Meeting notes from May 18, 2011

This past Wednesday evening at The Trust Venue, creative professionals from around Philly gathered to listen to a star-studded panel discussion intended to get business owners and creative professionals thinking about art and design driven community initiatives.  The evening was co-hosted by the Old City Business Collective, as well as the Old City Creative Corridor.

After the crowd of 100+ people had a chance to enjoy some food and drinks while mingling, people began taking their seats for the panel. The panelists included Gary Steuer (Philadelphia's Chief Cultural Officer and Director of the city's Office of Arts, Culture and the Creative Economy), Hilary Jay (Executive Director and Founder of DesignPhiladelphia), Michelle Shannon (Vice-President, Marketing & Communications of Center City District), and Susan Miller Davis (Public Art Consultant and Former Director of the RDA's Public Art Program), and moderator Caroline Tiger (Philadelphia based design & lifestyle journalist).

Tiger began the discussion with questions about urban place-making. Michelle Shannon responded to the first question referencing the evolution of Mid-Town Village in Center City and discussing the transformation of Manayunk. Tiger posed another question regarding neighborhoods in Philadelphia that have undergone significant creative-driven transformations and the panel began to buzz. Susan Miller Davis started discussing the transformation that has been occurring in Fishtown and Northern Liberties. Hilary Jay explained the art-driven transformation that occurred years ago in Old City. Gary Steuer’s perspective was unique as he spoke about community transformation from a governmental perspective. Steuer also referenced the transformation that went on more than 30 years ago in New York City’s Soho neighborhood.

As the panelists began getting into more detail, members of the audience started asking their own questions. The first question referenced the Manayunk transformation, explaining that small businesses and artists that helped spark the transformation in Manayunk were forced out of the neighborhood when chain retailers began moving in. The audience member went on to ask what could be done in that type of situation to help sustain the small business community. More questions from the audience began pouring out, specific to Old City. Questions ranged from getting more government involvement in Old City, to concerns about the current bar landscape in Old City, to First Friday concerns.

The discussion panel became more of a “town hall” styled meeting as the audience continued asking questions and voicing concerns. Concerns were expressed by members of the Old City Civic Association, specifically discussing the businesses with liquor licenses South of Market Street and those North of Market Street. Questions from members of the Old City Business Collective were focused on the idea of branding a neighborhood. What steps need to be taken for a neighborhood to become a “design district?” How could branding a neighborhood increase traffic and commerce?

The panel discussion came to a close around 9 p.m. Overall, the discussion was incredibly successful. Members of the audience left with different perspectives than what they may have had hours before the meeting. As people walked out of The Trust Venue, there were conversations about holding future community events that involved business owners from all ends of the creative industry.

The next Old City Creative Corridor meeting is on June 15^th. This meeting will be more of a networking meet & greet for creatives to start discussing how they can work together and collaborate on projects and community events. Stay tuned as we iron out the details. As we always say – Connect. Collaborate. Create.

The Creative Corridor extends special thanks to all of you who made it out to the meeting, and to our panelists and moderator for helping put together a stimulating evening.  See you in June!

The April Old City Creative Corridor meeting, co-hosted by Maiden Media Group and At Media Designs, sponsored by Bistro 7, Cafe Olé and Bulthaup, and featuring Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Corporation’s Philly 360° Creative Ambassador, Rakia Reynolds this past Wednesday was our largest and most successful meeting yet.

As guests began to arrive, Michael O’Halloran, Owner and Chef of Bistro 7, was busy in Bulthaup’s showroom space cooking up Escargot stewed in Fennel-Pernod Cream, as well as a Roasted Red and Yellow Beet Terrine with Horseradish Creme Fraiche. On the other side of the beautiful Bulthaup showroom, guests were enjoying various shmears (Hummus, Baba Ganoush, Israeli Salad) from Cafe Olé, coupled with a variety of Red and white wines.

