Brooklyn's Progress
October/November 2006

BY MEREDITH GRINGER

WiseUp! Productions, Inc. has been a Member of the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce since March 2002.  In those four years, the business has undergone many challenges that it has been able to meet with considerable grace and success.       

Founder and owner Bilal Muhammad passed away in the summer of 2005 (visit ibrooklyn.com to read the article from the August/September 2005 issue), leaving the future of the company unclear.  Mr. Muhammad had started WiseUp! in 1994, a company that promotes cultural events through flier and poster distribution.  Initially, Mr. Muhammad handled the flier distribution by himself, but his company soon grew to include a staff of three, and several major clients.  Mr. Muhammad’s daughter, Ayana Muhammad, twenty-five at his passing, was unwilling to see what she calls her “father’s baby” die. 

Ms. Muhammad had helped her father with his business since its inception, coming home from basketball practice at age 14, to snap together business card holders.  Though Mr. Muhammad had been an active Member of the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce since 2002, his daughter had not been familiar with the role that the Chamber played in WiseUp!’s success.  When it came time to renew the membership, she was unsure as to how to proceed.  Her mother, Ibon, insisted that she renew, citing relationships with Chamber Members like the Brooklyn Museum and the Brooklyn Center for the Performing Arts as direct results of Chamber networking events and referrals. 

“I renewed, and it was a good thing that I did,” says Ms. Muhammad.  “The Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce is amazing, it’s like the oil for your gears.” 

One year after Ms. Muhammad assumed the helm at WiseUp!, she is proud that she has weathered the transition of the business, which not only continues but also thrives.  The business has grown in ways not even her father could have imagined.  Ms. Muhammad is tapping into different cultural markets, and expanding into a younger demographic, promoting album release parties and new neighborhood boutiques, and she is clear to note that this is just the start of the company’s new beginning. 

WiseUp! Productions, Inc.  serves all of New York City and parts of New Jersey and Long Island.   The business is always looking to start new relationships with cultural organizations.  To contact WiseUp! visit their Web site at http://www.wiseuponline.com/ or call 718-623-0333.