In every city, there are special people who have spent their lives trying to make their communities better places. Last night in Greenville, SC, I had the pleasure of having dinner with one such special person, Irv Welling. Irv is a real charmer and one of the people behind "I Was Blown Away," the new campaign to promote Upstate, SC, (and you get the clear feeling, behind many other impressive initiatives from Greenville).

Irv came back this morning to hear me speak, and he handed me something that surprised and delighted me. From his Treo, Irv had retrieved a set of quotes from the Memphis Manifesto Summit, an event we produced in 2003 with Rich Florida. He had kept them for inspiration.

What a good feeling.

And even better... the conversation continues. Joe Cortright ("Societies and institutions that cherish stability and eschew change are at a disadvantage in economic competition.") is our regular and wonderful colleague at CEOs for Cities. Bill Bishop ("And city can be the next great city.") is a featured catalyst at our upcoming national meeting in Pittsburgh May 13-14 (and author of a terrific new book, "The Big Sort," reviewed today in The Wall Street Journal). Walker Smith ("Don't presume the future will simply evolve from the past. Extrapolation won't predict future success. Anticipate discontinuities and be prepared to respond quickly") is a regular commentator on "Smart City." Colin Jackson ("The challenge is to inspire and design processes and projects which change a city's culture to one which values curiosity, learning, diversity and distributed leadership.") is helping us define our new Creative Cities Network. Kip Bergstrom ("Can cities be prosperous and not lose their souls? There is a sameness to our prosperity.") is a valued colleague and member of CEOs for Cities.

It's easy to look back and think we were naive in even attempting the Memphis Manifesto Summit. But it started one heck of an interesting conversation and founded a most wonderful network of colleagues and friends. So, to Irv, thanks for the reminder. And keep making Greenville a creative city.

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