Observations-Engagements

Why Groupon is a perfectly Chicago company

It’s hard not to read about Groupon, currently the most mediafied of Chicago companies. It’s got a What’s Hot tab on TechCrunch. It’s national burger weekend deals made Crain’s and other media, and it’s one of several pre-IPO companies cited as examples of a new tech bubble. Groupon brings a lot of tech start-up luster to Chicago.

All that attention–along with discussing innovation at last week’s MIT Enterprise Forum Chicago Whiteboard Challenge and reading Malcom Gladwell’s May 16 New Yorker piece on the story of creativity and innovation at Apple Computer and Xerox PARC–got me thinking about Groupon and its Chicago location.

Chicago is not technology like Silicon Valley or Boston. There is not the mass of high tech here out there. The mass of innovation in Chicago spans a much wider range of industries, as shown by winners of the Chicago Innovation Awards, now in their 10th year.

Chicago is manufacturing (food, healthcare, drugs), finance (economic thought and trading products), and media-entertainment (Oprah and improvisational comedy).

And retailing.

It’s retailing and advertising I think of when I think of Groupon.

Like Chicago retailer innovators Sears, Wards, and Spiegel, Groupon is a retail sales organization. Like old catalogs of those retailers, Groupon relies on a clever copywriting style for its pitches (not without its critics). It also relies on a savvy sales force (akin to buyers) to source and sell local deals. It’s a direct-response sales organization using email rather than postal mail.

Where else would Groupon be? Not the technology garages of Silicon Valley but the old Wards warehouse in Chicago. As Gladwell suggests with innovation, the new Chicago spirit of progress is a new incarnation of the old.

Tags: economics, innovation, marketing, writing

Ideas for Blood Vessels, Captchas, and Cars Win
2011 MIT Enterprise Forum Chicago Whiteboard Challenge

Winners of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Enterprise Forum Chicago provide additional evidence that innovation is alive and well in Chicago in a wide range of sectors. The three winners spanned medical, internet, and personal services.

The MIT Enterprise Forum Chicago Whiteboard Challenge, now in its sixth year, is an ideas contest, with the winners receiving a share in $5,000 in cash prizes. Ten finalists presented their ideas Thursday May 26. The three winners are:

Blood Vessel “BullsEye” Locator, presented by Colin O’Donovan, won the top prize of $3,000. The idea solves the problem medical professionals have in locating arteries when drawing blood and veins for injecting medicines. The BullsEye device provides a two-dimensional representation of a patient’s arteries and veins, allowing medical professionals to insert a needle tip accurately. Consisting of a disposable patch and a reusable optic sensor, the system uses a “razor/razor blade” revenue model. Income would be generated through sales of the patches. The BullsEye locator is being developed by Vaccess Medical, a group of business, medical, and legal students at Northwestern University.

Fun Captcha, presented by Bryan Arturo, captured the $1,500 second prize. Fun Captcha is designed to make the often frustrating process of entering “captchas” in websites easy and profitable. Websites require humans to enter captchas, distorted text, to prevent spam. The Fun Captcha concept uses questions about images that appear on the screen rather than distorted text. One image could be a product, providing a source of advertising revenue.

I-GO Peer-to-Peer Car Sharing, presented by John Brophy, won the third prize of $500. This idea extends the existing I-GO Car Sharing service, allowing people who own cars to share them with those who don’t. After installing I-GO equipment, the car is registered with the I-GO system and made available for reservations either at home or work, whenever the owner wants. The cost of insurance and gas is included, as they are with I-GO’s own fleet, and profits are split between the vehicle owner and I-GO.

Tags: economics, innovation

The Chicago Payments Information Exchange (CPIX) is live on the Built in Chicago. The group’s purpose is to build on Chicago’s history of innovation in payments and create greater visibility for this financial technology market.

In addition to providing a good overview of treasury management and payments in 2010, they are also good examples of my financial writing–the kind of solid content companies can use in bylines articles, white papers, blogs, and like.

Built in Chicago is fast-growing community that serves as a “resource for “digital professionals” working to build great web and mobile businesses and mind blowing user experiences. ” For details, read this interview with founder Matt Moog: http://bit.ly/fWrnlp (links to Crain’s Chicago Business’ Enterprise City blog).

CPIX is moderated by long-time payments, banking, and payments writer and communications consultant Collin Canright. The group is intended to build a network of financial institutions, payments processors, software firms, and consultants will strengthen this niche in Chicago’s technology community through collaborative communication and help propel its future success.

