With her mother and sister in the bodywork business, massage therapy was nothing new for Monica Boch by the time she began working in the field full-time in 2012. But when she broke her hand in late 2013 and couldn't do any bodywork for seven months, she decided it was time to expand her operation into new territory by opening her own studio.  "I realized I needed to expand my vision of what I was doing as a business owner, and have a more diversified offering," Boch says. "I realized that there is this total picture of health stuff that I feel is valuable." Boch plans to open Pearl Yoga & Massage in early September on Pearl St. in Ypsilanti, adding yoga, Pilates and dance instruction to her offerings. The historic, 1,200 square foot space proved to be exactly what she needed to bring her vision to life - exactly where she was hoping to open the business.  "I wanted to offer this in Ypsi because most people have to to Ann Arbor for this," she says. "Most of our massage will be based in Swedish, therapeutic massage, but we'll also be bring in people who do Thai massage." Boch says her focus at Pearl Yoga & Massage will be to provide quality, personalized services to clients, as well as pay her therapists and instructors livable wages. She anticipates hiring 6-10 specialists and plans to work to pair each client with the best instructor or therapist for their needs and skill level.  Source: Monica Boch, Pearl Yoga & Massage Writer: Natalie Burg

Dimitri and Aphrodite Roumanis have grown up around Greek food, visiting Greece every year with their family. Now, the brother and sister team, along with their father, will bring the cuisine to N. University with Mezes Greek Grill.  "What we eat there is what we wanted to bring here and introduce people to authentic Greek street food," says Dimitri Roumanis. "The amount of foot traffic and student traffic that is here every day is perfect. People will come in between classes, and there are a lot of faculty that come to the around for lunch." Included on the menu will be gyro meat served on a stick, a recent trend Roumanis has experienced in Greece, egg lemon soup, as well as a salad made from dried bread, tomatoes and olive oil - and, of course, the traditional chicken, beef and lamb gyros.  "Our food is not typical to what that location has," says Roumanis. "There's Greek food around here, but you have to sit down and order. We're trying to add the quickness of street food." Roumanis plans to open Mezes Greek Grill next week with a staff of about eight after more than three months of renovations. The restaurant will be located in the former Sushi.com location, and will sit between 50 and 60 diners.  Source: Dimitri Roumanis, Mezes Greek Grill Writer: Natalie Burg

Dynamic Edge growth has spiked over the last year. The Ann Arbor-based IT firm's revenue is up about 35 percent and it has hired 11 new people over the last 12 months, expanding the company’s staff to 49 employees and one intern. Prompting that growth is the popularity of its Fixed IT program, which helps head off IT problems before they crash the system or even before they begin. Dynamic Edge has attracted a number of new customers, particularly in the healthcare sector. "We see a number of opportunities coming from regulatory pressure and new HIPPA laws," says Bruce McCully, CEO of Dynamic Edge. "People are thinking twice about running that in-house." Accounting firms are also flocking to Dynamic Edge's Fixed IT program. The regulatory pressure isn't as intense in that industry. In fact, McCully is not exactly sure what is driving CPAs to use his company’s platform. "I'm not really sure why," McCully says. "It might be because the software they use is becoming more and more complicated." Dynamic Edge has been on a growth streak like this for the last few years, but McCully wants to throttle back on some of that expansion this year and next. He would like to put more focus on refining the basics of Dynamic Edge’s business plan and execution of it. "This year our theme has been sharpening the edge," McCully says. "We have put a lot of resources into improving delivery of our services to our customers." Source: Bruce McCully, CEO of Dynamic Edge Writer: Jon Zemke Read more about Metro Detroit's growing entrepreneurial ecosystem at SEMichiganStartup.com.

Last year 300 Decision spent a lot of its time opening up a new office in Chicago. This year the Ann Arbor-based relocation-service firm has spent most of its time filling out its two offices. "We have stayed about as busy as you can be at those two locations," Helen Dennis, president of 300 Decisions. The 2-year-old company has hired three people (project managers) over the last year. It now employs a staff of seven people, which serves the likes of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan, Rossetti (an architecture firm), the city of Chicago, Chicago Public Schools, and U.S. Cellular "We are really busy and having a lot of fun helping our clients make difficult transitions," Dennis says. That includes everything from internal communications at the client business to streamline the move to helping facilitate change management for the move. Dennis named the business 300 Decisions as a reference to her guesstimate of how many questions a company must ask itself when executing an office move. This is Dennis's second relocation services business. Her first was acquired in 2006. This time she is taking a more measured approach to growth. "I want to grow within reason," Dennis says. "By reason I mean growth that makes sense. I also want to stay involved in the culture of the company." Source: Helen Dennis, president of 300 Decisions Writer: Jon Zemke Read more about Metro Detroit's growing entrepreneurial ecosystem at SEMichiganStartup.com.

