Wanted: Creative City Agenda For Memphis

Someone emailed 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.

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.

Creative Inspiration For Memphis

To continue the creativity theme for the week, we have a few things that we think will interest you.

First, CEOs for Cities, headed up by our good friend and colleague Carol Coletta, continues to see cities through its decidedly unique and provocative lens, and its new video makes a compelling case for the huge economic impact that can come with small increases in incomes, with fewer miles driven and with fewer people living in poverty. These should be three key priorities for the Memphis agenda, so it's intriguing to consider what profound change can come from small improvements, specifically an increase of only 1% in people over 25 years of age with college degrees.

Moving the needle from 23.7% to 24.7% would inject $1 billion into the Memphis economy, or as the video puts it, enough to buy two Formula 1 racers for our city, tickets for every person in Memphis to the Graceland Elvis Presley Entourage Tour and season tickets for every person in Memphis to the Memphis Grizzlies. And if the 51 largest cities in the U.S. did the same while reducing average miles driven by 1 mile a day and reducing poverty by 1%, it would inject $166 billion into the U.S. economy.

As Carol explained, "In an era of fiscal constraint at every level of government, leaders must innovate new ways for producing wealth and opportunity. Representing the nation's primary source of wealth, employment and global competitiveness, cities are where the strategies to keep America moving forward must be developed and launched."

Meanwhile, a New York Times headline caught our eye: It's No Time To Forget About Innovation.

It said: "There are important things managers can do to ensure that creative forward-thinking doesn't go out the door with each round of layoffs. Fostering a companywide atmosphere of innovation — encouraging everyone to take risks and to think about novel solutions, from receptionists to corner-suite executives — helps ensure that the loss of any particular set of minds needn't spell trouble for the entire company. She suggests instilling five core values to entrench innovation in the corporate mind-set: questioning, risk-taking, openness, patience and trust. All five must be used together — risk-taking without questioning leads to recklessness, she says, while patience without trust sets up an every-man-for-himself mentality."

Here's the kicker: "Creativity doesn't care about economic downturns," Mr. (Howard) Lieberman says. "In the middle of the 1970s, when we were having a big economic downturn, both Apple and Microsoft were founded. Creative people don't care about the time or the season or the state of the economy; they just go out and do their thing."

Then, Gates of Memphis, in his indispensable blog, has posted the audio of the "Conversations in Creativity" panel discussion at Memphis College of Art that inspired this week of posts about creativity. It can be found as Gates' October 26 post.

Finally, Elizabeth Eggleston, development coordinator at UrbanArt Commission, serves notice of good things to come: Memphis has been chosen by Creative TIme as a place to bring a mobile exhibit by Jeremy Deller in the spring. The exhibit is a conversation on war and equality that includes an actual tank that was blown up in Iraq, and it will be accompanied by veterans and Iraqis engaging Memphians in a dialogue that reflects the power of art at its best – the power to open up communications, to provoke critical thinking and to call for new insights.

Creative Time is a 24-year-old, New York-based group that presents some of the most provocatively innovative art in the public realm. In its own words: "We work with artists who ignite the imagination and explore ideas that shape society. We initiate a dynamic conversation among artists, sites, and audiences, in projects that enliven public spaces with free and powerful expression." This video gives you a taste of what we have to look forward to. Ms. Eggleston said that the exhibit will only make two stops south of the Mason-Dixon line, so it's an important opportunity to drive a stake into the ground about the importance of creativity and to serve notice that a new current of creative change is flowing in Memphis.

 

Celebrating Memphis Creativity In Living Color

William Eggleston is the Elvis Presley of American photography. A rock star.

Because of it, it's turned out to be the perfect week for us here to concentrate on creativity and the creative sparks that are as much a part of our city as the Mississippi River.

Ever iconoclastic and ever talented, Mr. Eggleston was honored earlier this week to open an exhibition of his work – Democratic Camera Photographs and Video: 1961-2008 - at the Whitney Museum of American Art that will run until January 25, 2009. The New York retrospective has already garnered rave reviews, and if you ever doubt the creative impact of this river town on the world, just consider that in the past two weeks, Mr. Eggleston has been featured in 15 major publications, including New Yorker, WWD, New York, Style, The New York Observer, The New York Times, International Herald Tribune, W, Artforum, Time and more.

Not bad for a Southern boy who just happened to revolutionize the world of photography.

