A colleague in the States is thinking of inviting me to speak at a conference he is running later this year and wants to know what my theme would be - since they are particularly interested in the role of the arts in other sections of the economy and society, I thought I'd try out an elaboration of what we were discussing last week: it goes something like this:

CIDA exists to help creative people change the world –
We do this by giving them the knowledge, skills, confidence and opportunities to change the way people think.
Together, we enable governments, communities, businesses and individuals to do things differently.
We place creativity at the heart of all our futures.

I wonder if that works - I want us all to be clear that the reason we get out of bed in the morning is to help creative people earn their living from their creativity. But, inevitably, most of the time our fees come from governments, quangos and communities who want us to help them develop their own creative economies, sometimes by helping their artists and creative communities to become better at the entrepreneurial and business aspects of their work; sometimes by helping them to create the infrastructure for developing a strong creative community/economy, whether through skills development, business support or workforce development; and sometimes by introducing the skills of creative people to more traditional business or community environments - whether that be stimulating creative thinking in local communities for the Renaissance of their towns and cities, or inspiring and supporting businesses to introduce innovation into their company as a critical but do-able management process that helps them to survive and prosper.

Primary market - creative people; secondary market - governments, communities, businesses and individuals -

Does that make sense?