America's Looming Creativity Crisis

[October 2004 - Harvard Business Review - By Richard Florida] The strength of the American economy does not rest on its manufacturing prowess, its natural resources, or the size of its market. It turns on one factor--the country's openness to new ideas, which has allowed it to attract the brightest minds from around the world and harness their creative energies. But the United States is on the verge of losing that competitive edge. As the nation tightens its borders to students and scientists and subjects federal research funding to ideological and religious litmus tests, many other countries are stepping in to lure that creative capital away. Ireland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Denmark, and others are spending more on research and development and shoring up their universities in an effort to attract the world's best--including Americans. If even a few of these nations draw away just a small percentage of the creative workers from the United States, the effect on its economy will be enormous. In this article, the author introduces a quantitative measure of the migration of creative capital called the Global Creative-Class Index. It shows that, far from leading the world, the United States doesn't even rank in the Top 10 in the percentage of its workforce engaged in creative occupations. What's more, the baby boomers will soon retire. And data showing large drops in foreign-student applications to U.S. universities and in the number of visas issued to knowledge workers, along with concomitant increases in immigration in other countries, suggest that the erosion of talent from the United States will only intensify. To defend the U.S. economy, the business community must take the lead in ensuring that global talent can move efficiently across borders, that education and research are funded at radically higher levels, and that we tap into the creative potential of more and more workers. Because wherever creativity goes, economic growth is sure to follow. More

In New England, a city revival built on creativity

[28 September 2004 - Christian Science Monitor] "Cities are embracing arts and artists [because they see] a creative environment as a cutting edge in the 21st century," says Ann Galligan, a professor in the Department of Cooperative Education at Northeastern University in Boston. She says cities can no longer depend on a single factory or company for municipal success. "A city has to rethink how it attracts and maintains workers ... without alienating its traditional [working-class] base." From Portland to Pawtucket, R.I., cities have embraced this model. More

How to free your creativity

[20 September 2004 - The Hindu Business Line] "IDEAS are like rabbits. You get a couple, learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen," said John Steinbeck. Most of us have the ability to come up with ideas and problem-solve fairly easily, but may not know how to go about it. Using certain techniques, you can learn to `free your creativity', making the whole process of generating ideas become quicker and a lot less painful. More

Artists and creativity in the globalisation process

[15 September 2004 - RADIO THE VOICE OF VIETNAM] Respecting cultural values means we solidify the aspects of its creativity and enjoyment. It does not run counter to the freedom to develop their creativity in artists, neither does it diminish the people’s desire for more cultural entertainment. More

The Highest Goal

[15 September 2004 - Stanford Knowledgebase - PDF file] The latest book by Professor Michael Ray discusses goals that give meaning to life, motivate and sustain us. It has nothing to do with success, he says. More

Sacks Lectures on Human Creativity

[3 September 2004 - The Cornell Daily Sun] Renowned neurologist and A.D. White Professor at Large Oliver Sacks attracted students, faculty and residents to Statler Auditorium last night for a lecture entitled "Creativity and the Brain." After a brief introduction by Prof. Roald Hoffman, chemistry and chemical biology, Sacks stepped up to the podium. He described himself briefly before embarking on a multidisciplinary commentary on perception and creativity as it involves living creatures. More

ADVOCACY FOR CREATIVITY - Creativity by Choice, Not by Chance: Developing Imagination In the Intelligence Community

[9 August 2004 - Creative Education Foundation] This piece responds to the 9/11 Commission Report that declared it is “crucial to find a way of routinizing, even bureaucratizing, the exercise of imagination” and the House of Representatives Committee on Intelligence hearings that followed in August to discuss the intelligence community’s “failure of imagination” and the “requirement for imagination and creativity” going forward. More

Opting for Optimism

[September 2004 - Darwin Magazine] Optimism is a gift that many leaders possess. Optimism is often intertwined with hope, and rightly so, but there is a difference. Hope is the process of becoming, of seeing and striving for positive outcomes. Optimism is the emotional component that brightens the prospects, and makes it possible for hope to flourish. More