Next Downtown Brown Bag May 6: The Bottom Line of Diversity

“The Bottom Line of Diversity”

Tuesday, May 6, 12 noon

KCCI/APEX/The Northland Works/Minnesota Power Economic Development Brown Bag

Minnesota Power Building, Room 140,
30 West Superior Street, Duluth.

Who Can Come? Everyone is welcome and it’s FREE!
How? Bring your own lunch and enjoy the conversation.

Don’t look now, but the Twin Ports population is becoming more diverse every day. Major corporations have found that embracing diversity in the workplace is not just the right thing to do, it’s essential for long-term economic growth. Is your business ready for the future?

Speakers: Greg Grell, Tonya Roth, and Jen Bertsch from the Mix It Up Team of the Knight Creative Communities Initiative Duluth Superior.

The Downtown Economic Development Brown Bag Lunch Series is co-sponsored by TheNorthlandWorks.org, APEX (Area Partnership for Economic Expansion), Minnesota Power and the Twin Ports Knight Creative Communities Initiative.

Future Brown Bag Dates are:
Friday, May 16, Topic: GLUE (Great Lakes Urban Exchange)
Tuesday, June 17

For more information about the Knight Creative Communities Initiative, please take a look at the KCCI website: http://kcciduluth.wordpress.com

Or see our space on the Duluth Superior Area Community Foundation Website
www.dsacommunityfoundation.com/initiatives/

or on the Knight Foundation’s website.

The Knight Creative Communities Initiative is a venture that aims to pull together the ideas and talents of all parts of the community in building a more attractive environment for economic growth. The KCCI is a partnership of 31 citizen Catalysts, the Duluth Superior Area Community Foundation, Richard Florida’s Creative Class Group, and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.

GLUE (Great Lakes Urban Exchange) Brown Bag to be May 16

Friday, May 16, 12 noon. (Note New Date)

KCCI/APEX/The Northland Works/Minnesota Power Economic Development Brown Bag

“Reinvigorating the Great Lakes with GLUE”

Minnesota Power Building, Room 140,

30 West Superior Street, Duluth.

Who Can Come? Everyone is welcome and it’s FREE!

How? Bring your own lunch and enjoy the conversation.

GLUE, which stands for the Great Lakes Urban Exchange, is an organization formed in late 2007. Its mission is to serve as a forum for people to exchange stories, ideas, and best practices between otherwise isolated Great Lakes cities. The GLUE coalition is currently made up of over 20 Great Lakes cities and is working to promote the power, aid in the transformation, and address the shared challenges of similarly-storied older industrial cities. Come hear more about this initiative and how you can be a part of it from one of the young
professionals spearheading Duluth’s involvement.

In the meantime, if you want to know more about GLUE, click here for their website.

The Downtown Economic Development Brown Bag Lunch Series is co-sponsored by TheNorthlandWorks.org, APEX (Area Partnership for Economic Expansion), Minnesota Power and the Twin Ports Knight Creative Communities Initiative.

Future Brown Bag Dates are:

Tuesday, May 6

Tuesday, June 17

For more information about the Knight Creative Communities Initiative, please take a look at the KCCI website:
http://kcciduluth.wordpress.com
Or see our space on the Duluth Superior Area Community Foundation Website
www.dsacommunityfoundation.com/initiatives/

or on the Knight Foundation’s website.

The Knight Creative Communities Initiative is a venture that aims to pull together the ideas and talents of all parts of the community in building a more attractive environment for economic growth. The KCCI is a partnership of 31 citizen Catalysts, the Duluth Superior Area Community Foundation, Richard Florida’s Creative Class Group, and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.

Bicycling Sharing Program Starts in DC

The New York Times today has an article about a new bicycle sharing program in Washington DC.

The program starts with 10 locations and lets users pick up and drop off bikes at their convenience. A little like the Zipcar programs that have started.

Exciting May for KCCI Projects

May is going to be an exciting month to show off all of the work that’s been done on the Twin Ports KCCI project and the partners that have worked with our teams. Some of the highlights:

The Mix-It-Up Group has started their Hodge Podge Supper Club dinners to bring people together in the Twin Ports are create more bridging social capital. Read more at their website.

The Pathways group is working on finalizing and publicizing their Request for Proposals for artist-designed bike racks for the Twin Ports. Be on the lookout for the announcement soon.

The Art Works group is getting all of their new working groups together this month to review the projects that were created out of the Art Works Summit to see what direction the community has decided to go. Their website is here.

Sustainable Twin Ports will also start reviewing applications for their Early Adopters project. For more, see their website here.

The downtown economic development brown bag will have two sessions:

Tuesday, May 6, 12 noon. Subject: Hodge Podge Supper Club

Friday, May 16, 12 noon. Subject: GLUE: the Great Lakes Urban Exchange.

For more information, come back to this website soon.

KCCI Duluth Superior also expects to release an end of the First Year report by the end of May. We’ll post it here as well as on the Duluth Superior Area Community Foundation website.

Update on Duluth Brown Bag Lunches

Our next Duluth Downtown Economic Development Brown Bag will be Tuesday, May 6 at 12 noon.

The subject will be the work of the Mix-It-Up Team of the KCCI Duluth Superior project and will cover their Hodge Podge Supper Club work. For more information on the Hodge Podge Supper Club project, please see their website:

Hodge Podge Supper Club

The Brown Bag scheduled for Friday, May 2 about GLUE, the Great Lakes Urban Exchange, has been rescheduled for Friday, May 16.

