September brings with it many great things in Michigan including the gorgeous fall color change of the State's lush forests, apple cider from its many orchards, and a time for inspiration and innovation!

According to Crain's Detroit Business, "idea-sharing, cultural immersion and a push to encourage investment in Detroit" are some of the themes highlighted during the jam-packed lineup of events coming to the city in the next few weeks. Many of these events focus on Detroit as a center for innovation and feature prominent Michigan entrepreneurs and innovators.

Attending one (for all) of these events is sure to leave you feeling inspired and ready to take on the world, a feeling that will hopeful keep you alive during Michigan's cruel winter.

Here is a line-up of some of the best Detroit has to offer:

Techonomy Detroit, September 16
Techonomy is a series of annual events founded five years ago by a former technology editor at Fortune magazine. Techonomy is celebrating its third year in Detroit. The conference is typically packed full of great speakers and hosted at Wayne State University. It usually focuses on technology and the impact on our economy. Past speakers have included Jack Dorsey of Twitter and Dan Gilbert of Quicken Loans. This year’s Techonomy event will take place September 16 and the speaker line-up looks good and features topics on economy, technology and urban development, and brand building.
Tickets: $195; tiered pricing for segments
Website: www.techonomy.com/conf/14-detroit

The Detroit Homecoming, September 17-19
The goal of this event is to bring Detroit expatriates, especially the successful with ties to Detroit who now live and work elsewhere, back to the City to re-engage them with the community. More than 150 expats are expected to attend as the host committee of top executives and civic leaders including Gov. Rick Snyder, Mayor Mike Duggan, and a host of local "doers" making a difference in Detroit share with them what the national media fails to cover--Detroit's rebirth.
Website: www.detroithomecoming.com

NewCo Detroit, September 18
Formally called OpenCo, companies in Detroit will open their doors for the second year in a row to visitors for an event called NewCo. NewCo was created to get people out of conference rooms and into places of business. Nearly 60 of Detroit's most innovative companies participate in what has been dubbed a pub crawl of local businesses--without the alcohol. So whether you're in the market for a new career or are just interested in seeing what all the excitement is about, NewCo is for you. Get out and explore!
Website: det.newco.co

Detroit Design Festival, September 23-28
A showcase of creatives, this annual event is presented by the Detroit Creative Corridor and neighborhoods in and around downtown, Midtown and Eastern Market. The festival aims to bring together the creative community, ranging from product design to architecture to fashion. Venues will host studio tours, roundtable discussions, lectures, product and fashion shows, product launches, retail happenings, and "design battles."
Website: www.detroitdesignfestival.com

Dlectricity, September 26-27 (event runs from dusk to midnight)
Throughout Detroit's Woodward Avenue corridor, from Orchestra Hall to the Detroit Institute of Arts, enjoy an outdoor walking event featuring 35 installations using light and illumination as form of art. Dlectricity was founded two years ago, the inaugural event drawing nearly 75,000 spectators. One of the premiere evnets is a nighttime bicycle parade (September 27) sponsored by Shinola.
Tickets: Most events are free depending on venue
Website: www.dlectricity.com

TEDx Detroit, September 30
TEDx, the national branded conference that hosts short talks focusing on groundbreaking ideas, will convene again in Detroit for the sixth year in a row. It’s a classic event to check out that usually features many entrepreneurs and thought leaders sharing what they are most passionate about–positive ideas for the world from Detroit. This year’s theme is “reinvention” a timely narrative to explore as the city of Detroit looks to leave its bankruptcy in tact and ready to reinvent.
Tickets: $65, by invite only
Website: www.tedxdetroit.com

Meeting of the Minds, September 30-October 2
Meeting of the Minds looks to tackle innovation set in the challenges of Detroit’s urban core. The conference will take place at College for Creative studies and will bring together over 350 invited leaders from more than a dozen countries representing public, private, and non-profit sectors. With Detroit’s decline from the Industrial Age, and the swell of entrepreneurship happening in the city, we imagine this would event will have some awesome takeaways for those working to re-think and re-tool Detroit for a stronger, new economy.
Tickets: $750
Website: http://www.cvent.com/events/meeting-of-the-minds-detroit/event-summary-df84626937654c869b206ca6b9000e3d.aspx

