A Syracuse Collaboration

 At the top of NOexcuse’s explore page on its freshly launched website is a quote from Pulitzer Prize-winning author
David McCullough. It asks: “Without a story, who are we?”

Michael John Heagerty who founded this new venture may have an answer.

“We as a city have been through lots,” he explains. “People forget that half a mile away on West Fayette was the cradle of industry where inventions were being made, and Hanover Square was the quintessential downtown, Clinton Square was the No. 1 stop on the Erie Canal. . . and as the earth spins and comes around every couple hundred years, it happens again. It’s inevitable. Just like underneath us is all this creativity and we’re walking around infected by the spirit of it, if you will.”

Heagerty is widely known as ToTs, a rapper whose subject is exclusively potatoes, and as one of the more delightful employees at his family’s Armory Square pub, Kitty Hoynes. But over the past couple of years, he has also become a well-connected networker in Syracuse. His title at NOexcuses is chief connection officer.

“Thanks to all the cool people we’ve met over the last couple years, and all the hands that I’ve shook and all the relationships that I’ve fostered and made, I have all that information available,” he said. “I’m a social concierge.”
NOexcuses makes use of those past couple of years networking and collaborating with business partner Michael Rotella, founder of Syracuse Guru.

“It’s a perfect time for us to put ourselves out there and a number of others out there,” Rotella explains.
NOexcuses, like Syracuse Guru, offers information about events throughout the city through partnerships with local bloggers. While Guru informs its readers about events in the city, Heagerty’s NOexcuses will take you to them.
“Anyone can offer a tour. Whether it’s a food tour, or a tour of a certain area, a downtown walking tour,” Heagerty said.

The tours he is offering, which are not yet available for booking but are listed on the site, are grouped in subjects such as burgers, art, tea and local history. What makes NOexcuses different is the depth Heagerty plans to offer through his tours.

“They’re one part history, one part tour, and the final part is the insider information—tips and tricks and things, and the shaking of hands and meeting of people. They all share the same common goal: It’s a pro-Syracuse thing,” he says.

Rotella and Heagerty plan to grow their sites in different niches, although they say there might be some overlap. They say the ventures are not competitive.

“It’s all about collaboration. That’s why {NOexcuses} exists,” Rotella says.

Heagerty agrees and says that this collaborative attitude is found all over Syracuse, where businesses work well together and are very open to new ways of supporting the city.
“With a more engaged Syracuse. . .
that’s how you create a better community,” Heagerty says.

“It’s kind of corny sounding,” Rotella says of the work he and Heagerty have undertaken, “but it’s a way to let the latent creativity of the past manifest itself through what we’re doing. Maybe we can’t be like the salt mine again, but we can bring the ingenuity, the innovative spirit and the creativity that this area just has in it, out again.”
For information, visit noexcusessyr.com.

You can also go through Facebook at facebook.com/NOexcusesSYR or follow @NOexcusesSYR on Twitter