Andrew Taylor on the Business of Arts & Culture
www.artsjournal.com/artfulmanager/

---

home (mobile version) | about this weblog | about Andrew Taylor

---

Creativity ain't what it used to be (and never was)
  Posted: April 9, 2007
  [ view a fully formatted version of this post ]

Charles Leadbeater offers a 20-minute perspective on creativity, our misconceptions about it, and the tensions between old ways and new ways of innovating.

Spinning out ideas he launched years ago in his monograph, the ProAm Revolution (and his new book, We-Think, available for download here), Leadbeater suggests that our traditional view of how innovations enter the market -- special people in special places creating things that are pushed down the pipeline to passive and waiting consumers -- is no longer true, if it ever was. Rather, the traditional, corporate approach to creativity and innovation is decreasingly able to develop radical innovation, and spends much of its time stifling the innovation of talented and networked amateurs (bloggers, software developers, user groups, and such).

While Leadbeater isn't talking specifically about professional nonprofit cultural organizations, he might as well be. At times the parallels may make you squirm a bit in your seat.