Mark Stockwell, Sarah, Bob Abott and Richard Florida
‘Knowledge and Creativity’ was held at the J., Noosa Junction, on 23/Nov/2007
I attended out of curiosity to check out what the ‘Noosa Creative Alliance’ is all about. After all:
“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” – Buckminster Fuller
It was worth going – especially for the interesting people I met – thanks Vivianne, Colin, Frank, Leah, Alexander….
from the program – What’s on at the J.:
Richard Florida is the best selling author of the books ‘The Rise of the Creative Class’ and ‘The Flight of the Creative Class’ and is one of the worlds leading public intellectuals on economic competitiveness, demographic trends and cultural and technological innovation.
Florida’s ‘creative class’ is composed of such professionals as scientists, engineers, university professors, poets and architects. Florida theorises that the ‘creative class’ fosters an open, dynamic, personal and professional environment. He holds that attracting and retaining high-quality talent as opposed to a singular focus on infrastructure projects such as sports stadiums, iconic buildings, and shopping centers would be a better primary use of a city’s regeneration resources for long-term
My fairly random thoughts:
- The whole approach seemed very American – business (building developer) ‘investing’ into a local community and thus trying to shape it’s future very visibly and unabashed.
- Mark Stockwell was announced as Noosa’s Richard Branson. He is a former Olympic medalist swimmer for Australia and a buiding developer. His company is behind the Noosa Civic Shopping Mall which was mentioned as much as possible on the night – fair enough – Stockwell seem to put $1m up for it. (Can anybody confirm this?)
- To have Richard Florida flown in to speak and to help creating the right framework for strengthening and expanding Noosa’s Creative Class must cost quite a bit and it might well be worth every penny.
Will there be any transparency about how this is financed? Maybe there is already and I haven’t found it yet.
- Richard Florida had very valid things to say – a lot of which make good common sense. For example: tolerance for gays and foreigners is good for a strong creative class in a community. Can you talk ‘tolerance’ up? How do you make it so?
A luxurious Mardi Gras decompression event on main beach – an oasis with all the herbal and massage therapies to aid recovery from a demanding party comes to mind…
- On sustainability:
Richard spoke about how important sustainability and green spaces are for the happiness of a community – and how well Noosa has done in this department.
My reaction to this is: ‘Low expectations’ gentlemen! Just because the rest of Australia is getting it largely even ‘wronger’ with regards to sustainability, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t know better!
Looking for example at the Noosa Civic: Noosa’s latests shopping mall and business center. With it’s huge foot print and roof space I can not understand why the air conditioning is not running on solar power or in fact the whole center’s electricity needs are fed off photo-voltaics. Is the civic rainwater harvesting? Why are there no wildlife corridors through the enormous asphalt dessert which is the car park out front?
- On inclusiveness:
White men are still appearing to run the show. Hardly any women were visible apart from a mentioning of ‘the beautiful women working for Mark Stockwell’ and Mark presenting Sarah to the audience, who was said to be behind Florida’s ‘Creative Classes’ success in Australia.
- On motives:
I would like to see this as a philanthropic gesture and a wise and proactive contribution to the community.
Putting my more cynical hat on (which color would that be, Mr. de Bono?) I’d say it is a smoke screen for further destruction of natural habitat and a ploy to get life and business into the Civic. I’d be very pleased to be proved wrong.
The noosa creative alliance is all in all an interesting approach. For it to run with heart and integrity we will need a strong representation of the ‘Noosa Creative Class’.
On the night details where collected of people willing to be one of 30 ‘catalysts’ for the program – needless to say I’d like very much to be one.
btw:
The entry for the ‘Creative Class’ at the J. was $45 bucks (investment it was called on the program) – that should keep the riff-raff out 😉
Comments, corrections and other views most welcome.
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Clearly it works 