I’ve been sporting a denkreativeklasse.dk sticker on my laptop for some months now. The site had its 15 days of fame, but I still get a signup once in a while. Most people don’t take the questions seriously (and they shouldn’t) so I have no idea who they are.
Until now.
I’m in a cafe drinking my coffe, checking emails. The guy next to me just asked if I made the site cause he had seen the sticker and taken the test, unfortunaly scoring low as he didn’t drive an old car or drink his coffee with milk.
Just to let you know that sticker marketing still works.
He suggested I made a price index for the book (that coined the term and that nobody read), as he’d noticed quite a difference in price in the book shops downtown. I suggest we continue to not read the book and just pretend we know what we’re talking about while being the wannabe-creatives that we are…
But you might get a bit of an eye-opener from reading it. Even if you just have a small peek. The term describes a group (and our new way of working/thinking), that might be quite larger than you think.
I’m perfectly aware of the decent points being made in the book. My reaction to the concept in general was fueled by the fact that quickly it became a matter of recognizing certain groups in urban areas based on what they wear and what car they drive. And while there’s definately some truth to that, the consequenses all of a sudden don’t matter; we’re closing in on what constitutes this group but now it is about belonging to a certain culture, not catering for these people’s needs when doing city planning, thinking politics etc. Which would have been just as true if the overall goal was to coin a term describing people in their thirties redefining what it means to be a grownup… But noone wants to design their politics based on that…
I think that we have the same perspective on things here. It’s just that, it seems to me that you’r often trying to define what it is to be creative, in a part of the things you work with online. I like that, it has also helped me to start thinking about what this new social and cultural definition of being creative means (and it’s consequences..). But I believe that your thinking would be much leaner, and your point would get much better across in a larger audience, if you knew pricely what it was based on, in the beginning.
Not saying that you should read the hole book. It’s quite dull after 50 pages.. Just skimmed the rest of it :)
I agree. However, I’m not trying to be lean, but hooking into the un-leanness that everybody else has made the creative class-phenomenon as a culturel comment. People are redefining what it means to be creative on a daily basis (which I believe is one of the points in the book) — I’m just noticing that this redefinition gets lost along the way as people are busy belonging to a group of smartly dressed mothers and fathers living in expensive apartments, drinking certain coffees and keeping their white iPod earbuds in their ears.
My point is: Thart part isn’t anything special. It’s the way things are if you happen to have a minimum of education and live in larger city. From where I’m sitting, I can’t see anybody not belonging to this category. If you plan urban areas, try to attract people with a certain mindset you might want to take your focus a bit further…
But i’m still missing the “kolonihavehus” and other necessities for the creative class ;)