Changing Gears is a public media project about the future of the industrial Midwest. Each week, reporters Dan Bobkoff in Cleveland, Niala Boodhoo in Chicago and Kate Davidson in Ann Arbor cover issues of interest to the Great Lakes region. Changing Gears also sponsors public events and conversations.
Who really runs Chicago? According to Chicago Magazine, it is a collection of leaders in politics, business, sports and food.
Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel
Earlier this month, the magazine came out with its list of the city’s 100 most powerful people. It’s a surprisingly diverse list, with some very familiar and not so familiar faces. (Oprah, whose Chicago-based show ended last year, is no longer on it.)
Steve Edwards at our partner station WBEZ recently talked about the list with Chicago Magazine editors David Bernstein and Marcia Froelke Coburn.
We broke down the Top 10 into four categories.
Politics: In a city where politics is in everyone’s DNA, it’s no surprise that Mayor Rahm Emanuel is the most powerful person in Chicago. He’s joined in the top 10 by three other politicians: U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, Illinois House Speaker Mike Madigan, and President Obama’s campaign strategist, David Axelrod. Continue reading →
Last week, we told you about The Edge Factor, a new online show about the amazing, creative and challenging world of modern manufacturing.
The goal of the show is to change the face of manufacturing, away from the dull and dirty image of the past to the high-tech version that exists in many factories today.
This Friday, we’re going to have a live web chat with Jeremy Bout, the host and creator of The Edge Factor. The chat will be at 1 p.m Eastern time here on the Changing Gears website.
We hope to ask Bout about his vision for the show, why he started the show in the first place, and where he goes from here. If you have questions, please join us. Or if you have ideas for how to change manufacturing’s image, join us.
128 new companies launched last year, and the total amount of new capital raised by web-based companies in Chicago was up 431 percent. A hefty chunk of that increase came from Groupon. But even excluding the coupon giant, funding of Chicago’s web startups was up 75.8 percent.
UPDATE:Maria Katris, Executive Director of Built In Chicago, estimates in an email to us that the the 128 businesses launched last year created 700-1,000 jobs. And the digital sector as a whole is responsible for 25,000 – 30,000+ jobs for the Chicago area. Built In Chicago also looks at the top 50 digital companies in the Windy City and finds that they’ve created more than 11,500 jobs.
Feld said what’s happening in Chicago “is a great example of what happens when entrepreneurs take a long term view to building their startup community.”
MIT's Building 20 was ugly, confusing and never meant to last. But over its 55-year history, the building was home to some of the most important innovations of the 20th century.
The myth is that the best way to foster new ideas is to let them spring forth in a group setting, without fear of judgment or criticism. Turns out, ideas, and the people behind them, need to be challenged and questioned.
And the space in which these ideas grow can play a huge role.
Deep into his piece, Lehrer tells the story of Building 20, a ramshackle space set up at MIT during World War II. The space was meant to be temporary. It was built from plywood and covered in asbestos shingles. But after the end of the war sent a flood of new students and researchers to MIT, the building stayed open out of sheer necessity. And, then Lehrer says, a curious thing happened:
Toyota put a lot of things on hold the past few years, when its sales were devastated by recalls, the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, and supply problems due to floods in Thailand. But now, it appears to be back on a production march that could affect the Midwest.
Last week, Toyota’s North American president, Yoshi Inaba, said the company was looking at expanding production in North America, including building more vehicles at its plants in Ontario, just a few hours from Detroit in southwestern Ontario.
According to the Globe and Mail, those steps would include producing its Prius hybrid models in North America for the first time and boosting production of Lexus models at its Cambridge, Ontario factory.
The steps have a direct effect on our region, because Toyota has hundreds of engineers in Michigan, and parts suppliers all over the Midwest. It also has a big assembly plant in Princeton, Ind., which just built its 3 millionth car, and where Toyota is investing another $400 million.Continue reading →
First, Changing Gears brought you a handy guide to making a hard-scrabble documentary about Detroit. Now, we’re welcoming the flocks of political reporters who are descending on the Midwest with our How-To Guide For Midwest Primary Stories.
Photo via Greentech.com
We’re dividing this into two parts: Michigan, which holds its primary on Feb. 28, and Ohio, which is part of Super Tuesday. Save it for this fall, because you can do these stories all over again!
Today, we’ll tackle the Great Lakes State.
Michigan
It’s possible to cover the Michigan primary by staying within 60 miles of Detroit. Why drive farther than you have to?
Here are suggestions that barely require you to move from your room at the Marriott in the Renaissance Center or the Westin Book Cadillac (or the Holiday Inn Express, if your news organization is on a tight budget):
We love a goodchart here at Changing Gears, and this is one that definitely caught our attention. The chart shows the rate of change for machine tool sales in the United States.
In a general sense, machine tools represent the base of the manufacturing chain. They’re usually not on the assembly line. They’re in the local mom-and-pop tool and die shops that dot the Midwestern landscape. Machine tools make the things that hold everything else together.
In 2010, investments in these tools exploded. As you can see in the chart, sales increased at a faster rate than at any time in the last four decades, at least.
We already knew that manufacturing is on the rebound in this country. But what can we learn from this explosive growth in machine tool sales?
Normally, everyone at GM would be celebrating. The automaker said Thursday that it earned $7.6 billion last year, the most ever, less than three years after receiving a federal bailout and going through bankruptcy protection.
GM is once again the world's biggest carmaker. Photo by Chris via Flickr.
But the 2011 performance masked a disappointing fourth quarter for the Detroit-based auto company. GM’S fourth-quarter profit was flat with 2010. It earned about $500 million, or 28 cents per share before special items.
With those charges accounted for, GM earned 40 cents per share, two cents below what analysts forecast. And the worst headache for GM came in Europe.
It lost more than half a billion dollars during the fourth quarter on its European operations, bringing their loss for the year to more than $700 million. The crisis is escalating: as recently as November, GM was saying it might break even in Europe. Continue reading →
If you’ve never heard of The Edge Factor, it’s probably because the TV show isn’t actually on the air – yet.
But the show has been going strong online for over a year now. Jeremy Bout is the executive producer, writer and host. Bout says he got the idea for the show after working as a programmer at a manufacturing plant.
In the pilot episode for The Edge Factor, Bout explains
What I find incredible is that manufacturing is the backbone of our economy. And I don’t think anybody really understands what that means. I think it’s time we changed that.
The Edge Factor is full of dramatic shots, cool graphics and fast music. But can a TV show make manufacturing cool?
