11 of the Best Innovation 2010 Essays - Fast Company

Here at Co.Design, we pride ourselves on being a house of many mansions. To that end, we’ve spent the past several months sharing the perspectives of some of the finest experts working in design, from Bruce Nussbaum on the dangers of design imperialism to Gadi Amit on what’s wrong with American design schools (hint: everything). We might not agree with all the opinions, but we’re totally convinced that the dialogue about design is richer because of them. What follows is a collection of the most popular -- and occasionally controversial -- columns of 2010. [4 January 2011 - Fast Company's Co.Design - More]

National Communiversity Conference Draws 14 Communities From Connecticut to California

[29 July 2008 - Applied Imagination - By Steven Dahlberg - Windham, Connecticut, USA] Four Windham-area residents participated this past weekend in the first "COMV08: Communiversity Conference" in New Gloucester, Maine. Miriam and Mike Kurland, Abigail Ricklin and Steven Dahlberg joined 35 other people from 14 communities -- from California to Maine -- to explore how communiversities can invent a new community context in which people anticipate and transform challenges into opportunities for creative action.

The Windham delegation told the participants about Willimantic's efforts to build creative community. Their examples ranged from the Third Thursday Street Fest, the Boom Box Parade and Willimantic's historic Main Street to the Victorian Home Tour, the new Imagine Willimantic Communiversity group, and the new Creative Community Building Program being launched this fall at the University of Connecticut with community-based partners in Willimantic.

"This was an extraordinary gathering of people who spent three days focusing on positive aspects of what's working best in their communities," said Dahlberg, who heads the International Centre for Creativity and Imagination in Willimantic. "There was no whining or negativity -- just a group of people who want to share their communities' stories, figure out how to engage people in their communities, and help their communities learn and grow together."

The Imagine Willimantic Communiversity grew out of a visit to Willimantic in April from the Communiversity Conference organizer August Jaccaci. While in town, Jaccaci met with First Selectwoman Jean de Smet, people from community organizations, and citizens. He also led a public Creativity Networking event at the WindhamARTS Collaborative, at which he shared with the audience his concept of "Communiversity" and invited Willimantic to join a network of other cities and towns who are working to build a movement of communiversities.

Communiversities, according to Jaccaci, are about discovering new and world-changing ways to meet real needs in real places in real time -- with hope. Communiversities weave together ideas about community learning, creative communities and change.

"Communiversities are the sequel to the modern university," said Jaccaci. "We need to profoundly reinvent all aspects of society or we are history. This includes reinventing human learning so that it's continuous and includes all members of the family of life."

To deal with the accelerating nature of community change and transformation, Jaccaci told participants, "you have to go ahead of history, create it, and pull it toward you," rather than merely reacting to what happens.

Lawyer-turned-poet Anthony Burnini, who opened the second day with poetry, invited the participants to work in their communities to "unbury the talents that have been put in the ground" so that people might discover that they have something to contribute to their communities.

Participants spent the first day and a half sharing their communities' stories, which offer several possibilities for Willimantic:

• Gainesville, Ga. -- Gus Whalen shared how the Featherbone Communiversity emerged out of a reinvention of the Warren Featherbone Company. They transformed the company's old manufacturing space into a community learning center that includes a school of nursing, a children's museum, a business incubator, and a creativity center.
• Deer Isle, Maine -- Dom Parisi shared a vision for helping people take back control of energy costs. He has a 12-step plan for involving whole communities in making better energy choices everyday. He has particularly focused on what his community’s schools are doing about energy use and conservation, and wants to use communiversities to make that project replicable in other communities.
• Hope, Maine -- As towns consider how to brand and position themselves to the outside world, members of Hope have adopted "Hope is Hip" as theirs. As part of their Communiversity, they invited citizens to a meeting to talk about business or community issues. Forty-five people showed up. "This showed that people want to be connected and talk to each other," said Larrain Slaymaker. This group continues to meet each month at a different business where that organization can showcase itself and its products to the community.
• New London, Conn. -- Art Costa talked about how the Re-New London Council is seeking to focus on strengths and assets to build communities from the inside out and to improve their quality of life. They are exploring how to use land-value tax (versus land-use tax) as a tool for building sustainable economies in new ways in cities. Through their Farm-to-City initiative, they are seeking to feed their community with more local food. They also have a buy-local-first campaign for supporting locally owned and operated businesses.
• Portland, Maine -- Christina Bechstein, an artist and professor at the Maine College of Art, shared examples of how she uses the college's service learning program and arts-based projects to engage students and faculty with a community partner in a community project. She described this as "co-learning with the outside community" and talked about ways to make community challenges, such as hunger, visual and visible.
• Berkeley, Calif. -- Rand Christiansen is focusing both his doctoral studies and his Communiversity work on the concept of a "cosmology of love" in which he explores how love can help us address those things that keep us separate and how to create opportunities for people to excel in their potential. "Love is the wisdom of well-being," he said.

