Clear your calendars friends. Because the second full week of October is shaping up to be a quick succession of Bend conferences focused on creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship.

The week begins with the marketing conference Swivel (formerly Bend Webcam). It ends with the Bend Venture Conference. And now the inaugural Bend Design Conference will squeeze right in the middle.

The timing of the design conference is of course by design. Organizers say they wanted to capitalize on the momentum of the week and dovetail their event with the others, recognizing the common themes (as we noted creativity, innovation, entrepreneurship and words purposely missing vowels) connecting all three.

Presented by Scalehouse, the first-ever design conference is scheduled for Wednesday Oct. 14 and Thursday Oct. 15 and features a range of local and national experts on everything from tiny houses and green building to web and product design and interactive media.

The speakers include Sam Stubblefield, who has created art, architecture and other projects for Amazon, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Google and Microsoft Research, and Chris DeWan, design director at Second Story, which has studios in Atlanta, New York and Portland. You can register now — students receive a discount.

The 12th annual Bend Venture Conference also kicks off Thursday Oct. 15 with seminars, the unConference and an evening networking event. The companies vying for investment will then make their presentations Friday, Oct. 16 at the Tower Theater. The application deadline recently passed and we’re excited to hear who will be presenting on the big stage.

In addition, because we saw that open spot in your schedule and we think you should never sleep and/or make time for laundry, the BendFILM festival is the preceding week. As one organizer suggested, it’s a regular Bend by Bend West.

So to review your October calendar looks like this:

BendFilm Festival
October 8 through 11

Swivel
October 12 and 13

Bend Design Conference
October 14 and 15

Bend Venture Conference
October 15 and 16

Nap
October 17

 

Kelly Kearsley

Kelly Kearsley

Kelly Kearsley, the co-founder of StartupBend.com, is passionate about startups, entrepreneurship and Bend. In addition to writing this blog, she creates content and manages content projects for global financial companies, tech firms and startups. She began her career as a newspaper journalist and later worked as a freelance writer. Her work has appeared in WSJ.com, Money Magazine, CNNMoney, MSNBC and Runner's World. See her work at kellykearsley.contently.com or kellykearsley.com.

You can reach Kelly by email at [email protected].
Kelly Kearsley

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