Discussion on the creative economy

Over at the Google Group, Economic Gardening, we had an interesting string develop in the creative econnomy. The conversation started with a question about how to display and categorize the "creative economy". It went on from there. I reprint it below in reverse order (the newest posts come first):

Hello- I am a new follower of this group, and I first wanted to mention what a great creative economy discussion has taken place- very helpful/insightful!

Also, I wanted to give a plug for a creative economy measure that I work with called the Creative Vitality Index (CVI), mainly because I think what we are measuring within the Index speaks to several concerns/issues that have arisen within this thread. The CVI was first developed approximately five years ago by my organization (WESTAF), Hebert Research, the Washington State Arts Commission and the Seattle Office of Arts and Cultural Affairs. An example of a study we developed for the State of Oregon can be found here- http://www.oregonartscommission.org/main.php.

Essentially, the index synthesizes available data streams measuring nonprofit and commercial arts revenues and occupations to measure a locality's relative (per capita) creative health or "vitality" when compared to the nation as a whole. The index uses data streams that can be updated each year so that an organization can track progress in terms of jobs/revenue data as well as the relative strength of this progress when compared to national data.

An index was seen as an appropriate tool to measure the creative economy given the complex nature of the phenomenon as exemplified within this discussion, i.e. the scope of Florida's creative class and the relationship of creativity to STEM related professions. The CVI includes a fairly conservative number of industries/occupations when compared to a number of studies, though a broad section when compared to what are traditionally referred to as "the arts".

We've recently received some excellent input/analysis from economists at Economic Modeling Specialist, Inc. (EMSI) to further refine CVI data. First, to take a cue from Matt, we've made sure that the occupations we are monitoring are closely aligned with O*NET scores for thinking creatively and originality. Here we focus on jobs that have an element of fine arts skills, and include those that have high scores for both thinking creatively and originality. Since these jobs are defined by occupation and not by industry,  the Index focuses on the presence of creative jobs rather than the number of jobs within a creative industry. Additionally, we're looking at a select number of industries to help approximate community participation in the arts by measuring both supply and demand factors through sales, absorption and consumption figures.

In the end, I think we have a practical tool that can help state and local agencies inform creative economy development strategies given this knowledge of their relative strengths. As we continue to monitor this data, I think we will eventually be able to further investigate the causal relationship between creative vitality and strong local economies.

Anyways, feel free to contact me if you'd like to further discuss or have any questions about the CVI.

Ryan Stubbs
Director of Research
Western States Arts Federation
ryan.stubbs@westaf.org
303-629-1166




On Apr 11, 9:48 am, Matt Kures <matthew.ku...@gmail.com> wrote:
One of the many problems with Florida's approach is that his creative
class classifications have a broad focus.  Obviously, the creative
class appears to be larger and have more importance if you include
more industries/occupations (Florida focuses on mostly occupations
rather than industries).  And as some researchers have noted, some of
Florida's creative class categories appear to require relatively
little creativity (see McGranahan and Wojan, Recasting the Creative
Class,http://tinyurl.com/d5ubgj).  McGranahan and Wojan partially
arrive at this conclusion by using the Department of Labor's O-NET
system (http://online.onetcenter.org/) to look how different
occupations require various skill sets.  Using O-NET's measures, they
found that many of Florida's Creative Class occupations actually rank
somewhat low in skills such as "Thinking Creatively" (http://
tinyurl.com/djdzdd).

Others, such as Sir Ken Robinson (another British thought leader on
creativity), would argue that everyone has the capacity to be
creative, regardless of occupation or industry. However, Florida's
focus on certain occupations as a potential panacea for economic/
workforce development has often created artificial silos for
industries and led policy makers to craft short-sighted economic
development policies.   That is, many people feel that we should focus
our energy on developing amenities that attract/retain creative
workers and creative industries and that more traditional service and
production-based industries now deserve much less attention.  Because
all people can be creative, and creativity falls on a continuum from a
skills perspective, I feel that the recent focus on creativity should
lead us to try and inject, promote, or discover creativity in all
industries as a source of competitive advantage.

For those of you interested in trying to measure creative industries,
I would recommend some of Ann Markusen's work at the University of
Minnesota.(http://www.hhh.umn.edu/projects/prie/pub.html).  A number
of states have also tried to measure their own creative economies/
creative industries with varying success. 

See Iowa: (http://tinyurl.com/cssscd), Maine (http://tinyurl.com/ckw2l2)  and Montana
(http://tinyurl.com/d5ztvp) to name a few.

Best,

Matt Kures
GIS State Specialist
University of Wisconsin-Extension
Center for Community and Economic Development

On Apr 10, 7:58 pm, Christine Hamilton-Pennell

<chamiltonpenn...@gmail.com> wrote:
Ed,

Great summary on the creative economy--thanks much for passing this
on. I read the policy briefing papers by the Obama campaign on the
arts (put out in Sept. 2008), which included a good deal of
information about the relationship between the arts, innovation, and
the economy. I can't find the actual document on the Web at this
point, but if anyone is interested, I'd be glad to email the PDF file.

