This YouTube video offers up a creative (of course!) visual interpretation of job culture- then and now – and describes the many ways in which the working world is continually impacted by the creative class.
Whether you’ve been in the workforce for decades or just a few years, how has the rise of the creative class influenced what you need, require, and expect of an employer and your work environment?
April 22nd, 2009 at 7:16 pm
The first comment on the youtube page is interesting: ‘Very creative and well executed. Now, do you all honestly believe any of that?’
I feel we are living in a time of division between classes of workers where there are those, mainly in the younger generation, who ‘get it’ and those who just don’t, one of which is on display for all to see in the youtube comments. At the risk of stereotyping greatly, I’m going to say that those who don’t are primarily older workers who have been steeped in traditional work behaviours for the majority of their lives. As Richard and his team point out, there is a migration occurring towards what they term the creative class and I feel that those firms that don’t ‘get it’ are sitting way behind the eight ball and are fighting an uphill battle to be successful. By getting it I refer to firms that understand that workers want to be individualistic, want to work in a meritocratic environment, and want to work in a flexible environment, among other things. I feel that the sooner that firms are able to transition to this environment, the more productive they, and the economy at large, will become.
A quick note for the blog poster – the embedded video doesn’t work, I had to go directly to youtube.
April 22nd, 2009 at 7:29 pm
Thanks for the heads-up about the embedded video… it’s working now.
April 29th, 2009 at 4:40 pm
I talk to a steady stream of art students all day. It’s interesting to me that most demand the idea of a flexible environment. However, they haven’t been “steeped in traditonal work behaviours for the majority of their lives.” I know that most of them are very young, but I wonder how this will play out in their lives. Will they learn to cope, and how productive will they become if they translate flexibility to mean not doing anything that they don’t want to do?