FAYETTEVILLE, W.Va. — The 8th Annual Create WV Conference overtook downtown Fayetteville for three days, coming to an end Saturday afternoon.
More than 250 entrepreneurs, business-people, teachers, local and state leaders, and others spent the three days challenging their ideas on everything from the education system, technology, business, and industry norms.
“These are things that are hot topics right now, not only in Fayette County, but throughout the state,” Conference Director Brittany Means said. “We’re excited to challenge the way people think about them.”
The conference offered attendants an alternating schedule of keynote speakers and breakout sessions focusing on topics to improve business, industry, and overall quality of life in the state.
“Everyone’s welcome at the table at Create West Virginia,” Brittany Means, Conference Director said. “We only ask that they try to think creatively.”
Some of the sessions were as simple as learning how to create an “App” for a small business.
“We want them to leave with knowledge and a sense that they can do it,” Means said.
Other sessions encouraged more outside-the-box thinking. One of the most significant points the conference attempted to convey centered on the ever-evolving concepts of leadership and change.
Means said many people want “permission to lead” in the modern worlds of business and education, but don’t realize one often doesn’t need permission.
“Just lead,” Means said. “Just do something. And you don’t have to do it by challenging the system, but sometimes there’s a lot of red tape and things and if you just go ahead and go and do it [then] it’s easier to incorporate change then to build it from the ground up.”
Perhaps nothing better emphasizes Create WV’s simplicity and creativity, said Means, than it’s use of colored tape throughout the town to “lead” attendees to the places they want to go.
Means also said the conference hopes it leads to people shaking things up, feeling less apathetic about their home, and more hopeful and invested in it’s future.
“Empowered, energized, creative people,” Means said. “I think West Virginia’s full of them. And they are more than welcome to come here, but we want them to go back and do it in their own communities.”