Arendering of Shophouse Park Technology and Innovation Hub is shown. The facility is to be built between Northern Michigan University and Lake Superior. (Photo courtesy of the Michigan Strategic Fund)

By CHRISTIE MASTRIC

Journal Staff Writer

MARQUETTE — Innovation often is thought of in terms of the business climate and technology, but not necessarily with outdoor recreation.

How the outdoor world is evolving was the focus of the Feb. 9 installment of “Tech Talks,” a series of events put on by Innovate Marquette SmartZone. Entrepreneur David Ollila was the presenter in the latest talk, which took place at the Ore Dock Brewing Co.

“There’s a lot of changes going on in the economy right now around innovation, outdoor recreation, so why is it such a big topic?” Ollila asked. “What are the conditions that spur innovation? How do you create a community that is constantly coming up with new ideas, experimenting with those, casting aside failures and then building on that?”

It shouldn’t surprise anyone that the digital and electronic worlds come into play. That includes GPS — the Global Positioning System — that helps users with navigation.

Maybe lesser known is Strava, a running, cycling and hiking app that tracks activities.

“That digital technology can actually become quite addictive as you’re trying to see, ‘Did I have enough steps today? Did I beat my daughter on the enduro course? And I didn’t. She beat me,'” Ollila said. “But technology also applies to materials. What are the materials that we’re making outdoor products out of? It’s about the process. How are these things made, that we outdoor recreate on, and then the uses — and uses, I believe, actually can change technology as we take something from one area and we apply it to another area.”

Take mountain biking, for example.

He asked people in the audience if they went mountain biking before the age of suspension.

“We’ve got some heritage in here where a lot of the people who have been outdoor recreating probably started with the earliest technology,” Ollila said. “What we’ve seen in biking is incremental increases or advancements of technology over a long period of time.”

His first mountain bike, circa 1988, was a GT Karakoram with 26-inch wheels and skinny tires.

“And it was state of the art,” Ollila said. “And it took that long from there to get to the bicycles that we now have in all of our local shops and the ones that you’re enjoying on the trails.”

Ski boots and their bindings also have evolved.

“There used to be just one type of boot,” he said. “Now there’s 15 types of boots.”

Innovation, though, means more than creating new products.

“Innovation needs to catch on and change behavior,” Ollila said.

That typically involves over a long period of time, he noted, but he believes that will change soon.

Ollila also believes the current conditions for innovation in the region have come together in the local region and the state of Michigan for the outdoor recreation to “completely accelerate” what it means to take part in those activities.

Outdoor recreation, he said, already was growing before the COVID-19 pandemic, and remote digital connectivity is becoming more commonplace.

“The electrification of everything,” Ollila pointed out, will drive the bulk of technological shifts and how people experience the outdoors.

“If you want an analog bike, keep it, hold on to it, because there’s going to be fewer and fewer analog bikes in the future, and there’s going to be more and more electric bikes,” Ollila said. “Pretty soon, that non-electric bike is going to look like an antique until all of technology fails, and that person with that bike is going to be a rock star.”

The economy, he said, is bookmarked by two things: extraction on one end of the value proposition and the last use on the other end.

“What we’ve given up is everything in the middle,” Ollila said.

The focus, he stressed, should be on that middle section.

“I think outdoor recreation, mobility and electrification, are where we can create that value proposition to the rest of the state of Michigan,” he said.

Ollila mentioned Taiga Motors, which makes electric snowmobiles and watercraft, which aren’t “loud and scary” and don’t require a lot of maintenance.

And you might even see wildlife.

“They are changing the way that people are going to go outdoors,” he said.

Shophouse Park

in the works

The Michigan Strategic Fund recently approved a $3 million performance-based grant for Hoponassu OZ, LLC to develop Shophouse Park Technology and Innovation Hub, an outdoor recreation and product innovation space situated between Northern Michigan University and the Lake Superior shore. The project will include “live-work-innovate space” that will foster collaboration to grow the outdoor recreation and mobility industries.

Innovate Marquette SmartZone in November recently named Ollila, Shophouse Park founder, as its first Entrepreneur in Residence. An Entrepreneur in Residence program, SmartZone noted, is typical of business accelerators around the globe, and this asset for entrepreneurs is now available in Marquette. Residents in the program are seasoned veterans in their area of expertise, and act as mentors and specialists to their host organization and its accelerator clients.

Ollila called Shophouse Park a campus that is going to attract companies that appreciate natural resources, trails and organizations working together to “create relevancy in the economy” related to Detroit.

“You can’t effectively innovate hands-on on Zoom,” said Joe Thiel, CEO of Innovate Marquette SmartZone. “So what Shophouse Park creates is an environment for these corporations to have a space and a place to come to and do that innovation in a hands-on way that they need.”

Christie Mastric can be reached at 906-228-2500, ext. 250. Her email address is cbleck@miningjournal.net.