The jobs just aren’t coming back.
They left on what was supposed to be a round-the-world cruise and the ship sank somewhere off the coast off China. Recession is supposed to be a cyclical phenomenon where what is lost comes back to us in spades.
One part innovation, one part government intervention. And sometimes one part war for good measure. Hard times are temporary.
Not this time, it seems. Things just refuse to go back to “normal.”
It seems this led Scott Timberg of Salon.com to announce yesterday that the creative class is a lie. Timberg would like you to believe that this “utopian” society where you can get a job with a master’s-degree-in-just-about-anything is too good to be true. Salon would also like to sponsor your prescription for Zoloft and help you settle your credit card debt.
Okay, I made that last part up.
Timberg paints a dismal picture of what is happening now, economically speaking, without providing any sort of recommendation bringing about a brighter future for the world’s brightest minds.
I’ll grant him one part of the thesis: the transition from old economy to New Economy is not an easy one. And it doesn’t involve the return of the jobs.
The rest of their thesis is myopic. While Timberg was quick to point out that “the Creative Class” was hard hit in the economic downturn, they failed to consider how Richard Florida (the sociologist who made the phrase popular) described the great reset occurring in today’s reality:
The Great Reset … [is] the result of the multitude of tiny resets that individuals are making all over the world.
The root of the problem is not that college grads and highly trained professionals are out of traditional work. It’s that they’re being told to look for “jobs” at all.
We need to forget trying to jump start the economy in all the old ways and start educating individuals on how to make their own tiny resets.
These tiny resets are fueled, not by economic policy, but by the spirit of innovation and a willingness to think beyond the status quo. Why mourn a system that kept so many imprisoned by their own paychecks?
Daniel Pink – curiously missing from the list of visionaries Timberg quotes – describes the greater shift as such:
We are moving from an economy and a society build on the logical, linear, computerlike capabilities of the Information Age to an economy and a society built on the inventive, empathic, big-picture capabilities of what’s rising in its place, the Conceptual Age.
This isn’t a top-down shift. This is bottom-up. That’s why the rest of his book, A Whole New Mind, is dedicated to teaching people how to survive in age that was taking shape. This book was written at least 2 years pre-recession. And yet, it describes in detail the skills need to hoist oneself out of the mire of what would come.
Pink never claims these skills are easily acquired. But he does lay out a framework for adding them to the palette of colors one has to paint their own picture of fulfilling work.
Just last week, Seth Godin also described the difficult work that was required of the creative class:
The future is about gigs and assets and art and an ever-shifting series of partnerships and projects. It will change the fabric of our society along the way. No one is demanding that we like the change, but the sooner we see it and set out to become an irreplaceable linchpin, the faster the pain will fade, as we get down to the work that needs to be (and now can be) done.
Both government and the media get it so very wrong. The focus cannot be on the return of jobs. It must be on the cultivation of skills and the realization of a new mindset for creating work that produces value for others.
We can no longer rely on the old ways of paying bills and putting food on the table.
Creating our own work – and a new landscape for prosperity – is the ultimate task of the Creative Class.
And it’s one we’ve only begun to pursue.
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Edited to add:
Creating your own work doesn’t necessarily mean self-employment. Creating your own work is more about self-awareness.
What are you truly good at? When do you have the answer that no one else has? What problems are you uniquely gifted to solve?
This is not about creating a go-it-alone economy. It’s about understanding how we work best together.
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Hat tip to Nicole for putting me to the Salon.com article.