Antoinette Marie Johnson, of At Media Design, opened the meeting and welcomed our featured speaker, Rakia Reynolds. And then handed the floor over.

Reynolds spoke about the road she took to become a Philly 360° Creative Ambassador. She explained how she went from Philadelphia to New York to pursue a career in production, only to come back to Philadelphia when realizing she was unsatisfied with her work in New York and ready for a change. Coming back to Philadelphia, Reynolds began working in public relations. Her approach to PR and media relations was rather unusual coming from a production background; she used her skills to pitch the media on her clients with small video clips. With significant success and after some time, Reynolds left the public relations company she was working with to begin her own PR company – Skai Blue Media. But where Reynolds story continues to get even more interesting is how she managed to “Brand herself Philadelphia.”

No matter where Reynolds went over the years, one thing was true – Her sense of fashion and style was always her own. Reynolds used her unique look and cool style to create an identity for herself. People from around the area would ask, “Where does the women with the afro and green glasses do her shopping?” The answer was simple, throughout Old City in the small boutiques and in other creative nooks of Philadelphia. Reynolds used her style to brand herself and always plug the small boutiques around Philadelphia as part of the “Fashion Revolution going on in Philadelphia,” she said. In every message that Reynolds sent, she always mentioned the “Fashion Revolution going on in Philadelphia.” And, she was a walking example of the revolution. Reynolds discussed her feelings about creating opportunities for yourself through putting yourself out there, making connections, and staying true to your own values. It was because of her ideals, her sense of fashion, and her desire to brand herself “Philly,” that she eventually was approached by GPTMC to work with them for their Philly 360° Creative Ambassador initiative.

Ultimately, Reynolds’ fashion sense, branding herself Philly and her unique identity helped her to become a fashion influencer. Reynolds has been featured on countless television shows and magazines. She is the Philadelphia fashion editor for Uptown Magazine and was recently featured on CBS Philly’s “Fashion at the Oscars” special. Her message for the Creative Corridor was - do what you like doing, follow your passion, stay true to your values, and brand yourself – You will end up happy and that’s what matters, everything else will fall into place.

After Reynolds finished her inspirational discussion, people were chowing down on the delicious food around Bulthaup’s lovely kitchen spaces and made their way to the other side of the showroom. On the other side, Amol Waishampayan of Maiden Media Group, unveiled the social network now built into the Old City Creative Corridor website. Waishampayan showed the many different types of profiles that can be created, how to add friends, create groups, create events, showcase projects and videos, and use the Creative Corridor social network to begin building relationships. He explained how the news-feed works, how organizations can post jobs and internships to their profiles and how to add other applications to your profile. “The idea is to use the social network to foster connections across the Philadelphia creative industry,” Waishampayan said. “Creative professionals and businesses can look to the network to make business relationships, promote themselves and promote the industry. We are hoping that as more and more people and businesses join, the more valuable the network can be for those in on the conversation!”

After people got the gist of how the social network on the Creative Corridor website worked, people began to chat, network, and continue eating all of the great food.

The next meeting will be held May 18, 6:30 p.m. at Trust, 249-251 Arch St. The meeting will be co-hosted with the Old City Business Collective and will feature Hilary Jay of Design Philadelphia, Gary Steuer of the Office of Arts Culture and the Creative Economy, and more. It should be an excellent meeting and we hope to see you there!

Maiden Media Group and CitiBank hosted the second Old City Creative Corridor meeting yesterday evening in society hill at 207 South Street.

The meeting kicked off with a couple words from Maiden Media’s Daniel Schwartz, thanking everyone for their continued involvement and enthusiasm. He explained that the creative social network that is currently under development should be launched and incorporated into the http://www.oldcitycc.org before the end of April. Schwartz went on to say that hopefully at the next meeting on Wednesday, April 20, those people that attend the meeting will be given a head start and be able to begin creating their own profiles right after the meeting.

