San Jose Creative Entrepreneur Program
Sunday, September 14th, 2008
On Saturday, San Jose hosted a town hall meeting for artists interested in learning more about the city’s new Creative Entrepreneur Program.
Kim Walesh, Chief Strategist for the city, began by expressing her optimism that today, more than ever, there is more opportunity for artists to be a part of the San Jose economy. Artist based business are growing faster than other segments and San Jose has a high rate of independent creative entrepreneurs.
The Silicon Valley companies that are really succeeding — think Apple– understand the intrinsic aesthetic value that creativity brings to their product. San Jose’s future plan now includes steps to honor both the the left brained technologists and the right brained artists, and recognize innovation in all their various aspects. Walesh suggested that city government was crafting a future plan where not only arts and cultural facilities were included, but now individual artists were encouraged to think together with them to build an artist friendly San Jose. (more…)
