Spring, Summer and Fall are the seasons for creativity AND innovation conferences. The guide I’m posting here isn’t meant to be comprehensive — but a quick glance at what’s on and why or why not you might want to go. Everybody has different criteria, so, take my thoughts with a grain of salt. And if you have additions, please comment and let everyone know.

Guide to what’s happening in 2011:

CREA 2011, Sestri Levante, Italy, (April 13-17, 2011)

For those with the shekels and the time, a trip to Italy for the 9th annual CREA Conference might be in order. Imagine if you will a creativity conference with good food. In a hotel that is really an old seaside castle.  In Sestri Levante, the Italian Riviera. On the beach. In the spring. The sessions are nearly all experiential, you’ll learn aspects of creativity (“structured” and otherwise) you hadn’t thought of, you might be deeply inspired. In terms of content, it’s a rich conference. You won’t be bored for a minute, just the opposite, I guarantee you a creative high. And it’s a great party; it doesn’t get much better when creativity people start dancing and playing drums. Most of all you’ll meet some fascinating people. For more detail about the pro’s and con’s of this interesting conference see my post from last year. The quick summary: it’s a Creativity conference, and it does that very well. Innovation, in my view, not so much.  Of course one must be creative to do innovation.  Attendees to CREA are from Italy, France, and the USA, with a smattering of other europeans.

Front End of Innovation (FEI) Boston (May 16-18)

IIR is in the conference business and they are real professionals, IIR events have a lot of content, jammed packed really, and they are well attended. The Front End of Innovation, Boston, is the bigger of the two FEI yearly conferences (the other just took place in Berlin). The emphasis at FEI is Innovation, flat out, swish boom, take video tape. This is a Business Conference. The speakers (and participants) are from a who’s who of global corporations. The talks are mostly about best innovation practices, case studies, and lots of slides (endless slides). There is the occasional academic heavy weight, and design types as well. FEI is mostly about new product and service development at the end of the day. It also has vendor exhibits (which is not the case at CREA, CPSI, ACE, MindCamp, or ECCI XII). I think the vendor show is important — how else do you learn what’s out there? Having industry vendors of Idea Management, Open Innovation sourcing, Product Portfolio Management, etc — all in one place set up to talk to you — adds value to the FEI experience. This conference would be fairly easy to justify to the CFO — if you are “client side” at a working organization. If you’re a consultant, pay the rather hefty fee and get out the hunting rifle (apologies for that very American reference) there are actually buyers of innovation services to be found at FEI. Take also a large cushion, you’ll be sitting on your behind the entire time, this is a Power Point fest. Wouldn’t it be interesting if FEI actually did a Creativity Conference? Rumor has it they are considering this…

Atlanta Creativity Exchange (ACE) is also next week (April 14,15,16).

I’ve never been  to ACE, although I know the organizer, Harry Vardis, and many of the speakers — they’re colleagues at the CPSI Conference (and the ACA Conference which just happened a couple weeks ago). ACE is done in association with the Cole College of Business at Kennesaw State. My sense from afar is this is a nice blend of creativity AND innovation content, the speaker list indicates that. Scanning the presenter page I see some fresh faces like Ava Lindburg, and Bethany Davidson, and some old pro’s like Chris Barlow, Win Wenger (always an eye opener) and Jack Wolf. For north Americans in search of a creative jolt, this could be a real value, particularly given how cheap it is to fly there, and stay, with affordable options near the campus.

Creative Problem Solving Institute (CPSI) (June 20-24) Atlanta

CPSI (“sip-SEE”) is the grandmother of all creativity and innovation conferences, it’s been going for nearly 60 years now. For many years it was in Buffalo on the Buff State campus, but for the last six it’s been roaming between Boston, Atlanta, and Chicago — in hotels. Looks like it’s back to Atlanta in 2011, but unlike its stay at Calloway Gardens, this year it’s in the heart of town. That’s a plus, it will be easy to get there even for overseas visitors. It’s a conference historically built around Osborn-Parnes and CPS, (Osborn and Parnes started CPSI) and is mostly an applied creativity conference. CPSI has gone beyond its CPS-only stage and is now a bit more agnostic about creativity and innovation methods. For instance, this year I’m pleased to see someone there talking about the Theory of Constraints.  Dave Gray, author of GameStorming is doing a workshop and I’d be hard pressed to think of somebody better to teach how to facilitate. This conference makes an effort to have diverse content, and, with exceptions noted, the skew is to the soft skills side of the innovation equation. You won’t hear much about venture capital, entrepreneurship, or Idea Management Systems. On the other hand, you might hear something about methods like TRIZ or Synectics. If you want to learn creative problem solving process (CPS specifically) and advanced facilitation skills, you’d be well served to attend CPSI.

