Oregon Creative Industries Blog » Collaboration

Defining & Supporting the Creative Industries Cluster in Oregon

Steve Gehlen — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 08:45:06 +0000

After many months and hundreds of volunteer hours reaching out and listening to the community, OCI recently published a draft document for public comment that defines the Creative Industries economic cluster in Oregon and proposes several objectives and initiatives for sustaining and growing Oregon’s creative economy.

The document, based on input from the for-profit, non-profit, public and education sectors of the creative economy ecosystem, has already been downloaded over 170 200 250 times since it was released and we have been receiving valuable feedback.

The document uses the same general structure as the Oregon Business Plan‘s “Policy Playbook: Initiative and Cluster Guide” so that when it reaches final draft it can easily plug into the next version of the Playbook in time for the 8th annual Leadership Summit in December 2009. This is just one example of the value that OCI can provide as the cluster’s trade association.

We encourage you to download and review the draft document and provide your feedback. To download, visit http://www.box.net/shared/of9mtjl7it

Inaugural Leadership Roundtable Discussion a Success

Steve Gehlen — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 06:56:50 +0000

Leaders from 16 different creative economy-related associations/guilds/unions in Oregon attended the inaugural leadership round-table discussion hosted by Oregon Creative Industries. Our objective for the meeting was to gather feedback from various groups about how OCI could best add value to and benefit their group and the Oregon creative economy overall.

In addition to the attendees in the room, there were also several remote attendees participating via Web and phone.

Attendees at the OCI Leadership Round-table Discussion

There was a lot of feedback, input and questions from participants. We will have more meeting notes later. For now, here is a list of who attended:

ACM – SIGGRAPH (computer graphics)
AIGA (graphic designers)
American Federation of Television & Radio Artists
American Society of Media Photographers
International Animated Film Society
Internet Strategy Forum
Legion of Tech
Musicians Union Local 99
Oregon Media Production Association
Oregon Writers Colony
Portland Area Theatre Alliance
Screen Actors Guild
Search Engine Marketers PDX
Self-Employed Creative Professionals
Software Association of Oregon
Southern Oregon Film and Television

Thanks to everyone who participated. We will have more leadership roundtable discussions in Q1 of 2009, including one for educational institution leadership.

Stronger Together

Steve Gehlen — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 00:57:33 +0000

The diagram below represents the vision that OCI co-founders have for what it will take for Portland and Oregon to reach the full potential of our creative economy and its role in the global marketplace.

In the diagram, “Structured Networks” are industry associations, guilds, etc. “Unstructured Networks” are groups of people who have come together informally around shared disciplines, such as technical user groups, graphic designer email lists and marketing-related Facebook groups. In the context below, “Technical” refers primarily to software (writing good code is an art form), including Web apps, games, etc.

As a next step, we will be hosting a series of roundtable discussions (starting next week) with leaders representing all four of the quadrants below.