Social Media Connect - Detroit, October 10
Although this one is not directly located in Detroit (ugh, I know) it is focused around the area's social media professionals belonging to the Social Media Club's Detroit chapter and their best practices. This one-day only seminar is an educational event covering the basics and advanced best practices for effective digital communications featuring local industry professionals.
Tickets: $20
Website: www.scmdetroit.com

Brand Camp Summit, October 16-23
Detroit’s annual brand camp conference typically attracts over 300 innovators and entrepreneurs. This year it looks like the Founder, Hajj Flemings, is expanding it into a week long of events along focusing on making tech available to all people. According the website, the event is described as having an agenda to “Birth Detroit’s inclusive startup ecosystem.” It looks like a timely and important topic for such a diverse and changing city.
Tickets: Range from $75 to $250, depends on advanced purchase
Website: www.brandcampsummit.com

Fall truly is the season for networking and being inspired in Detroit! Please make time in your schedule to attend a few of these and get into the Detroit spirit!

Here's what you may have missed this week:

• New Nail Polish May Prevent Date Rapes - Undergraduates at North Carolina State University are being credited with creating a new kind of nail polish. The polish doubles as a way to prevent sexual assault. The person wearing the nail polish has to use their finger to stir their drink and if the drink has a date rape drug in it, the nail polish will change colors.
• Now, ‘Rice Bucket Challenge’ Goes Viral - Yes, that was "rice" not "ice." An Indian woman has come up with the ‘rice bucket challenge’ on Facebook to show a way to potential donors who want to help the poor. The message has now gone viral on social media.
• Facebook Cracking Down on 'Clickbait' With Update - Facebook is launching an update Monday for users' news feed that will attempt to weed out stories that publish 'clickbait' headlines. The social network says it will evaluate links based on how much time people spend away from Facebook and how often users are sharing and discussing stories with friends.
• Pinterest Rolls Out Analytics to Reel Brands In - A couple of months ago, Pinterest said it would slowly start rolling out an fresh take on its analytics tool. It looks like that’s now happening. The updated tool gives more detailed analytics than its previous version, like what pins are getting re-pinned and how individual pins and boards are performing. Pinterest Analytics is just for Pinterest users with a business account — a feature the company rolled out a little more than a year and a half ago.

I don't typically call people or brands out for their bad practices on social media since, honestly, who am I to pass judgement!

I don't claim to be a social media expert because there literally can't be one.

You can't become an expert in something that is always changing. Social media is a living, breathing organism that is constantly evolving. What could be considered bad this week could be awesome next week, and so on.

However lately I've been coming across a lot of things that really grind my gears. So I've decided to call out some serious social media faux pas.

Exploiting a trend without living up to it
When it comes to social media trends and brands, you either do it or you don't—there's no in-between. That would be like only doing the beginning of a Harlem Shake video then posting it online for all to see, exploiting the trend for marketing attention.

It's even worse when the trend is a charity fundraiser, like the #icebucketchallenge, a social trend aiming to raise awareness and money for the ALS Foundation. It's such a good cause, which is why Chili's really deserves to be in the dog house this week after simply posting a video of a pepper with water being poured on it. Their lack of creativity commitment to the trend (and charity) is disappointing and despicable.

We took the #IceBucketChallenge! Donate at http://t.co/e75Azd9lTS. Your turn @Applebees, @ChipotleTweets & @DrPepper https://t.co/VDMjSVvga6
— Chili's Grill & Bar (@Chilis) August 14, 2014

Notice how they didn't forget to use the hashtag? Exploitation!

Chili's took a lazy cop out while other brands are getting their CEOs involved, like Mary Barra of GM. They could, at the very least, gathered some random employees to make a video, like DECA.

