker’s current Sculpture Garden course’s $12 or $18 tickets (for 9 and 18 holes, respectively) include free admission to the museum. This has been a winning formula, with long waits for tee times on weekends and nice evenings.

The St. Paul course presents an additional design challenge thanks to strict historic preservation guidelines to which future artists will be beholden. Each hole has to incorporate themes or design elements that harken back to the brewery that once occupied the site.

Blue Ox doesn’t have a world-class art museum to keep golf-averse family members occupied, although the as-yet-unnamed restaurant tenant of the site’s soon-to-be-renovated keg house could keep visitors fed and watered.

But Blue Ox does double the number of artist-commissioned mini golf holes in the Twin Cities, providing visibility and recognition for installation artists in St. Paul. And as the entertainment centerpiece of the Schmidt redevelopment, the course promises to draw families and local residents who previously sped by the disused site on their way to downtown St. Paul or the airport.

 

The Minnesota Inventors Congress’ Invention Expo just wrapped up its first session in the Minneapolis Convention Center, after nearly 60 years of meeting in the small town of Redwood Falls. On May 2 and 3, hundreds of exhibiting inventors, investors and business leaders crowded into the center’s main hall to peruse the latest ideas and designs from the country’s brightest tinkerers, hardware whizzes and gearheads.

The continent’s “oldest annual invention convention,” according to its website, moved to the Twin Cities to take advantage of the local infrastructure. For Zachary Crockett, co-founder of Minneapolis-based Spark and an Invention Expo keynote speaker, the move was about connecting tech-savvy hardware and software experts, who tend to be younger and urban, with practical-minded tinkerers, engineers and designers who come from a “broader demographic” and often live in rural areas.

The exchanges of ideas, partnerships, and capital that result can be game-changing. Early on, Invention Expo’s participants often focused on clever, useful products that made discrete tasks easier—think late-night infomercials. Today’s attendees leverage cutting-edge technology to create products with far broader applications, from Bondhus Arms’ credit card-sized pistol (perfect for a post-“conceal and carry” world) to the Powerizer toolbox, which features a battery-powered charging station, USB outlet and three adapter connections to help users stay connected outdoors. Crockett’s Spark Core, meanwhile, is a node that connects everyday items and systems to the Internet via WiFi.

“Building hardware used to be hard,” says Crockett, “but the process has been democratized. You don’t need a $1 billion factory to make things anymore.” Open-source software (and, increasingly, hardware), coupled with coworking and other efficiency-enhancing trends, are making it easier for teams of three or four to develop, build, market and profit from innovative products.

Trevor Lambert, a University of St. Thomas grad who founded Lambert & Lambert (an IP and product-licensing firm) and Enhance Product Development (which turns invention ideas into marketable products), sees two value propositions for Innovation Expo participants.

First, the expo’s workshops and presentations educate novice inventors about the various aspects of product licensing and development, from pitch support with the “Pitch the Experts” panel (on which Lambert sat this year) to Crockett’s “Inventing Success” address, which discussed the potentially revolutionary impact of always-online devices.

Invention Expo, and events like it, also provides inventors with access to markets, whether through product-development experts like Lambert or direct contact with potential investors. With so many good ideas floating around, competition requires inventors to network relentlessly—something that many are less than comfortable with.

For Lambert and his team, that creates an opportunity. “We’re paid to know people,” he says.

 

Max Martin, a luxury shoe brand based in the Nokomis neighborhood of Minneapolis and recently featured in celebrity swag bags at the Grammys and Oscars, goes into production next month with its first full high-heel line. In addition to the Fall 2014 line, a Spring/Summer 2015 line is also in the works. If these two big releases prove successful, a more inclusive women’s shoe line—beyond high heels—could be on the horizon, along with men’s shoes and possibly accessories or other clothing items.

Max Martin got its start in 2012 after William Panzarella, founder of the Minneapolis-based Aegis Foundation (which helps “vulnerable, needy, underserved, and imperiled youth plan, prepare, and focus on education” according to the website), was seeking a sponsor for the foundation’s annual High Heel Dash on Nicollet Mall.

Panzarella noticed a proliferation of shoe brands with ties to celebrities. A longtime hip-hop fan, he immediately saw the potential for a hip-hop line that leveraged his connections to the music industry. Panzarella broadened the idea into a high-heel line that wouldn’t just appeal to musicians. He credits MC Lyte, a former president of the L.A. Chapter of the Grammy Association, with generating publicity about Max Martin among L.A.’s fashionable set, which has driven early sales. Panzarella donates a portion of Max Martin’s pre-season sales to charity.

Being featured at two national awards ceremonies, again thanks to MC Lyte, was a big step forward for Max Martin. For Panzarella, the marketing represented a significant investment, but “the press pays for itself,” he says. During awards season, the shoes were features on Entertainment Tonight and ABC News, as well as in local Twin Cities media outlets. Panzarella also hosted Minneapolis’ “official Oscar viewing party” at Muse. Proceeds from that event benefited the Smile Network and Aegis Foundation.

Panzarella’s fall line includes a striking boot called “Leo,” an angular stiletto called “Betty,” and a classic high-heel called “Moma,” among others. The line’s goal: to prove that true luxury footwear can be made by American hands. The shoes are manufactured in Los Angeles and reportedly are easier on the feet than many other designer shoes, which make them easier to wear on the red carpet—and around town.

The American-made angle was present from the get-go: During Panzarella’s initial market research, he realized that virtually every high-end footwear brand is made in low-cost Chinese factories or, at best, Italian workshops. Spurred on by 2012’s Chinese-made U.S. Olympic uniform fiasco, he set aside his romantic notions of master Italian cobblers manning antiquated shoemaking equipment and resolved to create a footwear line made by Americans, for Americans.

So far, Max Martin’s raw materials, components, and production processes exceed the Federal Trade Commission’s “American Made” guidelines. Panzarella has “tentative plans” to move production to Minnesota in the future.

 

In early April, Docalytics and Kidizen, two startups in the Twin Cities that utilize CoCo’s coworking facilities, headed to California to deliver pitches at the first annual Google for Entrepreneurs Demo Day. The event is a gathering for 10 early-stage tech startups from the seven cities in Google’s North American Tech Hub Network.

Both companies networked with tech industry heavier hitters. Both received funding commitments worth $100,000 from Revolution Ventures, a venture capital firm run by former AOL boss Steve Case.

According to those in attendance, Case was so impressed with the quality of the pitches—and the ideas behind them—that he made an on-the-spot decision to evenly divide $1 million of Revolution’s early-stage funding pool among the 10 entrants. At a frenetic post-pitch networking round, the other 60 or so investors in attendance connected with the startups’ principals on an individual basis about potential investments or partnerships.

“How cool is it that two startups out of Minneapolis-Saint Paul were part of this?” remarks Dug Nichols, CEO of Kidizen, an online marketplace for used children’s clothing, accessories, and knickknacks. “I have never been a part of such a truly talented group of startups at an event, and I've done a lot of these types of events.”

After the pitch round, he and Kidizen co-founder Dori Graff (Mary Fallon is the other principal) attended the hour-long networking event with investors. They spent the entire session “in constant conversation with a number of different VC firms,” says Nichols, “and we've had additional firms reach out to us after the event.”

Evan Carothers, one of Docalytics’ three founders, had a similar experience. Case’s investment was merely the most public of the company’s Demo Day wins: For Carothers, “getting up in front of a huge group of our peers, investors, and prospects…and tell[ing] them all about the solution Docalytics provides” was equally important, as was securing “the needed capital to really grow our team and product.”

Although it was widely known that prominent VCs would attend, Demo Day’s organizers framed the event more as an opportunity for entrepreneurs to pitch to industry experts and create connections that could lead to funding commitments, either at the event itself or down the line. No one expected Case to commit $100,000, and in such public fashion, to all 10 entrants.

Not that anyone is complaining. As Kidizen continues to gain users and increase its cash flow, Nichols is feeling the momentum. He plans to hire additional developers and marketing staff to grow the six-person firm.

On top of the Revolution investment, which got a wave of national press, Kidizen’s selection as “best new app” in the iTunes App Store’s lifestyle category has dramatically boosted its visibility.

Brian Martucci

Got big plans for April 26? Lu Lippold, the local producer for One Day on Earth’s “One Day in the Twin Cities,” has a suggestion: Grab whatever video recording device you can—cameraphones included—and record the audio-visual pulse of your neighborhood.

On the final Saturday of April, the Twin Cities and 10 other U.S. metros will host the fourth installment of One Day on Earth’s celebration of film, culture, and all-around placemaking. Founded by Los Angeles-based film producers Kyle Ruddick and Brandon Litman, One Day on Earth (ODOE) has a “goal of creating a unique worldwide media event where thousands of participants would simultaneously film over a 24-hour period,” according to its website.

The first event took place on October 10, 2010 (10-10-10); 11-11-11 and 12-12-12 followed. ODOE skipped 2013, but its organizers weren’t about to wait until 2101 for their next shot. Instead, they selected a spring Saturday—both to accommodate amateur filmmakers with 9-to-5 jobs, and to give participants in the Northern Hemisphere longer daylight hours to work with—for a bigger, bolder, slightly revamped version of the event.

For the first time, participants get 10 questions to inspire their creativity and guide their storytelling, from “What is the best thing happening in your city today?” to “Who is your city not serving?” The goal is to create a multi-frame snapshot of “cities in progress,” one that doesn’t simply answer the who-what-where of the places it covers.

As One Day in the Twin Cities’ point person, Lippold supervises local filmmakers and pitched the project to dozens of partner organizations, including the Science Museum of Minnesota and Springboard for the Arts to visual media companies like Cinequipt and Vimeo. (The McKnight Foundation and the Central Corridor Funders Collaborative are the largest local sponsors.)

The upside? “[The event] is a great way to shine a light on all the hard work that our nonprofit community does,” says Lippold.

Lippold also works with a handful of local ambassadors, some of whom enjoy national acclaim. These include noted cinematographer Jeff Stonehouse, veteran documentarian Matt Ehling, and community-focused filmmaker D.A. Bullock. They’ll be contributing their talents—and stature—to One Day in the Twin Cities’ promotion and execution.

One Day in the Twin Cities could be seen well beyond Minneapolis and Saint Paul. Along with their counterparts from other participating cities, local filmmakers may see their work incorporated into a condensed, three-part series that Litman and Lichtbau will market to PBS affiliates around the country. No word on whether TPT will air the special, but TPT Rewire has agreed to publicize the event in the coming weeks.

The real stars of One Day in the Twin Cities, though, are its filmmakers. Even if you’ve never filmed anything in your life, says Lippold, you can contribute meaningful work. Thanks to an interactive map feature on ODOE’s main site, the work will visible to anyone who visits.

“If I were just starting out in video, I would see this as a huge opportunity,” says Lippold. Since all contributions are credited by name and location, each participant “instantly becomes a documentary filmmaker,” she adds.

Source: Lu Lippold
Writer: Brian Martucci

Even in an increasingly interconnected world, few events or movements are truly global in scope. Global Water Dances (GWD), a biannual event aimed at raising awareness of water issues in various parts of the world, is among the precious few. GWD is a complex effort governed by a steering committee and facilitated by thousands of dancers and choreographers. But it owes its existence, in large part, to the efforts of one woman: Marylee Hardenbergh, a Minneapolis choreographer and Artist-in-Residence at Hamline University’s Center for Global Environmental Education in Saint Paul.

At 1:30 p.m., on March 22 (the United Nations’ World Water Day), the Center will host a film screening to benefit GWD. The event will include short films about GWD and presentations by local water activists from H2O for Life, Friends of the Mississippi River, the National Park Service, and other organizations.

Global Water Dances grew out of Hardenbergh’s “One River Mississippi” project, a simultaneous, six-city dance event that was “the world’s largest site-specific performance,” according to the website for the 2006 event. The project was just one of many that Hardenbergh has overseen as Artistic Director of Global Site Performance, a 501c3 nonprofit.

In 2008, Hardenbergh attended a gathering of Laban Movement Analysts in Europe and showed a documentary about the event. The attendees were floored by the event’s scope, the artistic freedom of performers at individual sites (in New Orleans, for example, one of the performances incorporated local jazz music), and its unabashed advocacy of river-related environmental issues. Many wanted to participate or contribute somehow, but most lived nowhere near the Mississippi. The solution was an international dance event focused on general water issues: Global Water Dances.

Given the scale of the undertaking, the first GWD wasn’t held until June of 2011. In total, 60 sites—on all six populated continents—participated. Part of the appeal, Hardenbergh says, was the fact that “the event can be easily replicated anywhere, using local resources.”

The first GWD was a “rolling” event, scheduled for 5 p.m. local time at each site. The timing was meant to be convenient; folks in North America didn’t want to get up in the wee hours for a truly simultaneous performance. But it was an inconvenience for the Australian contingent, which struggled on through twilight conditions (it was close to the Southern Hemisphere’s winter solstice, after all). Hardenbergh hopes to avoid the daylight issue by scheduling the next performance for 2 p.m. on June 15, 2015.

