justen

We need to remember that we are created creative and can invent new scenarios as frequently as they are needed. Maya Angelou

Last summer, Create West Virginia was, well, created to highlight and promote creativity, technology, and forward thinking to help bring together West Virginians to advance our economy, our quality of life, and opportunities for the people of our state. To say that a little simpler: Create West Virginia is about bringing people together to find creative ways to move West Virginia forward.

I moved away from West Virginia after college, but for about a year now I’ve been spending more time back home, working on Vieue. The challenges West Virginia faces today are greater than ever, but the opportunities are just as tremendous. For many years, our state leaders in business, technology, healthcare, labor, and government seemed to be stuck in the past. That is changing.

In healthcare, in particular, I think West Virginia is truly moving forward, even though we face some of the greatest obstacles. Innovative companies like beBetter and Vested Health are on the forefront of new trends in healthcare. Julian Bailes at West Virginia University and Bob Coffield at Flaherty Sensabaugh & Bonasso are both respected leaders in healthcare and healthcare information technology. Governor Manchin has continued to move the state forward towards a statewide health information network. Mountain State Blue, through its partnership with Highmark, has made tremendous progress in helping doctors digitize. And don’t forget where David Brailer is from.

Create West Virginia has asked folks in West Virginia to talk about their hometown or where they’re from, and the creative things that are happening there. I’m from Boone County, and I haven’t lived there for quite a few years now. I do know they have been making strides in building a new economy for the area, with the successful new business incubator being an important milestone in that effort.

But over the past year, I’ve come to call Snowshoe my West Virginia home. With Vieue, I needed to find a place where a small team of folks could work hard, brainstorm, problem solve, generally break all the traditional rules of project management… And still be in a place where nature was just steps away, where you could breathe and take a moment to unwind when you need to. I’ve been coming here since I was a kid, and so much has changed. Coincidentally, a company called Intrawest has been behind a lot of the changes at Snowshoe over the past decade or so, and they call their process “placemaking.” Seems apt!

West Virginia has so many “places,” we have such a wide range of nature, from valleys and rivers to plateaus and streams to, yes, mountains. “Placemaking” here is really just complementing and not getting in the way of nature, and Snowshoe is a place that has balanced that quite a bit. For that matter, you could say the same of much of Pocahontas County. They call it the “birthplace of rivers,” since eight of them originate in the county (the Greenbrier, the Cherry, the Elk, the Cheat, the Gauley, the Tygart Valley, the Williams, and the Cranberry, if you are keeping track).

It’s pretty great, I think, that the Create West Virginia conference is coming up in just a few weeks, at it’s going to be at Snowshoe. West Virginia has so many creative places, but I think right on top of one of the highest points in the state has to be one of the best. The great thing about Create West Virginia, though, is that it brings all of us together, and Snowshoe is a great creative place for all the creative folks from all the other creative places across the state to converge. It might just be electric. Speaking of which, here’s one last Maya Angelou quote for you: I believe creativity is like electricity. We don’t understand how it works… We just use it.