Schwartz passed the floor over to the featured speaker for the meeting - Rick Snyderman of Snyderman-Works art gallery on Cherry Street. Snyderman has been a part of the Philly art scene since the 70’s, playing an intricate role in the South Street renaissance and leading the start of Old City’s First Fridays.

Snyderman spoke at length on how the idea of First Fridays was developed and why Old City had the infrastructure and personality ready to begin First Fridays. He spoke about the transformation that First Fridays has seen since its inception in the early 90’s, explaining that First Fridays have helped to emphasize the creative identity of Old City.

Snyderman went on to explain how the creative casino poland community in Old City needs to continue to develop and bonus casino gratuit promote themselves through initiatives, like the Creative Corridor. Philadelphia’s creative community needs to be the vehicle that attracts tourism, brings in new business and works to continue to usher in new young talent, he said.

As Snyderman explained the way in which Philadelphia needs to develop its own casino internet unique identity, he used a comparative analogy – casino online pl Florence to Rome. Snyderman explained how Florence and Rome are cities relatively close to each other, but with totally separate identities. He said people travel to both casino online cities, but for totally different reasons. As he put it, Florence in no way wants to be like jeux de poker Rome and in no way does Rome want to be like Florence. Both cities understand that they are quite different and each offers its own attractions with totally different personalities. In that same way, Philadelphia should not try to compare online casinos itself to other cities, like New York. Philadelphia shouldn’t compete with any other australia online casino city, nor should it try to be like any other city. “Philadelphia is Philadelphia,” Snyderman gaming club best pokies online casino said. “We are our own city, with our own attractions and personality.” Philadelphia will never be like any other city and for that reason we need to promote the creative personality of Philadelphia and the unique communities and history in Philadelphia.

After speaking, Snyderman opened the floor up for questions. There was some great discussion, followed by a few brief words from the folks at CitiBank, who were kind enough to open their space up for the Creative Corridor meeting and coordinated an amazing spread of food, from Filet Mignon sandwiches to crackers with gorgonzola and shrimp. The food was provided gratis by Bistro Romano.

The second hour of the meeting was rather informal and gave everyone in attendance the opportunity to network and chat about each other’s businesses.

The next meeting on Wednesday, April 20 will be back in Old City and the featured speaker will be Alethia Calbeck of Campus Philly. Calbeck will explain all of the incredible things Campus Philly does in Philadelphia in helping to retain recent college graduates through a number of programs and initiatives that benefit small businesses offering opportunities for the recent grads. She also will be speaking at length on the progress that Philadelphia has made in recent years, explaining the direction for the future, how the Creative Corridor can work with Campus Philly and how the small businesses in the Creative Corridor can benefit.

We’ll keep you posted on the location for the April 20th meeting, so stay tuned!

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Last night, Maiden Media Group hosted the first ever Old City Creative Corridor meeting. There were a number of topics discussed among the approximately 20 business owners, 10 independent freelancers, and 10 college students in attendance.

The Creative Corridor is designed to bring together creative talent from throughout the Greater Philadelphia Region for the opportunity to collaborate and ultimately further business opportunities. In developing a creative network amongst so many different areas of the industry, we hope that we can use the Creative Corridor to bring in new creative talent and business to Philadelphia and strive to retain more young creative talent. The kick-off meeting last night was an opportunity for those people and businesses that want to be involved to help iron-out the goals of the creative corridor and how the programs, which we plan to implement will work and benefit the creative community.

How can the Creative Corridor help to retain young creative talent?

Our initial idea was developing a rotating internship program, but after much discussion, most of those business owners and students in attendance felt that a mentorship program would be more effective. Creating a rotating mentorship program will allow students and young professionals to be exposed to a wide variety of facets of the creative industry and will hopefully help them decide on what career path may be best for them. Our next steps will be reaching out to Campus Philly to see how they can help and reaching out to creative schools in Philadelphia. The first four schools we will be reaching out to are The University of the Arts, The Art Institute of Philadelphia, The Tyler School of Art at Temple University and the Antoinette Westphal College of Media Arts Design at Drexel University.

