Beet Street: 2008

2.04.2008

RockMasters Announces 'Thats Edu-Tainment'

Spotting an opportunity to build on its flourishing business in the “experience economy”, RockMasters has launched a franchise opportunity specialising in providing schools in rock music for both children and adults, typically at summer camps and corporate weekends.

OneScreen's Film Festival In Its Fifth Year

OneScreen, the original film festival for the creative community by the creative community, is back for its fifth year. OneScreen gives industry professionals a venue to showcase independently-produced film and video work made for any platform. It is an extension of the One Club's mission to elevate the creative standards in advertising and design in all its forms.

After having more than one million pages created in its first nine months, Scrapblog shares 2007's biggest and most surprising developments.

It's exciting that designers are talking about sustainability even though the concept of sustainability seems at odds, or downright antithetical, to a lot of graphic design. Afterall, don't designer's love itty bitty type surrounded by white space, glorious white space? Certainly, the AIGA has sent out its fair share of multiple page publications with florescent inks and vellum overlays. But, change is good and change is progressive and I do think that AIGA and designers are trying to change.

London – ‘I will show your Excellency what a woman can do,” wrote the 16th-century Italian painter Artemisia Gentileschi to one of her aristocratic patrons. Some three centuries later, the American artist Georgia O’Keefe remarked: “The men liked to put me down as the best woman painter. I think I’m one of the best painters.”
The struggle of women artists to gain recognition as artists, regardless of their sex, is the underlying leitmotif of “The Art of Women from the Renaissance to Surrealism,” a far-ranging exhibition of 260 works by 140 artists at the Palazzo Reale in Milan until March 9.

I am always amazed by Etsy’s dedicated and creative community. Many sellers and buyers have expressed a personal connection to Etsy by using the word “Etsy,” its logo, or other Etsy Marks on products, in running a website, in hosting an event, and in creating promotional materials. This use may seem like a win/win situation: the member uses the Etsy name to promote their shop and all of Etsy benefits from this promotion.

Among the group's expected recommendations: The region should work with organizations representing minority- and female-owned businesses; brand the city as a hub of creative enterprise; collaborate with entrepreneurship groups; and create financial-incentive programs to attract creative-economy businesses and to fund entrepreneurs.

Overseas Investors Buy Aggressively in U.S.

For much of the world, the United States is now on sale at discount prices. With credit tight, unemployment growing and worries mounting about a potential recession, American business and government leaders are courting foreign money to keep the economy growing. Foreign investors are buying aggressively, taking advantage of American duress and a weak dollar to snap up what many see as bargains, while making inroads to the world’s largest market.

Who's buying America? It isn't who you think...

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Bridging the Class Divide

What is happening? Obviously the drivers of such far-reaching change are complex. But one way to make sense of it all comes from scholars who now refer to the two "paradoxes of globalization."

Communities with large and healthy ARTS economies enjoy a richer quality of life, with more people benefiting from post-secondary education and less poverty.

Through theater, lectures and community conversation, Fort Collins residents have a unique opportunity in coming weeks to better understand rising poverty and shape solutions.

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Thank you.

ArtBistro Podcast: Rhythm - Has Your Creativity Got It?

From Accidental Creative:
Rhythm is critical to the creative process. When we treat ourselves like machines, we will find that our capacity to create is diminished, but when we cultivate a sense of rhythm we will increase our long-term creative viability.

PODCAST

Design You Trust

The Center for an Urban Future is a New York City-based think tank that fuses journalistic reporting techniques with traditional policy analysis to produce in-depth reports and workable policy solutions on the critical issues facing our cities.

"The EXPECTATION ECONOMY is an economy inhabited by experienced, well-informed consumers from Canada to South Korea who have a long list of high expectations that they apply to each and every good, service and experience on offer.

Proponents say it would help revitalize Gaines Street, and they're hoping results from a recent survey will convince Tallahassee leaders to turn over a 4.5-acre, city-owned parcel at Gaines and Gay streets.

Mayor Ellen O. Moyer plans to introduce legislation next month to help create the city's first arts and entertainment district that would reshape and revitalize outer West Street and offer tax benefits and other incentives to lure artists into the city.