Staying with a trend long after it's not trendy anymore
Is #FF / #FollowFriday even a thing anymore? Long ago Fridays were known for giving shoutouts to fellow tweeters in order for them to get more follows. Typically this was used by individuals, sometimes brands but it never really panned out. But that trend has all but disappeared. This week @BetterMade, a potato chip manufacturer in Detroit, posted an onslaught of 22 #FF tweets over the course of 16 minutes, giving shoutouts to over 170 accounts—majority of which are just random people (fans, I guess).

click to enlarge

This looks like a desperate ploy for attention—like they're just hoping these 170+ people will retweet them. So not only did they beat the dead #FF horse into the ground but they also took the lazy way out. Why not try some actual engagement with the fans? People are much more likely to retweet a brand's tweet if the sentiment feels personal. Anyone can type in their followers' names and place a #FF in front of them but only a true artist can craft something engaging and personal that is deserving of attention. Check out Shinola on Instagram for a good example. They regram their customers pictures all day with the sincerest of compliments.

</rant>

Here's what you may have missed this week in social media and tech:

• Google Wants To Control Every Character You Type - Imagine a typeface that unites all the world’s languages. A publisher could print a book in Arabic, Cherokee, Egyptian Hieroglyphics and more—all without swapping out fonts. That’s what Google is attempting to accomplish with Google Noto, a free font family that currently supports 96 languages, and aspires to support them all.
• Kuddle, An Instagram With Training Wheels, Introduces Social Media To Kids - A new mobile application called Kuddle is introducing a safer way for kids to get introduced to social media, while still under a parent’s watchful eye. The photo-sharing app, which is like a more restricted version of Instagram, allows children to post and share photos with friends in a protected environment, safe from cyberbullying or unwanted connections from strangers.
• PayPal Wants You To Never Pull Out Your Credit Card Again; One Touch Payments is Coming - Crucially, the family of One Touch-enabled apps include PayPal's own mobile app, used by millions of users, most of whom have a credit or debit card stored with the service. It will allow for swift mobile purchases without requiring users to create an account on an e-commerce site and enter credit-card details every time they want to buy something.
• Twitter Confirms Changes to What Users See in Their Timelines - Several days ago, we noticed that Twitter rolled out an experiment to some users that began showing actions — like favorited tweets — on the main Twitter timeline. (Earlier this month, it experimented with showing tweets from accounts users didn't follow.) At the time, it appeared this feature was just a test, since it hadn't been universally deployed to all users. Now, Twitter has updated some key language on its help page that indicates a permanent change...
• Report: Snapchat to Get Ads, News - Snapchat is planning to broaden its offerings this fall with ads, TV and movie clips and news articles, according to a report. The popular app, which famously rebuffed a $3 billion acquisition offer from Facebook last year, is in talks with advertisers and media companies about a service called Snapchat Discovery that would display such content, according to The Wall Street Journal. The new offering would launch in November, according to the report.
• TMZ Claims to Have Pictures of the New iPhone 6 - Tech geeks may want to take a hit off their inhalers and brace themselves ... because TMZ has obtained possible pictures of Apple's brand spanking new iPhone 6.
• University of Michigan Researches Developing Wearables to Detect Diseases - U-M researchers, working in conjunction with the National Science Foundation's Innovation Corps program, are developing a wearable sensor that could provide continuous disease monitoring of conditions like diabetes, high blood pressure, anemia or lung disease. The sensor, which is about the size of a finger nail, detects airborne chemicals either exhaled or released through the skin. It can be worn as a wired device.

And some other great things from other great bloggers:

Facebook Messenger has rolled out to iOS and Android devices, and many users aren’t too happy with it. Now instead of being able to instant message through the native Facebook app, you have to use a seperate app--Facebook Messenger.

Although Facebook Messenger has been available since 2011, many users who have still not downloaded the app are reluctant to do so and are not pleased about the new push to force them into the app. As a result, a lot of users are already looking for loopholes around the messenger app so they can still send and read received messages without downloading a completely different app.

