Note: over the next few weeks, we will be posting some of the feedback gathered during the discussion following Richard Florida's March 18th, 2003 talk in Fort Wayne. The following is the third of these questions posed. View responses and leave yours by clicking on the 'Comments' link below. Please check back regularly to view more.
What should happen next to keep things moving?
Collected Responses from the 'Now What?' Cards left at the event:
- This evening will only have been worthwhile if long-term change is started by this session.
- A Clay Art Festival: It’s our most important natural asset; (all American clay). Dump a couple of trucks full and sculpt.
- Richard Florida is a wonderful speaker. Thanks. Market/sell Fort Wayne as the best place to live. It takes people to prosper
- Thank you so much for brining Richard Florida to speak with us in Fort Wayne. This forum to begin the dialog is so important. I would like to note that the only reason I heard about the event is because I knew of Florida’s work from other sources and I LUCKILY caught Jean Shaheen’s interview on NPR so early in the morning. AND my husband who works on the campus that helped sponsor the event, NEVER saw or heard an ad for this. Im concerned that your word isn’t getting out as effectively as it could. But I’m SO glad I heard about it.
- It’s great to hear this kind of information going out ot City of Fort Wayne. The word is out! Factories/industry are not what is helping Fort Wayne to grow. Its time to promote and create jobs for the movers and shakers.
- Richard Florida was awesome! Please bring him back to assist Fort Wayne in moving toward a creative community with more implementation techniques. I’m interested involved in Fort Wayne’s creative movement. Please contact me.
- Use the list of attendees to call a follow up meeting. Give people a way to stay involved.
- Let’s have more of these meetings.
- Do a focus group with 20 and 30 year olds to find out what they want out of a community that we’re not currently offering and what they do like here.
If you've seen the billboards and read the book Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, you can join the on-line discussion at www.allencountyreads.org.
Allowing creative people to work freely is key not only to improving products and developing new ones, but to anticipating tomorrow's business — "people who can predict changes," said IUPU Fort Wayne marketing professor Zoher Shipchandler.Read the rest of the article here.
How would you describe the "essence" of Fort Wayne?Read the rest of Leo Morris' editorial here.That question is possibly the most important message conveyed at IPFW Tuesday night during the speech by Carnegie Mellon University professor Richard Florida. The more people who have fun trying to answer it, the brighter the community's future will be.
Note: over the next few weeks, we will be posting some of the feedback gathered during the discussion following Richard Florida's March 18th, 2003 talk in Fort Wayne. The following is the second of these questions posed. View responses and leave yours by clicking on the 'Comments' link below. Please check back regularly to view more.
How have your plans or attitudes been influenced or changed by what you learned at the event?
The engaging pep talk by the economics professor and author Richard Florida on Tuesday won't suddenly change the direction of the city's economy, but his comments should help spur different ways of looking at development.Read Tracy Warner's article here.
The economy will prosper again when more Americans can do the work they love. The party that realizes this first wins.During his visit to Fort Wayne, Richard Florida mentioned that this recent essay contained the building blocks and themes for his next book. Read the article here.
A region shaped by adventurers and innovators is once again undergoing great change. In this ongoing series, Pacific Northwest magazine explores the forces of that change and its significance to our future as a community.This series about the challenges and possible solutions for the Seattle, Portland and Vancouver areas might provide insights and opportunities to discuss. Read the articles here
Hoosier caution and resistance to change stifle Indiana's economy.Read the entire article here.Passive leaders shrink from challenges.
As a result, incomes lag, and jobs and homes are lost as the state sinks deeper into one of the worst economic crises in its history.
by Samantha Teter
I was greatly impressed and empowered by the presentation of Richard Florida's "The Rise of the Creative Class" at IPFW on March 18. But the main question left in my mind was, "Why did he choose Fort Wayne as a creative class economy?" Did Fort Wayne really have the diversity, creative environment and tolerance that is necessary to foster a creative class economy?
At first, my thought was "no." But then our group roundtable discussions started. And what my group realized is that we do have the diversity and the creative environment to succeed, but we're not embracing it. We have the seeds but haven't given them the opportunity to blossom. Our city is diverse in its ethnicity, gender, age, orientation. But we tend to live in our comfortable, segregated colonies and do not like to cross those boundaries as often as we should.
Look at our arts community. We have a variety of excellent community theatres, performance venues, vocal and instrumental organizations, performing musicians, artists, dancers, poets, etc. I'm sure many of us have been to the Children's Zoo, but what about the Museum of Art, the History Center, the Diehm Museum of Natural History, African-American Historical Museum?
We have many initiatives going on right now to develop Fort Wayne and the community. But the changes cannot occur unless the community as a whole participates. What I learned most from last night's discussion is this: We need to change our attitudes about our city. Myself included. There are things going on every day, every night, every weekend in Fort Wayne. People need to search these events out, try something new, embrace the cultural and creative resources our city has. Be proud of what we have to offer.