Hardenbergh and the other organizers, which are based in Canada, Germany, Colombia, and the United States, hope to forge official partnerships with local, national, and maybe international water advocacy organizations to a greater degree than the previous two events. While the event is a high-profile, ready-made means of drawing attention to pressing environmental problems, says Hardenbergh, “the nice thing about a dance is that it’s not an overtly political expression.”

Source: Marylee Hardenbergh
Writer: Brian Martucci

It’s not quite “Pinterest for professionals” or “Facebook for freelancers.” But CreativeMinneapolis.com, developed by Mark Sandau of the Minneapolis design firm Sandau Creative in the North Loop, is an interactive, user-curated, free online community for designers, illustrators, writers, and other artists who want to get their work noticed.

After kicking the idea around for several months, Sandau soft-launched the site in early February. He invited his close friends and colleagues to make submissions and approvals. He followed up with a proper kick-off at the end of February.

According to the website, Creative Minneapolis’ member-submitted, member-approved content is “about the creative work, people, and events in and around Minneapolis.” After a trial period, during which creatives can submit their own work but can’t approve other members’ submissions, users gain “editing” privileges that give them a say over the approval and placement of the site’s content. By “hyping” chosen posts, editors can push compelling work to the “top” of niche-specific silos like “advertising,” “copywriting,” “photography,” and “digital.”

“This platform isn’t revolutionary,” Sandau says. “It’s evolutionary, an interesting idea.” The fact that users can shape submitted content—and, thus the very appearance and nature of the site—is a powerful proposition.

Sandau’s worked in the industry for nearly two decades. Prior to founding Sandau Creative 10 years ago, he worked several entry-level jobs. He then landed at Fallon for a seven-year stint. He understands how tough it is for rank-and-file creatives—especially freelancers, who often toil around the margins of the media and advertising industries—to get their work noticed by the right people.

Even smaller agencies like Sandau’s, unless they have a “sexy brand” under their belts, might not have the resources to devote to a tradeshow exhibit or promotional campaign. Creative Minneapolis aims to be a highly visible virtual portfolio for these folks.

Current focus notwithstanding, there’s nothing stopping Creative Minneapolis from morphing into something bigger or broader. In the future, Sandau hypothesizes, a close-knit group of gearheads could use the site to share pictures, videos, or animations of modified cars or motorcycles, and the most interesting of the bunch would bubble to the top alongside portfolio pieces from local graphic designers. 

“Done right,” he says, “Creative Minneapolis has the potential to mirror the audience that’s watching and contributing.”

For now, Sandau is content to see where this all leads. He has a business to run, after all, and doesn’t have unlimited time to promote the site. That’s okay, he says. “At the end of the day, it’s just fun to see other people’s work.”

Source: Mark Sandau
Writer: Brian Martucci

Now in its fourth year, Architecture Minnesota’s popular Videotect contest, created “to bring more voices and more creativity into public debates about key built-environment issues,” is getting a bit of a makeover. The basic parameters remain the same: Inspired by the contest’s open-ended, sometimes offbeat prompt related to architecture, design, or the use of public space in the Twin Cities—this year it’s “Two people walk into a bar…”—entrants create informative, entertaining videos.

This year, the entries must be between 30 and 90 seconds in length, which is shorter than in the past. “The first year, entrants had four weeks to create two- to four-minute videos,” says Chris Hudson, Architecture Minnesota’s editor and Videotect’s originator, “and they just about killed themselves” getting it done. That first contest—the topic was the Minneapolis skyway system—produced some memorable videos, though, including a hilarious 3D rap battle about streets vs. the skyways.

Also this year, in addition to a shorter main entry, contestants can submit as many six-second Vine videos as they like. The ultra-shorts must promote contestants’ main entries in some fashion, but don’t come with any other restrictions. “Vine? Everybody’s doing it! So we wanted to, too,” Hudson says.

“Two people walk into a bar…” has inspired entries that focus on design’s power to promote quality social interaction in bars, cafes, and eating establishments. All 15 videos are available for public viewing in the Videotect section of Architecture Minnesota’s website. Notable entries include “Sharing Space,” a heartwarming series of drawings that re-imagines bars as “impromptu performance spaces;” “Taproom Roadshow,” a humorous send-up of the PBS classic, set at Minneapolis’s Victory 44 restaurant; a time-lapse video of Alchemy Architects’ design and construction of the tiny, circular Bang Brewery in Saint Paul.

