Someone emailed last year to ask what we would do to set a “creativity movement” in motion in Memphis. The answer came quickly: “Appoint Jeff Nesin the Memphis czar of creativity.”
That’s because we don’t know anyone who understands the importance of creatives and the creative economy more than the gifted president of the Memphis College of Art; however, we also know that Mr. Nesin would immediately demur, suggesting that the movement would be best led by the people it seeks to serve – the creative members of our city themselves.
Since that email, Mr. Nesin has relocated to New York City to have quicker response times for his aging parents.
Coalition-Building
That being the case, we return to our recommendation for creation of the Memphis Creative Coalition, a bottom-up organization that analyzes the dimensions of Memphis’ creativity in terms of economic impact (that trusty, yet incomplete, justification for the importance of the arts and creativity), the potential for future jobs of the innovation economy and the debt that our city owes to the creative forces that lie at our core.
In other words, the Creative Coalition would look at the past, the present and the future to mobilize people who are too often marginalized and whose importance is diminished in a city whose economic development is too often focused on smokestack chasing and giving away tax freezes.
So, we think that a fledgling Creative Coalition, if formed, should turn its attention to the development of a Creative City report with specific recommendations setting out ways to increase understanding of the importance of the so-called creative class, to identify the essential parts of a creative ecosystem and the investments needed for them, and ways to make Memphis clean, green, safe and tolerant – which are what young creative workers are looking for in cities where they live.
Partial Check List
Some broad headings for the Coalition to address:
• To spotlight, attract and retain immigrants
• To strengthen and celebrate Memphis’ heritage, arts and culture
• To make Memphis better designed
• To celebrate Memphis heroes of creativity
• To seed creative ventures
• To value an economy build on connections between creativity and entrepeneurship
• To create walkable, mixed-use neighborhoods that attract creative workers
• To retain and attract 25-34 year-old colleged-educated workers who fuel today’s economy
Bringing Outsiders In
It seems to us that convening a group of creative Memphians into a process like this could be one of the most interesting – not to mention the most productive – developments in recent history. And unleashing this group’s talents to develop a provocative way that presents the plan to their fellow citizens should be memorable in spotlighting what Memphis could be.
Today, creatives in Memphis remain largely outsiders, and it’s worth remembering that most of our city’s proudest exports – music and business breakthroughs – have come from outsiders.
That should be no surprise. As John Seely Brown said to us a couple of years ago, if you want to find innovation, if you want to find creativity, look to the edge. That’s where you will find it.
Myths And Music
The outsiders who gave us our greatest music lived on the edge, and despite the mythology that we have created, they were largely ignored and unappreciated. Then, there were the people who were called crazy by mainstream business leaders and yet one of them mad men invented modern global commerce.
In other words, it’s creativity that should be a theme for economic growth in Memphis, even more than industry-specific objectives. As the ever-wise Kip Bergstrom of the Rhode Island Economic Policy Council has told us, success in the future is about cities that concentrate on competencies rather than merely on industries.
Perhaps, if we are successful, we could even be the first place that figures out how to give its citizens the ability to “co-create” their communities. As Charles Leadbeater, European innovative consultant, has said to us, “The city that develops this new platform for civic collaborative innovation first is the city that invents the recipe for future success.”
The Main Thing
Finally, to underscore the imperative for the Memphis Creative Coalition, we quote our own Carol Coletta:
“The point is, though, unless we are intentional about using creativity to affect conditions vital to the success of cities, it won’t necessarily happen on its own. And that’s why I push back on so many of the arguments used to advocate for the arts. Especially in the U.S., we are overrun with inane economic impact studies on behalf of the arts. They measure how much arts patrons spent on babysitting and parking when they go out to the ballet and call that the economic impact of the arts.
“That’s ridiculous. It’s flaccid. It’s fuzzy thinking. OK, it can be politically persuasive, but that only tells you something about politicians. If we are content to stop with these silly justifications, we are missing the real potential for arts and creativity to affect the success of our cities.
“Another problem I see is when we talk creativity but only means the arts. Or talk about creative industries but only mean the arts. Or we talk about the power of culture without talking about the power of place.”
Start Here
The questions that she holds out for us to ask ourselves are:
• How creative am I? Can I re-conceive what is there and imagine new solutions to new problems?
• How courageous am I? Am I willing to stand up and start something and experiment, and does my community encourage that?
• How connected am I? Am I well-grounded in the marketplace? Am I connected to talented people? Can I build a coalition? Can I get resources?
We believe we should focus on the question about whether we can build a coalition. There’s no time like the present.
Great post.
Innovation that threatens the current power structure in Memphis will be crushed by those people who “bring money to the table” but are never required to have oversight regarding the use of those funds or effectiveness of their funded projects. They may keep stats but they are rarely if ever required to succeed at anything.
Get it?
What would be attractive to college educated workers?
Being able to generate our own from our own public schools. Not looking like were cannibalizing our poor, but, actually generating real stats that we are transforming our city from that kind of structure.
We don’t even speak the same language as the workers we want to attract as evidenced by our structure and statistical results, i.e. the demographic we’ve created and perpetuated over the last 4 decades.
So, learning the language, not just co-opting it and delivering nothing, is the key.
