Creativist Society

The tragedy of mass youth unemployment - loss of consumer demand. Really?

Sun, 29 Jan 2012 20:04:49 +0000

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 waste of talent, skills, energy. We are just seen as a resource, a timebomb, and missing cash in tills.

I was speaking to a recent graduate today who wanted to get into environmental work. She is thinking of moving to West Africa as it will be easier for her to get a job there than in the UK.

Do politicians not recognise that there needs to be a more fundamental overhaul of the system, that throwing money at the problem might help, but it is not going to make it go away? And that the problem might be around longer than just this year? How about if some of these young people were given the opportunity to solve some of these problems? Then we might get some fresh, real solutions.

The Future We Choose

Tue, 27 Dec 2011 17:45:24 +0000

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/

Creativist companies

Sun, 10 Jul 2011 20:19:57 +0100

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 brand can contribute to society. It is very important that brands grow roots, and contribute to society. It is about a shift to ‘softer’ values and societal benefit.

As he was speaking, Lord Watson made the distinction between consumers and citizens. This raised the question in my mind – what would the difference be if brands spoke to us as citizens rather than consumers? Or, going one step further, spoke to us creativists rather than consumers?

This weekend, there was an article in the Financial Times about Google Ideas, the ‘think/do tank’ set up by Google. According to Eric Schmidt, the chief executive of Google, Google’s business models remains “to come up with new ideas to make the world a better place. The point is that, as a corporation, we’re trying to do more than just serve our shareholders. We’re also literally trying to serve our citizens, our customers.” (quoted in the FT article).

Google Ideas is still in the process of being developed. An example of an initiative is the Summit Against Violent Extremism (Save) in Dublin, where Google brought together 80 former extremists who now work to prevent radicalisation, together with Google employees, survivors of terrorist attacks, academics and experts to develop solutions to fight extremism.

Eric Schmidt makes the point that they are not trying to become political. “We’re taking a pro-information and empowerment stand”. Which is a stand that fits in with the values at the heart of the Google business.

Anne-Marie Slaughter, formerly at the US state department policy planning unit and now at Princeton, is also quoted in the article. She says the role of corporations need to change. “If you look at the role that companies are playing in the world…these are corporations that have to be part of the solutions of most of the top problems that are on the (US) secretary of state and president’s list”. The article goes on to say, “She likens Google Ideas to a government policy unit where the goal is to assemble a group of ‘out of the box’ thinkers to examine issues and then work with other departments to deploy solutions. And, she argues, it’s a model more companies need to consider. “This is not just about giving back,” she says. “This is about how companies can contribute to important policy problems.””

Virgin Unite is another example of a company applying entrepreneurial thinking to societal problems, with their initiatives including a Carbon War Room.

Both Google and Virgin here are actually being creativist companies in their thinking – assessing how they can contribute to wellbeing in the world, rather than just being consumers of resources. So perhaps it is a two-way process – companies need to see us as creativists rather than consumers, and we need to encourage companies to be creativists rather than consumers.

Let us see the beauty of life

Sun, 10 Jul 2011 11:00:59 +0100

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 conditions in the maternity ward – “several women sprawled on a concrete floor slick with chlorine. 34 women in the ward, labouring, and the staff hurrying from one to the next”.

He went on to write:

‘ “This is where people come out,” Annie Dillard wrote from the delivery floor of a hospital. So too in Dagahaley, blue or bloody, screaming or silent, one after another, life effervesces through women into the cold, clear air.’

He tells of a woman with one blind eye, who had carefully made a necklace of white buttons to put around her child’s neck.

He concludes his piece. “Life is a precious cargo, even here. This is a beautiful world. May the people that come into it live to see it through bright eyes”.

I found this report incredibly moving. The beauty of life evident even in appalling conditions.

And I found myself thinking about another damage that being labelled as a consumer does. It separates us from those who are not consumers. We are divided – consumers/non-consumers. Whereas in fact we are all people. We have all been born into this world the same way – although our circumstances vary hugely. We all have a responsibility to each other – and to life.

This morning, I saw a bumper sticker. “The earth does not belong to us. We belong to the earth – Chief Seattle”. The consumer sees the earth as belonging to them. The citizen, the creativist, the person sees themselves as belonging to the earth – and acts accordingly.

The 'Third Place' Manifesto

Sun, 05 Jun 2011 22:12:06 +0100

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 of experience. Here’s a taster:

“Social technological advancement is therefore, in ways not possible before now, enabling us to become a value creator within context. It is an environment where personal and professional participation culminate in a reconnection to what is timely, relevant and authentic. I often refer to this ecosystem as a new lens through which to see and experience our environment, where opportunity and interaction are interdependent, presenting us with new paths and narrative. Thus, we are writing the future through and within this narrative, inspiring new stories and a sense of belonging to something bigger than us - an ecosystem where contextual value is the natural byproduct of our participation.”

One phrase that stood out for me is how it is now a context that ‘beckons us to live in a perpetual state of beta’. This sense of experimentation and innovation, of continuously learning and growing, is in contrast to the more static states that perhaps were never natural, but society wanted to us to believe in. This sense of living in a perpetual state of beta also sums up for me that many of us are now doing our growing up and development in a public space - if we choose, and if people choose to tune in, we can now share our process of development in our lives online - and by doing so, we benefit from the feedback and interaction of others, resulting, maybe, in a stronger ‘product’.

We share ourselves online through stories - whether that is words, video or photographs - and Stephen sets out how through sharing these stories we can collectively create a new narrative. He ends by quoting Raymond Kurzweil, Director of the Imaginary Foundation:

“The opportunity is to be for rather than against, to create solutions rather than protest against what exists. There are things worth believing in; there are things worth being passionate about; and so our action must not be a reaction but a creation”.

"’ “You can’t understand Google,” vice president Marissa Mayer says,..."

Sat, 09 Apr 2011 12:12:23 +0100

“’ “You can’t understand Google,” vice president Marissa Mayer says, “unless you know that both Larry and Sergey (founders of Google) were Montessori kids. In a Montessori school, you go paint because you have something to express or you just want to do that afternoon, not because the teacher said so, ” she explains. “This is baked into how Larry and Sergey approach problems. They’re always asking, why should it be like that? It’s the way their brains were programmed early on.” ‘”

- Wired, UK edition, May 2011

Teaching Kids Design Thinking

Sun, 20 Mar 2011 10:21:25 +0000

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.

Creative kids

Sun, 06 Mar 2011 21:48:26 +0000

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

Sat, 05 Mar 2011 15:19:00 +0000

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 but also try to shed some light in this; especially because this discussion will become more important in the rest of his decade, due to some developments.

It was Gaston Bachelard who said: ‘ the house we were born in is more than the embodiment of home, it is also the embodiment of dreams.’

This was – and still is – the perfect illustration of the difference between ‘house’ and ‘home’: the first being a building, a structure: something physical. The latter being something abstract, untouchable; but nevertheless the most important condition to make us feel ‘at home’ .

Being at home is not about technology, not about bricks and tiles: home is about memories, images, smells, sounds, etc. (The actual question now is: do we need a house to have a home? But I will leave that item for another moment)

If we buy or rent a house nowadays we have hardly any choice in this: the housing-market in the Netherlands is largely supply-driven, not demand-driven. Hence the always returning discussion on the variety and amount of houses build; the impossibility to adapt houses to individual (changing) demands, based on changing private circumstances: family-expansion, working at home, hobbies, etc.

Usually the plans of current housing do not allow the realisation of simple changes: we build as if we build for centuries to come, in which demands will not change, as if a society will remain as it has been for years and technology is still something out of the 20^th. century. Technology however so far is applied to the building, not to the – personal -environment created by that and attached to that.

Soon there may appear 2 ways to make a paradigm-shift; and therefore become more of a creativist:

1. the increasing demand for a way of building in which the inhabitant is the first important. We do not build anymore for people we do not know: we supply possibilities to create environments where each individual can determine his/her ‘sphere’. That means a significant simplification of the current ‘building’-practise and more importance for other professions.

2. the development of the Internet of Things: in about 5-8 years we will witness the increasing possibilities to identify, recognise and influence our environment and therefore adapt it to our personal needs. Next to that the increasing development and supply of smart materials: materials that react on presence, touch, temperature, sound, light.

Our environment, whether we call this ‘home’ or else, is/should be something that we will be able to determine and shape according to our wishes and needs, with a personal attached privacy-level to fit with it. This should enable us to create spheres, circumstances, to (re)create our experiences, (re)live our imagination.

We all want to add meaning to our (way of) life, and therefore our homes. Basically home has little to do with technology; but technological developments can facilitate the addition and articulation of this meaning.

Then we can, according to Heidegger, feel ‘at home’ , simply because we can ‘build’.

[1] Gaston Bachelard, the Poetics of Space., page 15

Excerpt from Vaclav Havel - Power of the Powerless

Sat, 05 Feb 2011 17:52:49 +0000

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 post-totalitarian societies. But this static complex of rigid, conceptually sloppy, and politically pragmatic mass political parties run by professional apparatuses and releasing the citizen from all forms of concrete and personal responsibility; and those complex focuses of capital accumulation engaged in secret manipulations and expansion; the omnipresent dicatorship of consumption, production, advertising, commerce, consumer culture, and all that flood of information: all of it, so often analyzed and described, can only with great difficulty be imagined as the source of humanity’s rediscovery of itself. … In a democracy, human beings may enjoy many personal freedoms and securities that are unknown to us, but in the end they do them no good, for they too are ultimately victims of the same automatism, and are incapable of defending the same automatism, and are incapable of defending their concerns about their own identity or preventing their superficialization or transcending concerns about the their own personal survival to become proud and responsible members of the polis, making a genuine contribution to the creation of its destiny.

(Written in 1978).

Are you a content consumer or creator? « Brian Solis

Thu, 03 Feb 2011 13:06:02 +0000

Are you a content consumer or creator? « Brian Solis

Creativist Bookclub launches

Sat, 15 Jan 2011 16:16:12 +0000

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 www.goodreads.com, which allows for discussion about books. It’s very simple to join Goodreads, and I’ve started using it to track all the books I read.

The first book is The Art of Loving by Erich Fromm. The aim is to have discussion on or around 14 February - reclaiming Valentine’s Day from consumerism, and celebrating true love. Read more about the book here - http://bit.ly/gCD4r7 - and I hope you’ll join.

Olivia

PS - there seems to be a bit of a glitch on the system that means that it doesn’t appear under the bookshelf of the main group page, but it is there - the link above will take you directly to the book page.

What's your theme for the year?

Thu, 23 Dec 2010 12:07:16 +0000

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 year is that it creates a space. It acts as a guide. It provides a framework for making choices in – does this choice fit in with my theme for the year? It acts as an attractor, an inspiration – I find that as soon as I name it, I begin to be drawn toward it, things occur which fit in with that theme.

When I tell people about my theme for the year, they ask how I choose it. I find that it is not so much about choosing, but about listening. About listening to what you need from the year. And listening to the words that come up inside of you that might make that real for you, which really speak to you. For example the year of radical change was originally the year of change – I added radical as I felt that I needed that extra ‘oomph’, and it did turn out to be a year of radical change in ways I couldn’t have imagined. The year of dancing and flying didn’t originally include dancing – but then I realized that I needed my feet moving on the ground as well as my head in the air.

So, my theme for 2011? The year of abundance. My initial idea was the year of arrival. I wanted to capture the sense of arrival in every moment. I am done with the searching, the quest, the striving, the always looking. I want to be present in every moment – awake, alive and aware, as my friend Veena put it. But arrival had the downside of finality, like I had reached my destination – and I am still journeying.

And then I was on the phone to Veena and the idea of abundance came up, and I knew immediately that was it. I had an image in my mind of a harvest scene, fields of golden, ripened corn, an apple-cheeked woman in her apron, her arm’s full of nature’s bounty – the full-on cliché, in other words. But a key part of it was that her arms were so full, she couldn’t help but share what she had. We so often focus on what we don’t have, that we lose sight of what we do have – and what we have to share, whether that it is our love, our creativity or our joy.

Abundance for me is not about having more in the consumer sense. It is about the abundance to be found in everyday life, in every moment, in the connections and relationships that we have with others. And it is about sharing the abundance of what we have – and the abundance that comes from sharing. I am convinced that the more that we focus on abundance, then paradoxically we will be happier with less stuff.

I would love to hear what your theme for the year is. And here’s to an abundant 2011.

What’s Mine is Yours: Spreadables: Video

Mon, 20 Dec 2010 15:13:10 +0000

What’s Mine is Yours: Spreadables: Video:

It’s all about sharing!

The Significance Manifesto

Fri, 10 Dec 2010 16:40:31 +0000

The Significance Manifesto:

The end of stimulating consumerism……

A new job: consumer or #creativist?

Tue, 30 Nov 2010 11:20:35 +0000

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 thought myself about a new position and had not a clear picture of what I wanted. If the offer was not made, I would not have changed position. So, I clearly reacted to what someone else was offering me”.

A creativist knows what he or she wants and is then in a better position to determine whther another offer fits or not. In that way you become the driver of your own life.

When would you like to have the tweetchat?

Mon, 22 Nov 2010 15:01:00 +0000

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

Needs: Affection

Mon, 15 Nov 2010 22:17:00 +0000

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 to challenge Max Neef on this one. I am going to say that the third need should not be affection, it should be love. As the song goes, “Love is all you need”. “Affection is all you need” doesn’t quite have the same ring about it.

