Memphis and Me

I had the distinctive pleasure last week of participating in the ACE Communities Ignite Tour. This, essentially, is a series of launches for the 10 brand new ACE Communities who came on board this September.

The tour involved visits to 5 rural Alberta communities (the 2^nd stage of the tour happens in January) where Ian Hill, the ACE Ambassador, presented to them their ACE Award and then had in-depth conversations with community members. Never having experienced an Ignite Tour before, I went along to soak it all in.

What I experienced was a real grassroots movement, in the trenches, eating home-cooked meals, meeting with community members and discussing salient issues. It was absolutely exhausting, enlightening, and I loved it!

This tour really got me thinking about my work with ACE. As the Creative Cultural Liaison, it is my aim to have a true impact in these communities in regards to the arts, culture, and heritage. It is a huge task and, in my personal opinion, the best job around.

The question I have been batting around in my head since my time on the tour is how exactly does one influence the ‘creative’ side of a community? Especially since, as I learned, each community is so unique.

Luckily for me, great minds have already been working on this very question. In my research regarding what I like to think of as the heart and the soul of community, I came across the Memphis Manifesto.

This document was created at the Memphis Manifesto Summit – an event hosted by Richard Florida, author of Rise of the Creative Class and How It’s Transforming Work, Leisure, Community and Everyday Life, and Carol Coletta, host and producer of the award-winning public radio interview program, Smart City.

Held in Memphis in 2003, this gathering of the creative class called ‘The Creative 100’ was a group selected from nominations from across North America. Coming from 48 cities in the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico, the Creative 100 wrote this manifesto for their own communities and for all communities seeking to compete in today’s economy.

I am encouraging all who have even the smallest interest in creative communities to read this manifesto. I’m so committed, in fact, that I have included it below in this blog as well as provided a link to the document in its entirety.

Basically, this document is 10 points… 10 points!... easily read… that can help any community become a community of ideas! Consider this my new personal manifesto.

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The Memphis Manifesto: Building a community of ideas

Preamble:

Creativity is fundamental to being human and is a critical resource to individual, community and economic life. Creative communities are vibrant, humanizing places, nurturing personal growth, sparking cultural and technological breakthroughs, producing jobs and wealth, and accepting a variety of life styles and culture.

The Creative 100 are committed to the growth, prosperity and excellence of communities, and all who live and work there.

The Creative 100 believe in the vision and the opportunities of a future driven by the power of ideas. Ideas are the growth engines of tomorrow, so the nurturing of the communities where ideas can flourish is the key to success. Ideas take root where creativity is cultivated and creativity thrives where communities are committed to ideas.

Creativity resides in everyone everywhere so building a community of ideas means empowering all people with the ability to express and use the genius of their own creativity and bring it to bear as responsible citizens.

This manifesto is our call to action.

Principles:

The Creative 100 are dedicated to helping communities realize the full potential of creative ideas by encouraging these principles:

1) Cultivate and reward creativity. Everyone is part of the value chain of creativity. Creativity can happen at anytime, anywhere, and it’s happening in your community right now. Pay attention.

2) Invest in the creative ecosystem. The creative ecosystem can include arts and culture, nightlife, the music scene, restaurants, artists and designers, innovators, entrepreneurs, affordable spaces, lively neighborhoods, spirituality, education, density, public spaces and third places.

3) Embrace diversity. It gives birth to creativity, innovation and positive economic impact. People of different backgrounds and experiences contribute a diversity of ideas, expressions, talents and perspectives that enrich communities. This is how ideas flourish and build vital communities.

4) Nurture the creatives. Support the connectors. Collaborate to compete in a new way and get everyone in the game.

5) Value risk-taking. Convert a “no” climate into a “yes” climate. Invest in opportunity- making, not just problem-solving. Tap into the creative talent, technology and energy for your community. Challenge conventional wisdom.

6) Be authentic. Identify the value you add and focus on those assets where you can be unique. Dare to be different, not simply the look-alike of another community. Resist mono-culture and homogeneity. Every community can be the right community.

7) Invest in and build on quality of place. While inherited features such as climate, natural resources and population are important, other critical features such as arts and culture, open and green spaces, vibrant downtowns, and centers of learning can be built and strengthened. This will make communities more competitive than ever because it will create more opportunities than ever for ideas to have an impact.

8) Remove barriers to creativity, such as mediocrity, intolerance, disconnectedness, sprawl, poverty, bad schools, exclusivity, and social and environmental degradation.

9) Take responsibility for change in your community. Improvise. Make things happen. Development is a “do it yourself” enterprise.

10) Ensure that every person, especially children, has the right to creativity. The highest quality lifelong education is critical to developing and retaining creative individuals as a resource for communities.

We accept the responsibility to be the stewards of creativity in our communities. We understand the ideas and principles in this document may be adapted to reflect our community’s unique needs and assets.

For the Memphis Manifesto in its entirety, please see:

http://www.norcrossga.net/user_files/The%20Memphis%20Manifesto.pdf