Entrepreneurship : Featured Stories

It's weathered industry exoduses and foreclosure--but now the proud old East Side Saint Paul neighborhood is home to a hot new bar/restaurant, Ward 6, that's both a sign of, and a force in, a wider renewal. 

This week: You've heard of "yarn bombing," knitting as a kind of graffiti (knitted cozies around trees and phone poles, yarn symbols strung through the links of chain-link fences, etc.). But how about knitting as out-there performance art? Our most fabulous local yarnmeister, StevenBe, will be doing just that on March 23rd. How will he turn knitting into performance? By weaving in stories--yarns?--from his glamorous life.

Last Wednesday's kickoff event for the linkup between the search-engine giant and the local coworking space was full of energy, ambition, and promise for local entrepreneurs, some of whom think Silicon Prairie's ready to bloom.

The University of St. Thomas's Minneapolis campus is home to a quiet program that's incubated and helped fund some of the Twin Cities' most prominent (and promising) tech startups--including several run by women. It's a place where professors turn into business advisors and colleagues and the help just keeps on coming.

In A Line or Two, I share some of my enthusiasms and discoveries as I make my way around the Twin Cities. Call it an editor's note as blog entry. This week: A multi-everything hip-hop/spoken word extravaganza organized by our coolest Lao-American diva and sponsored by the lovable Saint Paul Almanac.

In A Line or Two, I share some of my enthusiasms and discoveries as I make my way around the Twin Cities. Call it an editor's note as blog entry. This week: A design-y, extremely Parisian patisserie on Saint Paul's Grand Avenue serves up traditonal pastries--and a Franco-Minnesotan hybrid.

When globetrotting dancers and choreographers Uri Sands and Toni Pierce-Sands, formerly of the Alvin Ailey company, decided to establish a new kind of multicultural dance school in Saint Paul, they knew where they wanted it to be: along the Central Corridor in the heart of the city.

The bars and restaurants in this uber-trendy corner of downtown Minneapolis draw national attention. Meanwhile, developers, community groups, and residents are turning the surrounding neighborhood into a pleasantly dense, lively, and livable urban village.

As a college student, Emily Torgrimson wanted to help with Hurricane Katrina relief. She cooked dinner for friends and collected donations. Seven years later, she's got a national nonprofit on her hands, with coverage on the Today show and plans for a nationwide trailer tour.

From our friends at Minnesota 2020, a video about how immigrants and their needs and preferences are helping Minnesota farmers develop new crops and new markets.

On December 7 and 8, Minneapolis' Midtown Global Market turned hyper-crafty as 96 hand-makers of beautiful, funny, and freaky objects gathered to sell their wares. It was more than a holiday craft fair--it was a celebration of the Twin Cities as a leader in the new crafts movement. Our photographer, Bill Kelley, was there.

In A Line or Two, I share some of my enthusiasms and discoveries as I make my way around the Twin Cities. Call it an editor's note as blog entry. This week: Papaya salad, purple rice, or pho with your pizza?

Saint Paul's WomenVenture helps woman-run startups get off the ground with a potent mix of feminist spirit, microlending, and business incubation. But as its clients testify, it's the group's commitment to ongoing support that sets it apart.

Shops that pair high-end coffee with edgy, adrenaline-boosting activities are becoming a Twin Cities hallmark. We've got coffee and motorcycles (Bob's Java Hut), coffee and serious biking (Angry Catfish), and now coffee and that artistic test of pain-endurance called getting serious tattoos.

The education innovators behind this charter school are hoping to create a 21st-century fusion of classroom and digital space, where kids' fascination with technology helps them learn--at their own pace.