Creatively United is a combination of arts, business and community. In 2013, the gathering transformed St. Ann’s Academy into a community village that showcased talented individuals, groups, businesses and green leaders in a festive way to celebrate where we call home and bring attention to the importance of our natural world. That event grew more than 5,500 people of all ages. It's a family friend event meant to spark positive action for the environment while raising funds for progressive environmental-based charities. The businesses and charities at Creatively United introduce the public to quick and easy solutions for how to help support, preserve and protect our fragile ecosystem while enjoying a festive, creative atmosphere that showcases local talent in many forms.

Here's an idea of who is playing a role in Creatively United:

The Festival feature continuous entertainment: live music, displays, lectures, children’s programs, photography workshops, dancing, singing, food, art and art making, and more. There are some ticketed events. I recommend that you check out the "Empowered Money Making Change" forum (Link). This session is for people who are passionate about living the new economy. It will empower participants to contribute in practical ways towards bringing human economic activity into greater balance with our natural ecosystems. The new economy embodies more collaborative and distributed forms of ownership in communities, greater economic democracy and the recognition of sharing and gifting as integral to social resilience. It is giving rise to unprecedented forms of exchange, like community based currencies that are continually re-infused into the regions where they originate. The new economy steers consumer choices and capital investment away from activities that harm and roots them in the regeneration of life and livelihood. These speakers are

What Does The New Economy Mean To Me?

The "New Economy" was a term coined in 1983. Prior to that, America saw a decline in its manufacturing fortunes. Jobs were being shipped overseas and it was fated that America would be a nation of insurance salesmen. Then tech happened. The explosion of technology and technical innovation sparked the New Economy. I have been working in the New Economy for the last 18 years. It has been a wild ride, but it is also very different from what career I was bound for in the 1970s. I see the New Economy as something history will view as transitional. It will give many people a fruitful and rewarding career path. The New Economy outputs innovation. Innovation drives us towards a better world. I think that better world will bring us what I like to call the "Next-New Economy."

What's The Next-New Economy?

We are already living in a post-scarcity world, but the application of abundance is going to take a long time to apply. Our world is fragile, but it is resilient; the resources we need are at hand, but they take technology to reap in a sensible way. We add a lot of wasted energy and resources on locking the profit motive into our models. Technology is capable of democratization and autonomy. All six billion of us can have a high standard of living, but it's going to take a generation or more of forward momentum to get us there. There are a lot of forces in the way: people who want to profiteer and clutch the world of scarcity like a Titanic survivor clutches a life preserver. I think we need to find ways to avoid those obstacles. People in non-OECD countries need solutions that give them food, electricity, transportation, clean water and communications.

The Next-New Economy that I predict will come next is going to destroy the current economic models. We're already seeing that transition. Digital media is being downloaded and that has taken down most of the local video stores. Record stores sell more toys than CDs. I think theatres exist to sell popcorn and let teenagers get to second base. As technology advances, it's going to be cheaper and easier to use devices to get goods and services that we used to pay for. What happens when most of our needs will be satisfied from our gadgets? What happens when the prices plunge for the gadgets? Lasers were in the realm of science fiction in the 1950s. Now, they're available at the dollar store. What happens when we can use tools at our house to get electricity; when we can park a buoy in the ocean to get jet fuel; when we can turn some of that ocean water into drinking water; and when the device beside the fridge gives us fresh vegetables? All of that is possible with the current technologies we have. All of that will be cheap and easy to do in a few years. I can show you how close we are. Check back to my blog in a couple weeks: I will cover off 10 cool technologies that could bring about the Next-New Economy.

Until then, check out the Creatively United site