Don't Take Our Word For It

And if you suspect that we are doing little more than engaging in boosterism, consider the way that the prestigious Whitney Museum described our fellow Memphian:

"One of the most influential photographers of the last half-century, William Eggleston has defined the history of color photography. This exhibition is the artist's first retrospective in the United States and includes both his color and black-and-white photographs as well as Stranded in Canton, the artist's video work from the early 1970s. The exhibition will travel throughout the United States as well as to the Haus der Kunst in Munich following its New York presentation."

In other words, if there is a week to turn up the volume on a creative movement for our city, this is it. With Mr. Eggleston as the North Star, surely we can show enough courage for the creative sparks that inspire this city to join together and start a fire that torches the old ways of thinking, the comfortable mediocrity and the unimaginative approach to our challenges.

Yes, We Can

Of course, Memphis can't do such things, we always tell ourselves. Our problems are too deep, our city too divided, our governments two deep, our poverty too grinding and our dreams just out of reach. We've been saying it for 40 years, and in that time, cities that had no more compelling reasons than we did have turned their urban areas around, attracting talent, rewarding creativity, honoring innovation and transforming the status quo. In the four decades that we have given ourselves excuses for inaction, we could have done the same. But rather than be frustrated over the wasted time, let's admit that things have to change and that change can come from no better place than from the change agents – our creatives.

In fact, Mr. Eggleston reminds us how. In the same 40 years that we ran in place, he changed the world of contemporary photography. He experimented, he didn't always succeed but he never lost faith. It's a great example for our entire city, because we need to experiment, we need to be willing to fail but we need to remain faithful to the cause of a creating a competitive city.

If we need inspiration, we should just remember Mr. Eggleston. One of his photographs was on the front page of Friday's New York Time, something normally a sign of an obituary inside. But the best thing about all this major media coverage is that Memphis and William Eggleston are synonymous in every article, adding another layer to Mythic Memphis and enriching the allure that continues to intrigue so many people around the world who have never set foot in our city.

Mythic Memphis

Upon the return of the Eggleston family to Memphis, the photographer's proud daughter-in-law, Elizabeth Eggleston of the UrbanArt Commission said: "In New York last week, we were around so many influential people in the art world and they had so many questions about Memphis. People around the country are fascinated with the Memphis mystique. They kept saying they want to experience it."

Of course, they'll come because they want to see where Mr. Eggleston took his photographs. Ironically, too few people in our city even know who he is, and it seems to us that if we can annually get excited and devote resources to Conservation Through Art, surely we can take the time to pay tribute to a creative giant in our midst. We have such a sad habit in Memphis of allowing people to live their whole lives without expressing in a civic way what they mean to us – musicians and artists in particular – and it would be such a welcome change if we could change our ways.

That's one of the things that we think our pet cause, the Memphis Creative Coalition should do – an Honor Roll of Memphis Giants of Creativity. It could have annual inductions, a citywide celebration of the importance of creative people and a reminder that there are young creatives who need our support and help as they begin their careers.

A few years ago, someone asked us what the motivation for our blog was, and we quoted Mr. Eggleston. It's one of our favorite quotes: "I am at war on the obvious." That should be our city's motto.

Creativity As An Economic Force For Memphis

There are times when a conversation becomes a cause, and a meeting becomes a movement.

Hopefully, that will be the case as a result of the “Creative Conversation” that took place a couple of weeks ago at Memphis College of Art, which sponsored the discussion along with MPACT Memphis.

It was a bracing evening. Most of all, it was a convincing reminder of the depths of creative talent and spirit that exist in Memphis and a clear demonstration of their willingness to become a positive force for change.

Coalition For Change

More precisely, we’re hoping that ultimately the conversation will give birth to The Memphis Creative Coalition, a new, organized effort to elevate attention to creativity as a competitive force in Memphis, as a competitive advantage for Memphis and as the driving force in our city brand.

There were six panelists engaged in the Memphis conversation - Gary Backaus, Principal and Chief Creative Officer at archer>malmo advertising; Karen Blockman Carrier, Founder of local restaurants Automatic Slim’s, Beauty Shop, Do and Molly Fontaine’s Lounge; Eric Matthews, co-founder of Mercury Technology Labs; Pat Mitchell Worley, Director of Development and Communications at Memphis Music Foundation; Chris Reyes, Founder, Creative Director at Ninjacat; and Joann Self Selvidge, founder and executive director of True Story Pictures. Tom Jones from Smart City Consulting and Smart City Memphis moderated the discussion.

