Oklahoma Creativity Forum on November 1, 2011

The nonprofit organization Creative Oklahoma has announced that it will hold the first annual Oklahoma Creativity Forum on November 1, 2011.

Beyond its subject—human creativity—the Forum bears a few interesting connections to Lincoln Center Institute. Susan McCalmont, the new president of Creative Oklahoma, is a friend who has helped us greatly as an advisor to LCI’s Imagination Conversations initiative. Susan was formerly executive director of the Oklahoma City-based Kirkpatrick Foundation, which hosted the very first Imagination Conversation back in September 2009. And last fall, Creative Oklahoma hosted the 2010 Creativity World Forum, at which I was honored to speak.

The inaugural Oklahoma Creativity Forum, the theme of which is “Out-of-the-Box,” will feature an impressive roster of business, education, and cultural leaders. Susan believes they “will inspire attendees to imagine ideas and create ways to innovate their ideas into products and services for the marketplace.”

Among the luminaries slated to speak are Whole Foods co-founder and CEO John Mackey, whom Eric Liu and I interviewed for our 2009 book, Imagination First (pp. 43-44); Tamara Christensen, founder of Momentum by Design, a consultancy that “fuels creative thinking through collaborative inquiry”; Rules of the Red Rubber Ball author Kevin Carroll; and Oklahoma State University Provost Robert J. Sternberg. Olympic gymnast Bart Conner will serve as master of ceremonies.

Conner says of the gathering, “It will be an immersion into a creative environment that will inspire [participants] to think outside the box on commerce, education, and culture.”

To register for the Oklahoma Creativity Forum, which will take place at the Embassy Suites Conference Center in Norman, Oklahoma, visit http://stateofcreativity.com. LCI wishes Susan and the folks at Creative Oklahoma the best of luck with this exciting event!