The contest winners and runners-up are chosen by a rotating panel of notable judges: Top prize is $2,000 and runners-up receive $500 each. There’s also a $1000 Viewers Choice Winner created through public voting on the website. This year’s judges include Omar Ansari, founder of Surly Brewing Company, who has become the panel’s resident expert on the business of socializing, an architect from Gensler, and two local film experts. “We’ve gotten lucky [with the judges],” Hudson says. “We ask people with expertise in film or in the theme, and they're generous enough to say yes.”

WCCO’s hilarious Jason Derusha hosts this year’s Videotect presentation on March 13 in the Walker Art Center’s Cinema. During the event, videos are shown, the audience roars with laughter, judges astutely comment, and attendees hobnob. Hudson wants Videotect to be about much more than a night of conversation and laughter, though.

Videotect welcomes submissions from design and architecture experts, but the contest’s true aim is to get regular folks talking about the important, if sometimes dry and complex, issues that vex people who work in the business. Architecture Minnesota originally planned to organize a more formal design competition for younger architects, but soon discarded that idea in favor of an open-to-all video contest with looser rules and an offbeat approach to weighty questions.

He hasn’t looked back. “I think Videotect's biggest achievement is simply making a subject matter as intimidating as urban and architectural design a whole lot of fun,” says Hudson. “What the videos have lacked in sophisticated design commentary, they've more than made up for in entertainment value…[that’s] a very valuable thing.”

Source: Chris Hudson
Writer: Brian Martucci

Corporate sponsors have long played an integral role in the development and dissemination of art and culture. OST USA, an IT company with a 125-employee office in the North Loop's TractorWorks Building, is further advancing corporate sponsorship.

As the highest-profile partner of the Art Leadership Program (ALP), an ongoing collaboration that provides emerging artists with resources, guidance, and access to markets, OST supplies studio space (ArtLab 111) near the building’s loading dock for the dozen or so artists-in-residence it has already sponsored (usually for three to six months), and a lobby gallery (Gallery One) that regularly hosts exhibitions and openings for ALP’s participants.

“OST is the quintessential corporate partner,” says Ron Ridgeway, ALP’s founder and chief visionary, who launched the partnership. Ridgeway is also a mixed-media artist and corporate branding consultant. “We maintain a meaningful venue [for our artists], as well as curatorial services and placement… as exhibitions are becoming an art form in themselves. These days, it’s all about the experience.”

One ALP alumni launched from the program into high-profile commissions. In early 2012, local artist Elizabeth Simonson displayed her “systems-based” installations at BMW of Minnetonka’s Gallery One—an off-site ALP exhibition space. That same year, she built on a commission for the Walker Art Center’s lobby with a $25,000 fellowship grant from the McKnight Foundation.

Simonson “set the benchmark for our program,” says Ridgeway, but there’s nothing stopping future ALP participants and residents from notching their own victories. Ridgeway describes ALP’s corporate sponsorship model as a classic win-win-win: Artists get funding and market exposure, corporations get the positive PR that accompanies art patronage, and business districts or neighborhoods gain valuable physical assets.

“What’s been most beneficial [about working with ALP] is just getting our work out there,” says Twin Cities artist Booka B (aka Adam Booker), a recent graduate of Metropolitan State University who is showing new work with Lindsay Splichal, a recent graduate of the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, beginning March 6 in Gallery One. But creating art is just one piece of the puzzle, he adds: “You also have to connect with the community.”

Traditionally, companies that invested in art curated permanent collections that would eventually “gather dust,” as Ridgeway puts it. The rotating installations or exhibitions put on by ALP’s visiting or resident artists, in contrast, feel like organic additions to offices, building lobbies, and other public spaces, he adds.

ALP has also hosted an exhibition at International Market Square and is currently working with potential tenants of Nicollet Avenue’s 9’s on the Mall. “We hope to build a sustainable model for this type of partnership,” Ridgeway says.

Sources: Ron Ridgeway, Art Leadership Program; Adam Booker
Writer: Brian Martucci

The Twin Cities is home to a diverse arts and healing community – perhaps the largest nationwide, according to Jack Becker, who leads Forecast Public Art, a nonprofit public art consulting agency based in Saint Paul.

