Making ideas happen, DC style!

Just this past Wednesday, Thursday and Friday I attended the phenomenal 99% conference in New York, hosted by Behance and Coolhunting - two companies that have, in their own ways, developed creative ways to share their ideas with the world.

The title, inspired by Thomas Edison's famous quote "genius is 1% inspiration, 99% perspiration," was picked to represent the theme and purpose of the conference - which was not to focus on ideas (which 99% of conferences do) but to focus on how to make ideas happen.  Entrepreneurs, artists, photographers, designers, and innovators from Brooklyn to Singapore gathered at the New York Times Building in Manhattan and schemed on how to take ideas and successfully execute them.

So now it is only appropriate to shout out (in a big way) those who are making ideas happen - in my neck of the woods. Just a quick plane, bus, or train ride away, west of the the Big Apple.

CreativesDC is an online/offline social network of creatives, entrepreneurs and free-agents who too, are about making ideas happen. Created by Neil Takemoto of Cooltown Beta Communities and Philippa P.B. Hughes of The Pink Line Project, their goal for this initiative is to create a 'hub' for creatives and economic producers to mix and mingle and explore ways to marry cultural ideas/products to commercial opportunities in the DC metropolitan area.  A member myself since July of '08, I've personally found that it's one of the few 'networking' events that gets it in terms leveraging new ideas of the creative economy (i.e social media, crowdsourcing, triple-bottom line) to help build sustainable enterprises.  Check out the site when you get a chance.  With about 500 members, events taking place every other month and over 15 projects in the works, you may just want to keep your eye out for these folks. Some great ideas are on the verge. . .