NEW ORLEANS (AP) As the second anniversaries of two major hurricanes approach, Louisiana tourism officials plan an August forum of tourism officials from around the world Д capping what will be a month-long effort to shift attention from lingering devastation to thriving cultural events that are important to the recovery.
“We’re trying to make the entire state a cultural mecca,” Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu said in a telephone interview.

According the World Travel and Tourism Council (wttc.org), travel and tourism is "one of the world's largest industries, employing approximately 231 million people and generating over 10.4 per cent of world GDP.” When one considers that businesses, residents and event and meeting planners also choose one place over another, it is no wonder that cities, regions and countries are branding themselves in earnest.

Arts worth $64 million to Brevard

COCOA - The arts are good for business.
That notion, put forth for years by arts organizations and supporters, was confirmed Friday at the Brevard Cultural Alliance and Economic Development Commission's "Economics of Creativity" joint event in Cocoa Village.

A major snag could be in the picture for Villa Muse, the $2.5 billion development in East Travis County that would include a major film production studio, office buildings and high-end housing.
Villa Muse would lie outside Austin city limits but within its five-mile growth zone, known as an "extra-territorial jurisdiction," or ETJ. Villa Muse wants out of the ETJ, but the city is saying "not so fast." As Shakespeare would say: "There lies the rub."

In the 1984 teen flick Revenge of the Nerds, techno geeks rise up against the jocks and other tormenters.
That was the '80s, where computer wizards were objects of derision. Today, nerds rule.
The technological revolution has not only left behind Luddites, it has also become a force in Canada's economy. Social scientist Richard Florida stated in his book The Rise of the Creative Class that cities which have what he terms a "creative class" will lead a new economic surge the way resource-rich and manufacturing-heavy centres fuelled the economy in bygone days.

Columbia, South Carolina - Survey: 90 percent of residents support development

The theory of Innovista is that researchers attracted to the campus will live, work and play in the same compact area — a 30-block chunk of downtown anchored by USC’s 200-year-old Horseshoe to the east and, to the west, the Congaree River and the estimated $77 million, 74-acre park.

DAYTON — — The money is raised, the consultant is hired and Richard Florida himself will be here in March to train Daytonians on how to build and sustain creative class" growth here in the Miami Valley.

The Creative Region Initiative, the moniker given to the local effort begun a year ago by the Southwestern Ohio Council for Higher Education and a task force of 20 community groups, kicks off today with a call for 30 volunteers to be trained by Florida's consulting company, the Creative Class Group.

Two Million Minutes: A Global Examination

WATCH THE TRAILER
A continuation of the TWO MILLION MINUTES documentary film, this blog offers deeper insights into education in China, India and the United States, and the challenge America faces. Now you can join a dialog about what governments, communities and families should and are doing to best prepare US students for
satisfying careers in the 21st century.

READ THE BLOG

1.18.2008

Richard Florida: "Bubble Land"

Talk about a mirror into America's economy. Greater DC is one of the most class divided places on the planet. While people in Toronto worry about "three cities," growing inequality and fraying social cohesion, greater Washington is 3 cities - on steroids - a supper affluent global (though largely white) creative class, a large, growing and struggling new immigrant class, and a large, poor and mainly black underclass. You'd have to be blind, deaf and dumb not to see the glaring economic and social inequality and class divide that is greater Washington.

Building Peaceful Communities Through the Arts

Arlene Goldbard's (author of New Creative Community) presentation titled Out of the Box at the Shanti Foundation Conference in Chicago on October 18-19, 2007

"In just the same way, I want to talk with you today about rejecting the view that puts community arts work, community cultural development, in a too-small box labeled “nice but inconsequential.” I hope to persuade you to accept the much larger and more exciting view you will take in throughout this conference, showing you how the work of deeply committed and talented community artists has enormous potential to create community and nurture peace, a power far beyond most of the conventional interventions people keep trying over and over again, despite their evident failure."

Mayor Bloomberg sounded some broad themes in his seventh State of the City address. Held at the new ice skating rink at Flushing-Meadows Corona Park in Queens, his speech outlined initiatives the city and various city agencies will undertake (digital 911 so you can send the NYPD photos from cell phones by this summer! reforming the Board of Elections! asking Congress to expand the Earned Income Tax Credit!) and gave him an opportunity to show the public what he stands for.

