Portland Creative Conference

May 31, 2008

The new Creative Conference is a go!

Filed under: Planning,Sponsors — Steve Gehlen @ 1:52 PM

Great news! At the Creative Conference meeting yesterday we reached consensus for moving forward.

The primary driver is that after a generous pledge of individual financial support by the new planning group (made up of several Board members and volunteers from the original Creative Conference along with some new blood), along with sponsorship commitments from the Oregon Media Production Association and Greger Peterson Associates, we have the funds we need to put the deposit down to hold the venue for a September 6th design-focused conference in conjunction with Inverge: the interactive convergence conference, happening on Sept. 4+5.

The next steps include committee meetings for sponsorship, program and marketing.

Thanks to everyone who has agreed to help bootstrap the event so far.  We will need a lot of additional financial support to make it happen with the same quality of the previous event, but we are off to a great start and I am confident that we have the momentum we need to pull it off.

May 30, 2008

Community-powered Approach Helps to Fund Re-launch

Filed under: Planning,Sponsors — Steve Gehlen @ 8:50 AM

One of the things that I enjoyed most about the first iteration of the Portland Creative Conference in the 90′s was how the creative community came together to make it happen.  The collaborative work of the event’s Board, production crew, volunteers, in-kind service providers and sponsors was something like magic.

I’m happy to report that as we work on a re-launch of a similar event that spirit is being rekindled!  The most obvious early example is that many people in the new planning group (several Board alumni from the original event plus several new faces) have personally pledged $100 toward the deposit required to hold the venue for the proposed Sept. 6th date.

If you are interested in helping out in any way (personal contribution, company sponsorship, in-kind service, etc.), please contact us.

May 29, 2008

Portland and the Creative Vitality Index

Filed under: Uncategorized — Sharon Rockey @ 2:43 PM

We’ve already known for some time that creativity is alive and well in Portland.  After all, for over a decade the Creative Conference had been a lightening rod for imaginative, inventive, and ingeniously creative people.  It could even be argued that the conference helped boost Portland’s reputation as a creative center.

Now you can get a quick summary of exactly how Portland measures up by reading the May 23 issue of Portland Business Journal. On page 4 an article cites a report funded by the Oregon Arts Commission — the “Creative Vitality Index” — and confirms that creativity abounds in Oregon and that Multnomah County is the state’s creative hub.

The index measures the financial health of a creative economy by looking at both creative occupations and participation in the arts. With the national average of “creative vitality” arbitrarily set at 1, Multnomah County ranks 2.27. You can find the full report along with some creative company profiles at the Oregon Arts Commission.

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