Gary Hamel in his article ‘The Hole in the Soul of Business’ challenges us to start using the language of love in business. He gives the example of John Mackey, founder of Whole Food Markets, who said that he wanted to build a company on love not fear. Gary Hamel asks “Why are words like “love,” “devotion” and “honor” so seldom heard within the halls of corporate-dom?”

In the interaction or settings part of the needs matrix, Max Neef lists ‘privacy, intimate spaces of togetherness’. He doesn’t mention the workplace. Or the communities that we live in. Why shouldn’t love or affection be part of the public sphere as well as the private? What would this change in our relationship with others?

In ‘being’, Max Neef includes ‘respect, sense of humour, generosity, sensuality’. This ties in with Erich Fromm’s description of love in ‘The Art of Loving’ – “Beyond the element of giving the active character of love becomes evident in the fact that it always implies certain basic elements, common to all forms of love. These are care, responsibility, respect and knowledge’. As Fromm says, love is primarily about giving, not receiving. So love is a need, but it starts with us – we can’t just be looking for love.

In ‘having’, Max Neef includes ‘friendships’ and ‘family’, which you would expect to find. I like the fact though that ‘relationships with nature’ is included. If we are in tune with nature, are we more open to being love?

Under ‘doing’, there are actions that you would expect – share, take care of, make love’. But it also includes ‘express emotions’. This reminded me of the practice of ‘Non-violent communication’ – at the heart of this is the expression of your emotions and needs. Learning how to express our emotions and needs in a non-violent way, that respects ourselves and those around us, is fundamental to successful, loving relationships – whether at home, in the workplace or in our communities.

As Erich Fromm wrote, ‘Love is the active concern for the life and the growth of that which we love’. Or as the sampler on my kitchen wall says, “Loving is living”. Love – all we need?

NEEDS: SUBSISTENCE

Mon, 08 Nov 2010 14:26:00 +0000

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 and participate in these weekly chats.

So, the first need in our series which we discuss is ‘subsistence’. To me the word was not immediately clear so I had to look it up.

The Merriam- Webster Dictionary defines it as:

a (1) : real being : existence (2) : the condition of remaining in existence : continuation, persistence

b : an essential characteristic quality of something that exists

c : the character possessed by whatever is logically conceivable

: means of subsisting: as

a : the minimum (as of food and shelter) necessary to support life

b : a source or means of obtaining the necessities of life

This already provides much clarity.

In the system of Manfred Max-Neef subsistence is described in four levels (like all needs):

Being (qualities): physical and mental health

Having (things): food, shelter, work

Doing (actions): feed, clothe, rest, work

Interactions (settings): living environment, social setting

You could therefore say that all these elements contribute to your life and living. Without any of these elements you will experience a serious deficit. Whereby I would say that the having, interaction and doing elements impact your health (the being level), either in a positive or in a negative way.

In most parts of the Western world we take these elements for granted. When I grew up in my family I was fortunate not having to worry about the availability of the having and doing elements. I didn’t even think about them. That was different with the being elements. When I was sick, my health became something valuable. And that disappeared quickly as I recovered. My mental health was challenged by the culture in our family. This culture could be described as militaristic. This caused me a lot of headaches. This culture is the same as what is above described as social setting (interaction level). This need was structurally not fulfilled for me.

The fulfillment of these needs changed when I left the family for study and later work. I hardly gave them a thought as they looked like a natural thing. I really took them for granted.

This changed again when I had quite a few personal challenges, including losing my job and house. This puts you in a complete different situation and the society immediately starts to stigmatise you. E.g. when you have no (regular) income you can’t get a mortgage and it becomes very difficult to find a house. Also because of that you will lose ‘friends’ and have to find new ones. When you have no job and hence no income all of these having and doing elements become a need and a critical need.

This is just my example and it indicates that your personal circumstances will influence the fulfillment of those needs. When your circumstances change, your needs will change. And what first did go without saying becomes a necessity. In essence, it is good to be aware of this and not to take this all for granted.

As a Creativist you have to be aware that only you are responsible for your life and work. And therefore you have to make continuous conscious choices (3xC) about how you want to live your life. And therefore on how you want to fulfill your needs. Nothing happens by itself, you really have to be the master of your own life. And therefore create it!

On the other hand, it was very enlightening for me to experience this. My life became much richer. And it was now driven from the inside-out. Continuously I have to remind myself that I am the captain on this ship called life. I can’t influence the wind, but I can adjust the sails.

And……..what is your experience? Are your ‘subsistence’ needs being fulfilled?

Creativist Society Facebook page

Thu, 04 Nov 2010 14:20:16 +0000

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.