Category: Articles
-
West Virginia Stereotype: Making Lemonade out of Lemons
If you study the history of West Virginia, we’ve had our share of lemons tossed our way. The state has been described as a “colony” because of the dominance of out-of-state land owners (some regions of the state have over 80% of their land owned by out-of-state corporate interests) who saw nothing wrong with extracting…
-
West Virginia Stereotype: Connected to Home and Hills
The thing that struck me most about meeting Brad Smith, CEO of Intuit (you know, the folks who make the QuickBooks and Quicken software to manage your money), was how genuinely emotional he got when talking about his love for his home state. A native of Kenova, WV, near Huntington, Smith is among the technology…
-
West Virginia Stereotype: Building Community-Based Culture
You have to love FestivALL. “A City Becomes a Work of Art.” What makes this a great example of West Virginia’s cultural scene is the mix of world-class artists (Savion Glover, Shemekia Copeland, Jakob Dylan) combined with neighborhoody events such as wiener dog races. In some ways, our cultural scene reflects one of our other…
-
West Virginia Stereotype: Talented, But Extraordinarily Down to Earth
My Pittsburgh-native wife noticed this one right away. “You guys don’t give yourselves enough credit. You need to brag more.” Ever notice that even the celebrities that hail from West Virginia seem a little more humble, a little more down to earth, than their Hollywood peers? How much of these traits are rooted in Scotch-Irish…
-
Today’s West Virginia Stereotype
In celebration of West Virginia Day (June 20), Create WV is pleased to participate in a statewide blogging “carnival” organized by Jason Keeling of abetterwestvirginia.com. The goal? To collaborate in building and communicating the “new” stereotype of West Virginia. We think this is a brilliant concept. We all know the negative stereotypes which originated from…
-
Massachusetts Hires Creative Economy Director
Massachusetts, already a key leader in the creative economy, has kicked things up a notch by creating a new creative economy director role. The position will work in the Office of Business Development as one of several industry directors responsible for key Massachusetts sectors such as biotechnology, defense, and technology. According to the Boston Globe,…
-
Resource Track Leader 2008: Herk Conner
Continuing in our non-run-of-the-mill names for Track Leaders we offer for your consideration Herk, the only one I know (we are trying to get Tim & Jeff to change their names). Herk and I formed a mutual admiration club a few years ago when I became a last minute replacement speaker for one of his…
-
Business Track Leader 2008: Grethe Lindemann
createwv.typepad.com The Business Track is new this year to the Create WV Conference. There were business sessions in other tracks last year, but we had requests for more. It was felt that a creative new economy economic development conference needed to talk a little more with the creative community about business, especially since we got…
-
What’s the Fuss About Bilingual Signs?
Buzz around Charleston regarding the recent signage in Spanish and English for FestivALL has brought about some interesting conversation. Some people are offended, others are saying “it’s about time” and many are apathetic. Why does promoting diversity, culture and other languages create such a stir around WV and other parts of the U.S.A? The United…
-
¿Qué es el jaleo con signos bilingües?
Zumbe alrededor del pueblo con respecto a los letreros recientes en español e inglés para FestivALL ha producido alguna conversación interesante. Algunas personas se ofenden, otros dicen “su acerca de tiempo” y muchos son apáticos. ¿Por qué la diversidad, la cultura y otros idiomas crean promoviendo tal conmoción alrededor de WV y otras partes de…