topics ranging from urban planning and architecture, to the future of museums, to innovations in agriculture, energy, and education. The CreativityWorld Forum provided a space for attendees to meet face-to-face, but international conversa- tions about creativity had been going on for months in advance of the meeting. That approach represents a way of looking at conferences that goes beyond “I need to do the perfunctory annual meeting,” McCalmont said, and treats them more as a platform for themes and ideas that bring net- works of people together around specific interests.
McCalmont describes the work of Creative Oklahoma as
deliberately building just such a network to foster creativ- ity and innovation. And even more connections are in store. During theCreativityWorld Forum, the launch of aNational Creativity Network—linking state and regional creativity initiatives in Oklahoma with similar efforts in Wisconsin, New Jersey, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Colorado, Mas- sachusetts, and New York, with Sir Ken Robinson as the founding chair — was announced. “There’s been a lot of Skype happening lately,” McCalmont said. She added: “Because the technology allows us to commu-
A combination of spaces that allow for both human and digital connections is typical of new conference communities.
nicate in the in-between time, when we domeet physically, we get to the work quicker. But I don’t think anything ever replaces the physical gathering.We are human—we need that human connection.”
The New Networks A combination of spaces that allow for both human and digi- tal connections is typical of new conference communities. The most obvious example is TED and its companion website, www.TED.com, which makes TEDTalks available to a global audience. Other big-idea conferences are building similar net- works. PopTech—which actually describes itself as a network rather than as an event — has built a website (www.pop tech.org) filled with video content from previous conferences,