The Inovo Group's growth rate is something to take notice of. The downtown Ann Arbor-based consulting firm has watched its revenue jump 30 percent to 50 percent in each of the last three years. This last year the firm added four new clients. That work has enabled the innovation-consulting office to hire two people (analysts), expanding its staff to 13 employees and one intern. "We are on a steady growth path," says Larry Schmitt, CEO of The Inovo Group. The Inovo Group has made its way helping large corporations find new, more-efficient ways of doing things. That could range from finding new opportunities to discovering new technology for it to harness. The bottomline is The Inovo Group's clientele recognize that innovation is critical to their growth. "When we get involved with a company we do it when they want to do something big," Schmitt says. "It's when they want to push their own boundaries." The Inovo Group also made the moved to new office in January next to the Downtown Home & Garden. The 5-year-old company has now smoothly moved into the new space and used it to help grow its talent base. "It has energized our environment," Schmitt says. "It's an attractive place for the people we want to recruit." Source: Larry Schmitt, CEO of The Inovo Group Writer: Jon Zemke Read more about Metro Detroit's growing entrepreneurial ecosystem at SEMichiganStartup.com.

This most excellent and passionate blog makes the case that the real secret to livable walkable communities is... smaller roads. We whole-heartedly agree. But good luck with that in Michigan. Excerpt: "We have to get out of the ugly habit of building such automobile-friendly environments. Once we make it automobile-friendly by adding wide roads and segregating automobile and pedestrian traffic, the automobile will take over. Remember, we fled from this. The result just happened to be worse, because we did not know any better.  When we break the habit of building wide roads and segregating automobiles from pedestrians - even without having to ban them - we will begin building pleasant urban environments. " Read the rest here.

What is the current state of journalism? Where does it go next? The Daily Show takes the Michigan Daily to task for its oh-so old timey ways in a segment called "Internet Killed the Newspaper Star." Watch it here.  

Children with serious health challenges must often spend a lot of time thinking about their limitations. Thanks to a new, 105-acre camp that just broke ground in Pinckney this week, about 1,500 of those kids will get a chance to focus on what they can do — including how much fun they can have.  "They're so used to hearing 'you can't do that because of your illness.' At camp it's always, 'you can do that,'" says North Star Reach Marketing and Communications Specialist Marji Wisniewski. "They make friends and meet kids just like them. And that's important. They are being cured of their illness at their hospitals, but it's at camp where they heal." Beginning in the fall of 2015, North Star Reach will host fall and spring weekend camps and weeklong summer camps for children with children with cancer, heart disease, ventilator dependency, organ transplants, sickle cell disease. Many will be referred from their healthcare providers, as North Star Reach has partnered with 13 hospitals for the project.  So far, $21,000,000 of the $26,000,000 needed to construct the many buildings of North Star Reach and to maintain operations for the first two years.  "We're going to have a complete medical center on site, a beautiful dining hall and rustic cabins," says Wisniewski. "Everything is 'state of the art rustic,' meaning it has everything these children with special needs need to have, but they won't have to think about it. For them, they're just going to camp."  The Pinckney camp is a provisional member of SeriousFun Children’s Network, which was founded in 1988 by Paul Newman. North Star Reach will be the ninth such camp in the U.S. In addition to 20 to 25 staffers, North Star Reach will rely on a number of volunteers to complete their programming. More than 100 volunteer opportunities will be available each week. For more information on volunteering or taking part in the capital campaign, people may visit NorthStarReach.org.  Source: Marji Wisniewski, North Star Reach Writer: Natalie Burg

Until recently, St. Joseph Mercy Chelsea's Dexter Internal Medicine and Pediatrics office was bursting at the seams. But running out of space gave the clinic the opportunity to address a few other issues with their downtown Dexter location. "We were on the second floor and parking wasn't the greatest," says Chris Ray, office manager for Dexter Internal Medicine and Pediatrics. "We didn't have the greatest signage to let people know where we were. The conversation started with our providers about looking for a different space within the community." They found it in the Dexter Crossing shopping center on Dexter-Ann Arbor Rd. The 4,500 square foot space nearly doubled their original size, allowing for their growing staff and patient population to operate with a lot more elbow room. All that space, however, won't change the office's quality of care. "Regardless of the space of how big it looks, we're still providing the same great patient care we were before," says Ray. "We want to provide more opportunities to our patients and better access."  Dexter Internal Medicine and Pediatrics made their move from one clinic to the next in about five highly orchestrated hours on July 15. As the provides and staff become more acquainted with their additional space, says Ray, they'll begin considering what new those new opportunities they hope to provide to their patients may be.  Source: Chris Ray, Dexter Internal Medicine and Pediatrics Writer: Nataie Burg