If you’re walking around downtown Indianapolis the next few days, you might just bump into a wizard, a warlock or an enormous gathering of average Joe’s with comic book heroes on their black t-shirts and backpacks full of gaming items. Gen Con Indy is one of the many massive conventions in Indianapolis’ growing convention market. 
 
Gen Con Indy claims the top spot at the sorcerer’s round table as the original, best attended and longest running gaming convention in the entire galaxy. In 2007, over 26,000 gamers attended Gen Con Indy. This is another example why Indianapolis must offer the best facilities available in Lucas Oil Stadium and the expanding Indiana Convention Center. The tax revenue generated from Gen Con and other conventions is very important to downtown’s economy, not to mention the boon to local restaurants and hotels.
 
Here’s a list of upcoming events at Lucas Oil Stadium and the Indiana Convention Center. The expected attendance numbers are critical for Indiana tourism.
 
If you do bump into one of our visiting gamers, be nice, ok? They might have horns or claim to have powers to place a spell banishing you to the planet Zog, but they never cause any trouble and they go about their own business. 

Welcome back, Gen Con folks!

Raymond J. Keating is a highly respected economist with the Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council. His article, “Entrepreneurs and Election Year Activism,” makes some very good points with one important omission.

If your communications team has gone round and round about your public relations initiatives, this article by Reuters UK might give you some insight into how valuable messaging can be in the midst of crisis. This piece explains how Russia and Georgia are fighting not just with weapons, but with PR strategies:

Russia wants to convince the world of its role as an honest broker, reluctantly intervening against an out-of-control Georgian president whose forces have carried out ethnic cleansing against the Ossetian people.

 Georgia in turn portrays itself as a plucky little country fighting off the resurgent Russian bear and suffering unfair Kremlin punishment on account of its drive to become a Western democracy and NATO ally.

After having the chance to interview Newt Gingrich a few weeks ago (the full story will be online and in our September-October edition of BizVoice on August 29), it wasn’t too surpising to read that he had some grand ideas in response to the Wall Street Journal question: How would you spend $10 billion of American resources over the next four years to help improve the state of the world?

Gingrich has an uncanny ability to define a challenge, craft a solution (usually relying heavily on technology and/or the Internet) and put together the people to try and execute. Do those solutions and his tactics (especially during his term as U.S. Speaker of the House) work? Not always. He is the first to admit as much.

Frank Luntz, the communication guru who worked closely with Gingrich on the famed Contract with America, may have put it best, describing the silver-haired Georgian as probably the "smartest politican" he has ever come across. Luntz added that the strong understanding of issues would also be a drawback as sometimes Gingrich "would go over the head of his audience."

No such concerns when Gingrich appears at the Chamber’s 19th Annual Awards Dinner on November 6, two days after the election. He will provide an early, in-depth look at where our country is headed — a message you won’t want to miss.

For now, check out the "prizes" Gingrich would offer with the $10 billion.

Drivers were recently stuck on Michigan’s I-275 for 50 minutes and Carol Greenberg, well, she ain’t happy. The Ohio woman sent the Michigan Department of Transportation a bill for $16 to compensate for the estimated gas she burned while waiting for the traffic jam to open.

Most noteworthy was this paragraph:

Mrs. Greenberg said in an interview that the delay was doubly unpleasant for her Maine coon cat, Sammy, who howled through the entire experience in a pet carrier in the back seat.

Man, that is one irritated kitty. But you can glean that just by looking at the article’s photo. I’d imagine he was later quoted as saying:

"I’m just a little fired up right now,"  Sammy stated, while bathing himself. "I was in Michigan to test for allergies, so I wasn’t feeling too terrific with all this grass flying around. Then I have to deal with traffic when all I want to do is get home and scratch my post … Oh, and ‘meow.’ Is that what you wanted? You wanted me to say something cat-like for you so you can be all cute and put it in the paper? Well I won’t dance for you people anymore. You know what, this interview is over. Get that recorder out of my face (hiss)! Carol, show Bob Woodward here the door."

Moral of the story: Gas prices are creating even more of an impetus for states to ensure that drivers — and their passengers — can move along interstates in an efficient manner.

There are a lot of very smart people around the country trying to figure out solutions to a health care system that simply doesn’t work as well as it should. Unfortunately, they’re not having a lot of success — or maybe the challenge is just so big that we must be patient (no pun intended).

Who pays what to which provider depends on too many outside circumstances. The lack of health insurance for millions negatively impacts the entire system. Too much time and money is spent treating symptoms, not preventing the health problems in the first place. With the federal government financing nearly 70% of the country’s spending on health care, many decisions are out of the state’s control.

What can be done is focus on wellness. In Indiana, we eat too much, smoke too much and don’t exercise enough. Yes, part of the solution is individual responsibility. But businesses can play a critical role through wellness programs, health risk assessments and more. What can also be done is increase access to insurance and the preventative care that goes along with it. Reducing emergency room trips for common procedures will help bring some sanity to the financial side of the equation.

The Healthy Indiana Plan has proven to be a good start on both fronts. Let’s build on that, doing what we can at the state (and business) level. If not, health care expenditures will overwhelm our economy and our lives.

The latest Letters to Our Leaders installment offers the details. Read the letter (and others in the series); watch the one-minute video below; offer your comments.