Shrimp cocktail and the status quo

Sitting on a puffy, Grand Hotel couch during Wednesday night shrimp and coctails hour, media executive Rich Homberg waved his arm across the mass of schmoozers and proclaimed: “The single biggest under-reported story in Metro Detroit is the enormous number of people who are protecting the status quo… The guy who says ‘I just gotta last three more years until I retire…’ The staffers who say ‘I was here before that boss and I’m gonna be here after that boss.’ It’s rampant.”

Homberg just took on a big change, moving from his executive post at WWJ Radio to head a makeover of Detroit Public Television and intensify public television’s efforts to ignite culture change and community service.

To it’s credit, the Detroit Regional Chamber is adding fresh voices to the agenda at Mackinac this year. This year’s conference is significantly influenced by the issues being raised by collectives of young professional civic organizations that are cropping up across the state.

And talent guru Lou Glazer amplified those young voices with the release of a novel survey of more than 5,000 Michigan college grads under the age of 30.

Highlights:

Almost half of the respondents now live in other states after graduating from Michigan universities.

Illinois, New York, California and Ohio account for 40 percent of those well-educated expatriates.

More than half of the respondents first determined where they wanted to live before looking for a job.