The founder, Michelle Dhillon, quit her lucrative job with Microsoft B2B publishing and career as an established journalist (she’s also worked full-time at The Manchester Evening News) to set up the site because she fiercely believes that Nottingham doesn’t deserve to be seen as a gun-crime hotspot. She’s worked relentlessly to win support from established venues in Nottingham (which wasn’t easy) and other entertainment centres to work with the site. The content on the site is all top class – she’s convinced freelancers for the NME and staff at the Press Association to work for the site on a voluntary basis. She’s done this because she believes that Nottingham deserves better. The site is aimed at young professionals aged 21-35 who enjoy going out in the city and they have been hard to target, but she has done this by utilising various guerrilla marketing strategies, including projecting the company’s logo onto the tallest building in Market Square. Within its first month, the site had over 60,000 hits. Their Myspace has also taken off, they currently have over 2,000 local people actively supporting the site.

Michelle genuinely loves Nottingham and is fighting a tough battle with the established local media such as the Nottingham Evening Post, to win the hearts and minds of young people in the city today. She has managed to beat her rivals to an exclusive interview with local film director Shane Meadows and have recently teamed up with the home-grown Dot to Dot Festival, where they have also managed to get the headline interviews. She created the site because she believed that a magazine should be accessible for everyone, and that nobody should have to pay to find out how great their own city is.

Michelle really deserves this young innovator award – she’s dedicated, committed and has even overcome a burglary where her laptop was stolen (and a year’s worth of work on the site went with it). This really tested her faith in the city and for a while she thought it couldn’t be helped and was about to give up. We all convinced her not to though, and she’s done a brilliant job so far.

Nominated by Lucy Cheung, 17 May 2007

I agree, Nottingham needs such a leading light. It's about time someone stuck thier head above the parapet and said I love Notts!

Submitted by Jayne Childs, 21 May 2007

Nottingham is seen by many as a dangerous city to live in, so having a magazine dedicated to promoting the positive things of the city is great!

Submitted by Carolynn Aitken, 22 May 2007

Michelle deserves your vote!

Submitted by Mark in Widnes, 31 May 2007