On day three of Spotlight Michigan’s qualitative research trip we visited The Kauffman Foundation in Kansas City, Missouri.  The Kauffman Foundation is interested in encouraging a culture of entrepreneurship nationwide.  Their strategy is unique from the city and state-wide approaches expressed in Madison and Iowa City.  Ironically, their message was very similar to what we’ve already been hearing; networks are everything.

The Kauffman Foundation was founded by entrepreneur Ewing Marion Kauffman in the mid-1960s.  Their mission is to focus its grant making and operations on two areas: advancing entrepreneurship and improving the education of children and youth. Their FastTrac program already has big plans for Detroit, with the goal to develop 400 new businesses over the course of the next three years.  They have also implemented Kauffman Campus grants which will infuse as much as $200 million into cross-campus entrepreneurship programs over the next five years.

One of several important messages we were able to take away was one that echoed advice from Iowa City, we need to make a conscious effort to let people know how important they are to the community.  The best news, it’s free!  Who knew that apart from grants and policy initiatives, a simple gesture can have the biggest impact?

Further advice alluded to the “make or break” role the university plays in a college-town.  According to Nancie Thomas, manager of Kauffman Campus initiatives and collegiate programs, “the culture needs to start with the university first”.

Kauffman emphasized that no one intends for the isolation between the city, the business community, and the university.  Each entity has a crucial role in creating an entrepreneurial culture, but the university must realize it has the opportunity to transform the whole region.

Finally, Robert E. Litan, Vice President for Research and Policy, stressed that “Entrepreneurship doesn’t belong to anyone and it should be everywhere.”  We couldn’t agree more.  Spotlight Michigan is excited to assume the role of spreading this message to young professionals and we hope you’ll join us!

7 hours to Urbana, IL

Wednesday March 10, 2010

Iowa City, IA

As part of our second Midwest tour stop, Spotlight Michigan met with the Iowa City Chamber of Commerce and the executive director of the John Papajohn Entrepreneurial Center at the University of Iowa. Our group noticed that unlike Madison, entrepreneurial networks were less accessible and prevalent in Iowa City. Iowa and Lansing both struggle to tie students into informal community networks and build connections between the university and the city. Lansing faces an even bigger challenge than these other cities because MSU’s campus is distinctly separated from the city, and therefore the business community.

Connections are key in keeping students in an area because engaged individuals are much more likely to stay post-graduation and help rebuild economies. It is no longer sustainable for any city to remain risk averse or preserve a conservative business culture resistant to change. Much like Lansing however, Iowa City has realized the importance of changing public perception and changing the business culture for driving future growth.

In Iowa there was an apparent disconnect between the students and local businesses, handicapping the process of linking graduates to jobs and firms to localized talent. Despite these shortcomings, Iowa City is a self-described eclectic, global community of creative minds owing much of its diversity to the presence of University of Iowa.

Forbes rated the 5th largest city in Iowa, Iowa City the second best small metropolitan area in the U.S. for small business in 2008. The city has been a benefactor of a high level of state and private sector investment. The Papajohn Entrepreneurial Center and Business College on Iowa’s campus actively promote entrepreneurship as a viable career path. Visible support from entrepreneurial networks and venture capital firms are critical in helping young entrepreneurs decide where to launch their careers. Its important that young entrepreneurs see that success is possible.

Tomorrow we travel to the Kauffman Foundation to ask what Lansing should do to capture the energy of Iowa City and Madison and bridge the gap between the innovative business community and the university population.

4 hours 43 minutes to Kansas City.

Tuesday March 9, 2010

We can’t wait to share the entire experience.

Spotlight Michigan in the news Monday 2/22.

See the article here.

DANIELLE EMERSON of the Capital News Service linked up with members of Spotlight Michigan for an article Michigan’s Talent Drain Under Scrutiny.

Emerson really ties together our analysis with other Michigan researchers who are focused on promoting the creative class and building a stronger future for our state.

Look for future articles on Spotlight and our research trip/survey analysis and our upcoming research roll-out event on April 21st.

