Today, CEO-Read announced it’s “100 Best Business Books of All Time.” Among the top 100, The Rise of the Creative Class.
Congrats, Rich!
How has The Rise of the Creative Class shaped your area’s approach to community and economic development? Has the book changed your perspective on creativity and talent management? How? Share your stories with our team.
To learn more about the guide for the top 100, click here. The guide is set to be released in February 2009.
Here’s something interesting…
So Maclean’s did a nice article about a recent study measuring “Learning,” from the Canadian Council of Learning. The name of the article is “Canada’s Smartest Cities.”
But I wondered about the difference or connection between Smarts and Learning, so I did a search of the meaty 45-page report - and found zero (nada, zilch, l’oeuf) instances of the word “Smart.” The authors were plainly sensitive to the issues surrounding labeling something as “smart.”
I’ve wondered about this frequently. Is it elitist to value higher education? By celebrating smartness, are we in essence devaluing those who have not had the opportunities or chosen the path to higher learning?
I confess, I enjoy being around smart people. I find a strong connection between well-educated people and those who are open, tolerant, inquisitive, far seeing, and inclusive. But I’ve also found some of the most maddening people in well-educated professionals - rude, selfish, entitled, unsympathetic, and petty. (They make me want to hang out in a trailer park, or some other low-rent neighborhood where anything goes.)
I still think that the educational attainment of city or community is one of the best measures of a place’s quality of life. Generally, better-educated citizenry make tougher and better decisions for the future, and see value in making a community better for all, not just their peers.
I’m already lamenting the end of the shopping bag – the gorgeous kind, you know, with maybe satin or grosgrain handles, like from Hermes or Donghia or Laduree in Paris. The kind you may hold onto for years, can’t bear to toss.
And the whole ritual of having your purchase lavishly swathed in tissue paper, held in place with a beautiful sticker, and then gracefully placed in its coordinating carrier suddenly feels sinful.
That graphic/branding indulgence is coming to an end - I know it and ruefully admit I will really miss it. Carrying bags will always be with us but will reusables ever be as glamorous as their wasteful and glorious predecessors?
Sure, we are all declining shopping bags and bringing in our own, recycling the plastic ones, etc. In my store we keep reusing them (except for gift purchases of course), without the shame we might have felt a couple of years ago. All these new practices are good and necessary and I wholeheartedly support them but I can’t imagine what, if anything, will recreate that little note of luxury when our packaging becomes truly minimal?
Technology is great. Ever since the telegraph, we have been moving toward a global technology. At the heart of this technology are people, cities, and the Creative Class. And what do people do? They act entrepreneurialy. That means they create. Like all great civilizations, cities are at the heart of it and creative people in cities are what drives this. We now have data on entrepreneurship in global cities: click here to read the report.
This is the first ranking of entrepreneurial cities in the world! Where does your city rank? How creative is it? WoW.