The Twin Cities, Becker adds, is “an arts-rich community, and we’re huge for healthcare and technologies devoted to medicine and bioscience and research into healing. These realms come together in a variety of ways.” 

Those intersections are the subject of an exhibit Forecast put together in collaboration with Hennepin County’s Multicultural Arts Committee. Titled "Creative Care: Art + Healing in the Twin Cities," the exhibition is at the Hennepin County Government Center’s gallery in downtown Minneapolis through Jan. 29.

The exhibition pulls together visuals from nine arts-healing organizations in the area. In addition, an opening celebration today, and related forums and performances, are in the works for the coming weeks. 

The exhibiton is “about the idea that art can have healing benefits,” Becker says, a notion that often goes unacknowledged in daily life.
 
As a part of the kickoff for "Creative Care," which begins at 11 a.m., representatives from the exhibiting organizations will be on hand. Some groups, including Illusion Theater, Hopewell Community Choir, and Wilder Band will also perform at the event while county commissioner Peter McLaughlin will make an appearance and T. Mychael Rambo will serve as its emcee. 

The show represents all different approaches to art and healing, from Hennepin County Medical Center’s Inspire Arts program to the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum’s Healing Arts Therapies.  

As such, the displays are just as diverse as the participants. People can meander through a labyrinth on the floor -- a meditative intentional walk on a path that leads to peaceful calm in the center-- or view snapshots, paintings, installations, and more.  

For those who are sick or depressed or are facing other challenges, art can “focus the mind for a period of time on something other than the problem, the ailment, the pain,” Becker says, and art does so in a holistic way. He adds that art can come in the form of a relaxing piece of music or a public memorial in a war-torn community, as just a couple of examples.  

Forecast also published a related directory that includes 40 local art-healing programs in order to “raise awareness and increase access to these programs,” he says. 

Source: Jack Becker, executive director, Forecast Public Art 
Writer: Anna Pratt 

TreeHouse Health, an “innovation center” with an emphasis on healthcare IT and care coordination, opened its doors on Oct. 17. 

The idea behind the for-profit “innovation center,” based in Minneapolis's Loring Park neighborhood, is to help emerging, and larger more established healthcare companies, grow and solve industry issues, the TreeHouse website states. 

TreeHouse is in a position to do so, thanks to its six partners with extensive expertise in healthcare and investment. 

Jeffrey (J.D.) Blank, the company’s managing director, says TreeHouse can offer networking opportunities, office space, cash for startups, and other resources. Blank’s dad is Dr. John Blank, TreeHouse’s chairman of the board, who is also the president of Dalmore Investments, an angel fund in Minneapolis. “We offer access to customers, make introductions, allow them to leverage the relationships of our partners,” says J.D. Blank.      

Collaboration is key, he says. "We view an 'innovation center' as an ecosystem, an environment that supports entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs, the innovators within a larger organization.” 

“We’re hoping to get small and large companies from every sector of healthcare,” all of which bring different views to solve healthcare issues, he says. “The industry is so broad and complicated that we think having every angle represented, creating a 360-degree ecosystem will help parties navigate the challenges.” 

Creating that ecosystem means “getting the right companies with the right mindset, that are willing to collaborate and contribute to the ecosystem at large,” he adds. 

As such, TreeHouse intends to cultivate a network of service providers and business professionals that can offer support to companies. TreeHouse intends to bring companies into the fold for six months to two years. “We think companies will see the value in it,” he says. 

Already, TreeHouse has signed on RiverSystems LLC, a startup that developed HomeStream, “a tool comprised of easy-to-use, computer-assisted capabilities designed to improve the quality of life for seniors and aging baby boomers,” a prepared statement reads. 
 

Source: Jeffrey (J.D.) Blank, managing director, TreeHouse Health 
Writer: Anna Pratt 

Silicon Valley and Silicon Prairie are ready to meet.
 
On Wednesday, February 20, coworking and collaborative space CoCo hosted a major kickoff with new partner Google for Entrepreneurs, announcing a two-year schedule of events, conferences, and social mixers at CoCo's Minneapolis office.
 
Focusing on technology and startups, the events are aimed at boosting entrepreneurship in the state, and draw on Google's extensive history of innovation and development. The company's Google for Entrepreneurs initiative was created to support entrepreneurs worldwide, and boasts an array of successful programs already, including Campus London, Women on the Web, and The New Orleans Community Leaders Program. The company even provides guidance and training for child entrepreneurs with Lemonade Day, a nonprofit that teaches children how to start and operate their own businesses.
 
