The MyCreativity Topic

MyCreativity is a network primarily communicating via their mailing list, if, in fact you can call it a network at all. At least it provides means to think about the limits of the network, and one limit of this group seems to be organization. It is a network of expertise and/or reflection, but this does not seem to flow back into something like a MyCreativity network. Another limit is related to the idea of the creative industries, which has the connotation, although plural, of one industry when in fact there are many, some of which might not even qualify as industry to begin with.

Winter Camp

The topics addressed are however important ones and have a lot to do with the problem of communication between governmental institutes and their policy makers and people who produce creative products. Local politics for instance often see the creative industries as both a way to do nice and fun things as a way to solve other political issues such as unemployment and uneducated youth (or undeveloped talent) for (re) integration into society. The division is often between creative elites receiving funding and the more socially involved creatives, being used for a political agenda. In cases where politicians ask the creatives for advise, a high consultant fee is seldom paid for this valuable advise.

Winter Camp

Something which might be at the foundation of the problematic communication is the lack of a creative industries business model or at least means to measure its value. This makes it hard to situate it as a profitable industry or distinguish between those parts that need subsidies and those actually having a large influence on the economy. The influence of design in what are seen as regular industries should not be underestimated, without design (or the creative labor of advertisers and brand makers) companies often fail to get market share.

MyCreativity is a topic, a topic that needs to be addressed by the creative workers, political policy makers as well as the so-called regular industry. As it is right now it does not look like MyCreativity will function as a body that will initiate projects or action, but rather will use the shared knowledge to improve their individual areas.