In the closing session, Jaccaci suggested that communiversities can help create the planet's next renaissance and wondered aloud: "What are the design specifications for this?" He recalled Margaret Mead’s encouragement to him of working to answer the question: How do you create models that are organic and natural as opposed to arbitrary and manmade?

The answer, Jaccaci said, is in intention -- whether one organizes around resonance and reverence or manipulation and control of others. Nature, he said, offers the best models to help people organize and design communities that function as creatively and efficiently as nature does.

Christiansen said that focusing on nature emphasizes a model of something that lives and breathes life, which is what people desire of their community. He suggested the sequoia tree as a model, with its broad reach and its roots that spread out and intertwine and support the grove.

“Nature is fundamentally symbiotic, full of mutually benefiting relationships,” Jaccaci said. “How might communiversities be this?”

The Imagine Willimantic Communiversity will meet to share more about the COMV08 experience on Tuesday, August 5, at 5:30 p.m. at Wrench in the Works, 861 Main Street, Willimantic. Anyone interested in finding out more or getting involved with this project is welcome to attend. In addition, Imagine Willimantic Communiversity Member Phoebe Godfrey will talk about this project at the Windham Board of Selectman meeting at 7:00 p.m. on August 5.

Creating Communiversities:
Partners in Whole Community Learning
By August Jaccaci

A Communiversity
Is a learning conversation
Within a whole family of life
In a place they hold in common
Dear to them all.
This conversation
Is a sharing of mutual needs
In a place of mutual dwelling
In a process of mutual learning
In a vessel of mutual hope.
This continuous conversation
Is the voice of the soul of life
Expressing the sanctity of all life
For the future of all life
In the home of all life.

Dan Pink Takes a Hit in His National Arts Address

[2 April 2008 - Washington Post] Daniel Pink and the Economic Model of Creativity ... One hopes that Americans for the Arts, the national lobbying group that fanned out across the Capitol yesterday to talk up government support for its cause, didn't pay best-selling author Daniel Pink a nickel for the talk he gave Monday evening. Pink, an author who has whipped up a very good career massaging talking points into books and books into speaking engagements, gave the annual Nancy Hanks Lecture at the Kennedy Center Concert Hall. Previous speakers have included Robert Redford, William Safire and Ken Burns. The speech is usually a celebratory affair for local arts leaders as they descend on Washington to make their case for such causes as funding the National Endowment for the Arts and arts education in public schools. More

How To Unlock Your Company's Creativity

[2 April 2008 - Forbes] Innovation is one of those sexy-squishy words that big companies throw around in splashy ad campaigns and white papers. Innovation implies new stuff; new stuff implies growth; and growth implies higher stock prices and beach houses in the Hamptons. ... But innovation isn't just the province of the big. Just because small companies don't command multimillion-dollar research and development budgets doesn't mean they don't have to innovate. On the contrary, they have to be even more creative, in every aspect of their business, to compete. It's not easy. More

European Commission proposes 2009 to become European Year of Creativity and Innovation

[2 April 2008 - European Commission] Europe needs to boost its capacity for creativity and innovation for both social and economic reasons. That is why the Commission has today adopted a proposal to declare 2009 the European Year of Creativity and Innovation. The decision will be taken later this year by the Council and the European Parliament. More

Louisiana Gets Creative Economies

[25 March 2008 - From New York - Applied Imagination - By Steven Dahlberg] Louisiana Lt. Governor Mitch Landrieu came to New York this week to share Louisiana's efforts to put culture and creativity at the heart of economic and community development. He was joined at Jazz at Lincoln Center by his colleagues from the Louisiana Office of Cultural Development and the Cultural Economy Foundation, along with New Orleans native and Emmy Award-winning actress Patricia Clarkson and New Orleans native and pianist Jonathan Batiste.

Landrieu described the Louisiana Cultural Economy Initiative and announced one of its key components -- the World Cultural Economic Forum (WCEF) to be held in New Orleans from October 29 to 31, 2008. This event will bring together policy-makers, artists, practitioners, cultural workers, educators, economic development leaders, business people and others from around the world. The International Centre for Creativity and Imagination is pleased to be assisting the Louisiana Office of Cultural Development with this event.

One of the challenges of linking culture and economy, Landrieu said, is how people can do what they love and make a living at it -- in the community in which they live. That is, how do you keep the creative talent in your community -- and the economic impact they produce -- rather than exporting it to other communities.

Landrieu raised some important questions that Louisiana is exploring on an on-going basis and that will be explored at the WCEF:

• How do we grow culture from the ground up to capture the inherent authenticity and richness of a community?
• How do we engage the creative endeavors of both the 'front-of-house" artists and the "back-of-house" staff?
• How do we add value to intellectual capital?
• How do we capture the creative things that are native to a community and share them with the world?
• What is the relationship between poverty and culture?
• How can culture re-create neighborhoods and make them safe? ("This is the ultimate goal of sharing New Orleans' and Louisiana's cultural economic success," he said.)
• Is democracy more important than culture? Can you have both? Is the best way to spread democracy by spreading culture?

