West

Startups need to think about brands and marketers from day one

Wed, 08/31/2011
 Fred Wilson is a brilliant and accomplished investor. As an outspoken partner at Union Square Ventures, he has established himself as a thought leader in the startup space. Yet, I can't help but disagree with a recent post of his in which he asserts that startups should focus on users first, brands second. While I understand where he's...

The Illinois GOP’s Favorite Physicist

Thu, 07/28/2011
Sweaty-shirted college students dawdled into a lecture hall at Northern Illinois University on a recent weekday, lugging water bottles to manage the heat blanketing the DeKalb campus like fleece. Mike Fortner yanked on a cord, pulling a screen from the ceiling for his presentation on amplifiers and generators. In a wrinkled shirt, loafers and wire...

Green Scene: Eco-minded media duo spreads green message in Chicago and beyond

Thu, 04/28/2011
If you’ve taken a cab ride somewhere in Chicago in the last week or so, you probably had a peek at one of the latest green projects by a husband-wife team that’s cutting a swath in the green lifestyles and business sector in Chicago and elsewhere. Video screens mounted in the backseat of more than 1,000 cabs throughout Chicago are now showing a...

The Public School Probation Maze

Fri, 04/22/2011
Austin Polytechnical Academy, a school established in 2007 to help broaden the West Side community’s academic opportunities and retool perceptions of vocational education, is facing harsh realities as it prepares to graduate its first senior class: lagging test scores, diminishing attendance and dismal reading levels. Last October, Polytech joined...

Inaugural Spenders Will Pay Rahm’s Party Tab

Thu, 04/14/2011
Big-money donors will pay up to $50,000 for exclusive access to premium events celebrating Rahm Emanuel’s inauguration next month, but the public will benefit, too, because those large contributions will also finance free events open to all. The musical group Chicago will headline an inauguration concert at Butler Field in Grant Park on May 14, an...

Emanuel Seeks Donations up to $50K for Inaugural

Tue, 04/12/2011
For a $50,000 donation to Mayor-elect Rahm Emanuel‘s inaugural committee, you can enjoy “co-chair” status and receive four tickets for a concert, a reception, a dinner and the inauguration itself next month. Details of the inaugural festivities — and the prices for access to the events — are listed in invitations that the committee sent this week...

Sometimes a Big-Time Communications Guy Will Actually Communicate

Sat, 04/09/2011
David Axelrod concedes that he has a touch of Potomac fever, a malady in which the victim struggles with the notion that there’s life beyond the nation’s capital. “It’s a narcotic,” he told a Chicago audience last week as he engagingly recounted two years as a top aide to President Obama, his desk just a few paces from the Oval Office. “It’s...

In Dorchester, a House Becomes a Home for Art

Thu, 04/07/2011
The wooden floors of the house at 6918 South Dorchester Avenue came from a West Side bowling alley. The stacks of vinyl records once stocked a Hyde Park record shop, and some of the windows once served as doors in a museum. Viewed from the kitchen, the words “Museum Hours: 9 to 5” run backward across the glass.  The works of the artist...

Emanuel Appears at Rally for South Side Ally

Sat, 04/02/2011
In his first campaign appearance for a City Council candidate, Mayor-elect Rahm Emanuel attended a rally for Ald. Latasha Thomas (17th Ward) on Saturday morning. Thomas faces the first runoff fight of her career Tuesday in the South Side ward. Her opponent in the election is David Moore, a former field director for Thomas’ Democratic ward...