Twelve Month Goals

In the past few years, Wagner Design Associates has significantly progressed from a sole proprietorship to a partnership with seven employees. Founded more than 20 years ago, the firm is clearly not on a rapid growth path. Rather they view their small size as an advantage. It allows them to more closely interact with their clients.

The firm adapts to client needs by pulling from its network of collaborators. They provide additional staffing as required. They also allow the firm to stay current with technology by supplying a pool of people familiar with the latest trends. It's worth noting that Wagner Design Associates became a partnership in part by incorporating one of its longtime collaborators, Kathy Roeser.

Anan Ameri, director of the Arab American National Museum, lived in Jerusalem, Jordan, and Lebanon before coming to the Detroit area. Highlights from this segment include:

• Anan obtained her doctorate from Wayne State University and briefly taught at the university level.
• Anan decided she was most comfortable doing community work. This work involves harnessing networks of people to get to a common goal.
• She views the establishment of the Arab American National Museum as the crowning acheivement of her career.
• In the near term, she is looking to expand the current location's square footage. She would also like for more traveling exhibits to originate from the current museum.
• Ultimately, she sees no reason there could not be multiple, affiliated Arab American National Museums established around the country.

As Mark Ford, Principal, Deloitte, shares in this segment (download 7 minute iPod compatible video, 34MB), Deloitte's privacy and security practice is growing in excess of 30% per year, and the firm expects this rate to continue through 2010. An issue with this kind of growth in demand is how to add quality capacity to meet it.

Deloitte's strategy consists of a mixture of internal growth and and acquisition. Recently, the firm acquired Iditarod Systems, a McLean, VA based firm in the identity space. Iditarod has a similar culture to Deloitte's and brings a valuable technical focus to the table.

At Michigan Innovators, we tend toward Larry Schmitt's definition of innovation, i.e., a change that is accepted by the market place. In the case we have been discussing in this series of segments, Deloitte perceived a decade ago that the Internet would bring a whole host of access and security issues to its traditional corporate clientele. The rapid growth of Deloitte's Internet security related practices bears witness to the scope of change taking place in that market place.

(n.b., As used in this article, "Deloitte" means Deloitte & Touche LLP, a subsidiary of Deloitte LLP. Deloitte's site (www.deloitte.com/us/about) outlines the legal structure of Deloitte LLP and its subsidiaries.)

The main message that John George wants to send over the next month is that Detroit is working together to solve its problems (download 3.5 minute iPod compatible video, 17MB). Among his specific goals, he wants to turn Blight Busters' neighborhood into the Detroit arts district. To that end, he has partnered with the Motor City Theatre Organ Society to restore the Old Redford Theatre and has plans to refurbish the 350 seat theater in the third floor of his headquarters. Combined with the existing Artist Village and the upcoming Motor City Java Cafe, these initiatives should create a critical mass to bring more culture and development into the area.