This is a great article. I have a membership at OpenSalon.com but haven’t been there in a while due to drama. So I am so glad that you pointed out this article. Also glad to see you are blogging again
Absolutely AGREE! We need to look into our hearts and dig deep-there is a a desire in each of us to “be something”, to make “something happen” and NOW is that time to follow our passion-even if it means rebuking everything that we’ve ever known or been taught! It’s hard and it takes courage-but DO IT! This creativeness will be how the new economy will be built-with desire and passion! Great post Tara!
i enjoy your writing and thinking very much Tara and I do have a question/concern which is not everyone who wants to – and needs to – make a living through their creativity has the necessary bits to do it – they lack the personality for the risk or the idea or the patience to develop them, etc. i see a lot of those people showing up for program after program and not getting anywhere, except poorer. What is our responsibility to those people and what do they do if they can’t create their own gig? I wonder if there are enough of us capable of doing the work needed to float this boat again. Thoughts?
Totally down with your thinking here, Jen. I think that those of us who are blazing our own trail will have to think long & hard about how we’re serving society at all levels as we move into the future. It’s a goal I have for my own business – not only creating work for others but teaching others how to create work for others.
Even if you don’t want to create your own work, I think there is still a responsibility to viewing the way you work in a new & different way. It’s unrealistic to rely on a system that is broken & dying. So how does the nature of earning a living change for those who are not entrepreneurs? Can we have afford not to have some set of entrepreneurial skills even if we’re not doing our own thing?
I don’t think anyone has the answers to those questions yet. But as time goes on, more & more people will be considering the answers. That’s a discussion I would like to both encourage AND be a part of!
We don’t need to view this as either/or. We need job creation in addition to an entrepreneurial renaissance. Our infrastructure and education system are both crumbling and unless we strengthen them, the whole economy will continue to degrade. This is where job creation comes in. Effective schools, green energy, roads, bridges, high speed rail, high speed and improved internet access (there are folks in the country who have dial-up or nothing at all!) are needed to facilitate this entrepreneurial shift for all. Manufacturing is not coming back, but the service sector is where job creation can and needs to focus for the benefit of all.
Thanks, Tara, for getting this conversation going on a Monday morning, jump starting my week!
I adore you Tara and have loved watching you forge your path, but Jen and Victoria raise good points. Your response to Jen brings up the topic I have been writing on lately, and our friend Jonathan Fields just published a book on “Uncertainty”.
There is so much we don’t know about how things will pan out. What I do know is that not everyone is a natural creative, or entrepreneur, and not everyone can be a leader.
Victoria nails my opinion here:
“We need job creation in addition to an entrepreneurial renaissance. Our infrastructure and education system are both crumbling and unless we strengthen them, the whole economy will continue to degrade.”
Education in many forms needs to happen. We need public education reform, but we also need teachers like yourself, like Jen, and one day soon myself, that teach people how to discover where they fit in anew economy that is not yet defined.
Thanks for the thought provoking post. This is most definitely a discussion I want to be part of!!!
Victoria, I don’t disagree with you AT ALL. However, I would just challenge your use of the phrase “job creation.” I think we’re faced with the very redefinition of what it will mean to be working – and that doesn’t necessarily mean jobs in the sense we’ve grown accustomed.
Seth Godin talks about how jobs are really only the creation of the last 100 years or so. Before that, people had trades and/or subsisted on their own, self-generated work.
I’m not, of course, suggesting that we go back to subsistence farming.
Indeed, I think it’s time to redefine what works means for this new age (Conceptual Age – maybe…). So, yes, it’s not either/or – but it’s not really both/and, either. It’s about reinventing the system.
Right on! I think your last statement hits the point I was trying to make. In order to reinvent the system, there needs to be an infrastructure. The existing one isn’t going to get us where we need to be. So let’s rebuild and expand it.
Ok, Tara writes this article, I read the Salon piece, and now…I couldn’t avoid adding to the conversation.
I see what Jen is saying for sure. What do we do to aid those who aren’t inclined to be entrepreneurs in the traditional sense? They’re trying because the overall message is that NOW is the time and it’s for everyone! Wee!
Well, it’s not. Even Seth godin admits that the majority of the people who consider themselves creative are the furthest thing from it. They add to the noise rather than create things that rise above it.
