Creative Economy : Featured Stories

There's always something happening on Hennepin Avenue. The wide, lively downtown Minneapolis boulevard has long specialized in entertainment, from the funky to the family-friendly to the high-cultural. Camille LeFevre reports on the kickoff event of an ambitious project that will transform it. The method? Placemaking, with an accent on the arts.

CrashPlan, the backup software from Minneapolis-based Code 42, is a major local tech success. Matthew Dornquast, cofounder of the company, has learned some serious lessons about how to do tech startups--like spending a little more time on details and letting your passion show.

A web site's judgment that Minnesota is "the most hipster state" set me wondering about our homegrown sources of cool. Have we become hip by simply being ourselves?

The hot design-and-marketing shop helps clients win over today's fickle, informed consumers by going way beyond  advertising to create product designs and whole new brands that are too cool to ignore.

Here's a second look at artist-adman Robb Burnham's images of our towns, which we first ran in June: a flute player silhouetted against a towering Gold Medal sign. The orange-lit back door of the Poodle Club. A turreted Saint Paul house with one room illuminated as night comes on. Burnham's drawings capture in a subtle way the soul of our towns.

A hunger for authenticity as well as for good food--that's what's driving the renaissance of the small neighborhood restaurant here, according to star restaurateur Kim Bartmann. And for Bartmann, authenticity goes a lot deeper than you might think.

When Cali Ressler and Jody Thompson got the idea of persuading businesses to give their employees a new kind of freedom--work where and when you like, as long as you get the job done--they hoped the idea would spread around the country and the world. That seems to be happening.

Every summer Northeast Minneapolis struts its artistic stuff at Art-a-Whirl, which bills itself as the largest open-studio and gallery tour in the country, and which highlights the rapid growth of this fine old residential neighborhood into a magnet for artists, gallerists, and edgy restaurateurs. Bill Kelley's images capture the visual--and musical--richness.

For many observers, our high-tech sector is in crisis. There aren't enough angel investors and we've lost our edge. Dan Grigsby, one of the most successful software entrepreneurs in Minnesota, doesn't buy it. In a conversation with The Line, he explains why we don't need to be Silicon Prairie, create the next Facebook, or even worry about venture capital.

On The Line's first birthday, managing editor Jon Spayde takes a moment to reflect on what he's learned about his adopted hometowns in a year. Like the amazing depth of our talent pool, the spirit behind our entrepreneurial energy, and our shyness about self-promotion.

Where Raymond Avenue meets University, artists and innovators have been living and working for decades, lured by cheap rents and a friendly, funky vibe. What will happen to them as light rail comes through, bringing construction disruption now--and an unpredictable development pattern later? The newly formed South Saint Anthony Park Creative Enterprise Zone aims to keep the neighborhood weird--and welcoming.

LOHAS means "Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability"--people concerned with health, the environment, social justice, and personal growth who buy $290 billion worth of goods and services in support of these ideals. The first regional LOHAS conference kicks off tomorrow at the U of M, for merchants, marketers, and others who want to reach these consumers.

Our Resident Tourist continues his exploration of the Twin Cities by dropping in to Ignite Minneapolis, the forum where speakers get five minutes--and not a millisecond more--to excite a crowd with an idea, a vision, a product, or a point of view. Pressure? You bet. Half the audience are Tweeting instant reviews as they listen.

"I basically took what was happening in the Twin Cities creatively and made my own resume," says Kate Iverson, a triple- or quadruple-threat art promoter, gallerist, and online journalist who lives at the hyperspeedily evolving interface of art, design, and social-media communication. We could think of no better person to fill us in on where those worlds meet in our towns, and to let us in on some of her favorite trendsters and Twitterers.

Here's an update on 4Front, the ambitious project initiated by local adman/marketer John Foley to make the Twin Cities a world-class innovation hub by calling international attention to our achievements and persuading top creative talent from around the world to come here to work and live. The means? Annual awards in four major areas of innovation, and a world's-fair-like showcase. Foley and a stellar board of directors are working on funding, planning a fall kickoff event, and mulling a new way to connect prizewinners with the community.