They were provocative guides in the discussion, but equally important, approximately 150-200 people in the audience agreed with them on a central point – it’s time for creative workers to stake out their own claim to a city where creativity has inspired everything from wide-ranging musical breakthroughs to entrepreneurial innovations that fundamentally changed the social and economic fabric in the entire world.

The Right Plan

If Memphis can develop a plan for logistics, a plan for tourism, a plan for biotech, a plan for an aerotropolis and a Fast Forward plan, it can surely develop a plan for creativity, one that addresses the creative economy, creative workers and the so-called creative class. While these are fundamentally different concepts, they are interconnected and they will in real ways determine whether Memphis succeeds or stumbles in the next decade.

More to the point, we need the Memphis Creative Coalition to develop a “Creative City Plan of Action” that mobilizes support for creativity to become a force that’s not just reserved for artist studios, recording studios, design studios, restaurant kitchens and creative companies. Rather, we need a plan that makes creativity such a central part of our city that it is found in public decision-making, private and public investments and the social fabric of Memphis.

As our colleague Carol Coletta points out, there are more people in the U.S. today who are working in the creative economy than in manufacturing, and because design especially adds value to products, services and experiences, the real impact of creative industries far outstrips the impact of the immediate jobs they generate.

Just The Facts

Creative workers are good for cities like ours. Of the creative workers in the U.S., 91 percent live in metro areas, and they are 53% more likely than other workers to choose to live in close-in neighborhoods. In the top 50 metros, 41% of all creative jobs are within three miles of the central business district, which compares to 17% of all jobs.

Overall, creative jobs are only one-third as likely to be as sprawling as other jobs. In 49 of the 50 largest metros, they are more centralized than other jobs, and 26% work for themselves, five times the rate of other industry sectors.

The importance of these creative workers is seen in the aggressive recruiting that’s being done to attract them to the most dynamic cities in the U.S. And yet, the answer to being a magnet for these workers is not simply a big project. Memphis has embarked on several of these, notably Shelby Farms Park, Beale Street Landing and Wolf River Greenway, and all of these are crucial, but they are elements in a broader plan for a city whose distinctiveness, innovation and culture are defined by a creative ethos that infuses all aspects of the city.

The Other Ecosystem

That’s why the Conversation in Creativity was so important. If Memphis wants to be successful as a creative city in the knowledge economy, we need to talk to our best experts – the creative people who are part of our city. They, more than any expert, can tell us what our city should do.

That was in fact the purpose of the session at Memphis College of Art, and the overriding question was: What are the elements of a Memphis creative ecosystem?

Creating Momentum

Here’s some of the ideas:

• Creative economy venture capital fund

• Workforce development plan for creatives

• Micro-lending system

• Downtown parking stickers for creative workers, particularly musicians

• A wireless city, beginning with downtown

• Vibrant public realm that connects creatives

• Tax incentives for the creative economy

• Exploration of creative ways to animate downtown and to use empty storefronts

• Recognition that creativity can be an answer to poverty

• Celebration of our own best practices instead of copying other cities’ programs

Soldiers For Cities

The 90-minute conversation was just the beginning of discussions that need to continue throughout Memphis. That’s because creatives are instrumental to developing the kind of Memphis that can compete in the increasingly complex innovation economy.

Here’s why: creatives are soldiers for urban redevelopment. They are sparks for the vibrancy that lies at the heart of successful cities. They are the sources of new thinking and new ideas that challenge conventional thinking and traditional answers. They are boundary-crossers who connect different parts of our city to create a collective sense of community.

Creative Fundamentals

To do this, we must change the fundamental way we approach our culture. It’s not just about bringing good arts events to the people and funding arts organizations. More to the point, it’s about enabling the creative capacity of all Memphians.

The good news is that there has never been a more creative time than this. People want to be participants and not spectators, and as a result, they are making their own films in record numbers, they are making their own music in thousands of home studios, they are writing their own blogs and books and they are looking for ways to engage with other creative people to reconnect with the deep reservoir of creativity that has made us who we are in the first place.

In the end, Memphis’ challenge is to make its mark in a century where cities are increasingly divided into the haves and the have-nots as a result of their ability to activate its own creative economy and mobilize its creative workers to be more directly involved in the economic development of their cities.