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BRIGHT IDEAS
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INDUSTRY
D
oes the sentence “Did the marketing depart-
ment sent the memo?” look OK to you? If so, a
team of Tufts University researchers recommends
that you get yourself to a Starbucks, stat. In a recent
study, the team asked groups of people to consume
different amounts of caffeine, then compared how
often they caught common writing errors, from the simple
(misspellings) to the complex (subject-verb disagreements,
incorrect tenses). While no amount of caffeine helped the subjects spell
better, drinking a few cups of coffee
did
help them find the more compli-
cated subject and verb errors. What’s more, the effect depended on how
much caffeine the subjects normally drank: People who regularly consumed
low levels of the stimulant required only 200 mg to see a difference;
those who drank more needed 400 mg. Data on how long it will take that
laptop-saddled “writer” to vacate your favorite café window seat, however,
remains inconclusive. —JACQUELINE DETWILER
Buzz Words
CAFFEINE GIVES READERS A LIFT
the fact that entire neighborhoods
have yet to recover from Hurricane
Katrina,
Forbes
recently dubbed the
Big Easy the nation’s “biggest brain mag-
net.” Biotech firms, education startups,
pizza joints that rely on the Twi erati—
they’ve all flocked to NewOrleans for the
chance to root themselves in the Idea
Village’s entrepreneurial ecosystem.
The big brands have
started to take notice.
In March, the Idea
Village held its most
recent Entrepreneur
Week , a r e cur r i ng
showcase of its best
new businesses that
c u lmi n a te s i n a n
“American Idol”
–
style
pitch-off, with a panel of judges and bold-
name audience members deciding which
business plan should win. Google and
Goldman Sachs were among the week’s
chief sponsors. Professors from Harvard
Business Schoolwere ready tooffer advice.
Walter Isaacson, he of the Steve Jobs
biography, gave the keynote address,
comparing the Idea Village to Benjamin
Franklin’s Leather Apron Club, a Phila-
delphia group that aimed for the mutual
improvement of its members on ma ers
moral, political and commercial.
To date, the Idea Village has handed
$3.1 million in seed capital to 1,600-plus
entrepreneurs, who’ve generated more
than $83 million in annual revenues and
brought over 1,000 jobs to New Orleans.
Williamson expects these figures to jump
considerably, and soon. “In our first 11
years, we had 2,700 people apply to be part
of our annual ‘classes,’” he says, by which
he means the six-month periods during
which the Idea Village develops business
plans with the entrepreneurs themselves.
“This
year
, we had 2,100 applicants.”
The Idea Village’s success stories have
helped spread the word. Take Naked
Pizza, co-founded by Robbie Vitrano,
one of the five original Loa conspirators.
Naked Pizza makes healthy pizzas: no
added sugar, no preservatives, 10 seeds
and grains kneaded into the dough. Dur-
ing an incubation in the Idea Village, the
co-founders partneredwith business pro-
fessors who liked the company’s concept
of a social-media firm that just happened
to deliver pizzas. So when Naked Pizza
opened its doors in 2008, it didn’t carry
this month’s
AMAZING
FACT
!
74
There are
193 countries
on earth.
Patients from
125 have
come here
for care.
Same-day appointments
available.
1.800.223.2273
clevelandclinic.org/globalpatients
The Idea Village has
been so successful that
Forbes
recently dubbed New
Orleans the nation’s “biggest
brain magnet.”