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In our TED-ified world, there is no shortage of confabs offering exclusive, scintillating insights on the world. But such gatherings likely require you to abandon your work for a few days, hop a plane to some dismal convention center, and shell out the equivalent of a mortgage payment for tickets.
Enter Tina Roth Eisenberg, the Brooklyn designer known for her sweetly minimalist blog Swissmiss. Eisenberg wanted to create a conference that was more compact -- something that offered both inspirational speakers and serendipitous interactions without eating up an entire week.
"I realized that most of us attend conferences because we want to meet likeminded people," she says. "But the problem with conferences is that these communities are temporary and only happen once a year. What I was craving was an accessible event, that connects me with my local creative community, and that inspires me with one talk -- before work."
The result was CreativeMornings, which launched in 2008 with a series of "coffee-and-chat speakers" at various venues in New York. The local creative community responded enthusiastically, and Eisenberg was quickly nabbing big names like MoMA curator Paola Antonelli and Charlie Todd of Improv Everywhere.
Soon, other cities were clamoring to host their own breakfast lectures. Eisenberg quickly drew up a franchising plan -- cities apply via video -- and within a few years, CreativeMornings has grown to 31 locales. (Raleigh, North Carolina, is up next.) Now, thousands of people from Cape Town to Atlanta to Berlin get up a little earlier one Friday a month to join their fellow bright-eyed creatives for short, inspirational lectures (and, importantly, coffee). By 10 a.m., everyone's on their way to work.
John Maeda speaks at a CreativeMornings event in 2011.
After designer John Maeda spoke as part of the New York chapter series last year, he and Eisenberg began plotting a way to work together. As president of the Rhode Island School of Design, Maeda's been passionate about including the arts as part of the drive to improve science, technology and math in education, or turning STEM to STEAM. "John and his team's work ... is definitely a source of inspiration for us, and we felt it was the perfect opportunity to try our hand at this global experiment," Eisenberg says.
This month, for the first time, all 29 active CreativeMornings chapters are focused on one topic, the intersection of technology and art, or as Eisenberg calls it: Arts+Tech=Magic! The New York chapter hosted interactive artist Jonathan Harris on June 1, and the month will feature people around the globe like illustrator and type designer Jessica Hische (San Francisco), interactive curator Joe Coppard (Stockholm), designer Steve Lawler (Singapore), as well as a special RISD Pop Up Chapter featuring Kelly Dobson, who focuses on the interaction between humans and machines. Like all Creative Mornings lectures, the talks will be filmed and archived at the CreativeMornings site.
There are some inspirational lessons in community-building to be taken from the series. Aside from two staffers -- Kevin Huynh serves as Chief Breakfast Officer and Carly Ayres is a Breakfast Lecture Series Specialist -- CreativeMornings is completely volunteer-driven. None of the speakers are paid. Local organizers are charged with selecting venues, working with sponsors who donate coffee and a light breakfast, recruiting photographers and videographers, and proposing speakers.
Eisenberg's social media heft also helps to broadcast the talks -- she has almost 300,000 followers. As a previous CreativeMornings speaker, not a week goes by when I don't get an email from someone who has watched my talk online. Their reach is that powerful.
Part of the appeal of CreativeMornings is the diversity of its lineups, which include everything from makers to marketers. The lineup is a direct reflection of Eisenberg's many interests: She also runs the coworking space Studiomates, builds apps like Teux Deux, and started the temporary tattoo company Tattly. Plus, unlike professional development "webinars" or stuffy professional mixers, CreativeMornings is laid back and accessible (as long as you're quick to nab one of the seats via Eventbrite, which sell out quickly).
"I love the idea that the college student can sit next to the CEO of a company just by signing up on the Monday before," says Eisenberg.
But to me, the real beauty of CreativeMornings is the fact that it starts at 8:30 a.m. It turns out that this blissful hour-and-a-half is a perfect time for people to talk design over donuts -- it neither tugs you away from work or nighttime play.
Eisenberg agrees: "After a talk and free breakfast people can leave inspired and energized to finish out the week," she says. "To me, it's the best way to start the day."
Check out the lineup for Arts+Tech=Magic!, view videos of past talks, and find a CreativeMornings chapter near you at CreativeMornings.com
Photos by Katherine Miles Jones
