Category: Articles
-
Let’s Get Social
Our Create WV friend and super-talented photographer K.D. Lett has set up sites on MySpace and Facebook for us to stay connected easier. Please join them and get to know each other! And please share them with friends of West Virginia wherever they may be around the globe! Be sure to click on the Create…
-
Is One Town’s Gain Another’s Loss?
One misperception that can persist is that if one neighboring town thrives, the other one will suffer. It’s a “zero sum” mindset that assumes that resources are very limited, and if a competing town is winning, you’re losing. The folks in Ronceverte could have maintained that mindset in comparison to the nationally-recognized town of Lewisburg…
-
Coal: Energy, the Environment and West Virginia
Recently, Imagine West Virginia, the research and policy arm of A Vision Shared, put out their research paper on the future of coal and its potential for West Virginia’s economy. We encourage you to read it and post your feedback: http://www.imaginewestvirginia.com/ We hope to host a discussion on this at the Create WV Conference featuring…
-
Who Says Big Ideas Are Rare?
A great article on the nature of innovation and idea generation by Malcolm Gladwell in The New Yorker. What could West Virginia be like with a culture of dreaming big ideas?
-
Small Towns, Small Companies…Big Opportunity
Brad Smith, CEO of Intuit and native of Kenova, WV, delivered a compelling keynote address on leadership at the Charleston Area Alliance annual celebration event last evening. His insights on where the economy and technology are headed could be of real interest to West Virginia. From the Charleston Daily Mail: “Ten years ago, eight out…
-
We Are…A Creative Community!
In Huntington Vaughn Grisham, a sociology professor and director of the McLean Institute for Community Development at the University of Mississippi, lead a community planning session at Marshall University’s Memorial Student Center that attracted over 60 citizens. The topic? Huntington’s future and how to engage young people in the development of it. From the Huntington…
-
Pushing Back on Cultural Bias Against Academic Attainment
We’ve heard several people comment over the last several months about a perceived bias against education in our great state. The basic recounting goes like this: The bias manifests itself in other ways, such as resistance to teacher pay raises (“they already make more than most of us, and they get the summers off!”). I…
-
4C Region Getting Serious About Creative Communities
On May 1 in Beckley, over 50 leaders and interested citizens from Fayette, Nicholas, Raleigh and Summers Counties convened at Tamarack for a regional Create WV Summit. From the Mayor of Beckley to a whole contingent from Sophia, WV, participants learned about and discussed the power of the new economy and attracting creative workers and…
-
Art Warriors by the River
On Wednesday, April 30, over 20 artists gathered into Café Cimino’s beautiful “Little Dishes” bar by the Elk River (www.cafeciminocountryinn.com) to provide feedback and support for the 2nd Annual Create WV Conference. createwv.typepad.com Originally, we weren’t sure how many folks would really want to take time out of their week to spend an afternoon doing…
-
A Tech Industry Leader Returns Home
It’s fascinating to think of the many industry leaders who hail from West Virginia and have risen to the ranks of CEO. John Chambers of Cisco Systems is the reigning example, leading one of the most influential companies of the Internet Age. Of course, we hope over time more of those folks are able to…