It’s time for artists and entrepreneurs to unite once again! At our last Create.Innovate.Repeat. event, we met a lot of brand new faces from the Chicago community who all shared one important quality: no matter their craft, business or big idea, they knew they couldn’t do it alone.
It’s easy to get sucked into the social vacuum of the Internet and be fooled into thinking you’re making actual connections. I spend as much time on Twitter, Facebook, Google Buzz and the blogosphere as anyone (let’s be honest, probably moreso…it’s an obsession), but the bulk of those connections aren’t technically real. The thread connecting me to many of the people who I communicate with is an invisible, digital one…and at the end of the day, that can’t hold a candle to looking someone in the eye and shaking their hand.
That’s why we created Create.Innovate.Repeat. to begin with…to facilitate more of those handshakes. This time, we’ve teamed up with the ING DIRECT Cafe Chicago in downtown Chicago to host a free night of networking and presenting designed to bolster your real world contacts and make connections that could prove invaluable as you continue building your business or brand. We’ve been inspired by the PechaKucha networking nights (if you’re unfamiliar, look it up…they have a great following) to do our own form of show and tell for adults. We have ten presenters lined up, representing an assortment of artists and entrepreneurs from all over Chicago, who each have 10 slides and 5 minutes to share the art or business concept that drives them. From them, you might find inspiration…you might find a way to get involved with a new project…or you might find a partner that you never knew existed who could provide a mutually beneficial team-up opportunity. Check out the list below to get a taste of who’s presenting…and we still have a slot or two open, so if you’re interested in being one of these folks, e-mail me at Shawn@TheIAE.com and I’ll get you set up.
Again, the event is totally free, but registration is recommended. Go to createinnovaterepeat.eventbrite.com to RSVP for yourself and up to 3 friends…and pass the link along to anyone else you know who might be interested. We’ll have free cafe drinks, courtesy of the ING DIRECT cafe, and snacks to make sure you’ve got energy for some intense networking. The event takes place Thursday, June 10th from 7-9 pm. The ING DIRECT Cafe Chicago is located at 21 East Chestnut Street.
We’ll have social networking stations onhand so you can connect with people online as you talk to them in person, but don’t forget to bring a few business cards just in case! And come say hi to me, I’ll be the bald guy wearing lots of No More Starving Artist buttons…because we could all use a few more passionate entrepreneurial cohorts, right?
