Home » Search

Search Results

13964 results for 'articles'

To refine your search through our archives use our Advanced Search

SPORTS: AFC title game is a big event in a land of big events

There is conjecture that the hosting of the AFC Championship game between the Indianapolis Colts and New England Patriots is the biggest/greatest/most significant-choose your superlative-sports-related event in the city’s history. That got me to thinking. Is it greater than the 1911 Indianapolis 500, which led to the other 88 500s that, in their current form, generate far more annual economic impact than even a Super Bowl? Is it greater than the 1946 Indianapolis 500, when Tony Hulman took ownership of…

BULLS & BEARS: Are ingredients in place for a market ‘melt-up’?

A couple of years ago, I quoted legendary market analyst John Mendelson, who predicted the “mother of all short squeezes,” causing a market “melt-up.” So far, nobody would say we’ve experienced anything resembling a melt-up. In the two years since Mendelson’s report, I haven’t seen the words “melt-up” used. That is, until the last couple of weeks, when I saw it twice. In early January, Barron’s columnist Michael Santoli was describing the state of the market. He said valuations by…

RETURN ON TECHNOLOGY: We need less of ‘cool’ and more of ‘can do’

I’ve been accused of being both technology-besotted and technology-averse. I’m neither one. I’m just interested in using technology in appropriate ways. I’m fond of reminding people that a pair of scissors is perfect for a job that a pair of scissors can do. Scissors don’t need Tim Allen-style enhancements. An example popped up from reading “The Soul of a Chef,” by Michael Ruhlman, where I ran across the statement by a young chef that a computer system made the difference…

Successful software veteran forms investment firm: Mark Hill’s $5 million underwrites startup BlueLock

When local IT entrepreneur Mark Hill sold his banking software company in August 2005, he emphasized the potential upside for the area entrepreneurial community. Now he’s making good on his word. Not content to bask on a beach somewhere, Hill has organized an Indianapolisbased private investment company called Collina Ventures. With $10 million under management-all provided by Hill-Collina already has made its first investment. This month, it risked $5 million in startup cash to organize Indianapolis-based Blue-Lock LLC, a computer-hosting…

SURF THIS: A revolutionary site for a revolutionary product

The year started off with a bang for the arguable leader of industrial design, Apple Inc. At the annual MacWorld expo, Apple CEO Steve Jobs prowled the stage in his normal turtleneck-andjeans combo and literally changed the game for wireless phone companies around the world. Jobs was demonstrating the new iPhone, Apple’s first entry into the ultracompetitive market with razor-thin margins. Why would Apple, which has long been a bit player in the computer industry as far as market share…

Neighbors examine the BioCrossroads’ approach: Collaboration, not competition, now key for Midwestern life science industry

Five years ago, when the BioCrossroads initiative debuted, pundits compared its challenge to a foot race on a track crowded with competitors. And they noted a handful of traditional biotech hub cities like San Diego or Boston enjoyed a huge head start. Today, a better analogy might be a rising tide that lifts all boats. “The pie is getting bigger. It’s not a zero-sum game,” said Walt Plosila, vice president and leader of the technology partnership practice for Columbus, Ohio-based…

Flurry of fitness chains takes aim at Indianapolis

At least five companies are scouting locations for dozens of new health clubs in a blitz that could help the city shed its
reputation for high rates of obesity. The fitness club business is booming nationwide, and several chains are betting Hoosiers
are among those looking for more convenient opportunities to get in shape.

CHRIS KATTERJOHN Commentary: Greetings from Indianapolis South

NAPLES, Fla.-Here I am more than 1,000 miles from Indianapolis and yet feeling right at home. Seems like everywhere I turn, there are signs of the city. The first night I was here, I ate dinner at a restaurant where six Indianapolis people I know were sitting at the table next to ours. During the course of my stay so far, American United Life Insurance Co. held a board retreat here and the St. Vincent Hospital Foundation threw a fund-raiser…

NOTIONS: Alone in the urban desert on Martin Luther King Day

It’s Martin Luther King Monday. The clock is pushing 5 p.m. And a bitter breeze bites my face as I pump petrol at a Speedway station on Binford Boulevard. I look around at the drab Indiana sky and the drab leafless trees and the drab flat landscape. And I wonder whether the world is really this drab or if it’s just me. Behind me, somewhere on Interstate 69, my sons Austin and Zach are heading northeast in their little Saturn…

BEHIND THE NEWS: Legal conflict alleged in Emmis CFO lawsuit

Ice Miller is a legal powerhouse and lands plum assignments all the time. So few were surprised when Emmis Communications Corp. last month hired the firm to lead its legal assault on industry heavyweight CBS Radio. But Walter Berger-the man at the center of the legal tangle-sure was. Berger had been Emmis’ chief financial officer before he took the same post a year ago at New York-based CBS Radio. The departure rankled Emmis, and over the summer it sued CBS,…

IMS Productions joins Web video network

IMS Productions, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway’s video production arm, has agreed to be one of the primary content providers
for The Venice Project, a collaboration of big-name Internet entrepreneurs intent on shaking up the television industry by
launching a 30-plus-channel, TV-like network online.

