Would you like to ask Richard Florida, best selling author of The Rise of the Creative Class, a question? If so, tomorrow is your chance.
HP input | output is doing a series of interviews with some of the smartest people on the planet (the previous edition was with Chris Anderson). The interview will be live streamed so you’re invited to join the webcast tomorrow.
One of the theories Richard is famous for is that metropolitan regions with high concentrations of high-tech workers, artists, musicians, lesbians and gay men, and a group he describes as “high bohemians“, correlate with a higher level of economic development. The topic of the interview is How this Creative Class is Affecting the Way Businesses Think. I’ll be live-tweeting the webcast with Richard.
If you have a question for Richard, leave a comment here, tweet me (@patrick) or join the live interview tomorrow. I’ll make sure to pass all questions along.
P.S. Thanks to HP for bringing us this this event, for partnering with The Next Web community and for giving me the tough task to ask intelligent questions to a super intelligent man like Richard Florida. Wish me luck.
I am extremely interested in this topic and have a slew of questions, but I’ll keep to one right now. As a career designer I’m transforming my company into a resource for creatives (of all kinds) for finding their own creative brand/voice in a crowded arena.
Question: I keep hearing that the creative class might be a solution to redefining the new economy. If that’s true, then how and why is it that design can be undervalued? The rise of crowdsourcing and microstock services are detested by true professionals but yet the “quantity over quality” philosophy prevails.
Thanks for the heads up. I look forward to seeing the interview.
Joann Sondy’s question gets to the heart of it. Florida isn’t part of the solution, he’s part of the problem. By failing to distinguish between the roles of the so-called creative class and what he describes as the “creative supercore” he has fanned the flames of creative commodification. There’s a big difference between having the craft or technical skills to execute creative work and being able to have ideas that matter. For the best analysis of this go straight to Amabile or to my own reading of her research as it affects commercial creative production in “Managing Creative People – Lessons for Leadership in the Ideas Economy”. Or follow my blog at inthemaze.co.uk
I’m a working artist in the northeast. I feel like I’m watching the slow death of artistic appreciation. The general public isn’t even interested in the arts the way they were 20 years ago. I’m wondering where the new generation/creative class is going to come from since schools are cutting back on the art education and thinking outside of the box isn’t encouraged. I enjoyed reading in your preface how Microsoft interviewed people looking for problem-solver, rather than just the brainiacs, but I fear that they are the exceptions. How are we going to get society to understand that time spent in the arts, sports, or taking time “off” sometimes is time rich in innovative thinking. Where are tomorrows artists, inventors and scientists going to come from?
an environment of thinking.
how can you ‘redefine’ a ‘new’ economy?
Thanks for all the questions and remarks. Hope to see some of you tonight during the webcast