So, instead of feeling the responsibility to “create jobs” from our own businesses, perhaps the focus needs shifting a bit. I’m not opposed to enabling people to work via my own businesses. Not at all. It’s wonderful. But job creation as a solution is a myth. Proven over and over again.
They key from my experience is to create filters. Words, work, products, and lessons that enable people to learn themselves intimately. If you’re going to teach people how to work for themselves, then what would happen if you also created something that taught people to understand if they should be working for themselves?
When we enable people to bridge the gap of fear and stop giving them chances to misalign with an improper vision for their future, I believe we simultaneously avoid more bad work entering the universe. We give them the power of choice to determine their own path and if we can’t bring them in to work directly with us, then we connect them to the people that can.
Co-creation of tiny tribal economies.
It’s no longer about the bigger national or global picture. True power now exists within the tribal sense of belonging. Creating vital roles that need filled from people who know that’s what they’re best at. All the while cultivating the personal growth of all who exist within that tiny ecosystem.
Am I a crazy man rambling on? Perhaps. I did just finish my 4th cup of coffee.
Loved your Blueprint on co-creating this morning and I think the idea of “co-creating tiny tribal economies” is a good one.
What’s so interesting about that idea is that it brings into focus the fact that “tribal” and “global” are not mutually exclusive. They can be one & the same – and that’s why the promise of the internet for the Creative Class is so important!
Rob Kalin (founder of Etsy) talks about creating an economy that is influenced by PEOPLE instead of training people influenced by the economy. That is it, in a nutshell, for me.
There are so many gross injustices in this system because we get trained & spend good money on fitting into this system. What if we asked how an economy could work for us instead of us working for the economy?
By the by, coffee-induced rambling is always welcome here
“What if we asked how an economy could work for us instead of us working for the economy?”
That very question holds the solution.
What’s beautiful is this isn’t us inventing a new system. It’s a returning to a fundamental system that’s served people for centuries. The cooperative vs. the competitive system.
I wonder if our focus on how those ‘other people’ is, while noble and beautiful in intention, missing the point a little bit. As creative trailblazers, perhaps our work is really more ‘show’ than ‘tell’. While I agree with Jen that we need to consider those repeat students who never seem to ‘get’ the material, we might also consider shifting the material to include modules exploring the new model, and explaining (gently) that depending on experts – teachers, doctors, the government – is an ‘old way’, and a part of the economy that is collapsing. For me, the work of the ‘new’ teacher is going to be helping people develop a genuine, personal connection to their own power; and to the soul-level wisdom each of us carries. Our work, as thought leaders of the ‘creative class’ is to build the bridges that help our students cross the divide; and then, to invite them to walk – on their own feet – across.
You are brilliant! This is inspiring to me to keep moving along and not give up. I started my own business instead of finding a job, and although it’s been up and down, it’s a fun ride!
Thanks for the great article. It put into words some of the thoughts that were running around in my head for quite some time now. Yes indeed – things need to change and we need to create the world (jobs, policies, etc.) the way we want it!!
Great post! I think there are a lot of things we don’t know yet but I love that the conversation is opening up about this new economy. I can see parallels from this to my own struggle in the job force – and now instead of selling my skills, I am selling my vision. If anything, we need to think about how we can make the world better for generations that come after us, and that requires a shift in thinking from what we were/are to what we can be. And I agree with previous commenters that it’s not an all or nothing approach. But clearly, what we have been doing needs a big kick in the butt.
