“hello hello”

we are relentless
a sea of endless blue and silver
loud and proud
the roar heard around the world
home in the dome
a twelfth man a million strong

we’ve been beat and battered and bruised
but never broken
we always believe

we are eternal optimists
we’ve had to be
we’ve seen flashes of brilliance in the long dark night
Layne and Lane
Barney and Baker and Blades
Sims and Spielman and Sanders
Morton and Moore
but even our shining stars could not end the drought

it was only once we hit bottom that we could begin our ascent

and so we rise
we’ve gone from “Fire Millen” to fired up
from heartbreak to hopeful
from cinch to clinch
Suh and Stafford and Megatron
and a new pride of Lions that don’t know how to quit
even when zebras steal our touchdowns and catches and gains
we’ve never given up
we’ve fought back from impossible deficits
and we’ve made flags rain down like a ticker tape parade
but still, we march
forward, down the field

we are relentless
and this is our time.

We love football.
We love Detroit.
We love our Lions.

#roar

Download a relentless wallpaper over at flickr in Blue or Silver.

TEDxDetroit 2011 by Terry Johnston by Docufest on Flickr.

TEDxDetroit was an absolutely amazing experience.

I laughed. I cried. I left inspired.

I’d love to take the day and read the stream, look at all the photos and respond to all of the comments and well wishes, but I need to through myself back into work at Curve.

Thank you to the talented production team who brought it all to life. Thank you to the speakers who bared their souls while sharing their ideas. Thank you to the sponsors who invested in a little rocket fuel for the creators in this great city. But most of all, thanks to the attendees who came with open minds and left with renewed vigor to put their ideas into action.

Let’s all get out there and make it happen. For ourselves. For our families. For our cities. For the world.

What if Albert Einstein, Willy Wonka, Curious George, R2D2 and MacGyver threw a really big party? They’d invite all of their really cool friends: the artists, the inventors, the crafters, the mad scientists, the happy scientists, the curious, the creators, the hackers, the tinkerers.

Sure, Leonardo da Vinci would be there showing off his new helicopter prototype and Rube Goldberg would be making people laugh with his convoluted contraptions and Grace Hopper would be taking apart all the clocks while writing new computer languages. It would be the kind of place where everyone who’s ever been called weird, crazy or geeky would feel right at home.

Good news: That party is happening this weekend in Detroit.

MakerFaire started out in San Mateo back in 2006. Last year, the party spread to Detroit and New York. MakerFaire is a celebration of crazy ideas and the can-do spirit. It’s now the World’s Largest DIY Festival. A two-day family friendly shindig showcasing invention, creativity and resourcefulness.

Last years event featured Twinkie-powered go-carts and fire-breathing bicycles and car-crushing mouse traps. There were more legos, robots and strange creations then you could arc a Tesla coil at – and that’s not counting the 250 Lobster and Fish that make up the Sashimi Tabernacle Choir. It was a jaw-dropping, inspiring crazy event for our family.

The event is put on by the good folks at O’Reilly Media, the publishers of Make, the journal of the Maker mindset. It’s fittingly hosted at The Henry Ford, where you can tour Thomas Edison’s Menlo Park “idea factory”, Buckminster Fuller’s Dymaxion House or the Wright Brother’s Bicycle Shop.

Saturday Night, O’Reilly is also hosting Ignite Great Lakes, featuring entertaining and enlightening speakers from across the Midwest and Canada. They’re letting me give a talk too. ;)

Overall, it’s a great weekend for Makers and people who #makeithappen. I hope to see you there.

Bonus for Parents: Read “Want Kids to Win the Future? Turn Them Into Makers — and Sci-Fi Fans” by Angela Watercutter in Wired Magazine.

Bonus for TED fans: Watch MakerFaire founder Dale Dougherty deliver “We are all Makers” at TED@MotorCity.

8 TEDx events in Michigan this year

Michigan will be home to 7 inspirational and innovative TEDx events in 2011 — 8 if you count our friends to the south in Windsor.

REGISTER NOW for the second TEDxUofM April 8, 2011
REGISTER NOW for the inaugural TEDxGrandRapids May 12, 2011
Register April 5th for the inaugural TEDxTraverseCity will be held May 17, 2011
The second TEDxLansing will be May 20, 2011
The inaugural TEDxMuskegon will be September 20, 2011
The third TEDxDetroit will be September 28, 2011 (tentative date - website not updated)
The inaugural TEDxWindsorEssex will be in October (website is not live)
The second TEDxFlint will be in October (website not updated)

Please help spread the word to your networks and the public. Let the world know Michigan is home to talented creators, artists, entrepreneurs, designers, geeks, poets, scientists, thinkers and doers.

Follow them all on twitter: @TEDxUofM, @TEDxGrandRapids, @TEDxTVC, @TEDxLansing, @TEDxMuskegon, @TEDxDetroit, @TEDxWindsor and @TEDxFlint.

We’re all from Detroit.

My least favorite argument reared it’s ugly head last night.

The good folks at Operation Kid Equip donated dictionaries and school supplies to a group of under privileged third graders. In an article covering the good deed, one reader was angered that the children lived on the wrong side of an invisible boundary.

“we’re talking about the bad press “detroit” gets, and how much we love “detroit” and how we want to do great things for it and the donating these books to one of the wealithiest counties in the nation? seems like someone wants a big pat on the back without actually having to come up with the monumental task of reaching the kids that are so badly starved for books and learning equipment.”

Obviously for the commenter, not all poor kids are created equal.

It’s an age old debate that has been fueled by small minded people who never found time to read about the Star-Bellied Sneetches from Dr. Seuss. “Detroit is Detroit” some say, putting a line in the sand between the city of Detroit and the suburban neighborhoods outside the city limits. “I’m not part of Detroit, I live in Oakland County,” others boast.

They are both wrong.

Pick up a world map or a globe. When you look at the mitt, you won’t find Troy, Taylor or Trenton. There’s no Birmingham, Brighton or Brownstown. To the outside world, there’s only one city in the great state of Michigan. There is only Detroit. No one hears about the problems in Detroit and says “but things are peachy up in Ferndale.”

We succeed together. We fail together.

No one outside the state sees any difference between Oakland County and Detroit. Just as no one outside of California sees any difference between Orange County and LA.

The “8 Mile to the river” crowd needs to get over themselves. The suburb snobs need to wake up.

We’re all Detroit.

Children, poverty and positive action know no political boundaries. Until we erase the invisible boundaries between the boroughs of the Detroit area, the world will never bask in the light of our promise and our true potential.

Retropost: Say you’re from Detroit

A short intro for session one at TEDxDetroit on powering the world’s economy and telling Detroit’s next great story.

This week, my beloved Detroit Lions rolled out a new team logo. And while their logo was the least of their problems, the new identity gives fans have a new strawman to gripe about now that Matt Millen is gone.

My take? I thought the old Lion was darn near perfect. Clean. Simple. Cool. The new version adds a little more detail and a lot more schmutz. I think the new typeface is a slight improvement. The old font was looking quite dated. The new font looks more modern, but toyish and unprofessional.

Here are my grades: