The Renaissance – A Milwaukee Documentary

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Tom Daykin writes about a film that documents that restoration of Milwaukee’s Renaissance Building.

“The Renaissance,” a one-hour documentary by independent filmmaker Chris Smith, features interviews with about a dozen people who operated businesses at Heartland’s Renaissance building, 309 N. Water St. Most of those businesses featured in the film – including Smith’s film production company – have since moved out.
Smith said the film discusses the sense of community that existed among the 19th century building’s arty businesses, which also included ad agencies, a recording studio, and a graphics design firm. The film focuses on how the remodeling work affected that community, including reactions of some tenants who face the prospect of leaving the building – and their friends, Smith said.

Joyce Berg Interview

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The Motley Fool interviews Joyce Berg, director of the Iowa Electronic Markets:

The Iowa Electronic Markets are real-money futures markets in which contract payoffs depend on economic and political events such as elections. These markets are operated by faculty at the University of Iowa Tippie College of Business as part of our research and teaching mission.

Interesting stuff.

Lessig @ Bloggercon

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Larry Lessig welcomed Bloggercon participants to Stanford Law School this morning with a useful comment (I’m paraphrasing):

“In normal times, people come to univerisities to learn things, these are extraordinary times: Universities, Chicago, Harvard, Northwestern don’t have a clue – we need to go out and find things.

Check the bloggercon site for mp3’s later.

Lands End Parent Sears Stock Jumps on Vornado’s Ownership Disclosure

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Dodgeville based Lands End parent Sears’ stock rose 23% today based on news that Vornado Realty Trust has acquired a 4.3% in the retailer, in an apparent real estate play, according to Constance L. Hays:

In July, Vornado began buying Sears stock as well as derivatives held by a bank. Its move seemed to suggest that Sears might be worth more as a collection of real estate holdings than as a purveyor of clothing, housewares and other goods. Sears owns about 60 percent of its 870 Sears stores, a spokesman said, and leases the rest. There are also 1,100 independently owned and operated outlets for appliances and tools.

Sonoma Apple Farmer on their declining market

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George Snyder:

Walker and his extended family — kids and grandkids who help him with the annual apple harvest, which is just winding to a close — are among the last of a hardy breed who for decades put Sebastopol and the fertile hills surrounding the town on the map as the apple capital of the world.
“Thousands of tons of apples used to be shipped out of Sebastopol all across the country,” said Walker, who produces about a thousand tons and 25 varieties of the fruit annually, 70 percent of it processed into juice or vinegar and apple sauce, with the rest sold as fresh fruit. “I grew up with my dad raising apples,” he added, “and it’s very difficult to keep up changing amid all the changes. There’s been a tremendous change in the last 15 years in terms of keeping up with regulations and agriculture and the markets,” he said.
“There used to be a lot of people to sell to, like food stores, but a lot of the chains have consolidated and often demand more volume than many growers can provide. There’s been a disruption of the whole industry,” he said.

Save Obsolete Business Models of the Traditional Phone Companies

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From “the Empire Strikes Back” department, Tuesday’s tri-cities referendum on a municipal fiber to the home plan for three Illinois cities (Batavia, Geneva and St. Charles) was defeated, largely, according to Northwestern Business Professor James Carlini by a massive misinformation campaign, funded by the incumbent telco’s:

?According to SBC and Comcast, virtually 100 percent of the region can sign up for DSL and access the Internet via cable modems. In addition, T-1 service is available to businesses throughout the Tri-Cities over existing telephone lines and wireless service is available from several dealers.?
T-1 service has been around for years. To be accurate, the first T-1 circuit was put into service for Illinois Bell in 1963 in Skokie, Ill. We?re not talking about what could be available today. People aren?t looking for 1.544-megabit service if 10-gigabit service is available.
Bast?s small knowledge of network technology seems to have been spoon fed to him by SBC and Comcast. His arguments lack depth of knowledge and it?s very clear from his position paper that he doesn?t know much about fiber-optic capabilities once they are in place.

Carlini also notes that local journalists ran with the wrong message… Read the article here. James Carlini links. Working on the road recently, a group adjacent to me was discussing Verizon’s larger than expected subscription success of their fiber to the home initiative….. Our politicians need to push the SBC’s of the world, or more practically, truly open the networks we all paid for.