Detroit’s online community has pulled together this week to support our home team in the Chevy South-by-Southwest (#DETChevySXSW on Twitter) road trip challenge. Four professionals from Detroit’s online community were chosen to represent our city, and compete against seven teams from other cities as they drive a Chevy Traverse down to Austin and complete missions as they go along. The team not only gets points for completing tasks, but also gets points for the support they get from their home town in the form of tweets, blog posts and other interactions on social media with the crew.

It’s safe to say that not only has team Detroit stepped up to the challenge, Detroit’s online community has stepped up as well. Take a look at the #DETChevySXSW hashtag and you will see an overwhelming response from the community. If we win, we will get to share the glory with team Detroit, as GM has planned an “epic tweetup” for the winning city.

One of my fellow Ignite Detroit organizers was chosen for the team. The close proximity of Ignite Detroit to the road trip challenge was a blessing in disguise for the crew. Ignite Detroit turned out to be a great success, with three hundred of Detroit’s greatest minds getting together to share innovative ideas, great music and cheerful fellowship. The momentum we created  was carried forward into the Chevy SXSW road-trip challenge. Needless to say, this city is fired up.

As I watched the #DETChevySXSW hashtag last night, I noticed a little pessimism coming from a single individual that doesn’t quite grasp what’s going on here. I’m not going to repeat what was said, because I think Dave Murr was right when he said that “some insults don’t deserve the courtesy of a response.” However, behind the crass and rude nature of this particular person’s response, a very valid point was brought up. What are we really doing for the city of Detroit?

We certainly aren’t all going to go out and buy a GM product because of this event. We’re not all going to move into an Urbane Apartment, drink wine at Vintner’s Cellar, eat at Olga’s or Panera Bread, or have a coffee at Biggby. While I am sure that these sponsors are happy with the support they are getting from the community, there is much more to this than advertising value. The ROI is much more than the slight increase in business these sponsors may see. These are companies that are investing into the future of this city. They are seeing the big picture. They are witnessing a new renaissance happening right before their eyes, and they want to be a part of it. They are seeing all of the greatest minds in Detroit coming together, dreaming, thinking, building, working and striving to bring hope to a city that has suffered for decades.

Hillary Clinton once said that it takes a village to raise a child. This concept can also be applied towards the rebuilding of Detroit. The village is made up of people, and the city is our child. We own businesses, we spend money on our hobbies, we create, we envision, we teach and we learn. Instead of constantly working against each other for selfish means, we understand that what’s good for the city is good for everyone. Everyone involved with #DETChevySXSW understands that community involvement is essential to accomplishing our goals. When South-by-Southwest is over, the revolution will continue. There will be Future Midwest 2010, TEDxDetroit #2, Ignite Detroit #2, Brand Camp U, Startup Weekend, Tweetea, Social Media Club, etc. etc. etc. and we will continue to work together until this city is back on top again.

There will always be naysayers, and there will always be a negative force working against the progress that is being made. But the progress we are making won’t be invisible forever. Our motivation and our perseverance will spread like an infection through the entire city, until the negative Nancy’s have no other choice but to get motivated, or get left behind in our dust.

I am so proud of the #DETChevySXSW team and Detroit’s online community. There is no doubt that we are making a difference, and we are having a lot of fun in the process. When you see the goofy pictures, crazy videos, karaoke madness and the whispers going around about a group of clinically insane social media geeks that appear to be on drugs, you should now know what’s going on. We are the future of this city, and we’re going to have a good time.

Please follow all of the team Detroit SXSW contestants on Twitter and remember to support the #DETChevySXSW hashtag.

Brandon Chesnutt – http://www.twitter.com/bchesnutt

Audrey Walker – http://wwwtwitter.com/walkerau

Henry Balanon – http://www.twitter.com/balanon

Dave Murr – http://www.twitter.com/davemurr

I am proud to be a part of the inaugural Ignite Detroit! event taking place at the Magic Stick on February 25th. I first attended Ignite Lansing! last summer, and a few of the Detroit-based attendees and I decided we should bring the event to Detroit.

Ignite Detroit is a night of presentations with a twist. Presenting on a subject of their choice, speakers have exactly five minutes to enlighten and inspire their community using twenty slides that auto advance every fifteen seconds. Ignite is quick, fun, and smart.

We have officially launched the Ignite Detroit! web site and we are now taking submissions for presentations as well as looking for sponsors. Tickets are free and will be available after January 29th. Brandon Chesnutt will be the emcee for the event, and my band, Lune Noir, will be providing entertainment for the evening. I hope you will come out to support your community and stimulate the flow of innovative ideas that will one day save our city.

Excuse the poor blog title. I wanted to make it twitter friendly. That’s how lazy I’m becoming. A couple weeks ago I had the pleasure of getting my first radio interview at a college radio station by a good friend of mine. I helped Robo Robb setup his blog, and I also booked him at my Obama Inauguration show. Him and I have become good friends and I hope to work with him a lot in the future. The other DJ is an old friend of mine who is a Reaggae DJ that goes by SAC. Keep in mind that we all went to the same high school, even though I didn’t meet Robb until last year.

I was recently asked to blog for a site called “Modern Anarchy” (http://www.modernanarchy.net) and I accepted the offer because I like the premise. I certainly believe this country needs a lot less laws, so in a way that makes me somewhat of an anarchist. I’m all about rolling back the last 100 years and getting our rights back one at a time. From the Maruahana Tax Act of 1937 to the Patriot Act in 2001, I would support removing hundreds and hundreds of laws from the book that infringe on the constitution and put everyone on a level playing field again. When that movement picks up steam, let me know.

