NewOrleansCityBusiness.com: N.O. businesses turn to entrepreneur event for boost

The local business community is calling it a Jazz Fest for entrepreneurship.

The second annual New Orleans Entrepreneur Week, to be held March 20-27, will bring in speakers such as Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, New Orleans Mayor-elect Mitch Landrieu and Tulane University President Scott Cowen — as well as representatives from companies like Google, Deloitte and Salesforce.com — to lead 9,000 hours of business model workshops and seminars with local businesses.

The week will be, on one hand, a gathering of top-notch entrepreneurial resources and……

Full article here

FastCompany.com: Why You Should Start a Business….. in New Orleans

Chris Schultz, president of Voodoo Ventures, sits down with FastCompany.com to talk about New Orleans being a center of entrepreneurial activity.

Full length article here

NOEW 2010 Press Conference Pictures

Once again, thanks to everyone who came out. I’m sure there are many more pictures we can add to this gallery but these were the ones I could easily upload from my phone. Who do you see? Where you there?? Enjoy!!

For more information on New Orleans Entrepreneur Week, please log on to our website NOEW.org and follow us on Twitter @NOEW2010.

ITS HERE!!! New Orleans Entrepreneur Week 2010 Unveiled

If you were anywhere near The Idea Village headquarters today, it was obvious that IT’S ON IN NOLA!!!!

Today at 3PM, business, political and community leaders from every corner of New Orleans converged on The Idea Village for the official launch of New Orleans Entrepreneur Week 2010. Speakers included Tim Williamson, Kurt Wegel, Mark Romig and our good friends from Naked Pizza.

We would like to thank everyone who came out and we look forward to working even harder to identify, support and retain entrepreneurial talent in New Orleans!!

For more information on NOEW2010 please log onto our website NOEW.ORG and be sure to follow us on Twitter @NOEW2010..

New Orleans Entrepreneur Week Unveiling

We will be streaming the official unveiling of NOEW here at 3pm. You can watch the video on our Ustream page at 3pm Central.

Watch NOEW Press Conference

New Orleans Entrepreneur Week 2010 Launch – IT’S ON IN NOLA

On Friday, March 5, at 3pm, The Idea Village and a collaboration of partners and entrepreneurs will launch New Orleans Entrepreneur Week ’10.

Join us at The Idea Village, 515 Girod Street,  for brief remarks and an unveiling of the all-star lineup, followed by a meet-and-greet with entrepreneurial participants.

With an unprecedented Super Bowl win, energetic Mardi Gras celebration, and unrivaled entrepreneurial energy, IT’S ON IN NOLA. Get ready….

From March 20-27, 2010, The Idea Village is hosting the New Orleans Entrepreneur Week (NOEW), which marks the culmination of the Idea Village’s year round program that identifies, supports and retains entrepreneurial talent in New Orleans.  For one week, our nation’s most entrepreneurial minds congregate in New Orleans to provide strategic resources to local startups, celebrate the city’s progress, and further establish New Orleans as a nationally significant center for innovation and entrepreneurship.

Downtown New Orleans will become an entrepreneurial village, from The IP building to the World War II Museum and the Contemporary Arts Center.  A collaboration of local and national partners will build on the groundswell of entrepreneurial activity, a Super Bowl win, and an historic mayoral election.  Together, New Orleans is accomplishing what the world thought impossible, driven, in part, by a creative class of innovative, passionate entrepreneurs.  New people and new ideas are helping to establish a ‘new New Orleans.’  New Orleans Entrepreneur Week seeks to celebrate and support the emergence of this newer, better city – engaging the nation’s best and brightest to provide business strategy to local entrepreneurs and immersing them in the unique experience that is New Orleans.

Putting the C in Culture

After reading this article on Entrepreneur.com, I couldn’t help but think of my old college Professor George Howard. He was all about creating cultures and getting the right people on the bus to accomplish goals. After being apart of start-ups and trying to start two businesses myself, I couldn’t agree more with how important it is to have a proactive culture inside of your organization. With the right people on board you can accomplish your goal; but when those people all have the right attitude you can accomplish ANYTHING!!

You can check out the article here.

Connecting bright minds to promising businesses

New Orleans Entrepreneur Week is fast approaching … are you ready??

One of the highlights of Entrepreneur Week: the University and Corporate Team Challenge.

The challenge is based on the success of IDEAcorps, founded in partnership between The Idea Village and Tulane University in 2007.  In a unique model of experiential learning, leading MBA students and professionals address  business challenges facing high-impact entrepreneurs in New Orleans. Amidst the cultural backdrop of a week-long immersion program, teams experience the laboratory of social, physical, and economic transformation that characterizes New Orleans.

MBA teams will work with their assigned business in overcoming challenges in brand management, sales, marketing, distribution and pitch preparation. Overcoming these challenges together will help accelerate the growth of pivotal high-impact entrepreneurs in New Orleans and will give MBA teams the opportunity to  gain valuable “real world” experience.

2010 University Teams:

NOLA Couture - Team Kellogg (Northwestern University, Kellogg School of Management)

Schedulist – Team Cornell (Johnson School at Cornell University)

TuttiDYNAMICs – Team Booth (The University of Chicago Booth School of Business)

Repurposing Nola - Team Berkeley (Haas School of Business, University of California Berkeley)

Drop The Chalk – Team Stanford (Stanford University Graduate School of Business)

Sustainable Environmental Enterprises and Organic Farms and Local Foods – Team New Orleans (University of New Orleans Graduate School of Business, Tulane University Freeman School of Business, Loyola University Joseph A. Butt College of Business)

We’ll be taking a look at each business, entrepreneur and MBA teams more in depth and blogging about how they will be working together.

So until then… remember:

IT’S ON IN NOLA!!!

The Impact of Entrepreneur Week on New Orleans

We all get excited for Jazz Fest and Essence Fest and this fest and that fest but this is the one “festival” that can impact economic sustainability in our city, not just during the 7 days that its taking place, but for a very long while into the future.

Over the course of seven days there will be a gathering of MBA students, CEO’s, founders, start-up entrepreneurs, seasoned entrepreneurs, and investors from all around the country, all in New Orleans all at the same time! They will experience our culture, meet our people, taste our food, feel our tradition, and take note of our progress. They will also see our problems and our wounds, but the biggest difference is that these aren’t the types of people who drive to brick walls and decide to turn around and go home…. NOOOO WAY!!! These are the types of people, who for years and in the coming future, drive to that wall, study it for 10 minutes, make a call or two, discuss their options, finances and time constraints, make a decision, and blow that wall right out of their way.

So in the upcoming days as we post more information about NOEW 2010, The Idea Village and the cool entrepreneurs who make this city great, know that you are taking part in a special and historic time in our city.

And remember:

ITS ON IN NOLA!!

-WHO DAT!

New Orleans awarded $45 million federal stimulus grant for new streetcar service

The federal government awarded New Orleans a $45 million stimulus grant for a new street car line, one of 51  grants issued nationwide with a preference to “creative projects” that could increase business development while increasing public transit options.

“Winning this grant is a testament to what’s happening here in this city as a whole, building back greener, building back better,” said Julie Schwam Harris, Nagin’s director of intergovernmental relations. “And getting, in this very competitive environment, such a large amount of funding from this grant, shows that they believe in what we’re doing here. That we’re doing things better.”