Looking back at 9/11: One more casualty
On Tuesday morning, we're back at the White House for a tour arranged by 2nd District Rep. Tammy Baldwin. Her chief of staff, Bill Murat, is accompanying a dozen or so Badgers for the 8:45 visit. We...
View ArticleLooking back at 9/11: Responses to the "Isthmus" essay from Washington D.C.
The following letters were sent in response to an essay by former "Isthmus" editor Marc Eisen about his experiences while visiting the White House during the 9/11 terrorist attacks. His reply follows....
View ArticleMadison's economic future lies along I-94, to Waukesha and Milwaukee
Who knows, but just maybe Madison's future can be found on the first floor of the historic American Exchange Bank on the Capitol Square. Nine info-tech start-ups -- focused on everything from gaming to...
View ArticleJune 20, 2008: Epic geek
In "Epic Tale" in the June 20 issue, Marc Eisen reports on the astonishing success of Epic Systems, the electronic medical records giant located in Verona, and its enigmatic founder and boss, Judy...
View ArticleGov. Walker's fateful decision on rail
What was the single most important decision Gov. Scott Walker made in his first year of office? Hands down, the consensus judgment would be undermining the collective bargaining rights of public...
View ArticleMadison's cultural plan gets it wrong
Anne Katz modestly describes Madison's long-pondered cultural plan as "a beginning point" for giving the arts a more prominent role in Madison life. As chair of the cultural plan steering committee,...
View ArticleWaiting for a new public unionism
Okay, it's over. What next? That's the key question for public employee unions after their recall bubble was popped on June 5. The old liberal regime has been conclusively turned out. The Walker...
View ArticleWisconsin's leadership deficit
In May 2006, the "Harvard Business Review" published a study examining just what the heck corporate second bananas did. Authors Nathan Bennett and Stephen Miles admitted it was kind of weird what they...
View ArticleBendyworks' big idea: Cutting-edge tech firm says we need a downtown Madison...
Tech entrepreneurs Stephen Anderson and Brad Grzesiak hooked up the old-fashioned way -- at a user-group meeting in 2008. Both were featured speakers at the Web 608 gathering. Anderson talked about...
View ArticleWisconsin Democrats need business-friendly progressive like Pat Lucey
The warm glow of the Nov. 6 election will finally dissipate for Wisconsin Democrats next January when the Legislature reconvenes. Politically, the Democrats will be threatened by a Republican...
View ArticleBottling magic at Sector67
What's next for Sector67, the great hacking and tinkering space on Winnebago Street? That's a key question for central Madison's emerging tech scene. Sector67, founded in 2010 by UW-Madison mechanical...
View ArticleThe Madison-Milwaukee divide
What is it about Milwaukee and Madison -- that potent mix of mutual disdain, disregard and ignorance that characterizes their odd relationship? In fall 2011, I found myself mulling that question as I...
View ArticleA failed effort at collaboration between Madison and Milwaukee
There appeared to be a big breakthrough in 2006 in the historic estrangement of Madison and Milwaukee. Through the "M2 Collaborative," Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett and Dave Cieslewicz, then Madison's...
View ArticleWill play for food: Madison needs to get serious about supporting local music
Patrick Breiner, a young sax player who brightened the Madison music scene for three years, packed his bags in August and moved to Connecticut. This was Madison's loss. Breiner came to town after six...
View ArticleMy favorite concerts of 2011: Mahler and Mikrokolektyw, Sinatra and sacred steel
D'oh! I missed the Milwaukee's Symphony Orchestra's Oct. 1 performance of John Adams' "Harmonielehre" because I put down the wrong date on our refrigerator calendar. That was painful because Adams is...
View ArticleMy favorite concerts of 2012, in Madison and beyond
I was gobsmacked and awestruck. Like Richard Dreyfuss in "Close Encounters of the Third Kind", I was in the thrall of a greater power. That was my reaction this fall (and it lingers to this day) to...
View ArticleUW-Madison gets serious about supporting student software developers
So here's the deal: Coupon users are a huge market. Heavy coupon users -- whether they're frugal adults or poor students -- number an estimated 24 million Americans. So what if you had a mobile app,...
View ArticleRemaking the UW
This Oxford-trained evolutionary theorist offers a sweeping take on the trends rattling the UW, that the UW's platform for undergraduate education was breaking apart, the departmental model for...
View ArticleNew coworking space bolsters Madison's tech scene
The tech world is so different from other industries. Can you think of another field where successful companies would rent space in their offices to freelancers working on their own projects? This is...
View ArticleMadison school district in disarray
What's the worst of it? How about the flawed school superintendent search that yielded only one viable candidate? Or Gov. Scott Walker's sneak attack to push school vouchers and privatized schools in...
View ArticleWhy plans to build BioLink -- a key bio-agriculture project -- broke down
Can't really sugarcoat it. The failure of the BioLink project -- an ambitious city-led effort to create greenhouse space for commercializing agriculture research -- is a major setback in the region's...
View ArticleNathan Lustig takes his talent abroad
It's revealing how often Nathan Lustig uses the pronoun "we" when he discusses the tightly connected world of Madison's tech entrepreneurs. Just a tender 27 years old, Lustig ran two celebrated Madison...
View ArticleWhy are there so few women in academia working on information technology?
So what could be cooler than being a young techie in Madison? These prototypical urbanistas " bike-riders, app-writers, coffee-shop habitués and craft beer aficionados " are the exemplars of the young...
View ArticleCresa Madison and 100 State coworking spaces launch downtown
The rise of coworking spaces downtown is solid evidence of Madison's growing tech scene.
View ArticleMadison Children's Museum puts on Girls Only SCRATCH programmng class
Women are rarely found in the tech and entrepreneurial worlds. This is a problem with a complicated answer. But if you have a daughter between 9 and 13, you can do your part.
View ArticleThe Art Commission raises nearly $1 million in venture capital
The always-upbeat entrepreneur Toni Sikes was even more buoyant than usual when I caught up with her driving back to Madison from a Minneapolis board meeting. The cause of her good cheer wasn't just...
View ArticleFormer Rep. Kelda Helen Roys launches online startup OpenHomes
Kelda Helen Roys proves there is life after the Legislature. The former two-term state representative from Madison's north side and its suburban neighbors has thrown herself into a web startup rather...
View ArticleCapitalist with a soul
A preeminent business in Dane County's new economy, Promega is a worldwide technology company that sees its mission as not just making money for its investors but living harmoniously in the natural...
View ArticleMark Bugher urges Wisconsin Legislature to avoid criminalizing stem cell...
You'd be surprised at what Mark Bugher, the retiring director of the University Research Park, tells state lawmakers when they ask what they can do to help. Bugher doesn't cite any big spending...
View ArticleUW-Madison campus tech pursuits on upswing
Well, this is a big breakthrough for young Madison techies. A New York venture capital firm is pledging to invest up to $500,000 over the next three years in early-stage UW-Madison startups.
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