Free tickets to the first 8: 30 a.m. event went in less than three minutes. The second, 50 seconds. For the third CreativeMornings Vancouver in November, organizers staggered their release.
"I had a hunch that Vancouverites and Western Canadians were certainly hungry for something like this, but I did not realize we were this hungry," said Mark Busse, co-founder and design director of Industrial Brand, a brand strategy and communication design firm, who won the bid to bring CreativeMornings to Vancouver in September, before any other Canadian city.
Nearly 150 bleary-eyed creative types grabbed free baked goods, coffee and eggs and settled in the bowels of W2: Community Media Arts at Woodward's last month to hear rock frontwoman and writer Bif Naked talk about her struggle to develop creative confidence.
Alex Beim, owner and creative director of Tangible Interaction/ Tangible Intervention, the company behind the big illuminated beach balls that responded to touch at Olympic outdoor concerts and Summer Live, will get creative juices flowing along with morning coffee Dec. 2. The 40year-old plans to talk about his lifelong journey of understanding and expressing his own creativity.
Busse was frustrated that creative workers like web designers, members of the arts community, writers, marketers and advertisers tend to work in isolation in Vancouver. He wanted to bring people together so they could share their struggles and successes, cooperate, compete and acknowledge the talent in Vancouver. "Vancouverites are traditionally very apologetic in that ultra Canadian way and we don't really do celebration well," Busse said.
Stewart Butterfield, co-founder of Flickr and president of Tiny Speck, which started the multiplayer online game Glitch, spoke at the first CreativeMornings Vancouver. Ian Grais, partner and national creative director with Rethink Communications, spoke at the second. "Nobody in Canadian history has ever been named Creative Director of the Year as many times as Ian has," Busse said. "That's part of that whole mandate to celebrate our community and make sure that we end up with these moments in time. Three years from now, we'll have 36, 20-minute video archives of Vancouver's best and brightest."
CreativeMornings Vancouver is working to stream best hits from the videos as a podcast on iTunes. CreativeMornings happens the first Friday of each month. The event includes breakfast, a 20minute lecture and a 20-minute group discussion with participants heading off to work at 10 a.m. Started in New York City in 2009 by Tina Roth Eisenberg, founder of the design blog and studio swissmiss, CreativeMornings has chapters around the world.
-Cheryl Rossi
Twitter: @Cheryl_Rossi-Cheryl [email protected]