As we establish relationships with each of the four schools we will begin to develop a “match-making” system for the mentors and mentees to be connected. Students will indicate which types of businesses they would like to work with, while businesses will decide on which programs to draw students from. The mentorship program will be simple, have the student or young professional shadow the industry professional for a period of time and then rotate to another industry professional. Throughout the process students and young professionals will be networking with professionals from across the creative industry. Being exposed to a variety of jobs in the creative industry and networking with professionals will help the young creatives understand what careers are available, what they entail, and get them connected in the Philadelphia creative community.

One recurring thought on this topic was how the program needs to impact the students in a way that makes them want to join the creative community here in Philadelphia.

Another idea was using “First Fridays” as a way to connect businesses with young professionals. There were a few ideas in how this could be done. The students at the meeting suggested that businesses create contests to showcase student work, in addition aussie pokie to their own work on First Fridays. The students at the meeting last night, said that showcasing their own work would draw many of their classmates and other students into First Fridays (and for the right reasons too). Perhaps in creating contests for showcasing work, students will be further encouraged to get creative and begin developing non-school related projects. A number of the business owners in attendance casino really liked this idea and felt that they need to emphasize the art in First Fridays, not just the free wine and nightlife that comes roulette en ligne sans slots telechargement about as a result of online casino bonus the crowds. Members of the Old City Business District in attendance really liked this idea and suggested taking it a step further and creating student exhibitions during First Fridays. Most of the members of the Old City Civic Association in attendance wanted to stress that First Fridays are about showcasing talent, sharing art and sharing perspectives on art.

How can the Old City Creative Corridor help slots online spielen the creative businesses in the area?

The first thought in this discussion was to create better coordination between the Old City Civic Association, the Old City District pokie download and the Old City Business Collective. A number of the freelancers and business owners felt that coordinating the organizations in the area to work together would be helpful because although each organization has a different vision for the community, they all want to make Old City a better place for businesses and residents. We have been in discussions with CitiBank to see what opportunities there might be for offering low interest loans to help entice new businesses to move into the speelautomaten online area and the discussion last night became very enthusiastic upon hearing that possibility. Almost all of the freelancers and independent creatives thought that some sort of low interest loan or even a tax incentive would do tremendous things for bringing in new business to Old City.

The Creative Corridor Website

A number of the discussions we had, focused on how the Creative Corridor website, http://oldcitycc.org, could be used to showcase artwork, promote the businesses within the community, and digitally link together businesses involved in the Creative Corridor. Everyone in attendance thought the website could be a valuable tool for networking, but offer even more value to new businesses interested in joining the community and bringing in new creative talent. As their will be a portion of the website that lists jobs and internships available at the businesses involved with the Creative Corridor, the website could become a database for young professionals to begin their job search and find their place in the creative community.

As the discussion continued, it became clear that the Creative Corridor website will need to facilitate idea and information exchange. Other suggestions were about featuring businesses on the website and having an event calendar, that allowed all of the involved businesses and organizations to post their own events. The event calendar would provide one centralized place to look for happenings within the creative community.

What kind of Events could we have?

Other ideas and discussions for how the Creative Corridor could benefit businesses, freelancers and young professionals were hosting different events, fairs, exhibits and concerts in the area. These events could provide opportunities for different portions of the creative community to showcase their work, continue promoting themselves and continue developing relationships within the community.

One of the last topics discussed was incorporating some variation of a portfolio review into meetings, so that students and young professionals can get valued critiques from industry professionals. In future meetings we will have “Critique Panels” and have specific types of portfolio reviews, such as graphic artist portfolio reviews, musician portfolio reviews, writing portfolio reviews and more.

Where are we going?

Other ideas discussed at the meeting were long-term goals of creating awareness for the vibrant creative community in Philadelphia, fostering better lines of communication amongst each other, partnering with organizations to host events, creating communal space to share and use for various projects, and motivating the community to continue to connect with each other.