And…it’s a wrap!
After more than 200 speakers, 130 events and almost 30,000 people convened in the Windy City for a seven-day intellectual extravaganza, Chicago Ideas Week 2012 has come to a close.
But the week did not lose any steam through Sunday evening.
Some highlights from our final day together included Brandon Boyd, Incubus’ lead singer, sharing his creative process and transformation from visual artist to musician.
He told us before the show that he hoped people walked away motivated to protect safe creative spaces, as the arts seem to be the first item to be scratched off ballooning budgets.
Growing up, he said he was blessed to have many outlets to express himself - His mother had a drawer filled with crayons encouraging her children to sketch out their emotions if they could not put them into words.
Incubus emerged from a high school literature project, where the assignment was to form a band and present a song. The group was so good that even with just a three-song repertoire, they were asked to play at a party that next weekend.
“It was just fun, just really fun and there was something about it that felt so similar to drawing a picture,” Boyd said. “And the type of reinforcement, the feedback loop that came around from making music it, almost felt like music as an individual entity had been seeking us out.”
While Boyd is a living example of a dream coming true, Scott Belsky, CEO of Behance, broke down how we can make our visions a reality.
Belksy’s company helps organize and empower the creative world, and he said we as a society are overwhelmed with stimuli, “clicking away at the inbox of our lives.” Having some quiet time to let our minds be proactive instead of reactive is vital.
“Probably the shower is the last great frontier of disconnection,” Belsky said.
With a culture of dreamers, doers and preventers, it was important for doers and dreamers to interact with each other and not be afraid to fail.
“Society is very, very critical,” Belsky said about people’s initial reactions to those like Steve Jobs, Bill Gates and Mike Zuckerberg. “We shun the people who are artists and visionaries first and then we celebrate them later on.”
And in breaking down those barriers, Food Network star and author Simon Majumdar said breaking bread together has the potential to heal incredible wounds.
“Food has the capability to bring us together,” he said.
Claire Robinson, host of the Food Network’s “5 Ingredient Fix,” said food was a language that everyone speaks.
“Food is just a part of our culture in general,” she said. “It defines areas of the world.”
Megan Sparks, 28, of Chicago attended Sunday’s session and said the energy in the room was incredible.
“You start your creative juices flowing,” Sparks said.
And Mark Holland, 29, of Chicago said he wished he had known about Chicago Ideas Week from the start – he and his girlfriend saw signs for it Sunday afternoon while walking past the Museum of Contemporary Art and decided to jump in for a talk.
He said the variety of speakers within each genre was amazing, and the networking and educational benefits were fabulous.
“It gets people out of their comfort zones,” he said.
Now that the lights on the stages have gone out and the sets broken down, we encourage you to live out Chicago Ideas Week each of the 365 days leading up to next year’s event. And in the meantime, enjoy the little moments in life that make it all worthwhile.
As Majumdar said, “Stop and smell the roasted chicken.”
“To me, it’s refreshing,” Kenney says. “Once that cage door closes, there is a certain form of honesty that takes place that no other form of entertainment gives you. These guys train for months, and when it’s time to step inside the cage, they show the hard work and sacrifice they’ve put in. I’m fascinated by how different the fighters are from other entertainers that I’ve encountered over the years. When you talk to these guys, you meet the same person who is going to be at the gym training the next day. What you see is what you get. They are very honest and direct, and that is refreshing to me. For whatever reason, that doesn’t tend to be the case in other forms of entertainment.”
