Category: News Blog

Your average video gamer spends about 80 percent of his time failing to reach the all-important next level.

But no matter how many aliens annihilate him, how many racecars run him off the road, or how many enemy soldiers spray his avatar with bullets, that gamer keeps coming back for more.

Katherine von Jan, co-founder and chief creative of Derring-do Design, says tapping in to this deeply ingrained desire to triumph over adversity could help Memphis improve its economic outlook.

von Jan’s presentation was part of an Opportunity Challenge conference today at the Memphis Bioworks foundation that’s being spearheaded by the nonprofit CEOs for Cities and Mayor A C Wharton’s office. The three-day think-a-thon aspires to help Memphis enable and retain young talent instead of losing it to other cities. The conference continues through Friday.

The key to improving Memphis’ economic destiny — where only 24 percent of people have a college education — is to create a system, akin to a game, that encourages even the most disenfranchised citizens to advance through the levels of success, von Jan said. “In gaming, you start from zero and build up.”

Beneath the day’s rhetoric, education surfaced again and again.

Economist Joe Cortwright, president of Impresa Inc. and a senior policy adviser for CEOs for Cities, said college-educated people have higher incomes and spend less time being unemployed during their lifetimes than those with a lower educational level, period. And “what is true for individuals is also true for places,” he said.

While Memphis has lots of things going for it, the city also has disparate pockets of hope and hopelessness that don’t tend to mix. Not only has it been stigmatized in the media, but the city’s own citizenry tends to cast it in an unflattering light, said Andre Fowlkes of the business incubator LaunchMemphis.

“We present Memphis on a garbage can lid,” he said.

Another pressing issue underlying the Opportunity Challenge is the shift to a talent-based economy, or an economy built on new and changing markets or ideas. He who produces the most widgets isn’t necessarily the most successful nowadays. A tanking economy has borne that out.

“That was the sledgehammer to really bring it home,” Fowlkes said.

Since about 20 percent of Memphis’ population lives below the poverty line, with 30 percent younger than 18, and with unemployment in Shelby County at almost 10 percent, it’s time to re-evaluate, or at least understand some things about how poverty affects education.

Laurel Dukehart, president of Gateway to College National Network, said working with poor people who want to succeed has taught her a lot. Most kids drop out of high school or college not because they’re shiftless or stupid, but because of things beyond their control. Try carrying a full course load when you’re broke and your car engine fries or you have to help a bedridden relative who has no access to health care.

“It’s about poverty,” she said. “It’s about a lack of role models.”

While things like access to technology are talent accelerators, things like persistent poverty are talent killers. And the surest way out of poverty is education.

Possible solutions to overcoming local poverty and education issues will be offered Friday morning at Bioworks.

For the first time in more than a month, Memphis Fire Services was able to cruise through a budget request without a single hint of opposition. Fire department director Alvin Benson was all smiles as a result.

This morning, he and his staff requested using $1.5 million from their capital improvement budget to buy land for a new fire station in the Winchester/Hacks Cross area. Members of the city council’s Public Safety & Homeland Security Comittee approved the request unanimously.

Once built, the station will be along Centennial Drive in the Southwind area. It will be financed with general obligation bonds.

In the meantime, Fire Services and its union members are scheduled to appear before the full council later today to resolve, once and for all, their disagreement over buying eight new alternative response vehicles. That conflict began in early January, when the department requested using about $500,000 to buy the vehicles, which officials insist are less expensive to maintain, and more maneuverable, than large fire trucks.

However, members of International Association of Firefighters Local 1784 have objected, saying they would prefer having fully staffed vehicles that can respond to many different kinds of emergencies. The ARVs are only equipped for emergency medical calls, which make up the majority of the fire department’s runs. Underlying the disagreement is a fear by union members that trucks will be put out of service, possibly affecting jobs.

You’ve gotta a love a guy who’s willing to don a fuzzy brown dog costume and spend most of the day in a kennel to drum up community interest in adopting pets.

“At 9:30, we had a line at the front door and a line almost down the street,” said Matthew Pepper, director of Memphis Animal Services.

His idea to wear the dog getup came from a volunteer group and was helped by local media coverage.
By about 3 p.m. today, more than 40 dogs and cats had found homes. All 31 of the dogs specially prepped for adoption today were gone, replaced by a whole new batch of hopefuls not even halfway through the day. Pepper said he was optimistic that more than 50 animals would find forever homes by 5.

He also said he’s tired of the shelter’s former reputation; it’s now a “fun” place. The shelter was raided in the early morning hours of October 2009 — the first day of A C Wharton’s term as Memphis mayor — because of suspected abuse and neglect that led to three dogs being starved to death. A short time later, Wharton fired the previous director.

At least 15,000 animals cycle through the shelter a year, Pepper said. He has no illusions that there will ever be a shortage of animals in need of homes, but if spending a day in a cage helps put a dent in the endless parade, he’s more than willing to step up.

“It’s made a huge difference since Mr. Pepper took over,” said shelter volunteer Ariel Dagastino.

The Real Talk: Youth Violence forum scheduled for tonight at the Benjamin Hooks Library has been canceled due to the snow. It had previously been rescheduled from January 20th due to inclement weather.

Rather than attempt to reschedule again, the event’s organizers are moving the forum online. Click here to take a quick survey asking for your thoughts on how to prevent youth violence. The survey will remain open until February 20th, when the input will used to develop a city/county youth violence reduction plan.

In October, Memphis and five other U.S. cities were chosen to participate in President Barack Obama’s National Forum on Youth Violence Prevention, which is being conducted by the U.S. Departments of Justice and Education.

Since then, the city has formed the Memphis Youth Violence Prevention Policy Council with representatives from more than 20 public and private agencies. The group’s goal is to reduce youth and gang violence while increasing opportunities for youths.

Other cities chosen to participate in the president’s program include Boston, Chicago, Detroit, and Salinas and San Jose, Calif.

“The cities weren’t selected by the size of the problem, but by their willingness to work with the federal government and other factors,” Mary Cashiola, the city’s brand manager, said in an e-mail. “I think our factors were scalability and the collaborations with Operation Safe Community and the business community.”