With reference to our recent discussions on national creativity, Richard Florida, what cultural factors impact innovation etc, I thought to share one section of this in depth interview with Florida, on his latest book "The Flight of the Creative Class: The New Global Competition for Talent" -
So what does it mean to create a genuinely inclusive creative economy?
What I have to say is that we have to think about this as moving from a creative, or technology- or knowledge-based economy to a creative or technology- or knowledge-based society.
The reorienting axis of that is this fundamental idea that each and
every human being is creative and has to be valued as such.
We’re,
at best, harnessing the creative capacities of 30 to 40 percent of our
workforce, and I think no more than maybe 20 to 30 percent of those
people’s creative faculties — because most of us are bored. The real
nexus of competition in the future will be those communities that
engage much more of that creative energy.
That’s where the book
kind of shifts gears. It says that it’s not enough to compete for
high-end talent, to keep your doors open to the best of the brightest
kids from China, India, Europe, or North America. The real economic
power, if you will, in our time is going to come to those cities,
regions, countries that can dig down very deeply and include many,
many, many of their own people and other people from around the world
in this creative economy.
To achieve this, we’ve got to do three
or four things, We have to massively increase our investments and
creativity, massively invest in science, technology, engineering,
culture. But we need to do so in a way that’s not only oriented at the
best and the brightest, but harnesses the energy of everyone. We need a
creativity GI Bill. And the way we get kids involved in these sports
programs, like soccer and tennis camps, we have to do that for their
creativity.
The third thing we need to do is we have to remain an
open society. We cannot externally and internally be viewed as a closed
society — it will be disastrous to us and disastrous to the world.
The
fourth thing we need to do is a challenge that virtually no one in
America is talking about. We have to understand that there are two
unsung and neglected areas of economic competition, of economic growth.
One I mentioned was tolerance and diversity; the second is cities and
urban policy. We need an urban policy that not only improves our
cities, not only makes them stronger, but makes them denser — an urban
policy that really focuses on building dense, thriving, vibrant cities.
Not because it’s a good or ethical thing to do, but because we know
that urbanization economies and density are fundamental drivers of
economic growth.
Tying the the points that Florida makes about focusing on a creative society, not economy, is this interesting research paper titled The Human Face of Global Mobility - International Highly Skilled Migration in Europe, North America and the Asia-Pacific. I’d like to hear what others have to say on this, especially those of us discussing the impact of national culture and education on creativity.
