Each month, MiKE is featured on ArtPlaceAmerica.org as part of ArtPlace's national line-up of grantees. This month's blog was about UWM's Design Entrepreneurship Showcase:

Designers are used to working for clients, but there is nothing more freeing than when the client is oneself.

A semester-long project in product innovation provided University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee graphic design students the opportunity to investigate design entrepreneurialism. "The entrepreneurial spirit is built into every designer, whether they realize it or not," says UWM professor Kim Beckmann, who teaches the class along with Associate Lecturer Amy Decker. "Every human is innovative and manipulates their environment to fit their needs, it's instinctual." Beckmann has been developing this unique curriculum for the past six years.

In order to advance the students' abilities in the design process, the focus of the course was on the most critical piece of the design process-identifying and defining a problem. Students spent weeks using behavioral research techniques to gather existing data on local, national and international college campus communities.

Read the full blog 

On January 27th,  OPEN MiKE welcomed Richard Serino, Deputy of FEMA, his Chief of Staff, and a Presidential Management Fellow from Washington, DC. They were in Milwaukee for the launch of the FEMA Think Tank, a forum  to engage FEMA partners, promote innovation, and facilitate discussions  in the field of emergency management.

Essentially, the FEMA Think Tank seeks to leverage talent from anywhere to generate ideas. They're keenly interested in tapping design and technology talent---they believe this valuable resource will help them discover the next great innovation that will strengthen FEMA.

Why Milwaukee?

As MiKE launched, several business leaders saw tremendous value in using MiKE to better understand and leverage technology and to connect with talent. We responded with Made at MiKE, a mix of social and educational sessions for mobile technology. It allowed business leaders to interact with and learn from software designers and developers. We partnered with Bucketworks who was hosting an event called Random Hacks of Kindness (RHOK). RHOK organizes software developers to solve social and/or community problems. The RHOK at Bucketworks was focused on global water and disaster relief problems. Between the two events, business leaders could make valuable connections with talent, learn about emerging ideas and practices, and see innovation in action.

The RHOK focus on disaster relief was the suggestion of Desiree Matel,  the catalyst behind the FEMA Think Tank concept. Matel has established think tank networks in cities across the country. After attending the Made at MiKE and RHOK events, Desiree witnessed the  unique energy and structure made possible by MiKE to coordinate  innovators and generate world-changing ideas. She shared this with FEMA and they were excited to see this for themselves and to launch the National Think Tank Program here.

FEMA is not alone in understanding the potential for design and technology to transform their organization. We're coordinating with a few Milwaukee companies on 'random hack' events to organize talent and generate innovative ideas that address their unique business challenges.  And so the race for talent is on. In addition to rapid innovation, MiKE  brings another opportunity: business-led talent development. That's where the Talent Dividend comes in.  They're helping us coordinate with secondary and post-secondary schools to create career pathways in response to what we're hearing from local business leaders. The Talent Dividend will continue to be a critical component to MiKE's success and  ability to meet these talent needs.

It's an exciting time for Milwaukee!

Thursday, February 16, 2012