East Lansing Tech Tour A Tour De Force
From Great Lakes IT Report/WWJ Newsradio 950
Posted: Sunday, 25 January 2009 2:09PM
East Lansing Tech Tour A Tour De Force
What a fun way to spend a Friday.
My Friday was in East Lansing as a guest of the Capital Area IT Council, the booming organization of 60-plus tech companies in the Lansing area.
For starters, I gave a morning speech to the IT Council about my observations on the tech economy in Michigan.
But it soon got more interesting, in a long conversation with Jeffrey Smith, proud proprietor of a brand spanking new (and already busy) tech business incubator on what used to be the third floor of the Jacobson's department store on Grand River Avenue.
The space is funky, industrial and thoroughly useful, and many of the offices have very nice views of the older portions of MSU's campus across Grand River. (Even the new parking ramp that they designed to look old.)
Around 5,500 square feet of space have been built out on the third floor. Another 6,500 square feet is partially built out and is used as a bare-bones meeting room. There's another 12,000 square feet available for buildout.
Smith, whose formal title is project manager of new economy initiatives for the city, has alerady lured 11 companies to the center. Briefly: CEMA, www.cema.biz, is an emergency planning and consulting firm; Nicholas Creative Media, http://nicholascreativemedia.com, is a digital marketing agency; Live Concepts, a content development consultancy; Names for Life, www.names4life.com, a bibliographic retrieval technology developer; Enliven Software, http://enlivensoftwaer.com, provider of paperless electronic invoicing and payment; HTS Express LLC, a Web, audio and video production firm; KiWe Video Productions, www.kiweproductions.com, which produces short videos for business and organization clients' ISCI, http://icsiweb.com, a safety and health programs provider; Active Office, http://digitalactive.com, which offers a suite of online collaborative tools; Synthesys, an information security research firm; and Good Time Communications, http://itsallgood.net, a provider of media promotion services.
Then it was off on an afternoon Tech Tour of Lansing-area tech companies that I hope sound familiar to regular IT Report readers, because they're part of what I consider the backbone of Michigan's future. Along for the ride were about 25 Michigan State University students in various tech fields who are considering sticking around the Lansing area to start their tech careers.
First, we stopped by Sircon Corp., developers of software to automate the relationship between insurance companies, insurance agents and state insurance regulators. The 25 students were told Sircon is still hiring for various parts of its staff.
A few miles on was Strategic Products & Services, the product of a merger of New Jersey-based SAS and Lansing's GEE Comunications. The company has about a quarter of its 400 employees in Michigan, where it offers comprehensive voice and data products, services and support. SAS also said it faced a shortage of skilled workers for its openings, and stressed the importance of lifelong learning.
Then it was off to the tech hardware and services provider Dewpoint, for a demonstration of a bunch of its technologies. The coolest was probably the SunRay-VMware thin client "virtual machine" system, which transforms work stations to a mere monitor and keyboard. Where's the computer? It can be in the server room -- close by or far away -- or in the cloud. Just log in, either with a user ID and password or with a key card or both, and you'll automatically get access to all the applications and data to which you're entitled. Best of all you can work at any work station in the company or organization that's propertly equipped and linked up. The system offers huge savings in power and administrative costs.
The tour then headed back to the Technology Innovation Center for tours of the tenants, and a presentation by the Gillspie Group on cool new condominium and apartment projects in downtown Lansing.
Oh, and did I mention the dinner from El Azteco? (There IS no other Mexican restaurant. Not very good for you. Didn't care.) A great end to a great day.
More at www.capitalareaitcouncil.org