The Downtown Economic Development Brown Bag Lunch Series is co-sponsored by TheNorthlandWorks.org, APEX (Area Partnership for Economic Expansion), Minnesota Power and the Twin Ports Knight Creative Communities Initiative.

Future Brown Bag Dates are:

Friday, May 16

Tuesday, June 17

For more information about the Knight Creative Communities Initiative, please take a look at the KCCI website:
http://kcciduluth.wordpress.com

Or see our space on the Duluth Superior Area Community Foundation Website
www.dsacommunityfoundation.com/initiatives/

or on the Knight Foundation’s website.

The Knight Creative Communities Initiative is a venture that aims to pull together the ideas and talents of all parts of the community in building a more attractive environment for economic growth. The KCCI is a partnership of 31 citizen Catalysts, the Duluth Superior Area Community Foundation, Richard Florida’s Creative Class Group, and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.

News Tribune has an update on KCCI Duluth Superior

The Duluth News Tribune ran a story about being a year into the KCCI project on Sunday, generally praising the work and noting that real change will happen over a longer period of time.

“Positive Change Is on the Way” is here.

Community leaders had some significant praise for the project in their comments. Among them:

“I think the Art Works Conference was a positive step in encouraging more cultural opportunities for our community,” said Duluth Mayor Don Ness, who gave opening remarks at the event, along with Superior Mayor Dave Ross.

Ross said the conference was the most interesting event he has attended this year.

“They put together businesspeople, there were investors, there were a lot of different people. It wasn’t your one-sided, narrowly defined event. It was very diverse,” he said.

Read the full story for more.

Community Car Sharing Growing

One way of cutting the costs of owning a car, and finding ways to walk, bike, carpool and use public transit, is to create ways of having a car when you really need a car.

Now there are two operations in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area to do just that.  The Pioneer Press has a story today.

Even with a sign-up fee and a monthly fee, it’s cheaper than owning a car. How much does that cost?

According to the AAA, it will cost $8,121 to own and operate a new passenger car driven 15,000 miles per year this year, or 54.1 cents a mile, in 2008. That’s up 1.9 cents per mile from $7,823 per year in 2007, and it’s all due to higher gas prices, the automobile club said.

Hodge Podge Supper Club: Create Bridging Social Capital

What is it?

The Hodge Podge Supper Club is a first step toward bridging the cultural gaps in our community. Imagine people of different backgrounds, socio-economic class, races, religions and beliefs, all sitting down to share a meal and learn about one another. The goal is to develop our residents’ cultural competence and help make the Twin ports a welcoming and inclusive place to live.

See the group’s new website at http://www.twinportshodgepodge.com/

Mission Statement

The Hodge Podge Supper Club will bring together people from the Twin Ports for conversation and a meal at a local restaurant to promote social bridging.

Robert Putnam has distinguished between “bonding”and “bridging” social capital. “Bonding capital” involves the sorts of connections within a social group, while “bridging capital” involves building relationships across social divides..

Whose idea is this, anyway?

This is a project that came from the “Mix It Up” action team of the Knight Creative Communities Initiative in the Twin Ports. Our charge is to work to promote tolerance, one of the “Four T’s” in Richard Florida’s book The Rise of The Creative Class.

Duluth to get key technology infrastructure company

A team of Duluth area economic developers have worked out a deal with Visi, Inc. The company announced Thursday that construction will begin soon and be complete by next Spring.

Economic development experts are thrilled by the development because while Visi will employ only a few people at first, the services it will provide will open the door for more technology and data-driving companies.

Read the press release here.

According to a story in the Duluth News Tribune:

“VISI aims to draw much of its business from clients located within a 1½-hour drive of its facility in Duluth, but it also will offer backup protection of data for Twin Cities area clients. Sowada said that by backing up data in a remote location, such as Duluth, customers can reduce the risk of any catastrophic event wiping out vital information.

“The company boasts annual revenues of about $11 million. Its clients include Caribou Coffee, Health Partners, Gander Mountain, Star Tribune, Lund Boats and PeopleNet Communications. While the majority of VISI’s business comes from in state, Sowada said the company also has active clients in40 other states.

“Nancy Norr, a regional development manager for Minnesota Power, said VISI’s construction of a facility in Duluth could open doors for other local businesses.

“I’ve compared this project to opening an airport,” she said. “The facility itself may not employ a lot of people, but as a data center it can provide the kind of high-tech infrastructure other companies need to grow.”

Norr also expressed optimism that VISI’s decision to enter the Duluth market could send a positive “message to other technology companies looking to expand.

“It could serve as an avenue to attract other Twin Cities-based firms to locate some of their operations in the region, as well,” she said.

“Duluth’s relativelydisaster-free reputation is one of the possible attractions for companies such as VISI that specialize in providing secure data management, according to Lisa Heyesen, of the Area Partnership for Economic Expansion. She pointed out that Duluth rarely sees tornadoes and has no history of earthquakes, hurricanes or other catastrophic events that threaten other cities.

Cleaning the Great Lakes will have a huge economic payoff

A new report from the Brookins Institute says that efforts to clean up the Great Lakes will have a huge economic benefits for the cities that live alongside.  For Example, Duluth could see a benefit of $200 million.

See the press release here.

Or for more details straight from the Brookins Institute, read their report here.