John Lyman, Entrepreneurship Manager at Google, remarked in a release that the company believes entrepreneurship drives innovation and economic growth. "We see that happening in Minnesota and particularly at CoCo," he noted.
 
An announcement about the local partnership was made during an all-day conference at CoCo that began with U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar and Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak talking about innovation and entrepreneurship. The jam-packed event was free, but filled up quickly, as tech leaders and aspiring business owners jockeyed for a spot at one of the afternoon's sessions with visiting Google employees.
 
A full 2013 event schedule is still being finalized, and will be released soon, but CoCo did give a glimpse of what's to come. The event series will include affinity and user groups, including Google Developers Group Twin Cities, Android Users Group of Minnesota, and House of Cards, as well as one-day and multi-day conferences. Social and networking events will also play a large role in the partnership, with a particular focus on connecting startup founders with mentors.
 
Also slated are classes and educational sessions, including online-only instruction geared toward appealing to entrepreneurs across Minnesota who may be far flung from CoCo's office space.
 
The event series will rely on Google technology, including Google+ Hangouts, a video conferencing app that allows users to connect directly to multiple participants, or to broadcast an event through Google+, a YouTube channel, and a website. The app also lets users record the broadcast so that it can be shared later.
 
In a release, CoCo founding partner Kyle Coolbroth noted, "This partnership with Google will allow us to continue to expand our mission of creating a robust community of individuals pursuing the work of their dreams."

Writer: Elizabeth Millard
 
 
 

Technology group Advance IT Minnesota unveiled a new award that could give some high school girls a major boost in their technology careers.
 
The first annual Minnesota Aspirations for Women in Computing Award will be open to girls in grades 9 through 12, and is tied to a national competition from the National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT).
 
Advance IT decided to take on the award because of the shortage of skilled technical workers graduating from college, according to Ann Thureen, a vice president at Unisys Corporation.
 
She says, "Encouraging students at the high school level to see the possibilities of the STEM [Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics] field is a great way to get them into the right college tracks to sustain and grow our IT industry in Minnesota. We see more young women going to college than young men. We need to tap into this valuable talent pool and expose them to the opportunities for great paying jobs in IT."
 
Advance IT is administered through the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities system, and serves as a connection point among employers, educators, and IT professionals. The group's mission is to position Minnesota as one of the top states in the country for IT-related employment.  The award will help to bring the organization closer to that goal, says Russell Fraenkel, Advance IT Minnesota's Director of Collaborative Programs and Outreach.
 
"The Aspirations Award provides an encouraging environment for young women to gain greater awareness of technology career options and sets the stage for them to become more deeply engaged in determining their education and career path," he says.
 
For high school girls who are ready to compete for the award, act fast: the deadline for entries is Nov. 16th, but entries that come in before Oct. 31 will be eligible for the national award as well.
 
Sources: Russell Fraenkel, Advance IT; Ann Thureen, Unisys Corporation
Writer: Elizabeth Millard

Anyone searching for an indicator of Minnesota's strong tech growth should take a good look at St. Cloud-based W3i.
 
The company has not only tripled growth for its mobile monetization business within the past year, but it's also nearly doubled its employee numbers, and there's no stopping the momentum now.
 
To keep pace, the company will be opening an office in the Grain Exchange building in Minneapolis, and has recently added space to its headquarters as well. Another office just opened up in San Francisco, too, to attract developers and potential employees in that technology hub.
 
"We're excited about everything that's happening, and the surge in revenue we've seen," says Rob Weber, who co-founded W3i with his brothers, Ryan and Aaron, in 2000. "With the growth in mobile technologies and apps, we're in a hot category, with a platform that's creating a lot of value. It's hard not to be excited when you're in that position."
 
The company helps app developers and publishers make a profit from their apps, through a monetization and distribution system. Services include user acquisition, media buying, and marketing solutions.
 
Particularly well received is the W3i Games Platform, which provides a hosted virtual goods management system. The platform allows developers to add, modify, or delete inventory items and manage their currency online.
 
With all the momentum, W3i is likely to keep its current, robust pace, Weber believes. There are 20 open positions in every functional area of the company, and he anticipates that the business side of W3i will get built out as much as the development side. He says, "All areas are growing here, and we're just doing our best to keep up."
 
Source: Rob Weber, W3i
Writer: Elizabeth Millard