I just browsed through the United Nations Creative Economy Report 2008, which provides "empirical evidence that the creative industries are among the most dynamic emerging sectors in world trade." There is a huge number of similar reports on country, region and city level, which underlines the increasing role that creative enterprises have for the economy (especially today's economy that so badly needs to reinvent itself!) - and also the growing appreciation of this role.
The upgrading of creative folks to business people also has a disruptive potential for the economy, which hardly ever shows up in Creative Industries reports.
For one thing, fostering Creativity means encouraging a certain degree of chaos. This is easy to understand, as Creativity flows from a disregard of rules, from crossing boundaries, from experimenting, from challenging oneself (and others) continuously, and from cultivating a beginner's mind. In other words, creativity comes from continuous self-development, it is more a path than a gift.
No big news probably, when you think of creative professionals in arts, design, or architecture, which often work self-employed or in very small firms. They take care of their creative freedom within a self-defined system.
But as a growing number of people (categorized as the "Creative Class" by Richard Florida ) working in areas such as programming or services have chosen the route of creative empowerment (and are encouraged to do so), the anarchistic side of creativity needs to be able to play out in organizations with more traditional structures. Some of these traditional structures are already being replaced: Flexible working hours, inspiring office spaces and learning opportunities, are not unusual anymore. Yet, working (or rather: collaborating) with only a limited set of pre-given rules and with a larger degree of freedom is still a challenge and we can expect to see some unfamiliar approaches to this in the Creative Economy.
The other, even more disruptive feature is the role that creative workers see for themselves. In the mentioned reports, creative entrepreneurs are seen as growth engines and also as central knots in sustainable, thriving communities. Increasingly, creative professionals also see themselves as creators of an alternative future. That, too, is only logical, as the act of creating something - be it a dress, an ad or a user interface - is tied to making a conscious choice about how others will experience that dress, that ad or that user interface in the future. But creators today go even further. Robert Fabricant at design mind writes: "We’re experiencing a sea change in the way designers engage with the world. Instead of aspiring to influence user behavior from a distance, we increasingly want the products we design to have more immediate impact through direct social engagement." He calls this "Design with Intent". GK VanPatter of NextD strikes a similar tone when he describes the new level of design (Design 3.0) as Transformation Design - a "design approach that reimagines systems and takes leadership toward change in social and organizational structures and systems" (see an explanation at the on Social Design blog)
Examples abound and we've all already seen them in the field of media. Think of successful videos like The Story of Stuff, the HOME movie project, blogs like inhabitat or treehugger. All of this has been thought of by creative minds. What we see more and more today is creative people going out on the street, directly engaging with people in "public interventions" or enabling fellow citizens to see themselves as creators, too. One cool example is the bubble project by Ji Lee (see video above), who is also creative director at Google, another one the Free Beats in NY Central Park (see below).
So, what is the subversive element here? The creative people who contribute to the above examples are not in for money or fame. They are prototyping a world where you do not ask "what's in it for me" but "what can I give or how can I inspire". Sure, they need to live and they know their worth. But they are not likely to sacrifice their values for industrial growth. Again, it is easy to imagine this "values first" approach for freelancers or self-employed. But what if this trend catches on inside corporations? Embracing the Creative Economy could be like inviting Trojan Horses that will start a transformation, a cultural revolution, from within.
Bubble project and Free Beats spotted through freshcreation.
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