Resolutions for a new year, new community

Hope you enjoyed your vacation.

Here’s a set of resolutions for building a creative community that sparks investment, vitality and positive growth around it when there is none to little to begin with, based on Fast Company’s magazine’s rules for establishing a creative community (at a smaller scale.)

1. Recruit for diversity, hire for philosophy - Start with a diverse group of risk-takers who relish the idea of initiating a new community of

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The first and only CoolTown-oriented regional leadership

In January 2003, the Federal Reserve Bank announced a new economic development initiative it sponsored to invest in New England’s “creative industries, a creative workforce and community life that is rich in creativity and cultural heritage.“  Business, cultural and political leaders from each of New England’s states came together to establish the progressive regional industry association, the Creative Economy Council.

Why?  They

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Cities and the Creative Class

Cities and the Creative Class is for studious fans of Richard Florida’s best-seller, The Rise of the Creative Class.  It is a collection of the research that lead to ‘Rise’, ‘in full empirical detail and analysis the key premises on which the argument of Rise are based’.

It is also a primer for the highly-anticipated sequel that is coming out on March 15, 2005, The Flight of the Creative Class: Why America is Losing the Competition for Talent… and What We

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Rise of the Creative Class II

For anyone who doesn’t know Richard Florida, author of The Rise of the Creative Class, it is his market and economic research that largely qualifies signficant investment in CoolTowns.

Since being published in 2002 (with its sequel, The Flight of the Creative Class due in 2005), his work has helped either validate or inspire the creative mindsets of the mayors of Austin and Denver, the governor of Michigan, and the CEO of Hewlett-Packard, to name a few, to

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The Creating Cool conference: Part 2

The most inspiring person at the Creating Cool conference was the lunchtime keynote: Bill Strickland of the Manchester Craftsmen’s Guild.

Here was a simple man with no money who established a center for excellence in job training, art and music production in “a black neighborhood in inner city Pittsburgh” as he reminded the audience repeatedly.  The incredible story behind the center is definitely worth the time to read.

Another great story told at the

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The Creating Cool conference: Part 1

How big a trend is this ‘cool town’ thing?  The organizers for today’s Creating Cool conference in Lansing, Michigan were expecting 700 attendees.  There were 1400.

Governor Jennifer Granholm opened the one-day event, and I’d have to say I haven’t witnessed a cooler governor.  She wasn’t out there giving a typical political speech with statistics and policy promises, she was out there impassioning people to think creatively, to think cool.

Richard

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What’s your community’s manifesto? Memphis knows. The Memphis Manifesto summit took place in May 2003, a great first step in establishing a beta community.

Hosted by Creative Class author Richard Florida, Smart City Radio’s Carol Coletta selected 100 creatives in politics, arts, design, media, technology and academia, business, economic development and nonprofits, from Austin to Toronto, Portland to Providence, to meet in Memphis on the first of May to draft a manifesto for creativity in

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The Rise of the Creative Class: And How It’s Transforming Work, Leisure, Community and Everyday Life.  That’s the name of economist Richard Florida’s signature best-seller that’s defining economic plans for cities, states and countries.  The message behind the numbers is simple: if you want to create jobs, you’ll have to find creative people, and those people gravitate towards creative industries and creative amenities (nightlife, restaurants, entertainment, recreation).

The book is filled

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Prove it?  Some people already have, and it’s much easier to explain this visually via the graph below, where the dots represent the country’s cities.  On the x-axis, creativity is measured via creative class workforce (science, engineering, architecture, design, education, arts, music, entertainment), innovations (patents per capita), high-tech industry and diversity.  On the y-axis, overall economic performance is measured by job and population growth, high-tech growth and changes in per

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