The Boston Globe reported that some small arts groups are responding creatively to the Boston Foundation's recentyl released report PDF on the state of the arts community in the greater Boston area.

Tomorrow night in an alternative gallery space in Cambridge, a self-proclaimed group of “artyrs” will drink Kool-Aid, eat chili, and participate in a “die in.”

Many feel that the report — which recommends smaller, struggling arts organizations consider merging, or an “exit strategy” that would lead to their quiet demise — took an unnecessarily cold, actuarial view of the plight of the small arts nonprofit.

The article explores a tourist village in Bangalore where affluent Indians can experience a rural lifestyle. It is the showcasing of all things old, traditional and rural -- which are less and less a part of the lives of many Indians.

Ten Reasons to Be a Locavore

Found among ECO-TIPS FROM SUSTAINABLE LAWRENCE

Sustainability is all about “going local”. Our “tip” for this week is about why and how. “Locavore”, according to the Webster folks, is now an official word. It means someone who eats only things grown locally. But this shouldn’t only apply to food.
...

Reason #4: Supporting local musicians, artists, writers, and artisans (all basically business people, too) strengthens our creative class and builds local cultural identity.

But, while headline-grabbing events and a slew of new chic boutique hotels openings across the city are expected to boost the city's tourism by over 2m visitors a year, locals maintain that the birthplace of the Beatles is finally getting the credit it always deserved as a hub for creative talent.

Cities ramp up kid-friendly hospitality

'You can't have a childless city,' says one urban advocate, part of a movement to keep families — and tots — happy living downtown.

"In organizing this competition, the City not only highlighted the talent of a local designer and chose a design for an object of public utility, but also fulfilled one of the commitments spelled out in the action plan drawn up for the metropolis during the Rendez-vous November 2007 - Montréal, cultural metropolis. I am one of those people who believe in our talents and see in creative endeavours such as this competition an approach stimulating innovative and avant-garde ideas. This type of initiative is in line with an approach promoting urban development that is both sustainable and creative and that, above all, deserves to be repeated," concluded Hudon.

BANGKOK: Creative industries have emerged as one of the world's most dynamic economic sectors, with international trade in creative goods and services rising to $445.2 billion in 2005 from $234.8 billion in 1996, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (Unctad) has said in its report.

Never thought I'd live to see this day...

From the U.S. Census Bureau:

About 33 percent of young women 25 to 29 had a bachelor’s degree or more education in 2007, compared with 26 percent of their male counterparts, according to tabulations released today by the U.S. Census Bureau.

The tables also showed that more education continues to pay off in a big way: Adults with advanced degrees earn four times more than those with less than a high school diploma. Workers 18 and older with a master’s, professional or doctoral degree earned an average of $82,320 in 2006, while those with less than a high school diploma earned $20,873.
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FULL REPORT

Best of the Urblogosphere*: 2007 Round-Up

Where a blog about urban places, placemaking and the concept of "place" and the role that physical places play in shaping our lives, culture, and society, presents its roundup of the best posts of 2007. The eight entries fall under two categories: General Urbanism and Place-Specific posts.

Very interesting and well worth the read.

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(*Urblogosphere = urban blogosphere)

Authenticity Helps Where Marketing Dollars Fall Short in Tourism

Destinations' greatest tourism asset may well be the authenticity of experience they provide visitors, according to the founder of Saskatchewan-based “boutique” travel company Great Excursions, Claude-Jean Harel: “Now more than ever is the time to bring this character forward in our efforts to harness the industry’s potential, especially in international markets"
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A treatise on building vibrant cultural quarters

From CoolTown Studios:

Today's entry will be a little uncommon, but rather extraordinary as we present Urban Cultures' detailed presentation behind their Cultural Quarters: Necessary Conditions and Success Factors checklist. There really are few if any firms that have such fine-grain knowledge in helping cities invest in such places, and we're glad to be associated with them.

