Scottish poet and essayist Alexander Smith once said, “Trees are your best antiques.”  That sentiment rings true in Savannah, a city characterized by her avenues and squares lined in stately, hundred years old oaks.  Our trees are as antique as our buildings, our city plan, our legacy.

So when it came time for the City to landscape the newly renovated Ellis Square, they had to consider the competition: majestic, centuries-old hardwood canopies mere blocks away.  To keep in step with that glorious aesthetic (and the ambitious nature of the Ellis Square project as a whole), the decision was made to import mature oaks to help populate the park.

Photograph by Steve Bisson, Savannah Morning News

The tree-relocation project became somewhat more symbiotic given that five trees along the Truman Parkway, each about 30 feet tall, had hampered maintenance of a drainage canal.  Those five trees are being planted yesterday alongside two older oaks and eight younger to complete the canopy of Ellis Square.

The price tag of the arboreal rearrangement – which involves earth movers, flatbed trucks and a crane – could exceed $140,000, a cost that some find hard to stomach.  Still, proponents contend that the project provided an alternative reuse for trees destined to be felled.  Plus, the final product will be a square in standing with the other public greenspaces of Savannah.

Tuesday night, two delegates from the Swedish American Chamber of Commerce Entrepreneurial Days Conference were struck by a car after leaving a dinner we co-hosted in Madison Square. Horribly, one of them died. Gratefully, while the other sustained serious injuries, we understand she is in stable condition.

TCCa and SEDA extend sincere condolences to our many Swedish partners and friends for the tragic loss of Nils Eric Svensson, an economic development official from southern Sweden. We also express our deepest hopes for the full recovery, emotional and physical healing of Christine Bjarkby. Ms. Bjarkby, still in the hospital, works for the Invest in Sweden agency to attract investment into western Sweden.

Many in the Savannah community have contacted us in an effort to offer sympathy and support to all involved, and we are providing the comment section of this post for this purpose.

For more information or to offer condolences directly to our friends at SACC Edays, please visit their blog where they have posted a video message from the volunteer chairwoman and the president of SACC USA.

We respectfully request that all comments be made in the spirit of sympathy and support.

SCAD has done it again (again). Today and tomorrow, April 16 – 17, the Savannah College of Art and Design will host the fifth annual Game Developers eXchange (GDX), bringing together game developers, educators and students – producing what is effectively the largest gaming conference in the Southeast.

Now do you understand why we’re so gung-ho on gaming?

The event will feature Twitter posts by select speakers and attendees (www.scad.edu/twitter) and a live streaming video presentation by our favorite lady in game development, Brenda Brathwaite.  As we’ve told you before, we’ve been working with Brenda to help us zero in on the gaming industry.  She’s SCAD’s interactive design and game development chair, and has been hailed as one of the top 20 women in game design.  (Go, sistah!)

“We bring together the industry’s brightest stars to an intimate setting where they can exchange ideas with each other and a broad cross-section of students, academicians and fans,” she says.  “There is truly no other conference in the Southeast quite like this one. We’re exceptionally pleased to bring this talent here.”

Balaya is ba-aack [on our blog] for a good, newsworthy reason: We just got word the Savannah-based company (and developer of social media tools) cleaned up at the ninth annual Five Ventures Business Plan Conference and Competition, finishing first in the “Information Technology and Software as a Service (SaaS)” category.

Produced by the Charlotte Research Institute at the University of North Carolina (Charlotte), Five Ventures is a free competition that offers training, seminars, matchmaking, coaching and cash to entrepreneurs interested in starting a high-growth business.  It represents the Charlotte region’s most dynamic early-stage business development competition and Balaya was one of only five overall winners in a heavily competitive field.  Rad, right?!

Remember when we told you all about Balaya’s flagship product tick-it™, the CNN news ticker-esque interactive communications tool? Bob Nunnally, CEO of Balaya, is pleased to report it’s success and his enthusiasm over their recent award:

“We are honored to be recognized among the many great companies featured in the Five Ventures Competition,” said Bob Nunnally, CEO of Balaya. “Interest in Balaya and our first product, tick-it™, is growing rapidly. I am very happy for our customers, investors and staff who have worked tirelessly to create this game-changing technology.”