Bozeman's Underground
Posted 09/12/2007 by Jeff Welch
Our little community is on the leading edge of so many passions—outdoor recreation, fly fishing, mountaineering, organics, local food, sustainability, land use planning—why not the professional creative arts?
I was inspired at the last Montana Addy awards by the large turnout of advertising agencies, design firms and the like from Bozeman. At the same time, I was concerned that there just weren’t a lot of opportunities for young people to grow their marketing careers here. Knowing other business owners were facing similar challenges and trying solutions on their own, I thought, “why not collaborate on these problems with my peers and have the whole creative community come together to network, do professional development, host speakers and have fun?” That’s how Off the Grid was born.
Getting a guy like Alex Bogusky as our first speaker was the perfect fit. He and I struck up an email dialogue a year ago after I read his quote in Adweek.
“No good advertising jobs in Montana?” I couldn’t let that one go. Perception is half of the problem. A year later, Alex has graciously agreed to come to town, probably eat a little crow, but more importantly, inspire our creative community to do great work, forge new paths in our field and put Bozeman on the map as a hotbed for industries like ours.
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