To join Built in Chicago, visit: www.builtinchicago.org

To view CPIX group content, visit www.builtinchicago.org/group/payments

For more information, contact:

Collin Canright
Principal
Canright Communications
www.canrightcommunications.com

773 248-8935 ext. 9404 (office)
773 426-7000 (mobile)

Corner of Lincoln and Byron, Chicago, March 3, 2010:

From the 66th floor of the Willis Tower on January 21, 2010:

From the 66th Floor of the Willis Tower March 5, 2010:

Tags: Photography

On the wall in the Men’s room at the DAO restaurant in Chicago. Who said state agencies like the Illinois Dept. of Transportation don’t have a sense of humor?

Tags: humor

On Monday, January 4, the first business day of 2010, the Burj Khalifia officially became the world’s tallest building. It’s 169 stories tall and designed by Skidmore, Owings and Merrill (SOM), the same Chicago-based firm that designed the Sears (now Willis) Tower, which opened in 1973 as the world’s tallest building and remains the fifth-tallest structure.

Since its inception, the building was known as the Burj Dubai but, on opening day, took on the name of the ruler of nearby Abu Dhabi, which The Guardian called “a nod to huge bailout by rival Abu Dhabi.”

By comparison, the Willis Tower is almost paltry. The Burj is as tall as a Willis Tower with a John Hancock Tower stacked on top.

I learned that Wednesday, November 25, the day before Thanksgiving at an Economic Development Council luncheon, held at the Tower Club, which seemed like a strange name given that it’s only on the 39th floor of the Civic Opera Building, which is a mere 45 stories tall, less than half the height of the 108 story Willis Tower.

Those facts would normally be irrelevant except that we were listening to Antony Wood , Executive Director of the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat speak on tall building: “Tall Trends in Troubling Times.” As the organization that determines how tall buildings are measured, it’s in the news whenever a new tall building is announced and the inevitable controversy over height ensues. The previous week, for instance, the council changed its criteria for measuring building height, making the Trump Tower in Chicago taller because it could be measured from the walk at the river level, rather than street level.

As an example of how these debates can go, SOM has lobbied for years that the antenna atop Willis ought to count in its height because it is a permanent part of the structure now, not an impermanent antenna. The council disagrees, noting that it has to draw a line–if it measured to the top of the now permanent antenna on Willis it would have to include any antenna. “Where would we stop?,” Mr. Wood asked?

He went on to suggest a few trends in tall buildings:

• The tallest towers have moved from North America to Asia and the Middle East.

• Tall buildings are used primarily for residential and mixed use–originally they were office buildings.

• The agenda for building a tall tower used to be corporate; now it’s municipal. Rather than displaying corporate might, they are status icons for cities competing in the world marketplace.

• Most tall buildings are poor examples of local design and therefore contribute to the homogenization of world city scapes.

• Buildings will get taller and taller–today’s tallest is projected to be the 19th tallest in 2020.

If tall buildings can be designed with more sustainable energy features and community spaces, they may well contribute to solving the world’s need for housing. “Cities can no longer be built on the American model, with a downtown core surrounded by outlying suburbs,” he said.

Given that some 200,000 people a day move from country to city worldwide, it requires a new city of 1 million residents a week to house them.  Going up may make more sense than going out where land is scarce and population exploding. Whether that makes economic sense in the desert of Dubai, which needs neither the housing nor office space, remains to be seen.

Tags: architecture, Burj Khalifa, Dubai

Christina and I spent the end of a snowy day on a date at the Art Institute of Chicago. We met in photojournalism school and without thinking of that tend to visit first the current photo exhibit in the downstairs gallery.

Today we saw the exhibit “C. D. Arnold Photographs of the World’s Columbian Exposition” in the Chicago Cabinet, a series showcasing the Institute’s collection of Chicago photos. These photos are large platinum prints, very sharp of documenting the 1894 exhibition.

C. D. Arnold. Chicago Day, Grand Plaza in front of Administration Building, 1893

In spite of all I have heard about the fair, I had never really comprehended the scale of the project, the size of the space, the massive ironwork of the buildings. Everything was the largest of the time, and everyone in the small studio space with us seemed awed as they marveled at the beauty of the white city in the photographs.

We were struck by the design detail of the entrance of the Transportation Building, designed by Louis H. Sullivan. A note directed us to another current exhibit at the museum, “Apostles of Beauty: Arts and Crafts from Britain to Chicago.” This traces the arts and crafts movement from architecture, furniture, graphic, silverware, decorative arts, and photography.

Blessed Art Thou among Women, a photograph by Gertrude Käsebier, 1899

Some of the furniture from the Prairie School is famous, and I was surprised at how little I liked it. It’s too stick like and boxy and heavy for my tastes. Christina agreed. But we loved Sullivan’s ornamental work and the way he and other artists intertwined natural forms in their designs.

We also liked photography by Alfred Stieglitz and Gertrude Käsebier and the summation of the curators that this period brought together and blurred the distinctions between the fine arts and the applied arts.

We don’t always remember the things that drew us together in the first place.

Tags: Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, design, Photography