Together we can do good work and make great things happen.
We were so impressed by the presenters at Big Ideas this year! Thank you to everyone who participated.
Speaking to Denton’s creative culture, we heard ideas for a Peterbilt Park (reminiscent of Cadillac Ranch in Amarillo), public spaces for theatrical performers and dancers, and complete neighborhoods where you can take a ten-minute walk and in that span, pick up your groceries, grab coffee, and visit with a neighbor instead of spending 15 minutes in your car to run those errands.
Our hospitality & events coordinator, Mari Austin welcomed attendees and gave an overview of past creative mixers before diving into introducing current speakers with ideas for Denton’s future.
A goal for 2020’s Big Ideas creative mixer is to actively work to help presenters bring their ideas to fruition, initially asking what they thought they would need from the community to make their big idea happen in the speaker application, and then inviting attendees and those watching to connect and collaborate with speakers if an idea presented resonated with them. If you want to watch the live stream recording, check it out here (linked) and take the poll to choose the three ideas that most intrigue you (linked)!
Speaker Recaps
“Debate Night” Kevin Roden
Kevin posed a few questions to listeners:
“What’s the state of discourse in Denton? What does it mean for the future of democracy? How are we grasping public issues and dealing with them? ”
He took us all the way back to the debate structure for congressional districts in the 1800’s: 60 minute opening argument, 90 minute rebuttal, and a 30 minute closing. Kevin proposed a Debate Night tradition for Denton. During which we take a topic and hash it out in a way that’s becoming of public citizens, guided by reason. We should listen to one another and bring discourse to the public square (or perhaps the Chairy Orchard).
Needs: Willing participants and moderators
“We Want To Love You, QYP: Creating Space for Queer Young Professionals” Danielle Longueville
Danielle proposed going beyond hosting happy hours to develop an identity affirming, resourceful, development-promoting, and interactive opportunity for members of the LGBTQIA community to connect, network, and learn from one another to build our their ventures. While happy hours are great, Danielle wants to find a way to offer something more focused on helping these entrepreneurs in the Denton and DFW community grow.
Needs: Offered space, guest speakers, resources for hiring and professional development.
“Bike Denton CycloDia” Shaun Treat
Close down the roads to open them to the public! CycloDia in 2017 was a success, but Shaun is thinking about going even bigger, in the true spirit of Big Ideas 2020. He envisions strengthening our community culture by initiatives like creating a connected network of hiking and biking trails with on-street routes so citizens can more safely bike and walk places. How can we use this event to spur local growth?
What if we connected different parts of the core downtown are for one day as an open street event? Think street fair-esque: we could try streateries where cars would typically park.
Needs: Partnerships with DCTA, City of Denton, Disability Inclusion Society, bicycle shops and groups for the CycloDia event, help planning + budget, sponsors, volunteers, and support of local businesses
BIKE DENTON and DENTON WOMEN CYCLISTS already has a plan but they need partners to execute for May 2021 "Bike 2 Work Month"!
“Never Waste A Good Crisis” Pat Smith
Pat Smith shared with attendees the ideas of the Toyota System Support Center and how he wants to share this system with other small businesses by creating a forum that could teach lean thinking, its systems, and tools. Serve Denton learned this system from Toyota over the summer - take this knowledge and expertise and create learning by doing experiences.
The goal is to help small businesses learn from the process - just start DOING - and figure it out as you go. Toyota teaches you how to think then you use that thinking to implement systems and use tools, like the Kanban method - a means of managing software development projects. Pat would like to help diffuse the idea, maybe create a mastermind group, and help individual businesses improve as they go along.
Needs: Help sharing this idea with businesses or individuals who have successful experience with lean thinking and businesses who would be interested in participating.
“All Those Good Stories and Where To Tell Them” Susan Carol Davis
“If all the world’s a stage, where is Denton’s?”
Let’s designate a place where live theatre can be staged, where dancers and theatrical performers can practice and share their art with Denton. Where are the wide open spaces for outdoor performances that we can utilize? She remembers when City Hall West was once a live performance space. We’re all missing Denton’s outdoor festivals this year, and surely, you’ve been wondering too, what is the fate of the Fine Arts Building?
She urges us to save a space to make space and to keep our existing entertainment venues alive and well as we can.
Needs: How to market this to Denton County and the City of Denton so that it becomes a priority -- not last on the list of things to value.
“Outdoor Community Gallery” Brooke Moore
Denton is a community of artists, DIYers, and creators. It’s a town with nearly 50 murals spread across town but it’s missing something … a community collaborative art experience. This is a call for a Denton Art Park!
Public art spaces are great but not enough; we need a space for graffiti, urban, and street artists to express themselves without fear of retribution, think: outdoor community art gallery. Public art spaces aren’t just for residents but also for tourists and visitors to the lil d. Imagine Cadillac Ranch but with Peterbilt Trucks. Envision a collaborative effort with Acme Bricks to add walls and structures solely for collaborative art. This has been done successfully in other cities, so why not here?
Needs: To get this off the ground, Brooke could use the help with land acquisition, fundraising volunteers, sponsors, and collaborative partners (she’s looking at you, Peterbilt and Acme Brick).
“Complete Neighborhoods” Eric Pruett
Eric talked with us about having a “complete neighborhood” and what that looks like. He vividly described what a typical commute and routine looks like for the average suburban dweller (vast parking lots, time spent in the car driving to the grocery store, not seeing anyone you know or friendly faces), and then shared what it could be, ideally. What about having a coffee shop, produce stand, and food truck in your neighborhood? What if you want more variety? What could it look like to have connected neighborhoods? Paint your porch, build your front patio, talk to your neighbors. Embrace townhomes, duplexes, and triplexes so that the stores in these neighborhoods will have people to frequent them.
Needs: Imagine the change you want in your neighborhood, and make it happen.
“Cut and Dry Protocol” Darya Haghi
Darya presented an idea for a process for the Denton landfill to reduce the volumes of trash that remain there. With a system to handle different kinds of materials that have varying levels of reusability, we would be able to change the amount of trash that remains in the landfill. Darya suggests having zoning to represent materials in three categories: those that do not have potential for a second life or reuse, those that have slightly more potential for re-usability but not as much, and those that have high potential for reusability or repurposing. Additionally, having a compost pickup in Denton would be useful to alleviate a lot of the waste produced in Denton.
Needs: Darya is looking for community help in the shape of like minded volunteers to help with tasks related to the proposal process. Tools that will be needed include industrial shredders and industrial-sized dehydrators.
That’s a wrap! But not quite. Take a poll and tell us what ideas interest you to help us determine our follow-up to Big Ideas 2020!
