Vitamin Erin…An Hour with Positive Detroit’s Erin Rose

Posted by Ashley | Filed under Cool People, Detroit MI, Ferndale MI, drinks, food, life, marketing, people, politics, technology, uncategorized

An Hour with Erin Rose…part of your daily positive-thinking diet.

Erin Rose, the brainchild behind the all-good-news media site Positive Detroit, is more chock-full of favorite local things than Mary Poppins.  Click here to see what the fuss is all about:  Positive Detroit

Erin’s Love list#1:
Magazines (the glossier, the better)
Social networking (and learning from all of Detroit’s great net pioneers on the interwebs)
Garden Fresh Gourmet salsa. “Made in Ferndale! With fresh-cut jalapenos.”

But more than anything, Erin Rose loves living in Michigan. “And the Tigers,” she says. “I love the Tigers more than almost anything.”

Other than willing the World Series to Detroit, this Natalie Portman-lookalike has one heckuva goal–spreading the Good News about Michigan to every news-reader in the 248, 586, 734, or 313 area codes (and anyone else who cares). Rose, a mortgage broker by day with no computer programming background, spent much of these last two years plugging away at her website, positivedetroit.net. Half blog and half news-media aggregator, Positive Detroit is a bountiful daily update of honest, friendly and free news about the great state of Michigan. It’s impossible to read without smiling. Try it.

Recent headlines from the PositiveDetroit.net blog:
1. “Detroit to be the Hub of a National Research Project Studying Social Media”
2. “When the Underdog Wins: Or Why I Love Detroit”
3. “Curtis Granderson Recognized as Man of the Year by Major League Ballplayers”

But don’t think Erin Rose is just made of sunny skies and cheery PR releases. This Flushing native is a (wo)man on a mission, marching against the Forces of News Evil, whom she says deliberately spread bad news about Michigan to sell ad space and newspapers. Rose says these titans of local media (who shall go unnamed) are just ignoring the real stories.

“Look at the story on Le Petit Zinc,” she says, referencing an NT Times op-ed written by Team Detroit president Toby Barlow; a lovely little tale about the neighborhood forces which came together to help a French bistro open shop in Detroit’s Corktown neighborhood. No newspapers here are writing about Le Petit Zinc, but the New York Times sure found it interesting enough. Projecting Detroit’s image to the world is something Erin thinks very long and hard about.    “We are not the armpit of the US,” she says. “And I have no interest in any journalist or news outlet who portrays us to be that way.”

(Author’s note: According to the author, 92% of local news stories make her wonder whether she’s living in Metro Detroit, or a post-apocalyptic wasteland. From the writing, it really can be hard to tell.)

If you want to hear Erin’s pitch (it’s pretty funny), her mission statement, her raison d’etre, it pretty much goes something like this:  You are in an abusive relationship with your local news source. “And,” she says,  “you need to leave NOW.”

Yes, it’s true.  Day after day, night after night, you plug in, turn on the station, flip open the paper, or tune the dial; hoping that it finally changes.  But every time you’re beaten down; by shoddily reported half-stories, shamelessly sensationalized scare tactics for the ratings, perpetuated by people who don’t care about where you live and don’t believe in making it better.  It makes you sad, and pissed off, and freaked out.  Erin says it’s an abusive relationship.  Bet you thought you were too smart to fall into that trap?  The (news) cycle of violence? Yeah, us too.

“If your friend was in a relationship with someone negative;  anyone who made them feel terrible and bad, you would tell them to get away from it.  Right now.  You’d say they were with someone who was verbally abusive.  Well, that’s what your news source is doing to you.”

Erin’s Love List #2:
-The Emory in Ferndale, “It’s kind of the reason why I moved here. Don’t write that down.”
-Detroit’s new Riverfront, “So beautiful. So beautiful. Anyone I’ve ever met who’s not from Detroit raves about it.”
-Eastern Market. Self-explanatory.

It’s pretty fun sitting next to an local social media innovator. The true beauty of her website is that she reproduces the positive articles in entirety…so you’re never redirected from Positive Detroit to Negative News World.  If you feel physically ill reading the poisonous comments section on your online newspaper, welcome to the solution. This feel-good net medicine is why Miss Positive has racked up  (as of 11/9/2009), a holy-smokes 2,413 followers on Twitter (She tweets under the moniker Positive Cities). Her ideas can range from the simple (first Tweeter to use the #+Detroit tag) to the silly (first local blogger to live-blog and Tweet the Tigers’ Opening Day, in 2009). She’s got some ideas for her website that I wish I could write down, because they’re so good and juicy, but she swore me to secrecy. But there’s one thought that she’s not shy about sharing.
“In ten years, you are not going to believe what Detroit is going to be like. Detroit hasn’t seen their prime yet. They’ll see it soon.”

