If you had five minutes on stage what would you say?  What if you only got 20 slides and they rotated automatically after 15 seconds?  Around the world geeks have been putting together Ignite nights to show their answers.

Ignite was started in Seattle in 2006 by Brady Forrest and Bre Pettis.  Since then 100s of 5 minute talks have been given across the world.  There are thriving Ignite communities in Seattle, Portland, Paris, NYC…and now Ann Arbor.

Join Ignite Ann Arbor tonight, June 30, 2009, at 7:00 pm, at The Neutral Zone, to celebrate the best of Ann Arbor’s art/tech/design/geek community.

The line up:

• Eli Neiburger: Hack your Library
• Matt Oishi: Neutral Zone teen and electronic music whiz
• Dianne Marsh: Under-representation …read more
  

From the front page of Crain’s Detroit Business:

The pool of investment money available to local startups and young high-tech companies is about to get larger.

Detroit-based Great Lakes Angels has joined forces with angel groups in Toronto and London, Ontario, and with the University of Windsor to form Nouveau Angel Capital Corp., which hopes to raise $20 million to invest in early-stage companies in Southeast Michigan and southwestern Ontario.

The company has started the process of being listed on the venture exchange of the Toronto Stock Exchange and hopes to be trading by the end of the year. It grew out of a meeting the Great Lakes Angels held last June at the Grosse Pointe home of Canadian …read more

CBS Interactive Inc. v. National Football League Players Association is the most recent case permitting the commercial use of professional athlete’s names and statistics without permission.

CBS Interactive operates the website CBSSports.com.  The NFL Player’s Association acts as the exclusive collective bargaining representative for active players in the NFL.  Among other things, the NFLPA has the right to license the use of the individual players’ names, signatures, facsimile, voices, pictures, photographs, likenesses, and biographical information in connection with “group licensing programs” involving six or more players (e.g., fantasy sports, video games, etc.).  NFLPA assigned this right to Players, Inc. in exchange for royalties.  Players, Inc. in turn licenses this right to companies like CBS to use in programs such …read more

A few of new business incubators have surfaced in the last few months — which is welcome and encouraging news.

The first is North Woodward Tech Incubator started by Troy-based patent law firm Young Basile Hanlon MacFarlane & Helmholdt P.C. They recently signed up their first tenant and there’s room for three or four more technology startups in dedicated, rent-free space at the firm.

Another is TechArb, a group of 30 student entrepreneurs, running 10 different startups, sharing a small-business incubator in the basement of a downtown Ann Arbor building.  The space came together with the help of Ann Arbor venture capital firm RPM Ventures, the University of Michigan College of Engineering’s …read more

A simple concept: startup culture in cities around the world gathers around a bar to have a pint and discuss what they are working on, what they need help with and what they can do for each other.

- startupdrinks.com

Ann Arbor started a chapter earlier this year.  Now it’s Detroit’s turn.

Tim Aten (Futuramic Media) and I are kicking off Detroit Startup Drinks.  Our inaugural event is June 24, 2009 from 6-8 p.m. at Cliff Bells (2030 Park Avenue, Detroit, MI 48226).  Cliff Bells was good enough to provide us with a 25% off drink special to get things started.

Come on down and …read more