A decade ago there was a flurry of activity around the relationship
of the arts and academic achievement. A research review done by
Project Zero at Harvard (Reviewing Education and the Art
Project--REAP) in
2000,http://www.pz.harvard.edu/Research/Reap/REAPExecSum.htm,
revealed that while there were a few causal links between specific
artistic endeavors (listening to and playing music; drama in the
classroom), the majority of studies showed no causal effects between
arts education and improvement in test scores or academic achievement.
One of the conclusions reached by the authors was that it is
dangerous to justify arts education in terms of instrumentality,
i.e., secondary, non-arts effects: "We must not allow policy makers
to justify (or reject) the arts based on their alleged power to
transfer to academic subject matters."

I agree with Ed that there is tremendous potential in focusing on
the creative industries through economic gardening programs. Perhaps
we need to be careful in our economic development practices not fall
into the same instrumentality trap--while the creative industries
very well may produce economic benefits, the arts should be
supported for their intrinsic value to society. I suppose I am
biased, being married to an artist and art educator!

Great post!

Christine

On Fri, Apr 10, 2009 at 5:23 PM, Ed Morrison <edmorri...@earthlink.net> wrote:
Michael:
A little background on the creative industries might be helpful.
Guided by thought leaders like Charles Landry (The Creative
City: http://snurl.com/fnhq4 [www_amazon_com] ), the Blair
government in the UK introduced the concept of creative industry
clusters as a part of a strategic framework for economic
development. That was about 1996 or 1997, I recall.
The early work might still be available on the UK government web
site, but the current incarnation of the effort can be found
here: http://www.creativeclusters.com/ The UK government's work
spawned a number of local efforts in the UK, like Creative
Edinburgh (http://www.creativedinburgh.co.uk/) in 2003 and
Creative
London: (http://snurl.com/fnib5) in 2004.
Now the creative industries are part of a number of cities across
the globe from Wellington (http://snurl.com/fni1s) to Vienna
(http://snurl.com/fnimj) Frankfurt
(http://snurl.com/fnirk).HongKong recently announced a major push
in  this direction: (http://snurl.com/fnj31) In the US, the move
toward pushing the creative industries started, not with Richard
Florida, but with the New England Foundation for the Arts
(http://snurl.com/fnj6t) In 2000, the NEFA released a report
specifically connecting the creative industries with the region's
competitiveness. (In traditional economic development creative
industries are often relegated to "lifestyle" amenities.) Read
more here: http://snurl.com/fnjc0 Florida published his book, The
Creative Class, in 2002. Sadly, Richard did not give readers much
background on what had been going on in the UK, the work of the
NEFA, or the work of Charles Landry, who has pioneered much of the
practical application of this concept. (I recommend his book.)
Florida's three T's formulation -- talent, tolerance, and (I
forget the third one) -- reduces the sophistication of a creative
industries strategy to a virtually useless bumper sticker.
Nevertheless, people like my colleague George Robertson tried out
some of Florida's ideas. George used the focus on tolerance to
launch a strategy to attract Guyanese immigrants to Schenectady.
(http://snurl.com/fnju6) As you can see, I'm not a big fan of

Florida's work. While he publicized the opportunities of focusing on

creative people, his work does not offer much practical direction.
The deeper flow of helpful critical thinking comes out of the
Europe--NEFA linkages. So, if you are heading in this direction, I
recommend Landry as a starting point.
By now, the focus on creative industries is taking hold in the
U.S. We are still five to seven years behind what's been happening
in the EU. This year, for example, the EU launched the European
Year of Creativity and
Innovation: http://create2009.europa.eu/ It seems that still
outside the US, the connections between creativity and innovation
are more explicitly drawn. See, for example, the Institute for
Creeative Industries and Innovation in Australia:
 (http://www.ici.qut.edu.au/)
A focus on creative clusters has also taken hold in places like
Rhode Island (   ) (Rhode Island School of Design) and Savannah:
The Creative Coast ( http://www.thecreativecoast.org/)  (Savannah
College of Art and Design) and Charleston (http://snurl.com/fnkmu)
(Spoleto) > an interesting experiment is underway at Ball State
University to establish a nationally prominent center for digital
media design in the hopes of sparking new business development.
(As the director of the center has said, "Hollywood is
rebooting.") (http://snurl.com/fnl23) Vermont has pioneered
applying these frameworks to rural communities.
http://snurl.com/fnkb2 This strategy is taking hold in rural
economies like Western Massachusetts (The Berkshire Creative
Economy Project). Other places, like North Central Arkansas are
beginning to explore the option. (http://snurl.com/fnl3t ) Last
year, Fairfax County in Northern Virginia put a stake in the
ground to be a center of creative industries in the US with its
Creative Economy web site and symposium:
http://www.e-country.org/creative.htm
The Triad region of North Carolina, following the recommendations
of consultant Angeles Angelou, has placed a big bet on the creative industries.
Not to be outdone by Northern Virginia, they  recently announced a
National Creativity Symposium: http://snurl.com/fnlgc So there you
have it: a brief road map of the emerging connection between the
creative industries and economic development. As you may be able
to tell, I think its a big opportunity.
In my view, focusing on the creative industries represents a good
setting for applying the tools, insights, and strategies of Economic Gardening.
Ed

On Apr 11, 2009, at 12:47 AM, MStoddard wrote:

Chris asked how we selected the data on creative industries. Below
was our process.

I started with these questions: "How do we quantify the creative
industry in Tacoma?" "How many employers are there?" "How many
employees?" "What categories of businesses fall within the
creative industry?" Finding acceptably accurate data on employment
is challenging. We decided to use reports available through
Americans for the Arts:http://bit.ly/NSkyi.