Denver’s Creatives Unite
August 31st, 2007
I received an interesting email from the Denver Egotist this week. The Denver who? Here’s their manifesto:
In order to promote creative growth in Denver, one must admit the city is conceptually stunted. It’s not on the tip of any tongues, and for good reason. Safe solutions, droll concepts. It is our belief, as creative participants in this city, that the opportunity for change lies at our feet and that it can happen by challenging one another, by holding each other accountable for our work, and by hiring and promoting local talent. This is our attempt to foster big ideas and radical thinking on a local level. To remind us all why we love this
job. This is The Denver Egotist, a means to an end.
Impressive. Instead of complaining about the matter, these folks are taking action and fighting inertia. Which reminds me of something I heard a kindred spirit say last week: “In our case, tradition isn’t necessarily a good thing. Traditional means inertia.”
Well said. And what’s cool is to see creatives uniting across companies and focusing on a common cause. This one is going on my RSS. I suggest you check it out too. It’s a great reminder that if you become complacent, you’re going to get left behind. A simple message with a big lesson.
Other posts by Spike.
The Denver Egotist says:
Thanks for sharing us with the world, Spike. Here’s to filling our city (and every other) with work we love.
August 31st, 2007 at 1:00 pmJono Fisher - Photographer says:
A good post indeed and thank you for pointing us to The Denver Egotist, which is VERY cool – a breath of fresh air!
Except however, for the part: “..by hiring and promoting local talent”.
Ok, so what if your local talent sucks? Hiring and promoting talent locally sounds like a safe solution and a droll concept to me (apart from the incest of it all). I have ranted about this before:
http://www.jonofisher.com/blog/?p=12
Obviously this is not the case for Denver as they already have a wealth of great talent there. But what about the cities that don’t have any good talent locally? I would say that 30% of the travel and tourism work that I shoot is for (Visitor and/or Convention) bureaus and hospitality companies that do not have photographers locally to shoot the campaigns in the way it was intended by the creatives and marketing professionals. So they hire “a foreigner” or “out of town shooter”.
I would argue that to exclusively promote local talent that may or may not suck, and not to seek out the very best creative talent for the job, may smack of tradition and complacency.
“..by challenging each other, and by holding each other accountable for our work…” That’s the bit I really like. I believe this is the way forward to leaving corporate stagnation and inertia far, far behind. (Makes me want to move to Denver).
August 31st, 2007 at 1:45 pmJeff says:
I do agree with Jono regarding the “hiring local talent.” Certainly if the best talen is local, hire it. This however can be very limiting as part of a manifesto. We work with a lot of Chambers and Associations. They love to say, “we only do business with members.” It kills me. While I agree with the sentiment I think it is a negative approach to gaining new insight and difficult to have as a policy or part of a manifesto.
September 5th, 2007 at 6:26 amExactly what it says says:
just what it says…egotists. they had an awards show but never invited half of the top but less known agencies. Elitist really. Depends on what your style is
December 19th, 2007 at 3:32 pm