Landrieu is asking pretty big and important questions. Let's hope these questions rise to a national discussion in the coming election cycle.

It's important to teach creativity and arts if you are going to grow a community's economy through culture, Landrieu said. This is one reason that Louisiana has mandated arts education for all students from kindergarten through 12th grade. "Art and culture have a residual effect on all," he said.

Louisiana wants to be the focal point for a global discussion about culture, which is why New Orleans is hosting the WCEF. The intersecting issues of culture, race and poverty are not unique to New Orleans, but issues facing communities all over the world. The WCEF seeks to provide a space where people can talk and design and then go back to their own communities and tap into the authenticity and richness of culture there.

In introducing actress Patricia Clarkson, Landrieu commented on the network of his Louisiana creative peers -- which include Clarkson, Wynton Marsalis (artistic director of Jazz at Lincoln Center) and Harry Connick, Jr. -- "when you work with creative people who believe that anything is possible, you find out that it is."

"We are the products of Louisiana," Clarkson responded. "My state made me the actress I am today -- what I was surrounded by. Sometimes I return home to get a charge, a jolt."

Watch for more information about the World Cultural Economic Forum coming soon.

[Pictured above are musician Jonathan Batiste, actress Patricia Clarkson and Lt. Governor Mitch Landrieu]

Dahlberg Brings People Together Through Creativity

[26 January 2008 - The Chronicle - Willimantic, Connecticut] A Willimantic man was recognized for submitting one of the Top 100 breakthrough ideas for the Make It Your Own Awards -- awards that encourage community development. Steven Dahlberg, along with others in a group that have met since last summer, submitted their application to the Make It Your Own Awards, a new grants program that aims to increase and strengthen citizen involvement and looks for a more inclusive and innovative approach to grant making. Dahlberg -- a self-employed consultant for the International Centre for Creativity and Imagination -- is looking to open up the creative minds of those in town, as his project is titled "Weaving a New Willimantic." More

Art with heart ... Community banner project to brighten downtown Rock Hill

From my creative community work during the last week-and-a-half in Rock Hill, South Carolina ...

[7 February 2008 - The Herald - Rock Hill, South Carolina] A splash of color will liven up the winter blahs in downtown Rock Hill, part of a community arts program sponsored by the Arts Council of York County and the Rock Hill school district. ... The public arts project was brought to Rock Hill by the school district and arts center as a way to get children and community members involved in public art, said Kristin Sessions, resource development coordinator for the center. ... The community art project, titled Creativity: The Heart of the Community, is led by artists in residence Steven Dahlberg and JoAnn Moran, both from Connecticut. The project is a way for people to express themselves and participate in creating their own community through art, Dahlberg said. "It is a way to engage people in creating their community and bring people together that wouldn't normally work together, like youth and adults." Dahlberg said. ... Dahlberg said the project is collaborative, so everyone can add something. More

Seen and Heard: Reclaiming the public realm with children and young people

[14 November 2007 - DEMOS - UK] Until now, action to improve the lives of children and young people has tended to focus on the institutional spheres of home and school. Yet quality of life also depends on the access to and quality of shared resources such as streets, parks, town centres and playgrounds. And here, in the everyday spaces of our towns and cities, we increasingly exclude and marginalise the young. In the pursuit of sustainable communities and urban renaissance, children and young people are too often left out of the script. Children and young people have limited independence – both financially and spatially –and depend on shared spaces more than others. With trends in Britain pointing towards less outdoor play, increased parental anxiety and less tolerance for children and young people, the impact of an unwelcoming public realm on their health and well-being is becoming increasingly clear. Seen and Heard: Reclaiming the public realm with children and young people draws on six case studies to explore the everyday experiences of children in public. It argues that we need a paradigm shift in the way we think about the built environment- one which addresses the deepening segregation between generations. The needs of the young are not opposed to those of other users of public spaces, but closely aligned. With a range of recommendations designed to empower frontline professionals and young people, this pamphlet offers practical steps to create communities that are welcoming for all. More Watch Short Video

Intelligent Design

[4 March 2007 - Star Tribune - Minneapolis] On the heels of the information age, which seems to have just arrived, come suggestions that we've entered a new era, one in which creativity, design, aesthetics and the ability to forge emotional links will drive the American economy. Editorial writer Steve Berg recently discussed the trend with Thomas Fisher, dean of the University of Minnesota's newly formed College of Design, which incorporates architecture, landscape, cities, interiors, fashions and graphics into a singular effort. ... The information economy is still with us. But the paradoxical effect of the Internet is that it has made information so widely available that it holds no real economic value. Everybody can get incredible amounts of information, so there's no competitive advantage of having it. The idea of the design economy is that, for developed countries like ours, which cannot compete in a global marketplace on price or even quite often on the quality of a product, we have to compete on the basis of innovation, creativity and imagination, which takes you to design. By design, I don't mean just aesthetics but function and cultural adaptability. More