Yes, we're losing big business opportunities. Yes, our young people are leaving after college to find jobs in bigger, more exciting cities. Yes, our economy is slow. But we, as a community, can change that. We can't expect the city/county governments to do all the work for us. I challenge each of you to find something new and different to do this weekend. Leave your comfort zone. Go see a play, head down to a nightclub for some live music, visit the museums. Until the community itself embraces our wonderful creative resources, we cannot expect potential Fort Wayne citizens or businesses to want to do the same.
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Samantha Teter is the Director of Marketing and Auditorium Events for Scottish Rite Center and a performer in local community theatre.
It's a City, County, and Downtown Improvement District (D.I.D.) cooperative effort to make Downtown Fort Wayne a more vibrant and exciting place to live, work, and play. The goal is to draft a 5-Year action plan that will guide and direct new investment. But to do so we need your ideas.Learn more here.So fire up your imaginations! It's Your Downtown. It's My Downtown. It's Everybody's Downtown! Everybody's Neighborhood... Everybody's Playground... Everybody's History. And that means creating a new vision is Everybody's Opportunity.
by Martin Sorge
The people with the greatest wealth of creativity yet to be tapped into in Fort Wayne seems to be its youth. Our youth supplies us with many of the new ideas needed for our community to attract and grow creativity. Being a youth, I find it very necessary to cultivate an environment that is supportive of new, innovative, and creative ideas. To most of us, we do not feel this support from the community. Why is this? More importantly, what can we do to change this? How can the community appeal itself to youth, and other people who think like us youngsters?
Indiana workers once ranked among America's elite, pouring steel beams for the nation's skyscrapers and stamping parts for the nation's cars. [...] A seven-month examination of Indiana's economy by The Indianapolis Star reveals a slow, steady decline that has reached a crisis point. Poor leadership and a failure to invest in the future have left Hoosier workers with paychecks that lag behind those of other Americans.Read the article here.
Economic development and business officials believe www.creativefortwayne.net is a start toward moving closer to what author Richard Florida calls the Creative Class. [...] He shared his concept of creative communities being key to promoting business and technological communities with a crowd that gathered Tuesday in the Walb Memorial Union at Indiana University-Purdue University, Fort Wayne.Read Rhea Edmonds' article here.
Note: over the next few weeks, we will be posting some of the feedback gathered during the discussion following Richard Florida's March 18th, 2003 talk in Fort Wayne. The following is the first of these questions posed. View responses and leave yours by clicking on the 'Comments' link below. Please check back regularly to view more.
What did you learn at the event that surprised you?
Responses from the group discussions that evening:
-In creative communities, there are high levels of stress-related illnesses and divergent salaries.
-Statistics about make-up of nuclear families.
-Attendance – Numbers variety – astounded
-His age – Seemed very young, but was 40
-Common sense – That we do not put into practice – everyone is creative
-Why do young people go? How to bring them back? We need to focus on the return.
-Transient community.
-Yeah, finally. We all knew it, but NO ONE voiced it before.
-Tax abatements don’t mean anything.
-Artists should be incubated like businesses. Art brings dimension to a community. Provide a portal for people to create. Synthesizer of ideas, items blended together.
-No. 1 segregated community in the country in housing.
-Talk about same old issues with same solutions/problems in the end.
-Fort Wayne has an array of things (fine arts) – our daily way of living is great in comparison to bigger areas.
-What are the downtowns looking like of his top 20 cities? Compare to Fort Wayne.
-Coliseum versus downtown issue discussed.
-Compared Fort Wayne to larger cities and how stereotypes are more prominent in Fort Wayne – ripped body jeans and body piercings trigger a stereotype in Fort Wayne
-Creativity is great equalizer. To think with that as a point of reference. Provides base to start from: connect with others, open doors.
-Everyone wants/needs to be validated. Places that are open to "weird" or different people will validate their way.
-New ideas thrive in old buildings.
-"We want a place that is not done."
-Places that were really successful are "Creative Centers".
-Creativity is the sources of economic growth.
-Economic growth is not just technology. "Creative Centers" are where you find more jobs, more innovative businesses/cities.
-We need a ready supply of entrepreneurs – economic creativity.
-Mosaic: take issue with mosaic. Melting pot: lots of blending of skills, background. Everyone learned from everyone else. Need to get back to working together.
-Perhaps mosaic at individual level – not community level.
-Mosaic: see each piece individually, comes together into larger picture. Appreciate color, texture, put together to make a picture.
-Calgary Canada uses arts to decorate concrete, overpasses, depict background of people who make up place.
-Thinking outside the box doesn’t necessarily need to stay the way they are.
-Highest concentration of gays are also most creative cities. People want to live in more liberal community.
-All the inventions out of Fort Wayne.
-The number that showed up.
-Central Soya – didn’t hear ?????
-Need to display our pride.
-Creativity comes from humans. We are the economic raw material.
-Role of community is fundamental part of economics and social.
-Less than 1 year at a job for people under the age of 30.
-Creative people want diversity.
-Places that were open to different people, where people can find their way and validate their life, those kinds of places that creative people naturally gravitate to.
-Authenticity, credible, sense of community.
-30% of workforce in creative sector, but accounts for 50-60% of income.
-Positive message. We are not done.
-People like to live where they can make an impact.
-Rethink ideas of economic development to include creativity processes and activities.
-That the event occurred even at all.
-Nine percent of people in "Leave it to Beaver" setting.
-Florida is a really good speaker. This book is loaded with studies.
-There are so many other places in the world that people in U.S. want to go to.
-That Fort Wayne was picked. Why are we considered a creative city.
Whether or not Richard Florida is really onto something with his theories about the role of the "creative class" in 21st century economies, you could certainly be forgiven for hoping so. Who wouldn't want to live in these Meccas of coolness, oases of tolerance and ethnic food, not invariably described as "a good place to raise a family," but as "a city to watch"?Read Nancy Nall's column here.
Is Richard Florida just another flavor-of-the-month urban-planning consultant, or is he a visionary whose ideas about luring the "creative class" to town should be part of our economic-development strategy?Read the rest of Bob Caylor's editorial here.
by Karl R. LaPan
The future of our community — its economy, its living patterns, and its priorities — is in our hands, challenging the old assumptions upon which we have built Northeast Indiana. We must be bold about the action required.
A leading scholar on the issue of community vitality, Richard Florida, describes the choice Fort Wayne faces in stark terms: "Places that succeed in attracting and retaining creative class people prosper; those that fail, don't.
''In the post-modern world, the ability to create and innovate gives a person the ability to control his or her destiny. This is equally true of communities like Northeast Indiana. Empowering people and organizations to create their own jobs by tapping into their thinking power can be accomplished through a toolbox of methods, work practices, culture and infrastructure.
Giving creativity and innovation a destination: This is the promise and commitment of the Northeast Indiana Innovation Center, and why we are pleased to support Invent Tomorrow, the Alliance, IPFW and Leadership Fort Wayne as sponsors for Florida's visit to Fort Wayne on March 18.
Florida, a professor of economic development at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, explains how a community can benefit by connecting with creativity as a resource for innovation and growth in his most recent best-seller, "The Rise of the Creative Class."
The most successful regional economies are built around clusters of companies in similar or related technologies. Research suggests that the more entrepreneurs "run in packs,'' the more successful they can be because they can share supply sources and distribution channels, buy and sell to each other, co-venture or contract and attract employees with similar technical skills.
Savvy entrepreneurs are drawn to centers of innovation. High tech clusters offer skilled and experienced workers opportunities for networking and possible sources of venture capital.
Are we prepared to make radical structural changes, take risks and prioritize our resources to attract, grow and retain innovators? Not everyone will benefit from the shift to an innovation-led economy. Can we assist those least prepared to make the transition?
Florida speaks of the importance of communities having "low entry barriers'' — places where newcomers are accepted quickly into all sorts of social and economic arrangements. The places that thrive in today's world tend to be what Florida calls plug-and-play communities where anyone can fit in quickly. Are Fort Wayne and northeast Indiana such communities? If the answer is "no," that is something we can — and should — change immediately. How? By fostering and encouraging a pipeline of good ideas.
The creative class is best at breaking down the barriers of stereotypes to put the excitement of the idea first. We see that everyday at the Innovation Center as entrepreneurs come together to work and collaborate. This strikes at the core purpose of the Innovation Center — to provide nascent and local businesses with the tools they need to grow and nurture the talent within their businesses. Our community has always been rich in creativity — look at the inventions that trace their origins to this area. Our goal is to coordinate efforts to improve the work methods and processes of today's northeast Indiana businesses and tomorrow's good ideas. We are a bridge to the future.
Fort Wayne/Allen County can become a thriving creative destination, but it takes investment, focus and the patience on part of the community as a whole. By focusing on enhancing the creative assets our region possesses, we can become a stronger community that gives voice to the innovators who are designing tomorrow's solutions for business, government, education and the like.
As Florida rightly posits. "It is as important for a modern enterprise to have been born in a garage (or perhaps an Innovation Center) as it was for a 19th-century presidential candidate to have been born in a log cabin.'' Fort Wayne/Allen County is ripe for this kind of paradigm change — our future can be reframed as the crossroads of innovation and imagination. The gap between what can be imagined and what can be accomplished has never been smaller. The same can be true for Fort Wayne/Allen County if we set our minds and resources to it.
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Karl R. LaPan is president and CEO of the Northeast Indiana Innovation Center. He wrote this for CreativeFortWayne.net. It also appeared in The Fort Wayne Journal Gazette.