Find the NETPODS exhibit at E2Detroit, hosted at Wayne State University on October 8th, 2008! We have a surprise for all that find us and ask about our unique logo. Interested in attending this event? NETPODS has a great discount ready for you! Go to www.e2detroit.com for more information.

 **This just in! Interested in attending E2Detroit? As a community partner of the event NETPODS is able to offer a coupon code which provides a 50% discount on registration fees for the entire day! $75 for entry, breakfast, lunch, cocktail reception and the phenomenal agenda. You cannot beat it! When registering, simply check the box on the registration form labeled Community Partner, type in NETPODS, and your special admission rate of $75.00 (50% off) will apply. **

NETPODS is honored to be a community partner for E2Detroit again this year. This event is amazing and truly helps to grow that enthusiasm about entrepreneurship while providing essential tools and information to the public. E2 is an information-packed event, designed to inspire and offer pragmatic assistance to small business leaders and entrepreneurs. It will take place on October 8th, at Wayne State University, in downtown Detroit.

In addition to provocative keynotes by David Brandon, CEO of Domino’s Pizza, and Mary Ellen Sheets, Founder and CEO of Two Men and A Truck, some of the day’s practical and educational workshops will focus on:

• Michigan Resources: Familiarize and Utilize to Maximize…The Success of Your Business
• The CEO Skillset: Taking It to the Next Level
• The Legal Expert: Protecting Your Business and Its Intellectual Property
• The Art of Sourcing Capital: The Do’s and Don’ts
• and many more!

Take advantage of “early bird” attendance pricing and secure your guaranteed participation in this once-a-year event.

From August 13th through August 31st, delegates can register for $95.00 for the entire day (a 34% savings!). This includes the entire day’s agenda; lunch; and the cocktail/networking reception.

In today’s competitive environment, success comes from being extraordinary. Come and be extraordinary. Click Here to Register Now!

Have you heard of GM’s Chevrolet Volt? If not, you better do your research! There is already a waiting list of over 33,000 people that are signed up to buy this new all-electric car when it is released in 2010.  There was a concept version of the vehicle shown in January 2007 but it appears that GM has changed the image quite a bit!

I saw an add that caught my eye during the olympics, so I guess the advertisers are doing their job!  GM is not trying to keep this quiet like most new vehicles, they are putting it right out there for everybody to see!

The Volt is designed to run for 40 miles on a lithium-ion battery pack that can be recharged in a standard outlet. Considering the gas prices and our market, this is definitely a step in the right direction! Michigan is one of the states with the highest number of interested buyers, but the interest is not limited to just the United States. The list includes potential buyers from 46 other countries! That’s pretty impressive!

If you want to be one of those included on this list,  visit www.gm-volt.com/join-us to get your spot in line!

New equipment for offices is helping employees burn calories while they work. Burning calories while earning paychecks could be a new reality in offices around the world according to Steelcase’s new line of office equipment, FitWork.

The Walkstation is the company’s first product and was featured on “Good Morning America.” It is a cross between a workstation and a treadmill. Not only will employees burn calories and drop pounds while working (up to 57 lbs. a year!), they will also maintain an energy level throughout the day. No more falling asleep of boredom at your desktop! It is also beneficial to the employers who run risks with health-care-benefit costs.

The Walkstation runs at about $4,000, and can be made with the option to sit, stand, or walk. This might be fine for some, but for the rest of us who don’t have $4,000 to invest should look into a design by Anders Burvall who created a mock Walkstation for $49! Now that sounds more like it.

However, the Walkstation is not made to replace daily activity or workouts. So don’t quit your gym membership yet!

Yesterday, at my usual multi-hour trip to Barnes and Nobles I stubled upon a discounted book called, The Good News - from Nostradamus. Is that even possible? Well I guess it is - unfortunately I didn’t have enough interest to pick it up and cash it out. Why do I bring this up? Because it is almost just as unbelievable to hear some good news about Michigan right now. And the sage GLITR reporter, Matt Roush, ushered this morning in at the Alley with just that.

This morning was the EISEM presentations, a group of entrepreneurs who are vying for capital infusion for their businesses. It was great to see passion and frankly a number of quite polished presentations cast out for cash to bite.

But back to Matt - his focus this morning was on the shift of the Michigan economy into the ‘new’ industries sprouting up. Biotech, Green, co-lo / hosting and enterprise software just to name a few. It was refreshing to hear of jobs that are in demand and initiatives that are going on at universities, collaborative organizations and incubators.

At some point someone asked, ‘what can I do to help all of these initiatives’ - his response, ‘pass along some good news’ spread some good news about Michigan. NETPODS made some great connections as well this morning. So you know - maybe this Michigan economy is ready for the technology world that is emerging all around us. It will take some time - but there are some good stories going around if you listen.

Want to learn more about Matt? He’s over at WWJ - and enjoys collecting Michigan technology info for his daily report / the Great Lakes IT Report.

For decades now, the Olympics have always been broadcast on NBC Universal. As we know, though, consumer behavior habits have drastically changed over those decades. According to a recent article from AdvertisingAge, NBC plans to use this year’s Olympic games as a research tool to analyze TV viewers in the modern era.

This project is aimed to help advertisers and NBC to “begin to understand how the viewer is thinking cross-platform”. The goal is to measure how people follow the Olympics throughout the day, through any resource, not just on TV.

They plan to offer a “total audience measurement index across mobile, online, VOD and TV as well as results from an online survey of 500 Olympics consumers each day, checking on the time they spend with different media as well as the time of day and location of their exposure to Olympics programming.” This data could prove to be very helpful to advertisers and TV executives. It is obvious how our society has shifted away from the old fashioned lifestyles we once knew. It will be very interesting to see the numbers that come from this study, especially considering all of the technology that is available to us now!

The 2008 Olympics start on August 8^th and go through until August 24^th