A Toast to the Creative Economy

By Maggi Dalton June 20, 2005

"Hi -- I didn’t know you’d be here ... how did you hear about this?" "Isn’t that funny, I was just thinking about you the other day ..." "Hey, take some food -- let’s go grab that table and talk ..." "Isn’t it amazing how many people are here?"

It was, above all, about seeing faces, enjoying the cadence of conversation; warm handshakes and even warmer smiles; the intermingled glow of personalities. The room resonated with color, companionship, and laughter.

It was also about hunger for new and renewed connection -- and reveling in the pleasure of discovered community.

The historic Hawthorne Hotel’s Grand Ballroom windows, framing the sunlit expanse and majestic trees of Salem Common, provided a beautiful backdrop for the first official social event hosted by the nascent and newly-christened Creative Economy Association of the North Shore (CEANS), on June 20, 2005.

Word-of-mouth and personal invitation drew some 150 people to the Hawthorne, long known (and long-loved) as the hospitable heart of Salem.

Enjoying the generosity of the hotel’s owner, Michael Harrington, and the hotel’s friendly, professional staff, people lingered long in excited clusters, sharing stories, sharing plans.

A FRESH BREEZE

For Christine Sullivan (The Enterprise Center, Salem State College) and Patricia Zaido (The Salem Partnership), the event represented a gratifying milestone in the visionary work to which they have long been dedicated: giving the North Shore’s already active creative economy a visible shape and structure.

The summer breeze dancing through those trees on the Common was metaphorically echoed within the walls of the Hawthorne. It’s a fresh breeze of new outlooks and business models, of innovative approaches, entrepreneurial spirit and multidirectional thinking.

Just as Salem Common is laced with many pathways, each unique yet cooperatively intersecting to provide access for all, so too was this group of diverse people intersecting, weaving a cooperative plan for the Northshore’s economic and cultural growth.

A DISCOVERED COMMUNITY

Creative workers in every region have often been startled by the realization that they do, in fact, belong to an identifiable and viable community.

Such recognition is a critically-important source of energy and encouragement for creative workers, as much in psychological terms as in the practical business networking it fosters. Creative work can sometimes be lonely work.

Energy and encouragement was the major theme of the evening. Keynote speaker Beate Becker, a prominent figure in creative economy initiatives worldwide, urged the audience to recognize that they are the vanguard of a rapidly-burgeoning movement.

Creative workers comprise nearly a quarter of the workforce in the United States (some recent estimates place it at 30 percent). The creative economy has been the fastest-growing economic segment in the North Shore (and in the country). According to a New England Council study in 2000, employment figures in the creative economy "eclipses ... healthcare technology, computer equipment, and software."

These workers are forming new paradigms for economic and cultural growth, fostering a revolutionary flow of innovative ideas based on shared values.

According to the Eagle-Tribune Publishing Company’s 2003 study, "The Creative Economy North of Boston," commissioned by the Enterprise Center, "the big picture" for the North Shore includes acknowledging commercial strength measured in the billions. The region is ideally poised for growth of an already strong creative economy due to "location, connection, value, and environment." >>>

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