They call them "boomerangs." They're primarily 20- or 30-somethings who grew up in Traverse City, then ran away to seek their fortunes elsewhere as soon as they could. After all, unless they owned or worked in a hospitality business, there was just no place for them in a resort town.

Now, those boomerangs are coming back.

Many of these marketing, Web design or information technology people missed northern Michigan — and, because the technology allows it, they can live wherever they want.

These entrepreneurs are finding each other now in Traverse City. Go to a coffee shop in downtown called Brew, and scores are hunched over laptops, designing websites, coding, running social media, even composing music for clients nationwide. They also connect through social media "tweetups" or "geek breakfasts" or in new "co-working" spaces, where they network, socialize and barter their services.

Erin Monigold, 29, is among them. She launched Social Vision Marketing in Traverse City in 2010 after having been laid off from a larger marketing firm.

"It was really when social media was starting to take off a lot," Monigold said, "and it seemed like a lot of small businesses in the area really needed some help to try to do it right, needed help to try to get the word out about their business."

Monigold also saw the potential to use social media to create more of a sense of community among the hundreds of scattered freelancers and small-business owners in Traverse City. She launched the Traverse City Tweetup, which attracts hundreds of freelancers in the area to monthly meetings, and the Traverse City Geek Breakfast, where tech professionals gather monthly to exchange ideas and services.

Part of it, Monigold said, is generational — a need for younger people to define their own careers, because nothing seems as certain as it was for their parents, many of whom worked for the same company for 30 years or more.

Michael Kent grew up in Traverse City, then left for a job in the service industry in Chicago and Ann Arbor. He quickly grew tired of it and returned to Traverse City with his wife, Brooke Allen, to follow their real passion.

They launched Allen-Kent Photography, which also designs websites.

"I've been excited about the fact that maybe there isn't a huge tech community here like downstate or Grand Rapids or Chicago, but I see one coming, and we can be part of that," Kent said. "We have this little nexus through the tech community where, maybe it's not like Silicon Valley, but we've got all these tiny little tech firms that are just our friends."

Kristin Fehrman, director of marketing at Ozmott LLC, which develops apps for iPhones and Android phones, ran as fast as she could to Silicon Valley after leaving Traverse City. She returned this year because she wanted to take charge of her own career and do it from a place she loves.

It is a trend that appears to be specific to Traverse City, said Rob Fowler president and CEO of the Small Business Association of Michigan.

"I think, more and more, people choose the lifestyle and either start a business or become that free agent where they may have three or four different clients," Fowler said. "They can do it from anywhere in the world, and they choose to do it from Traverse City."

These people also do not want to become part of the hospitality industry that defines Traverse City. They come here specifically to fill niches for growing second-stage companies.

"I think what we're seeing is that's really creating a demand for a CFO for a day, a CIO for the day," Fowler said. "Not a week, but one day a week, until we need them two days a week and until we grow into it."

And, Fowler said, they're coming en masse to Traverse City, although his group does not yet have any survey figures for it.

Apart from the lifestyle of the region, another reason it's happening in this particular place is Michigan native Michael Moore, the documentary filmmaker who has helped make Traverse City hip through his work fixing up downtown and launching film and comedy festivals.

"Regardless of what you think of his politics, Michael Moore made a really good statement about this area. He said this area is going to die if people do not start taking the younger generation into account," said Kevin Reeves, a musical composer who went away to Nashville for a time, then came back to Traverse City, where he grew up, in 2009. Reeves said he came back to a very different city from the one he left just a few years before.

Chad Rickman, who does Web development for Traverse City-based Hagerty Insurance as well as freelance work, credited Moore with helping create the cultural climate needed to get younger entrepreneurs to come back.

It's that kind of energy that Bradley Matson, 28, hopes to tap into as he opens his CoWharf Coworking space, which had its grand opening last week in downtown Traverse City.

"We don't see Traverse City becoming the next Silicon Valley. That's unrealistic," said Matson, who invested about $20,000 into the co-working space. "But we do see Traverse City as being a hub for an event, like Austin South by Southwest," a reference to the annual film and technology event in Texas.

"That's feasible here for summers when people come here anyway," he said. "Get the geeks a little more color. Why not?"

Matson is helping plan a "Startup Weekend" next year just before the Traverse City Film Festival at the end of July.

Matson is a "boomerang" himself, having moved to Arizona for a while to pursue a career, then coming back to Traverse City with his wife, Kirsten, to open CoWharf while still telecommuting to his old job.

They needed about 12 people to get the co-working space off the ground. They have 30 signed up so far, primarily graphic designers, programmers, photographers and writers.

Tres Brooke, 41, an emergency management consultant who telecommutes to his East Lansing-based company, Cema, is giving CoWharf a try. It's better, he said, than working in isolation at his home.

"We communicate with each other more than ever now; we're accessible from anywhere, anytime; and yet we're all starting to work at home and work in isolation increasingly," Brooke said. "And I'm starting to go a little stir crazy.

"I crave interacting with other people and sharing ideas. I'm a very expressive and intuitive person, so I have to be around other people. Otherwise, I'll just kind of go nuts after a while."