Michigan has Raw Creative Talent!

The State of Michigan has been exporting amazing talent for years. You know many of our clan by name: Francis Ford Coppola, Chris Van Allsburg, John and Thomas Knoll, William Boeing, Larry Page, and Jerry Bruckheimer to name a few. Heck, even Magic Johnson is from Michigan! (If your interested, you can find more talented Michiganders here, some entries on wikipedia, and even more at the State of Michigan Website)

What about companies? Sure we have lots of automotive, but there is lots more that you might not realize call Michigan home. Weather Underground, Pulte Homes, ePrize, Borders Books, Compuware, Gerber, Kelloggs, Carhart, Dow Chemical, Whirlpool, La-Z-Boy all call Michigan home. With Jets Pizza, Little Ceasers, Dominos, and Hungry Howies, maybe we are the Pizza capital of the world? Did you know thatHerman Miller, the company that makes those really cool Aeron chairs, is also headquartered in Michigan!!? (Can't get enough?..click here for a long list)

There is a lot happening in Michigan. We've got creativity, entrepreneurship, drive and curiousity oozing from our skin. Its in our blood. We are planting seeds in the next generation of creatives, and watering them like crazy. We haven't put the old folks in homes yet, thats just because they are still kicking out faboulous work.

What we need is you.

Yes, you. No, not that guy over there. You! Its time for you to find out more about Michigan, to see what makes us tick. Why? Because your next gig might be here. Or maybe you need what we have. I'll leave that up to you. Just check Michigan out, you'll be suprised.

How do you find out more?

Start by checking out SEMAFX and the State of Michigan's Economonic Development and Tourism websites. You can send us an email. Need to talk to someone directly? Jacob Pollak of the Detroit Creative Group has volunteered to answer his phone (313.670.7495) if you call.

I'm from Michigan, how can I help?

Get in contact with us. Let us know what you can do. Also, add yourself to the Detroit Creative Technology Office's newly formed Creative Technology Directory (its free).

Sponsors, Organizations, and other info.

SEMAFX: The ACM SIGGRAPH Professional Chapter of Southeast Michigan (SEMAFX) is a non-profit computer graphics community of creative professionals, teachers, students and hobbyists involved in the digital arts and related media fields. SEMAFX's mission is to enhance the local digital arts industry, encourage communication, educate and network the workforce, and increase awareness of the capabilities of Michigan's digital creative resources. Since its inception in 1998, SEMAFX has held monthly events, supported charities and scholarships, mentored kids, and built relationships with area colleges and digital media and technology companies. Members gather at events to share ideas, tips and techniques- and to discuss issues facing our local and national markets. SEMAFX was awarded a Certificate of Appreciation from the mayor of Detroit for organizing the 2006 Creative Congress.
SIGGRAPH 2007: Annual conference on computer graphics convened by the ACM SIGGRAPH organization. The first SIGGRAPH conference was in 1974. The conference is attended by tens of thousands of computer professionals, and has most recently been held in Boston. Past SIGGRAPH conferences have been held in Dallas, Boston, Seattle, New Orleans, San Diego and elsewhere across the United States.
ACM SIGGRAPH: SIGGRAPH is the Special Interest Group on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques, an interdisciplinary community interested in research, technology, and applications in computer graphics and interactive techniques.
ACM
: Founded in 1947, ACM, the Association for Computing Machinery, is an international scientific and educational organization dedicated to advancing the arts, sciences, and applications of information technology. The world's first and largest educational and scientific computing society, ACM serves a membership of more than 80,000 computing professionals in more than 100 countries. www.acm.org
Chrysler Group: The Chrysler Group is leading the development of Automotive CGI with the use of their virtual fleet. They are launching a website, www.thecgizone.com to extol the virtues and significant cost savings of repurposing their digital assets for a variety of marketing and branding applications.
Armstrong White: Armstrong White is a visual communications company that has evolved from a high-end retouching and special effects group to a brand driven design studio to one of the most capable visual 3D entities in the country. They specialize in rendering reality out of automotive 2D and 3D assets and digital landscapes for print, broadcast and interactive mediums.
Realtime Technology AG (RTT): Realtime Technology's main activities arise directly from the use of virtual reality applications in industry for the automobile, aviation and engineering core markets.
LaDriere: LaDriere is a CG studio providing retouching, 3D CGI and animation.
The Detroit Creative Group: The Detroit Creative Group seeks to provide marketing based multimedia solutions by focusing on building strong brands and relationships with customers, employees, and partners.
Right Hemisphere: Right Hemisphere is the leading provider of enterprise product communication and collaboration solutions enabling manufacturers to optimize their global product development launch and support processes.
Bunkspeed: Bunkspeed was founded in November of 2002 with the philosophy that visualization software should be easy to learn and simple to use, which they have delivered in UDRIVE. They are privately owned and financed. At the core, they are a passionate software development team dedicated to solving specific challenges in the automotive design industry.
Baditoi Photographic: Baditoi Photographic has over 30 years of experience shooting custom photos and providing finished photographic imagery for custom publishers, design firms and magazines. Baditoi Photographic provides images to the creative world to satisfy their insatiable appetite for quality custom photographic eye candy.
Autodesk: Autodesk, Inc., a Fortune 1000 company, is a software and services company for the manufacturing, infrastructure, building, media and entertainment and wireless data services fields.