Charities struggle to cultivate donors

Attracting people under 40 with money to give is one of the latest challenges faced by not-for-profit organizations. As fund-raisers
look toward cultivating the next generation of supporters, they see a younger generation that appears less inclined to do
so.

Doctor report cards may boost care, pay: New pay-for-performance model prepares for testing

The designers of a pay-for-performance plan for doctors are about to put their theories to work. The Quality Health 1st of Indiana program will start testing its unique system for measuring performance in the next three months, and it might lead to bonus payments for doctors by the second half of 2007. Big in-state insurers like M-Plan Inc. and Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Indiana back the initiative, and several large doctor groups have signed up, too, said…

EYE ON THE PIE: You didn’t know him and now he is gone

A quiet gentleman died last week. It did not make the headlines. Ken Miller never did make headlines, but he was part of your life and the lives of all Hoosiers for many years. If you thought of him at all, it was as taking your money, yet all that time Ken was carefully saving you money and modernizing state government. For 14 years, Ken was Indiana’s commissioner of revenue. It was to his office that you sent your income-tax…

INVESTING: Look to the big stocks for the biggest gains in 2007

Not to beat a dead horse, but I’ve been saying for months that smaller stocks will underperform the big boys. Now that the facts have backed up my prediction (always nice when that happens), let’s look at a few big fish that have the potential to get fatter this year. The second-largest company in the world by market value is General Electric. Since Jack Welch shook the foundations of this firm in 1981, GE has been a true wealth generator….

City eyed for high-tech trash melting plant: Facility to be place where ‘molecules are disassociated’

An Illinois firm wants to destroy Indianapolis trash with a device more fearsome than Marvin the Martian’s ACME disintegration pistol. Northbrook-based PEAT International Inc. would argue its 1,500-degree “plasma arc” treatment device, in which “molecules are disassociated into their basic elemental atomic constituents,” is anything but Looney Tunes, however. PEAT, which already operates plasma plants to destroy solid waste in Taiwan, confirms that it is looking at building a plant locally. “We are still interested in the Indianapolis area. We’re…

ECONOMIC ANALYSIS: Our love-hate relationship with globalization boom

Our generation didn’t invent globalization, but we’ve certainly moved it to a new level. Even here in the isolated Midwest, it’s hard to find a product, a job or a community that hasn’t been affected by the high degree of connectivity among customers, businesses, and buyers and sellers of all kinds around the globe. We’ve enjoyed a cornucopia of incredible new products-from cell phones to flat-screen televisions to microprocessor-laden automobiles-that have had many or all of their principal parts made…

Three-decade landfill battle rages on

World War II could have been fought seven times over since Ralph Reed and sons first tried to build Mallard Lake Landfill
outside of Anderson. The Reeds’ dream of big cash from trash has
upset hundreds of residents in subdivision-dotted fields since the family asked Madison County to rezone their 254-acre farm
in the 1970s.

STATEHOUSE DISPATCH: Governor still has lots of differences with Dems

After saluting the accomplishments of the past year, Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels reached across the aisle during his State of the State Address Jan. 16 and assured Democrats that he can’t make further progress without their cooperation. Once again, the governor found himself competing for the TV audience of Hoosiers at home. In what seems to be a given of sorts, the Indiana University men’s basketball team was playing during the speech, taking on Hoosier hero Steve Alford’s University of…

VOICES FROM THE INDUSTRY: Patent trolls drawing attention of courts, government

Almost $3.5 billion: That, according to a recent IP Law 360 estimate, is the amount of judgments and settlements in intellectual property disputes in 2006. Equally remarkable, that amount was “markedly” down from the comparable figure for 2005. A recent article by Bloomberg News stated that juries awarded $1 billion in patent infringement damages in 2006. With that kind of money changing hands, it is not surprising that companies, known critically as “patent trolls,” have been formed to acquire patent…