A few weeks back I posted about my colleague Nic Milani and his belief that a significant part of SE Michigan’s recovery will be based in positive conversations. Dialogues at parties, in restaurants, at bars here in SE Michigan that have zero doom and gloom and all sorts of optimism. I couldn’t agree with him more. If we start believing in SE Michigan and ourselves, then those are the stories the rest of the country is going to start to hear about us — instead of our Kwami junk, miserable economy updates, terrible housing value reports, and so on.
I attended a networking event tonight at The Suburban Collection in Troy. The Suburban Collection is home to the Bentley, Lamborghini, Maserati and Rolls Royce dealerships. There were some seriously nice cars there. There was also some fantastic food, great drinks, a fun photo booth (pix will NOT be posted anytime soon), a ton of giveaways, and (without question, the most important thing on the list) a whole bunch of Metro Detroiters from all sorts of different professions having a fantastic time. There was no gloom and doom that I heard at any of the Red Bull grazing tables, Bombay Sapphire bar, Valentine Vodka bar, or at the Zimba table. There was nothing negative being said at the Dewar’s bar, Quattro dessert table, Cupcake Station treat display, or in the Film Merge interview booth. And there was absolutely nothing negative going on at the Dali station, Gentleman Jack’s bar, or over the Vitamin Water buckets.
Instead there were hundreds of people — some dressed up, some dressed down — having a really good time, smiling, laughing, meeting each other and enjoying the night. A lot of positive conversations were started tonight.
Start your own positive conversation and see where it leads. Tonight for me it led to a few great new metro Detroit contacts and perhaps even a piece of business. But I walked away feeling better about our local area that I have in a while. I believe that’s a mission-critical step for turning things around here. What do you think?
Dorothy – First, just wanted to thank you for the link to my review of Northern Lakes out on facebook. It was a very pleasant experience and my husband has been talking that place up ever since he was consulting here before we moved to the area. It’s me awhile to respond, but I was glad you found the post and hope it helps out the Matt Prentice Group! Your blog and company are also intriguing, and I’ll start following along. In response to this post, I absolutely 100% support events like this, anything to get Metro Detroiters out their engaging and interacting rather than sitting at home watching tv. A few drinks and good eats always helps. We love events like this. Thanks again.