Community: The Social Side of the New Economy

13-14 November 2000, Washington, D.C.

Innovation fuels the new economy, each fresh idea stirring the next. We live in an entrepreneurial era driven by creative, inspired, impassioned individuals. People shaping this new world order seem to want to play together. They thrive on a spirit of collaboration, one that resonates with collegiality, making the spirit of community vitally important.

Peter Katz, author of The New Urbanism, says, "Today we're a society awash in the networks, yet starved for community." What does community mean today? How do we create and sustain it? What are the possibilities? How can smart companies align with the spirit of community to help them attract and keep the best people? And, what is the role of design in providing the environments people desire? These questions were posed and discussed at Corporate Design Foundation's 2000 Conference: Community - The Social Side of the New Economy.

The power of communities is being increasingly recognized and at the same time greatly misunderstood. As urban environments and organizations look to reinvent themselves we've outlined a program to spearhead a series of dialogues about the issues affecting the successful development of community and the ability of design to have an impact on the outcome.

Place Matters

Before entering into a Dialogue about Community we need to first create some definitions for what this thing called community looks like n or at the very least, what it isn't. We want to set the context for the conversation by asking and answering questions that will help to crystallize current thinking about this rich topic and provide us with a better understanding of how we can positively impact the future.

The program posed questions such as these: What things support community, grow and maintain it? What feeds and what starves it? What are the opportunities for community and what are its challenges?

From there, the conference was framed by a series of dialogues about various elements of community - education, culture, sustainability, design, technology, commerce and communication n that will create the connective social tissue of tomorrow. The conference explored those elements in the context of urban communities, organizational communities, and communities of practice; all the while linking back to the issues that are driving change such as the New Economy, new ways of working, new technologies and the human network that ties it all together.

Conference Speakers

• Paul O'Neill, Chairman, Alcoa
• Paul Hawken, environmentalist, educator, and author
• Robert Peck, Commissioner of Public Buildings Service, GSA
• Mike Abrashoff, USN, Former Commander, USS Benfold
• John Seely Brown, Chief Scientist Xerox and co-author of The Social Life of Information
• Arthur Rubinfeld, Former Executive Vice President, Real Estate & Store Development, Starbucks
• Roger Lewin and Birute Regine, co-authors of The Soul at Work
• Harriet Tregoning, Secretary, Maryland Department of Planning
• Jay Chiat, Founder and Chairman, Screaming Media
• Janine Benyus, author of Biomimicry
• Peter Katz, author of New Urbanism

Corporate Design Foundation wishes to thank Gensler for its generous support of Community - The Social Side of the New Economy.

For more information about The Community Conference contact the Foundation This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .