January 2012
1 post
The tragedy of mass youth unemployment - loss of...
Is this what politicians really think of us? Here is Peter Mandelson, business secretary in the last Labour government, speaking about youth unemployment:
People recognise that it is a massive waste of resource, a ticking timebomb, a loss of consumer demand. It is one of the most important issues this year.
Wow. Nothing about the human factor, the impact on people’s lives, the sheer...
December 2011
1 post
The Future We Choose
Think Act Vote is an inspiring organisation which is all about encouraging people to create the future they choose. So I was delighted to be able to contribute my thoughts about the future I choose - one in which we are Creativists rather than consumers.
Read the interview here: http://thinkactvote.org/2011/12/27/olivia-sprinkel-the-futures-interview/
July 2011
2 posts
4 tags
Creativist companies
This week, I heard Lord Watson of Richmond speak at the RSA on the future of advertising. Lord Watson is UK chair of Havas Media, an international communications company. He was very clear: the aspirations of advertising companies need to change. It is no longer just about selling more stuff. They have conducted research which shows that what people are interested in now is wellbeing and what a...
Let us see the beauty of life
I have written before about how I see that the fact that we are defined as consumers is damaging, both to us as individuals and collectively as a society. This morning, I was reading Dispatches, Medecins sans Frontieres newsletter. One of the stories was a report from Dr James Maskalyk, who is working on the Kenya/Somalia border, in the world’s largest refugee camp at Dadaab. He wrote of the...
June 2011
1 post
3 tags
The 'Third Place' Manifesto
Stephen Johnson (@huxley) has written a manifesto which elegantly describes the ‘third place’ that is emerging as a result of social media, a new kind of community, with new kinds of possibilities. Download the manifesto here.
From a creativist perspective, I was particularly interested in his description of how social media is enabling new interactions, new creations and a new kind...
April 2011
1 post
2 tags
“’ “You can’t understand Google,” vice president Marissa...”
– Wired, UK edition, May 2011
March 2011
3 posts
3 tags
Teaching Kids Design Thinking →
“Our world desperately needs leadership in achieving sustainable social justice, not simply learning the answer to a test question.” The Prototype Design Camp provides the space to explore a new way of learning - and motivate a desire to create change.
6 tags
Creative kids →
“Our world is increasingly filled with play that makes kids passive consumers instead of active creators. Here’s how we can change that.” Article by Frog Design
House or home? Shaping our environment
By Martin Pot
If there is one issue that keeps coming back in discussions among (interior)architects it is that on housing, home, privacy, etc.
If there is one choice in which this is relevant it is the one on the Creativist website: ‘we can be a creativist or we can be a consumer.’
Since this is a choice not completely free of understandable simplification; let me add some ever current complexity...
February 2011
2 posts
3 tags
Excerpt from Vaclav Havel - Power of the Powerless
Consumer society as a form of post-totalitarianism
It would appear that traditional parliarmentary democracies can offer no fundamental opposition to the automatism of technological civilization and the industrial-consumer society, for they too are being dragged helplessly along by it. People are manipulated in ways that are infinitely more subtle and refined than the brutal methods used in the...
Are you a content consumer or creator? « Brian... →
January 2011
1 post
5 tags
Creativist Bookclub launches
Over the past few years, I’ve read so many great books that have influenced and expanded my thinking. So a Creativst Bookclub seems like a natural addition to the mix, and another way for people to get together and share their thoughts and thinking - and discover some new books that we might not have read otherwise.
The idea is that we will read a book a month. We will host the bookclub on...
December 2010
3 posts
3 tags
What's your theme for the year?
By Olivia Sprinkel
I don’t make New Year’s Resolutions. For the last four years, I’ve had a theme for the year instead – The year of saying yes, the year of radical change, the year of dancing and flying, the year of Olivia’s Kitchen. And all have delivered on their promise.
Resolutions are made – and then frequently broken, despite our best intentions. The advantage of having a theme for the...
What’s Mine is Yours: Spreadables: Video →
It’s all about sharing!
The Significance Manifesto →
The end of stimulating consumerism……
November 2010
5 posts
A new job: consumer or #creativist?
Last week I had a business meeting and explained the creativist concept.
He immediately recognized it and mentioned this example.
” I was a manager at an IT consultancy when I was approached by an executive searcher. He offered me another management position with a software company. I finally took that new position.
But this was a complete consumer i.e. reactive approach. I had not...
When would you like to have the tweetchat?
Hello,
Every Friday ( 4 PM CET, 3PM UK and 9:00 AM Central) we have planned a tweetchat about the needs.
In the two previous sessions only a few people could participate.
Can you please help us and indicate what changes you would like to see in order to participate?
- different topic
- different day
- different time
- different frequency
Thanks for your input!
Arnold
7 tags
Needs: Affection
The second in our series of post on needs
By Olivia Sprinkel
The Twitter chat (about ‘affection’) will take place on Friday, November 19, at 4 PM CEU, 3PM UK and 9:00 AM Central. The hashtag that organizes our tweet stream will be #creativistchat. We recommend the very simple, easy-to-use Twitter application TweetChat to follow and participate in these weekly chats.
I’m going to be bold enough...
3 tags
NEEDS: SUBSISTENCE
This article is a follow up to our post : Fundamental Needs and a Creativist Culture.
by Arnold Beekes
As mentioned previously, the Twitter chat (about ‘subsistence’) will take place on Friday, November 12, at 4 PM CEU, 3PM UK and 9:00 AM Central. The hashtag that organizes our tweet stream will be #creativistchat. We recommend the very simple, easy-to-use Twitter application TweetChat to follow...
1 tag
Creativist Society Facebook page →
Now live! Come along and show your Creativist love. Share your ideas. Keep up to date with what’s happening. Let’s create the future we want.
October 2010
18 posts
6 tags
Why the evolutionary agenda makes Creativists out...
by Christiana Söderberg, Open World Foundation, @choicesoflife
Some days back I attended a fascinating talk entitled “The Next Step - Creating New Spiritual Values for Our Culture” held by Andrew Cohen, Founder of the EnlightenNext Magazine, a publication dedicated to discussing the human evolution process and where it is leading us.
Up until this presentation I hadn’t been aware to what extent I...
2 tags
Fundamental Needs and a Creativist Culture
What is the difference between being a consumerist and creativist? Olivia Sprinkel shared the following in her excellent ChangeThis Manifesto: The Creativist Manifesto: Consumer or Creativist? Being a consumer means accepting a passive role in our life, one in which we seek fulfillment through the accumulation of stuff, whether it be material goods, a high status job, or even in terms of our...
4 tags
A call to be unreasonable and listen to your...
by Olivia Sprinkel
‘Most people are reasonable; that is why they only do reasonably well’. (Paul Arden, Whatever you think, think the opposite)
Four years ago, my father wrote the story of how he got into Stanford, one of the Ivy League universities in the United States. He wrote it at the request of one his granddaughter’s, for her religious studies class. My half-sister sent me the story last...
Shareable: 10 Ways Our World is Becoming More... →
The business of sharing | The Economist →
“To make people free is the aim of art, therefore art for me is the science of...”
– Joseph Beuys (via defyingmainstream)
1 tag
You are an ever evolving conceptual work of living... →
Wonder and beauty at www.synapticstimuli.com
Think, believe, dream, dare!
Think, Believe, Dream and Dare An eight-year-old boy approached an old man in front of a wishing well, looked up into his eyes, and asked: “I understand you’re a very wise man. I’d like to know the secret of life.” The old man looked down at the youngster and replied: “I’ve thought a lot in my lifetime, and the secret can be summed up in four words. The first...
Consumers Innovate More Than Companies - →
Climbing the mountain →
Reclaiming Your Creative Side →
Your input needed!
We are setting up a new ‘Resources’ section on this site.
So, please share (via the Submit-button) your suggestions for:
- books
- video’s
- sites
- webinars
- podcasts
- articles
- etc
In this way we help each other to experience what it means to be a Creativist.
Thanks!
1 tag
Book recommendation
I highly recommend Plenitude by Juliet Schor.
She describes four principles of plenitude:
1. new allocation of time, a moderation in hours of work
2. to diversify from ‘business as usual’ to self-provision
3. ‘true materialism, an environmentally aware approach to consumption
4. to restore investments in one another and our ommunities.
These principles should inspire the...
WatchTim Jackson on the new prosperity and putting human nature at the center.
How to Overcome Fear & Let Your Creativity... →
The week well-being economics went mainstream? |... →
3 tags
September 2010
12 posts
1 tag
6 tags
The Generic Town
By Nicola Taylor - www.dramaqueensguide.com
I spent the past week at an Art Retreat in a remote town in the mountains of New Hampshire. The landscape was, of course, a photographer’s dream, at once tranquil and rugged and just generally stunning. But what really made me fall in love with the place was the artist’s community that had sprung up there. I’m a photographer but I don’t generally...
5 tags
The new choices Japanese consumers are making →
Article by Junko Edohiro for Resurgence on how values are changing and three trends - de-ownership, de-materialism of happiness, and de-monetisation
6 tags
Relationships: The First "R" (and a fount of...
By Tim Mantyla
“Let there be peace on Earth, and let it begin with me.”
—Let There Be Peace On Earth, words and music by Jill Jackson Miller and Sy Miller
School traditionally taught the Three “R”s, reading , writing and ‘rithmatic. That’s shorthand for “the basics.” But there’s an essential, far more basic skill missing from those three—an unconscionable omission: Relationships.
What...
5 tags
...and the blind shall see
by Phil McCreight (@PhilMcCreight)
Unaware of how I was being influenced to be a consumer, my creative transformation begins in 2005 with a trip to Portugal. Nurtured and educated in the South Eastern United States, entrenched in a culture of non-questioning, socio-religious-political blind acceptance of the “system”, I begin to internalize a bigger picture. Fueled by meditation, soul...
7 tags
Why we need to learn to see, not problem solve
“How would your department look if you came back from holiday?”
This was the question that James Wilk asked when he was called in to see if he could cut the number of surgical errors at Maimondes Medical Center in New York. Patrick Borgen, the chief surgeon, who turned to James Wilk for answers, expected him to start the same way as other management consultants, asking him to explain what the...