Juice - Powering the Creative Economy
Maine’s Action Summit
November 16, 17, and 18, 2007
Camden and Rockland, Maine

Summary:
500 people from throughout Maine’s communities will join together on November 16-18, 2007 in plenaries, workshops, and social events to meet, network, learn, and to strengthen and create networks to advance Maine’s creative economy. Attendees at Juice—Powering the Creative Economy: Maine’s Action Summit will be business and government leaders, artists, leaders of cultural institutions, and people from creative occupations of all kinds.

The two major locations for plenaries will be the Camden Opera House and the newly renovated historic Strand Theatre. Workshops will be held in town facilities, churches, storefronts, restaurants, industrial buildings, boatsheds and other locations.

The conference experience is expected to be memorable and exciting, punctuated by new uses of media and technology to stimulate communication and networking. But the success of the conference will be measured by the number and vitality of action networks created that will stimulate grassroots activity in the 2007-2008 year.

In addition, Juice: Powering the Creative Economy will be a partnership with existing statewide organizations and community leaders who are seeking a wider audience for their ideas to develop more statewide impact.

Because of the number of people who will be attending this conference from throughout the state, many statewide arts, cultural, history, design, technology, and economic development groups are planning to hold their fall meetings on November 16th to contribute to and benefit from the energy.

Background:
This Creative Economy Conference is a logical step from the first statewide Creative Economy Conference held in 2004 at the Bates Mill in Lewiston, Maine, and supported by a grant from the Betterment Fund. That conference attracted over 700 participants and demonstrated the wide interest in this exciting area.

The Conference at the Bates Mill was followed by an Executive Order by Governor John Baldacci in May 2005 which established the Governor’s Creative Economy Council. It was made up of 28 business leaders, entrepreneurs, artists, designers, academic people, state officials and legislators.

The Creative Economy Council issued its 44-page report in May 2006. It pointed out the rising importance of creative workers in creating new jobs and companies and in helping mature industries retool for the future. It also documented the size of the arts, culture, heritage sectors in Maine and recognized Maine’s arts and cultural assets as major contributors to quality of life in Maine’s places, and as important economic drivers for the region. A detailed set of recommendations for action concluded the report.

The Bates Mill conference in 2004 also spawned the creation of the Midcoast Magnet (www.midcoastmagnet.com), a volunteer-driven organization which brings people together to develop innovative projects that support creativity, livability, and economic sustainability in Midcoast Maine. Midcoast Magnet, along with a growing number of Midcoast residents active in the Creative Economy Council and other creative economy efforts, accepted the responsibility for continuing to move Maine’s creative economy forward. The November 2007 Creative Economy Conference will base much of its work on the Council’s analysis, conclusions, and recommendations for action.

Conference Goals:
1. To assemble the Creative Economy activists and community leaders throughout Maine to a statewide conference that will help stimulate Creative Economy activities in Maine in the coming year.

2. To develop an inclusive action plan for what Mainers could do themselves and what they should ask their state and local governments and their communities to help do to support the Creative Economy and stimulate Maine’s economic growth.

3. To create a remarkable and memorable experience for all Conference attendees.

4. To energize the community of arts, culture, heritage and creative economy leaders, along with economic development leaders committed to expanding Maine’s creative community.

5. Create or strengthen 20 to 25 networks of creative economy and community leaders at the Conference who will stimulate grassroots creative economy activities through the state from November 2007 to October 2008.

6. Stage a major public event that will attract statewide leaders and media that will highlight the importance of the creative economy efforts in Maine.

Proposed Agenda:
Friday, November 16th (Strand Theater in Rockland)
Morning and afternoon
Meetings of statewide organizations
Network and workshop leaders’ orientation and training
Social events
4:00 Registration opens (275 people)
5:00 Hearty hors d’oeuvres and cash bar, with performance
6:00 Maine’s Creative Economy and strategy of Empowering Maine’s Creative Economy
7:30 Socializing, networking, and entertainment
Saturday, November 17th (Camden Opera House and Camden)
7:30 Registration opens: coffee and muffins (500 people)
9:00 Opening plenary
Conference structure and strategy
Expectations
9:15 Second key note
10:00 Network and workshop sessions I (15-20 sessions)
11:30 Transition to lunch
12:30 Network and workshops sessions II (15-20)
2:30 Network and workshops sessions III (15-50)
4:15 Plenary
Conference wrap-up
The new networks and follow up
5:30 Conference end
6:30-9:00 Entertainment and networking at Camden Opera House

Sunday, the 18th (Rockland)
8:30 Coffee and muffins (75 people)
9:30 Network organizers meet to concretize network plans
10:30 Final mini-plenary
Conference Special Features:
We want the Conference in its style and format to embody the creativity that we believe should be a hallmark of the Maine economy. The conference will be different. We will rely a great deal of new technologies that allow a much higher degree of participation and networking than in the past. We expect to use:

 Wi-Fi that would be installed at the Opera House and all the workshop locations. Everyone would be encouraged to bring a laptop.

Initial “ice breakers,” such as “speed networking” and new conference techniques which are similar to “speed dating.”

A “FaceBook” on-line social network site which would unite people planning to attend the conference, conference participants in Midcoast Maine, and the workshop/networks that the Conference will create.

Conference Content:
The aim of the conference’s agenda is to stimulate workshops/networks that would carry on and expand the work of this Conference after November 2007. The Conference workshops will be aimed at stimulating activities at the local level that would:

In the Creative Occupations
1. Cultivate a creative mindset among Maine’s citizens and schools
2. Invest in research and development of new technologies
3. Support efforts to develop higher value business and marketing strategies
4. Attract and retain creative workers
In the Arts, Culture and Heritage Sector
5. Assist artists and other cultural people to expand sales and markets
6. Develop and strengthen world class arts and culture tourism destinations
7. Preserve and support our downtowns
8. Increase the visibility of the arts and culture sector in Maine’s economic development

November 16th Midcoast Assembly of Creative Economy Organizations:
We will recruit statewide, regional, and local organizations as supporters of this Creative Economy Conference. We will be asking them for volunteers, publicity, and active assistance in planning.

We will also ask these organizations to convene their fall 2007 statewide meetings in the Midcoast area on November 16, 2007, helping bring their energies and constituents to the area and to the official conference that starts that same evening.

Outreach and Recruitment:

We will use three primary means for the recruitment of workshops leaders and members and registrants for the Conference.

The first method will be personal visits by Conference organizers to statewide organizations that are already on projects that are part of Maine’s creative economy. We will be seeking their active involvement in the Conference, particularly in helping to organize key workshops and to manage the networks for 07-08 that will be the important outcome of the Conference.

The second method of recruitment will be personal visits by Conference organizers to the key cities, towns, and regions of Maine, again seeking workshop leaders, workshop and network participants, and general registration. These trips would be preceded by contacts with statewide organizations for names; telephone calls prior to the visit to schedule breakfast, lunches and meetings; and then a one-day visit, preferably by two people from among the Conference organizers.

The third method is special mailings using mailing lists of statewide organizations, such as the Maine Arts Commission and the Governor’s Creative Economy Council, as well as through television, radio, and newspaper publicity.

Post-Conference Follow-Up:
Each conference session will include the development of outcome-oriented goals and a set of next steps toward those goals. Leaders will be present in each session who have expressed willingness, in advance, to lead each group’s carrying forward of the outcomes. Midcoast Magnet, as organizer of the conference, will take responsibility for following up with those leaders and the relevant new or strengthened action networks, to provide encouragement and to hold them accountable for taking the promised next steps.
It is expected that this conference will become an annual event, providing a further forum for the continuity of the energy and action steps that emerge.