Here’s another problem illustrated well in this article, PRIORITIES!
When they look like this, in this order, the effort is disingenuous.
“Someone emailed last year to ask what we would do to set a “creativity movement” in motion in Memphis. The answer came quickly: “Appoint Jeff Nesin the Memphis czar of creativity.”
We also know that Mr. Nesin would immediately demur, suggesting that the movement would be best led by the people it seeks to serve the creative members of our city themselves.
• Since that email, Mr. Nesin has relocated to New York City •
to have quicker response times for his aging parents.”
Iconizing, idnit? No wonder he left, the blamestorm for failure would have been next.
“Memphis clean, green, safe and tolerant – which are what young creative workers are looking for in cities where they live.”
Sounds like the agenda is already set.
I’ve reprioritized the list.
Partial Check List
Some broad headings for the Coalition to address:
• To spotlight, attract and retain immigrants
(Should be #3, natural outgrowth, remove from list)
• To strengthen and celebrate Memphis’ heritage, arts and culture
(byproduct, natural outgrowth, remove from list)
• To make Memphis better designed
(Should have been #1, you can do a plan to have this happen)
• To celebrate Memphis heroes of creativity
(Party on your own time and dime, that’ll be fun when it happens, remove from list.)
• To seed creative ventures
(should have been #2, you can make a plan to have this happen)
• To value an economy build on connections between creativity and entrepreneurship
(Shouldn’t be on the list, it is a precursor, a core value, but, you can’t make a plan to make people think this way, that’s brainwashing, however, people already think this way so it’s no big deal.)
• To create walkable, mixed-use neighborhoods that attract creative workers
(should have been merged with #1, you can make a plan to make this happen)
• To retain and attract 25-34 year-old college-educated workers who fuel today’s economy (shouldn’t be on the list, it is a core value, and unless you’re going to hogtie them, it is also a byproduct)
We don’t even speak the same language. Our values are alien to Memphis Leadership. Regardless of the pecking order, all of these things could be performed simultaneously.
It would be like this.
This SHORT list:
#1 • To make Memphis better designed by creating walkable, mixed-use neighborhoods that attract creative workers
(How, where, by what means?)
#2 • To seed creative ventures (what kind, from what)?
#3 • To spotlight, attract and retain immigrants (although that is very vague)
Will serve:
• To retain and attract 25-34 year-old college-educated workers who fuel today’s economy
• To value an economy build on connections between creativity and entrepreneurship
• To strengthen and celebrate Memphis’ heritage, arts and culture
• To celebrate Memphis heroes of creativity
Fundamental differences:
Non-creatives have “right and wrong” whereas creatives have “works and doesn’t work”. The latter is deeper in meaning. It describes WHY things are right or wrong instead of labeling things as such, so, without guilt or remorse, one can easily dispose of what “doesn’t work” before it becomes a “wrong” practice.
That is the power of language, creatives see the use of language as a power of reality, whereas non-creatives see them only as descriptions of reality.
There is a whole completely developed language based on this guiding principle and it is not spoken anywhere in Memphis that I have ever heard. What substitutes here is putting too much trust in an individual and working him to a bad attitude then blaming everything on them.
That would be classic non-workable practice. It gets done so much, that it is done in different areas and different fields, all the while expecting a different outcome than the same failure it caused the last time and place it was used.
We have to learn how to use language more powerfully, learn the language that will give us power here, and support people in using it powerfully, sometimes doing great violence to old ideas, and transforming the entire reality around here.
Scary, over your head, uncomfortable at all times, just how I like it, the only way to create the future that serves us.
I agree with your intentions here. The city could greatly benefit from an organized effort to support the creative class, not just because it would be economically wise but because it’s plain common sense. To me, at least. What city WOULDN’T benefit from being clean, green, safe and tolerant?
But I cringed at “Today, creatives in Memphis remain largely outsiders, and it’s worth remembering that most of our city’s proudest exports – music and business breakthroughs – have come from outsiders.”
It seems like you don’t have much faith in the folks we have here now. Trust me, the city already has many creative people *wishing* there were more sustainable opportunities for them here. Wishing, or researching ticket prices for the quickest plane out of town.
Sticking with the plane bit for a second, I’ll put this another way. Don’t spend so much time staring at the empty Arrival gate. Focus on the busy Departure gate instead.
The Coalition’s most important objective should be “seeding creative ventures.” More. Jobs. Please.
Right on, Kerry, you said it.
Not blocking doesn’t equal support.
SUPPORT equals support, that means, you can’t just have the few usual suspects be the only young creatives who get any support, most of them are supporting others, but, it’s not enough. All the criteria I’ve read about who of creatives is worthy is about as ill informed about the nature of creative support as it would need to be to yield the results we have.
But things are changing.
Kerry:
Thanks for pointing out the confusion in our terms. When we refer to outsiders, we are referring to people inside our community now. If you look for where change and bursts of creativity come from, it’s generally from the fringes among the people who are outside the mainstream. That’s been the lesson of Memphis’ heritage – whether musicians, artists, etc. We need to celebrate and support the value of outsiders to the history of Memphis and to its future.
Ahh! OK. I like that meaning better. Thanks for clarifying.