Now I know what you're thinking, "Why is this such a big deal?" Two reasons... People don't like to be forced to do something, especially by a big brand like Facebook who is often reviewed as being too pushy or intrusive. Secondly, there are some people like me who opted for the cheaper iPhone with less storage but still like to take and save a million pictures and there is just no more storage room on their phones for another app.

Plus, I just don't understand. Facebook calls it a faster way to message. However I'm just not sure how closing one app, scrolling through the all my other apps to find Messenger, only to use it to send my message then close it to go back to the regular Facebook app is really faster.

So here is a way around the new Facebook Messenger App...

How to send Facebook messages without Facebook Messenger
Use the mobile browser. Yes, it's that simple. Your normal Facebook app will still alert you when you have a message from a friend but when you try and view it you get an annoying message about downloading Facebook Messenger.

Source: Mashable

So instead, once you get the notification open up your phone's mobile browser and go to facebook.com. You'll be redirected to Facebook's crappy, watered down, mobile site however the messaging piece of it works perfectly.

Source: Cnet

I still recommend using the normal app for all you other day to day activities, but leave messaging to the mobile site.

I recently started a new job and I'm trying to make my best impression. I'm trying to live that "dress for the job you want, not the job you have" motto, which means I choosing more and more to ditch my FitBit Flex for more sophisticated accessories like my new Shinola watch.
Gfiffin goes fresh and fashionable with their Ribbon Wristband--a colorful alternative to the bulky rubber and plastic wristbands that come with your fitness tracker. Inspired by the popular ribbon hair ties seen everywhere, the comfortable, wicking nylon ribbon hides your Fitbit or Sony tracker in a secure spandex pocket. It easily adjusts for a perfect fit; just re-tie the knot.

Tory Burch
Recently, fashion designer, Tory Burch unveiled a new accessory line for FitBit. Burch's accessory collection is made up of four distinctive pieces, including a brass pendant, a brass bracelet, and two artsy silicone bands (pink and blue). Each was designed to house a Fitbit Flex.

Here's what you may have missed in social media and technology this week:

• Sensor-Powered Seatbelt Could Save the Lives of Sleepy Drivers - Developed by the Biomechanics Institute (IBV) in Valencia, Spain, the Heart and Respiration In-Car Embedded Non-Intrusive Sensors (Harken) system works by measuring the heart rate (via seatbelt sensors) and respiratory pace (via seat cover sensors) of the driver.
• Snapchat-Like App Bolt Leaked on Instagram - Some Android users are seeing a banner ad inside Instagram for the company’s new “one tap photo messaging app” Bolt. A few Android users (including one in India) have uploaded the Bolt ads to Twitter, but thus far Instagram has not responded to requests for comment.
• Pinterest shares diversity numbers: 40% female, 50% Caucasian - The figures were shared by Pinterest engineer Tracy Chou, who called for greater transparency last year about the proportion of women tech employees in the industry. Since then, a number of major companies have piled on to share their diversity figures, including Google, Facebook and Twitter.
• Users Average 40 Minutes Daily on Facebook - Facebook Co-Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg said during the company’s second-quarter earnings call Wednesday that users of the social network in the U.S. average 40 minutes daily, with some 20 percent of that usage time on mobile.
• WWF’s Brilliant Snapchat Campaign - WWF used SnapChat by sharing ‘selfies’ of  endangered animals such as tigers, polar bears, dolphins and others under the hashtag #LastSelfie. These images lasted for 10 seconds and before they disappeared, users had to either share, donate or adopt the animal or help in any other way which they could. These images cannot be saved and are clicked from real life moments creating emotional impact in the minds of the viewers.
• Ford's Former Social Media Chief Takes Agency Role - Scott Monty, who left the Ford Motor Co. two months ago after a five-year run that made him one of the best known social media figures in the corporate world, has a new gig. The marketing veteran next week will join Shift Communications as evp of strategy.

And here is some great stuff from some fellow bloggers:

• Blogging in the 21st-Century Classroom by Michelle Lampinen