What does well-being have to do with the economy have to do with the creative industries? For the purposes of this entry, let’s use Gallup’s well-being that measures life evaluation, emotional health, physical health, healthy behavior, work environment and basic access (definitions of each here); GDP for the economy; and the creative class for the creative industries.

Thanks to the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index, cities are now measured for happiness, with the San Jose, Washington DC,

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Since the vision of this site is ‘crowdsourcing places for creatives’, it may be beneficial to further clarify what the word ‘creatives’ means, as it relates to this site.

What is this site’s definition of creatives?
It’s stated in detail here, but it is essentially the cultural creatives, creative class and the renaissance generation (rengens), all of which have their own self-titled books. In a nutshell, it includes anyone willing to invest in making a difference (cultural creatives) and/or

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Elizabeth Gilbert, author of the literary phenomenon Eat, Pray, Love, provided some insight in her presentation at TED on “the pressure that’s been killing off our artists for the past 500 years” (and threatening her mental well being as well), summed up in the question… “My greatest work is behind me. How do I continue?“

As is well known in the music industry and carried over in many other genres, creatives hit their peak in their younger years, rarely being able to match the euphoria of the

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While they weren’t brand new cars, Oprah did leave 4500 copies of A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future by Dan Pink on the chairs of the graduating students she was addressing (Stanford 2008). Why?

In her words, “Pink, a former chief speechwriter for former Vice President Al Gore, presents a convincing argument that our country is entering a new era—the so-called conceptual age—during which right-brained skills such as design and storytelling will become far more crucial

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What does the new U.S. administration have to do with creatives? A lot, according to Joel Kotkin, author of the best-sellers The City: A Global History and The New Geography: How the Digital Revolution Is Reshaping the American Landscape, and finishing a book on the American future. In his Forbes article, The Triumph of the Creative Class, Joel states,

“Obama’s triumph reflects a decisive shift in the economic center of gravity away from military contractors, manufacturers, agribusiness,

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If you’re looking for an effective precedent in how to jumpstart the creative economy in your city, you need to learn about CreateHere in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

On July 1, 2007 Helen Johnson and Josh McManus entrepreneurially initiated a three-month research and planning project focused on studying the engagement of creatives in the city with the intention of gaining a better understanding of how to retain and attract them, crucial to its transition to a post-industrial knowledge economy.

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While resources abound on who creatives are and the tremendous economic impact they have, what about how they think? What better wellspring than Psychology Today’s Ten paradoxical traits of the creative personality.

To summarize, the key personality traits have a common theme: complex, integrated, contradictory extremes, multitude, or how about bridging the line between order and chaos? In other words, creatives essentially tend to have a dual personality, but a complementary one. The ten

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If you’re a creative in Washington DC, then CreativesDC is just for you: “A beta community of free agents, entrepreneurs and creatives in DC, crowdsourcing places, events and scenes that inspire conversation.“

CreativesDC launched July 11, 2008 and its founding dozen members have already invited 100 of their fellow creatives (assume a 10% conversion rate) - that’s the power of community focused on a vision. By the end of July 15, the invite list will hit a thousand (again, a 10% conversion

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Is establishing a creative community like herding cats?

It’s not easy, according to research findings in Richard Florida’s Who’s Your City?“Who’s Your City?. The following excerpt from his book highlighting the findings of another colleague, Christopher Peterson Professor of Psychology at the University of Michigan, best explains the cloud problem of development a creative community akin to herding cats.

“Peterson’s independent analysis of his strengths data and my own creativity measures

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One of my favorite graphics in Richard Florida’s new book, Who’s Your City?, are the Personality Maps, based on the study, The Geography Distribution of Big Five Personality Traits (extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, openness).

Two psychologists who worked on the study, Sam Gosling and Jason Rentfrow; Kevin Stolarick, responsible for much of the statistical analysis in Rich’s work, collaborated with Rich through surveys and visual analysis to produce the personality

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