So, for now I’m going to write all of my political commentary at Modern Anarchy and focus more on music here. I will still post links here to articles I write on that site. I would encourage anyone who stumbles across this blog to subscribe to the Modern Anarchy RSS Feed and follow Shaista on Twitter. (@modernanarchy) Shaista is a severe hottie from San Antonio and she converses with people all day on Twitter. What a job. I’m just a big fan of conspiracy theories, especially when they involve the government killing us for profit. If you’re a fan of conspiracies you’ll love it there fo sho.

Last week I had the opportunity to participate in a menu tasting at Olga’s Kitchen in Sterling Heights. Olga’s has always been a Detroit favorite of mine. Their new menu items were very impressive, and I had a great time.

The first time I visited Olga’s kitchen was when I was very young, probably about 9-10 years old. I was on a field trip in Ann Arbor for Future Problem Solving. The experience was very memorable, as it was my first time in downtown Ann Arbor. I was in awe of the place, just walking around downtown, goofing off with my friends and checking out all the shoppes. We went to Olga’s for lunch, and the food was so good that I kept bugging my parents to take me back there for a long time afterwards.

Olga’s is a staple of Michigan eateries, and well known for their founder, Olga, who sported a giant perm in TV ads, even long after they went out of style. They are known for their gyros and Greek cuisine, but they always brought a much better dining experience than your average Greek coney restaurant.

To start out we had a variety of appetizers to munch on. The Snackers seemed to be the favorite among the group, but I was particularly fond of the fried zucchini. It came with some kind of crazy horseradish that was very delish.  The snackers were also very good though and came with Swiss almond cheese.

For our entrees, they recommended that we try their new menu items, which is a line of pita burgers. I had the South of the Border Burger which came with pepper jack cheese, avocado, tomatoes, lettuce and chipotle mayo. I am always a sucker for a burger with avacado and anything chipotle, but putting the burger in a pita instead of the traditional bun made it a delicious remix of the classic hamburger. My second choice would have been the Black N Bleu Burger, which also comes wrapped in a pita and is topped with peppercorn mayo, bacon, carmalized onions and crumbled bleu cheese. Next time I go I’m definitely going to try that one.

For dessert I had one of the most amazing dishes I’ve ever had in my life. They call it “French Toasted Cheesecake.” It was cheesecake, smothered in some kind of crazy noodly thing and topped with strawberry sauce. I have always said that mankind has spent hundreds of years trying to invent a dessert that is better than the chocolate chip cookie, but has failed miserably. Olga’s came pretty close with the french toasted cheesecake, and I will definitely save room for that the next time I’m there.

I got to talk with their social networking guy, and learned some interesting things about the company. They do offer health insurance and retirement benefits to their full-time employees and there are great opportunities for advancement. They do not franchise their stores, so they are able to operate under a more lean management system than your average restaurant chain. In my opinion, this business model allows the company to take better care of the employees at the bottom, and there is a lot to be said for that in this economy. Not that there is anything wrong with franchising, but you can run into situations where some franchises are taking better care of their employees than others.

They are also making very good use of social media, including Facebook and Twitter. Social media is becoming a big part of many Michigan company’s marketing plans, and has made a big impact on the way people do business. Some companies make the mistake of misusing social media, and don’t understand the importance of using it to engage with their customers. Not Olga’s though, they are doing a great job of engaging and interacting with people, hopefully picking up new customers along the way. For a person like me, they are a friendly reminder that they are still here, and I will be visiting them more often because of that.

I’d like to give a big thank you to all of the people at Olga’s Kitchen for allowing us to participate in this menu tasting. It was fun, informative and delicious, and I would recommend them to anyone who is looking to have a good meal and keep their money circulating right here in Michigan’s economy.

It’s been two weeks since I attended Startup Weekend Detroit. (#swd09 on Twitter)I have been meaning to write about it, but haven’t had the time. It was a very productive, “workshop” style gathering of entrepreneurs and social media gurus from around the area that came together to create new ideas for businesses in order to stimulate job growth in the Metro Detroit region.

The group I was involved with, Detroit Sharp (D#), came up with an idea to stimulate Michigan’s music scene by empowering artists and giving them new avenues for generating revenue. The problem we have in Michigan is that good talent tends to leave the state in pursuit of better profits, and in most cases, any profit at all. It is important for musicians to be able to sustain themselves so that they may dedicate their time to their craft, instead of having to pick up a side job to pay the bills.

We will do this by mobilizing artists, bringing the resources to them instead of following the traditional model where profits are funneled down into the record label. Many artists are willing to put in the work that is required to make it in the business, they just need the resources to stay ahead.

Check out our presentation below. If you are interested in getting involved, please visit the Contact page of our web site.

Last night I gave a presentation at a Tweetup at Goldfish Tea in Royal Oak about five free utilities that one can use on their remote web server to provide all kinds of solutions.

• PHP Timeclock – Setup a timeclock for your employees to clock in and out of work through a web browser.
• Wordpress – Blogging platform used by many.
• osCommerce – Full featured shopping cart.
• Joomla! – Complete content management system for building full-featured interactive web sites.
• vTiger CRM – A comprehensive CRM platform.

To illustrate my point, I setup an XAMPP installation on my laptop, with working copies of each of these utilities and loaded sample data. It took me about an hour to do the initial setup for all of these utlities, and I was able to show everyone some of the features and interfaces for them as well. This is mostly just a reference for those who were there last night, but I would encourage anyone who stumbled across this article to check these out.

If you live near Royal Oak, Michigan, or will be in the area in the near future, come check out our tweetup at Goldfish Tea in Royal Oak on Tuesday nights from 7:30pm to 10:00pm, or follow my updates on Twitter for more goings on in the Royal Oak/Detroit Twitterverse.