EVOLVE: Talent in the New Economy

Over the weekend, The State News interviewed Spotlight staff members to learn more about Spotlight’s mission and research.

Media and Technology Director Anthony Mianecki is quoted saying “It’s no secret in Michigan we’re hemorrhaging young talent.”

To combat this trend, Research Director Jennifer Seager argues, “The first step Michigan needs to take is to find a way to attract recent college graduates,” Seager said. “Without the new creative minds in society, there’s not going to be any economic churn, change in the economy.”

Recognizing Michigan’s shortcomings, Spotlight Michigan seeks to promote a more innovative and entrepreneurial culture in Michigan by cultivating and spotlighting young, talented, and entrepreneurial communities for the new economy.

Help  keep the conversation going, and look  for updates on our April event soon.

EVOLVE

Take the Survey

Operating under the premise that young, talented individuals are crucial to entrepreneurial and innovative change, Spotlight Michigan is conducting a comprehensive survey of college and university students in Michigan.

We hope to…

• Identify qualities of place that are important to young individuals.
• Determine the differences within the college population on key issues, such as willingness and desire to start new enterprises and their perceived needs for success.
• Uncover the conditions for retaining college graduates.
• In conjunction with local economic development agencies, and based on the results of the survey:
  • Determine the relative strengths and weaknesses of communities.
  • Drive public policy changes that will attract and retain entrepreneurially-minded young people.
  • Consult with communities on attracting and retaining young, entrepreneurial talent.
  • Spotlight communities that have implemented best practices.

Please help us help Michigan, and take our survey. Click Here

Jeff Smith of the East Lansing Technology Innovation Center (TIC) mentions Spotlight Michigan in a video commenting on efforts to blend the university and city, and the university and community to help make Lansing a center for young innovative talent.

If you haven’t heard of all the great things Jeff and the TIC are doing, check out their website, East Lansing TIC or follow them on twitter @EastLansingTIC.

If you feel as passionately as we do about East Lansing’s potential, let your voice be heard and take our survey.

Mission Statement:

Problem:
As the world transitions into a global 21^st century economy, Michigan has failed to remain competitive and progress from its industrial past.

A century of dependence on manufacturing jobs and the subsequent decline of the automotive industry have drawn national attention to Michigan’s dire economic conditions.  According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the state’s unemployment rate spiked to 15.3% in September 2009– the highest in the nation.

Rigid economic institutions and widespread perception that our state lacks opportunities have increased outbound migration of Michigan’s college graduates.  As a result, more than 15,000 adults, a third of them holding a four-year degree or more, left Michigan in 2006-2007 alone (Michigan Future Inc.). If Michigan cannot retain or attract highly innovative people to start or expand enterprises in our state, it will be impossible to increase the human or physical capital necessary for Michigan to reinvent itself.

We believe strongly that we must work to discover which attributes of place attract and/or keep the type of people Michigan needs to initiate a new wave of entrepreneurship and innovation.

Spotlight Michigan plans to discover these attributes and work toward fostering their development.

Michigan’s economy is not rosy, of course. Unemployment rates lead the nation at 12.0% according to DELEG’s February statistics. The rate of Michigan’s GDP growth has declined consistently for 20 years. The auto-industry is imploding and Michigan’s future seems bleak.

And if students keep leaving, it will only get worse. University graduates and high-knowledge workers are crucial to an innovative and prosperous economy. According to MSU economist Charles Ballard, this “brain drain” is devastating.”[The grads] have huge earning potential. You are losing some of your more productive workers. That’s a real concern.” Retaining students is a matter of grave concerns and merits public attention.

Our efforts to retain graduates, therefore, should start by determining why graduates exit in the first place. I surveyed a large sample of MSU students to try to get a better feel for this, asking them specifically, “Do you want to stay in Michigan once you graduate, why yes or no?” and also more specifically, “Do you think they could find a job to their satisfaction here in Michigan?” From these answers I was able to determine a few conclusions.

