Event Notices From February 28
Economic Gardening Topic Of SBAM Event In GR: New "economic gardening" resources and programs designed to help small businesses achieve rapid growth will be showcased at a Small Business Association of Michigan event March 20 in Grand Rapids. For registration details, go to http://tinyurl.com/March20SBAM. Sponsored by SBAM in partnership with Crain's Detroit Business, the event will be held from 7:30 a.m. to 10 a.m. March 20 at the Amway Grand Hotel in Grand Rapids. A keynote address will be presented by Mark Lange, executive director of the Edward Lowe Foundation. Panelists include SBAM President and CEO Rob Fowler; Bonnie Alfonso, president and Chief Embellishment Officer for Alfie Logo Gear for Work and Play in Traverse City; and Yan Ness, Chief Executive Officer for Online Tech Inc. of Ann Arbor. Alfonso and Ness will share what they learned from their participation in the Pure Michigan Business Connect Economic Gardening Pilot Program. Tickets are $60, but the price for SBAM members is $30. Plus, SBAM members who purchase a ticket will receive a free one-year subscription to Crain's Detroit Business (a $24.50 value. Must be a new subscriber.) The Title Sponsor for the event is the Michigan Economic Development Corp. Premier Sponsors are Clark Hill PLC and Consumers Energy. The Major Sponsor is Comcast Business Class. The Supporting Sponsor is hiredMYway. The Location Sponsor is the Amway Grand Plaza.
EMU Sets Ethos Week: The sixth annual Ethos Week will be held at the Eastern Michigan University College of Business from March 12-16. The event, the first of its kind offered by any business school in the country, seeks to promote business ethics and to further ethics education. The week starts with the unveiling and signing of the Ethos Banner at 9 a.m. on Monday morning. Then, on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, there will be two speakers per day giving free presentations on ethics in specific disciplines. These one-hour sessions, one held at 11:30 a.m. and one at 5:30 p.m., are held in the College of Business and are open to the public. The capstone luncheon on Friday, March 16, will feature speaker Anton Valukas, chairman of the national law firm of Jenner & Block, who will speak on ethics and the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy case. For a full schedule, and to purchase tickets for the Friday luncheon, visit www.cob.emich.edu.
MCWT looks at ITIL as Platform for Change: On Thursday, March 1, the Michigan Council of Women in Technology will meet on "Using ITIL as a Platform for Change in your IT organization." During this virtual MCWT Lunch & Learn session, attendees will learn what ITIL is, why it matters and how IT organizations are leveraging it to improve themselves. Mike Meers, global ITSM strategy & design manager of Ford Motor Co., will lead the discussion. Meers is Ford's expert on IT Service Management, which is based on ITIL version 3, a worldwide standard set of best practices. He will discuss the impact of ITIL and how Ford and other companies have been applying ITIL concepts to continuous improvement initiatives in their IT organizations. The event will run from noon to 12:45 p.m. Eastern time and is free. No pre-registration is necessary. Instructions for WebEx. A few minutes before the start time, dial into the audio conference at (866) 365-4406, using access code 6036206. Click on this link to bring up the WebEx session in which the presentation slides and chat area will be viewable. The WebEx meeting number is 637 954 207. If prompted, enter your full name and email address. If a password is required, enter "MCWT", then click "Join" and follow the instructions. Add to your Outlook Calendar here.
