I’m in Oklahoma City this week, attending the 2010 Creativity World Forum, an international gathering exploring the nature and nurture of creativity in culture, commerce, education, and community. Speakers include creative education advocate Sir Ken Robinson, Whole New Mind author Daniel Pink, New York Times technology columnist David Pogue, and a cast of characters from Olympic athletes to astronauts to business people.
I’m on a panel on Wednesday on the subject of ”Growing the Creative Mind.”
It’s not yet clear to me who this conference is intended to serve, or what specifically it hopes to encourage those people to do. But I’m guessing that a primary purpose is to bring interesting people together and to give them something to talk about. And for a ‘creativity forum,’ that’s not a bad place to start.
Tweets will be coming with the #cwf2010 hashtag. Follow along from home.
… and in this hour of financial desperation for those of us in the arts community, who is paying for attendance at this conference? How much is registration? Is this the highest priority for the arts community? Or is this an exercise in ego boosting and “meeting” without direction or focus? This type of “conference” is not going to be funded by managements in the future… we are making draconian cuts and our associations have to get the message… no conferences on obtuse topics, no trips to Bahrain or Hawaii, no useless publications or meetings with no need or application to real world needs.