First, there are a few inherent things about Michigan that probably are not going to change to keep recent graduates here. Unless, global warming speeds up, students leaving the cold state for sunshine are not going to stay. We should accept that. However, in my survey many stated weather related reasons for why they were leaving Michigan but when I followed up with where they would go Chicago (Windy City?!), Seattle (for their three days of sun a year?) and Phoenix (cool, if you’re into a dessert) were the typical answers. This means that for many who stated weather concerns, there’s probably something else missing..

Secondly, students want a city. Eventually this could begin to change but recent graduates looking for federal bureaucracies such as in Washington, D.C., International headquarters of business and international organization, such as in New York, or even a celebrity-filled city, such as L.A. just aren’t going to find what they are looking for in Michigan. Detroit may have had these things in the early 1900s but it’s not getting them back any time soon. I am an International Relations major and therefore I have a bias sampling because my friends mainly want to do international or government related things, but the most repeated answer for why they would not want to stay in Michigan is because the type of international job they were looking for, did not exist in Michigan. In general, but not always, this is probably true.

Students that are leaving because of the weather, the lack of a major metropolitan and a large void of the type of jobs they are looking for are not going to change their mind any time soon so let them leave and keep good relations.

The third and critical reason, though, is that students believe they won’t find jobs. Simply put, students and recent graduates are terrified of the job market in Michigan. Many stated that they would love to stay in Michigan because of their family connections, the small-town closeness but there’s no way they are going to find a job or the right type of job. All of this is just a distorted reality. I am a native Wisconsin resident. I sampled many of my hometown friends still in Wisconsin, a state with the same Mid-West feel and similar weather situations as Michigan and yet, not one of them said they would not be able to find a job in Wisconsin if they wanted to stay there. No one was talking about the Wisconsin economy or unemployment rates. This just proves, Wisconsin does not have this dreary perception issue that Michigan does.

But as we’ve seen, while Michigan may not be a hub for international business and government connections, international business jobs, government agencies and social non-profits with international branches can be found all over Michigan. There is also high-tech, entrepreneurial firms all over the place. As Detroit Free Press columnist states, ‘we have employers here clamoring for engineering, financial and IT talent. Importing it, even. These are not traditional big-company Michigan employers with “golden handcuffs” but smaller startups, a few hundred employees.” The fast paced, flashy companies where young workers are allowed to shine exist. Perhaps even more so than ever before. Michigan’s entrepreneurial firms are starving for engaged youth with a high knowledge level.

Our unemployment statistics provide are high enough to scare off many student job prospects. While Michigan lost 190,000 jobs requiring low education from 2001 thru 2005 it gained 46,800 jobs in education, health, and social services fields requiring advanced education. Also, if students are able to take a risk and enter a smaller start-up or even create one of their own, students can disregard the daunting 12.0%. The scary unemployment statistics actually means very little to newly entering job market applications with a college degree, who is willing to take some risks.

Students want jobs in Michigan and Michigan firms want students. So why is there this huge disconnect? In the same New United Van Lines Data of the 44% that said they left the state, 56 % of those listed the inability to find a job as a significant reason for leaving also admitted that they hadn’t even looked for a job here. Many like to announce a dooms-day scenario for any graduate that wants to pursue a career in Michigan. It’s not that bad. In order to fix this disconnect between entrepreneurial businesses and recent graduates, the Michigan Futures Seminar has begun Spotlight Michigan at http://www.spotlightmichigan.com/blog/ to highlight and connect entrepreneurial students and firms to spur one of the key steps for increased innovation and prosperity in Michigan.

We at Spotlight Michigan believe it is crucial to get the word out and advertise entrepreneurial businesses that really want to engage with Michigan youth. We believe no recent graduate should feel forced out of the state, instead we want to find ways to help students find an active and engaging job here in Michigan. Lastly, our goal is create an entrepreneurial environment where young entrepreneurs feel comfortable starting businesses that can thrive and grow throughout the state. The statistics are scary for many recent graduates, reality doesn’t have to be.

By Kelly Steffen