Prophesizing seer? Positive-news-swilling Kool-aid drinker? I pressed Erin for experiences, reasons, memories. What would make her believe Detroit was really…I don’t know, the next LA or Atlanta? She had two stories to tell me: two little stories that, she says, help make her a believer.

Erin’s Love List #3

1. The Cupcake Station in Birmingham

2. The Yardbird Sandwich with Mac & Cheese at Slow’s BBQ in Detroit (just written up in Bon Appetit magazine

3. Old Tiger Stadium (note, this is a major love. MAJOR.  I’m just going to quote Miss Not Quite So Positive Here about tearing down the facility:  “It’s sacred ground.  Every great baseball played there, not even just the ones who played for the Tigers.  Babe Ruth ran the bases.  Mickey Mantle.  Joe Dimaggio.  And they tore it down.  It’s disgusting.  It’s a travesty.”)

The first story happened during March Madness, when Ford Field hosted NCAA’s Final Four. Snowstorm. Erin, a former Spartie, had tickets, and met a friend from Chicago for the game. “So I come downtown, and everyone is in green, and it’s one giant party. The whole town was happy, and friendly. And it’s snowing, and we’re walking to Greektown. My friend stops in front of the Old Shillelagh and says, “This looks like…”, and I finished her sentence. “Chicago.” Erin pauses and smiles at the memory. “I had a perma-grin for the whole day.”

The second story is short.  She tells me about a guy she met a few weeks ago at the Harvest Beer Festival in Eastern Market.  Antonio was friends of her friends, a Brazilian MBA student on a full ride to WSU’s School of Business.  Talking to Antonio, Erin remembers, “He said he loved living here.  LOVED it.  He said he’d made the best friendships of his life, had so many unique experiences, and just loved the people and the community here.  And he’s from BRAZIL.  Because the people are great, it makes the whole community, the whole experience good.”

Erin seems to love retelling tales about outsiders she meets who come to Detroit and find perfection where it’s least expected.  Perhaps it’s symbolic of her overwhelming belief that the 21-40 generation will save Detroit: “There’s so much diversity of culture and thought in our generation.  We see past skin color.  We have a fighting spirit, and we’re not willing to setlle,” she says.  Perhaps it’s because that story of the outsider is so familiar to this Flushing girl, who sought and found a thriving community and a new life in the city.  And because that outsider is now not only an insider, but a crusader for her neighborhood, county, city, state.  It’s a feel-good story, for sure, and like everything else on Positive Detroit, thinking about it just makes you want to smile.

Erin’s Love List #4

1. Oak City Grille in Royal Oak

2. Live music at Cliff Bell’s in Detroit (Live music anywhere in Detroit, actually)

3. Cafe Muse in Royal Oak

(Author’s note: She could keep listing.  I’m the one who stopped.)

Related posts:

  1. REFRESH EVERYTHING: Pepsi to Shun Super Bowl Ads and Save the World
  2. Enhance the Thrill of Tigers Opening Day Experience with Live Tweets
  3. INTERN NEEDED: On the Rocks Detroit!
  4. Things to Do; TED Coming to Detroit
  5. Inaugural Detroit Harvest Beer Festival: The Late Re-Cap

Permalink | November 9th, 2009

5 Responses to “Vitamin Erin…An Hour with Positive Detroit’s Erin Rose”

  1. Jonathan Saar Says:
    November 10th, 2009 at 1:03 pm

    Eric this is a fantastic blog. It is nice to see pioneers such as Erin who care for their community and work their tails off to get the correct message out there. Thanks for sharing her story.

  2. Nikki Stephan Says:
    November 10th, 2009 at 6:18 pm

    LOVE this post! Erin’s role in this community is vital, and we need to do what we can to support her efforts to spread the positive news in metro Detroit!

  3. Ashley Says:
    November 10th, 2009 at 8:17 pm

    Thanks for the feedback! I was obviously as smitten as you both are by Miss Positive. Want to get the word out? Link to this blog and the Positive Detroit website. Let’s spread the good news!

  4. Erin Rose Says:
    November 11th, 2009 at 8:51 pm

    Thanks everyone for your “positive” responses! Ashley did a great job on the article and I am privileged to have such a talented blogger profile me!

    Miss Positive

  5. Charlie Wollborg Says:
    November 20th, 2009 at 7:51 pm

    This story was interesting and made be proud to be a Detroiter.

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