Later this year:

MindCamp – Toronto – September 8th – 11th

Possibly the best value conference given the inexpensive lodging and registration fee — it’s held at a YMCA camp.  For me a creativity conference in the woods is a beautiful thing.  If you’re a teacher or someone on a budget, this is the conference for you because of the cost, and, because it’s scheduled end of week and weekend.  There is great content at MindCamp, some real stars present — so you’ll get everything people get at CREA, CPSI, or ACE get (with the possible exception of long format “teaching” workshops).  80% of the presenters (my guess) also present at the other creativity conferences. The other 20% – ish are Canadian practitioners you wouldn’t see present anywhere else.  There’s a wonderful feel to this conference, it’s very relaxed, experimental (the Pecha Kucha evening is a hoot), and accommodating. It’s pretty in the fall in Toronto — you have the added value of a meditative place to be.

ECCI XII – Faro, Portugal – September 14th-17th

European Conference on Creativity and Innovation is the most pan-european conference, with a very diverse set of participants and presentors. It happens every two years and this year it’s in Portugal. My sense of this conference is it has an academic skew, although there are plenty of practitioners and business people in the speakers list. The positioning of this event is about learning how to innovate. It also appears to have a good balance of creativity content and real world innovation content. There are a number of practitioners and “experts” speaking at this conference that I don’t see presenting anywhere else, and, a number of presenters who are also presenting at CREA, CPSI, ACE etc.  Maybe it’s time to brush up your Portuguese? Tudo Bem!

ACRE – 17th Annual South Africa Creativity Conference, Klein Kariba Resort, Bela Bela – October 11th – 14th

I don’t think I’d be sticking my neck out too far to say that this is easily the most exotic creativity conference on the calendar. It’s also a well managed, passionately done event run by the guru of African creativity, Kobus Neethling, Phd. The Klein Kariba Resort is, full of zebra’s and pesky monkey’s, and glorious swimming pools.  The conference has some unique features beyond the location. One I’m particularly fond of is the “mystery closing keynote”. One of the presenters is chosen to do the closing keynote — and is told about it 12 hours ahead of time. It makes for an interesting closing session. Presenters are from all over the world, many familiar faces, and unique presenters from South Africa. It’s a conference for South Africans really, but if you can make it there, the content won’t disappoint. Stay after and visit the game parks nearby.

Creativity in Business, Washington, DC – Sunday, October 23rd

Creativity in Business is is a dense one day conference held in Georgetown. It’s a creativity conference to be sure, but speakers are encouraged to draw direct connections to using creativity to solve business problems. This conference is organized by Michelle James of the Center for Creative Emergence.  Presenters at this conference are many of the same faces you’ll see at the conferences above (except FEI) but because it’s in DC you’ll also see some of the “local talent” that doesn’t typically present at creativity conferences.  People like Ms. Sam Horn, a dynamic expert on publishing, branding, and speaking. You might see Stan Gryskiewicz, PhD — a noted leadership expert. There will also lilely to be a heavy dose of “improvisation in business” types because the organizer has a big network in that space.  Improv games for business is a rich area and a few of the good people will be presenting here. If you are in shouting distance of DC, this will be a high value, low cost event — it’s on a Sunday, so, folks from Philly and New York could do the event and get home in time for work on Monday.

I’m sure there are more conferences I should be mentioning. I’m ignoring a couple I’m aware of because they seem a bit boutique, but hey, mention them here and tell us why you go or don’t go.  Because ACA (American Creativity Association) has already happened this year, I’m not reviewing it in this list, but be aware they do a fine conference with a good mix of serious creativity and innovation content.