The Detroit Windsor International Film Festival is kicking off tomorrow afternoon with some excellent films being shown in eight separate venues including a feature film debut at the DIA and continuing on through the weekend on both sides of the river.  Take a look at Tom Hendrickson’s video highlights or go directly to the festival website to purchase tickets and attend.  Support the successful and rapidly growing film industry in Michigan and have fun while you do it!  Where is the down side here?  Thanks ModelD!

Just when you think the hype on this event can’t get bigger - it does!  My list of the huge number of online resources for this year’s Detroit Electronic Music Festival is the tip, but this is a big iceberg!  Wikipedia does the ‘Fest justice, giving the history and current stats, Paxahau is a big promoter this year, along with Synthtopia, get the details at the official DEMF BLOG and of course the DEMF site itself.  Videos and attendee info can be found on MySpace, last.fm and afterparty action at detroitluv.  One more reason the ‘D’ owns the music world!  Don’t miss this party!  $40 for a early purchase weekend pass, $25 per day, $50 weekend at the gate, $175 VIP!

No, we are not talking about rappers - this is film baby!  Michael Moore discusses his latest project, a sequel to Fahrenheit 911, brought to us courtesy of a QIK stream from a cell phone!  Go figure!  Click here to see the clip.

Yea, when Richard Florida talks Creative Class, his presentations are on Technology, Tolerance and Talent.  But having witnessed his pre and post presentation activities, what is practiced but not preached is the big ‘P’ - Party!  While it has been a while since Maxim made the call ranking Detroit number 7 on its top 10 party cities, The Detroit Regional Chamber reminded the development community in their e-newsletter today that there are more reasons to come to Detroit than just our engineering and design brilliance - you can party like Kid Rock too!

We’re not gonna take it!  No!  We’re not gonna take it! We’re not gonna take it, anymore!!!  For you Beastie Boy fans old enough, those words may have been your adolescent right of passage, but we are re-adapting them for the ‘D’!  Let’s all join hands, sing Kum-bye-ya and stop the negative press on Detroit!  Naw, forget that!  Just click and digg this article to raise the positive awareness on Detroit!  Thanks to 313rd for getting the movement going!  Go HERE to see the top ten list of Detroit goodness, and add more!

Urban Forest is the name for AIGA’s national project to enhance awareness of ecology, the negative effects of suburban sprawl, and the value of green space in urban areas.  To accomplish this noble task, the design community is challenged to design banners that will create an urban forest in the city center being targeted.  A discussion on Detroiter Online provides more on the sponsorship chairs perspective. Read the remainder of this entry »

Only in Detroit will you see the likes of the The Stooges, White Stripes and Kid Rock relegated to the category ‘Outstanding National Single’.  That leaves plenty of nominations open for the tons of local talent showcased at this year’s Detroit Music Awards!  The range of music and categories being celebrated Friday night at the Fillmore are only surpassed by the talent themselves!  Check nominees for 2008 awards, determined by nominations from local musicians and music industry professionals and voted for over the web.

The DMA has featured performances and guest appearances by Eminem, Kid Rock, Martha Reeves, Smokey Robinson, Bob Seger, Ted Nugent and many others.  Tickets for this year’s event are $20, and you can either get tickets through ticketmaster or at the door.  Thanks to Detroitcity.com for the heads up!

We are in the process of launching a great new interactive site called the Detroiter Online.  The site is in beta test now, and is not even available at it’s planned URL, detroiteronline.com, but that hasn’t stopped some impressive content from being added by the site’s early adopters.  The headline above is from a post by Tim Smith that sums up the feelings of many in the existing creative community these days.  It is really nice that some of the communities leadership are willing to put up some significant funding to attract new creative talent to the Metro Detroit area, but it is confusing that they would need to spend money on research to figure out how.  In essence, Tim makes the point that the focus should start first with support of the incredible amount of creative talent that already exists in the region before worrying about how to bring more this way.  And to do that, he recommends hiring local.  Here is his post - Read the remainder of this entry »

An apology to anyone that viewed our site over the Easter break.  For several days during the break the site had been hacked and I didn’t discover it until Friday afternoon.  Still being in Florida on break, I had to sit by the pool to recover the site, and thankfully the hacker was even more of an amatuer than I was.  A couple hours of stumbling around to find the affected files and getting them repaired, and we were back in business.  I will have a better backup next time, but all that ends well…..  Anyway, if you came to the site during that time you might have seen article links, perhaps some popups, and wondered what the h__ was going on, but all is well now.

Coming soon! DetroitMakeItHere.com: a user-centric information and
networking hub for creatives in Southeast Michigan.

The Web site, which will launch this spring, is powered by Crain’s
Detroit Business and an element of Detroit Renaissance Inc.’s $80
million Road to Renaissance economic revitalization plan. Detroit
Renaissance is the founding sponsor of the site.

The site will identify the region’s creative assets and map them,
present news and information about and important to the creative
economy, provide a forum for social networking and a space for
user‑generated content. It will also feature a calendar for creative
business events, as well as career and business related resources for
creative professionals.

This Web site will be a unique resource for the region, providing
detailed content for creative users that does not currently exist. Rest
assured the creative community will be fully immersed in the development
of the site. In fact, there is a group of nearly 40 local creatives who
are serving on the site’s advisory committee.

Keep visiting the CreateDetroit site for the launch date!!