Creativity Oz - Postponed till 2011

Hi folks

Every now and then we find decisions that are really, really hard to make - especially when the heart is saying one thing and the head saying another.

Over the past two weeks we've spent a lot of time talking to clients, potential sponsors, and other organisations about Creativity Oz and the state of the World right now. The bottom line is that whilst everyone I've spoken to thinks the idea of Creativity Oz is just wonderful, the number of people able to commit any support in the form of sponsorship or even attendance is remarkably low.

So we've decided to postpone Creativity Oz for one year.

There are a number of factors involved...

• As I've mentioned above, unless the economy changes radically for the better we will be hard pushed to find the numbers. Many of the people we have spoken to are pretty 'deep' inside the finance sector and whilst there is a level of upbeat about some of the published news, the inside story is just the opposite.
• There are quite a few people who have promised to come from overseas. Our reckoning is that up to half of the participants are likely to fly in. This has a number of responsibilities attached - our responsibilities I feel. I really want to avoid people buying best-value non-refundable airfares for an event that might need to be cancelled after they buy the tickets. A bit negative I hear you say... But alongside the financial issues there is the swine flu issue which it seems is largely unknown. And although mild at the moment, mutation is considered by many experts to be on the cards, and it might be this which has a bigger effect on attendance than travel issues and the economy. It's largely unknown I agree. We have been told it's even possible that we could find international events, and even large national gatherings, banned if a wider and more virulent strain of flu is encountered.
• Because this is a 'first' for Australia, a fizzer would be the worst possible outcome! We must make sure the first event goes with a bang, that we get all those wonderful international presenters that we are relying on so much, and that we get the widest appropriate exposure to the event - and that it is reported as success.

So - I think it has to be 2011. I would rather postpone early than wait and see. Obviously I'm aware that we could end up in Feb. 2010 and everything is sunshine and light - no flu, economic recovery, growth rates up and more people in work, with budgets ready to be spent on our kind of stuff! That would be annoying I guess, but won't damage anyone else. The risk of going ahead now, and events taking place that would seriously inconvenience people and cost them money, is a much bigger risk and I don't feel comfortable in doing that.

As all of you have given such sensational support to the idea and have helped in so many ways I wanted to let you know first before we sent out an email to everyone else. In the next e-News we send out from the Thinking Network I will acknowledge that support fully.

In particular I would like to thank Brendan for putting in hours and hours of work on the Creativity Oz website - it really is shaping up to be a treasure. I would also like to thanks Brendan's friend Ben - who incidentally I still haven't met! Ben - the logo you designed is just outstanding! Thanks so much for the time and effort you put into this. And Sally - thanks for agreeing to run with the PR for the event, we couldn't possibly have found anyone better suited to this task.

To everyone else - if you're looking for a web guru, a sensational graphic designer and a PR person who can walk on water - these are the people to go to. Please support them if you have an opportunity. Just ask me for their email address.

All the best

Ken