More people are traveling to experience the heritage and history of a region
What brings tourists to a place? Its events, its restaurants, the beauty of its scenery? Increasingly, the draw that pulls tourists is not what's happening, but what happened there.
Cultural and heritage tourism — travel directed toward experiencing the traditional and contemporary culture, arts and special character of a place — is among the fastest growing segments of the tourism market, said organizers of a three-day symposium on the subject in Monterey this week.
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With love, from Cleveland!

Tips for Nonprofits meme:

Elizabeth Able, of Able Reach Arts and Web Development, recently started a blog meme in support of nonprofits that have an online presence. She asks that we write one tip on ways nonprofits can benefit from having an online presence and have others do the same. Tips can have similarities so long as each offers new insight into the topic.

It's not that I'm obsessed, it's just that China's speed fascinates me

"Olympic Fine Arts 2008" kicks off

Deja Vu...

As read in Music Publishing & Song Writing:

In case you missed it, the opening shots across the bow were fired this week, when the Digital Media Association (DiMA) filed a brief in a royalty-rate setting proceeding arguing that an interactive stream should not require a license to reproduce a composition (that is, a digital phonorecord delivery, or DPD, license under Section 115 of the Copyright Act.) In layman’s terms, that means that the Digital Medial Association, the representatives for companies like MusicNet, which supplies music to Microsoft, Yahoo, MTV and many others, is trying to get out of having to pay a royalty to songwriters and publishers for reproducing their music in the digital, online sphere—something they had essentially agreed to do as far back as 2001. In short, DiMA is looking for the Federal courts to give them an escape hatch from a commitment they made to the music community more than five years ago.

Here's the official schedule of the panels being held at Sundance later this month. I'm making a very quick trip, but panels on New Filmmaking Technology, Hollywood Adapting to the Web, and Digital Distribution for Indie Filmmakers look good.

Green tourism boost proposed

Tennessee economic development officials and others are to meet today to develop a plan to bolster heritage and ecotourism in the 21-county Cumberland Plateau region. MORE

Everybody's doin' it, doin' it, doin' it...

It would seem that everyone, in every state, has set forth the same mandate: Culture, Creativity and Innovation: West Virginia in the New Economy

Not that it 's a bad thing. You can learn a lot from the best practices of others.

1.10.2008

Happy New Year!

Scrambling to catch up on my reading. So, until I do, here are a few interesting tidbits for you to ponder. Talk among yourselves...

A Community's "Personality" is Key to Economic Future

There is an important element missing in too many studies--the PERSONALITY OF THE COMMUNITY--period. The lesson of the Clinton campaign can be carried over to community revitalization---numbers versus personality. Interestingly, communities could use some additional numbers in their quest to find their "personality."

Presidential Candidates who've publicly voiced their support for the arts

View candidate policy statements on this site created by Americans for the Arts.

Our mission is to secure bold, new policy proposals in support of the arts and arts education in America from candidates during the 2008 presidential campaign.
ArtsVote is a national initiative to help the arts impact the presidential election. In New Hampshire, the Arts Action Fund has partnered with New Hampshire Citizens for the Arts to identify, educate, train, and mobilize likely arts voters to help influence candidates to take strong positions for the arts.

On a similar note: Funding for NEA is enlightened

Twenty million dollars is a subatomic particle in the grand, convoluted scheme we call the federal budget. But to the National Endowment for the Arts, which has spent the past two decades clawing its way back from fiscal disaster, $20 million looms enormously large.
Late last month, President George W. Bush signed a package of appropriations bills that includes a $20 million increase for the endowment's coffers for the coming year. The NEA now has a $144 million budget, with the recent increase representing its largest-ever boost.

Art in All of Us

China enhances national image on cultural front

"Cultural exchange is an important way to showcase national image, and thus an
indispensable component of China's diplomatic work," said Ke Yasha, an official with the Ministry of Culture at the symposium on "Communicating Across Cultures: the Arts Shape World-Views". Chinese President Hu Jintao, in his report to the 17th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC), called for bringing about a new upsurge in socialist cultural development, stimulating the cultural creativity of the whole nation, and enhancing culture as part of the soft power of China.

Blogging for the hearts of donors

“Seventy-five percent of the charitable organizations studied are using some form of social media including blogs, podcasts, message boards, social networking, video blogging and wikis. More than a third of the organizations are blogging.”

2.04.2008

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