This is an emotional issue with passionate conversations all over the spectrum. First, let me say, the Salon article was was very discouraging. A few deep breathes later and I understand that the author is lamenting the death of a past career/job models — the way work and careers used to be. I agree with Tara and others that we have to change the way we view structure of the job/business world. This is time when all the old “rules” are meaningless and there is opportunity for people who have the vision to recognize and pursue these new opportunities. Since post WWII, corporate employment has been the key to financial success. That ship is sailing fast — the opportunities there are limited and specialized. I think colleges, perhaps even high schools, should be teaching classes in entrepreneurship — classes geared to non-business majors — classes that suggest there is a different way. I have daughters 24 & 21 who could use this type of information as they try to carve out a place for themselves in the job market. Instead they have me sending them links to helpful, supportive websites. Generally, as a culture we are most comfortable with a linear approach that education or experience equals jobs but I think the time has come to reinvent model to be honest that a good job doesn’t come with a college degree or 20 years experience. The new foundation will include flexible skills, creativity, open-mindedness, community and some business savvy on the side. As for me, I’m trying to learn as much as can about business today, while I gather my skills, manage uncertainty and remain optimistic as I make a business plan for myself. Thanks Tara, for continuing this conversation.
Excellent post. The old way obviously wasn’t working, so why would that be the solution? Innovation is what is needed, a change that will pull us out of the current situation & creation is innovation. I feel sad when I hear calls for the same old solutions, they didn’t work & won’t work, so why continue in that direction? Yes, we definitely need jobs created, but they need to be created in a new, innovative way, the old ways aren’t working. Thanks for your thoughtful post.
Really enjoy the conversations here – you all have so much vision and a true sense of where things are heading in these uncertain economic times. What I really admire is that everyone who has made a comment remains optimistic, not fearful, they trust that there are choices that can be made to usher in change for the better even if the economic system we’re used is crumbling around us. Glad I tuned in to this current posting. For me, the visions presnted here give me hope and you, Tara have created a whole on-line community ready to support people such as myself who really struggle with trying to make it on our own in this economy. The pull to re-enter the corporate workforce tugs at me everyday and yet I know that I probably don’t have the skills to re-enter it. However, in the creative community I have found openings and opportunity – with this current post you again have helped keep me encouraged and have broadened my view of how things are really changing for us. I will have to read the Salon article but from what I’ve read here, it probably echoes many people’s sentiments and fears – but how does this offer any solution? Your post and many of the other’s comments at least do. Thanks!
Someone in the comments here mentioned teaching people to not only gain the skills to be self employed, but also teaching people to change the mind set that requires self employment. Well, not those exact words, but that’s what it makes me think about.
Our society has trained many, many people to grow up thinking that they must get a good education and then go on to get a good job, working for someone else. I think nearly everyone recognizes that this is no longer the majority viable economic model for creatives.
The problem is not in recognizing that there is a new jobs model – many are familiar with self-funded retirements, moving from job to job every few years or so, and really cobbling together something that looks like a series of long term freelance gigs.
The problem is recognizing that making the creative class the driving force of the economy is already happening. As Daniel Pink points out in his brilliant books, there are large corporations with deep pockets flailing about, looking for innovation and creativity, while deeply creative thinkers are stuck in their own insular world where they only want to make art and don’t realize that their creative vision and energy could be put to wide application, and it could be done on their own terms.
This is turning into an epic comment – I think I’ll post a longer blog response later.
Thanks for another great article and for having the courage to speak out against the Salon article. Frankly I’m tired of Internet stories that aim to spread fear and discourage people from developing new ideas. While it is discouraging for businesses to outsource work to save money on employee costs (while quietly putting Americans out of work), we live in a nation that competes globally. And the cost of employees are a business’ biggest expense – so to me it’s no real surprise as to what is going on.
Professional writers should not be afraid of amateurs; if anything, competition forces people to better hone their craft. People can recognize quality writing and desire to have their imaginations fueled. While the model for paying one’s bills continues to evolve, the ability to extract wealth from a global system grows exponetially. Creativity will NEVER go out of style.
–Joe Breunig
author/poet, Reaching Towards His Unbounded Glory
A beautiful conversation that turns me ON!! Thank you Tara!!
You know, creatives are already doing just this. Creating our own path, working together, forming long distance partnerships. Thing is, the old way of counting jobs is broken. Contract work is not represented. I’d venture to guess that there is a ton of creative work going on that’s just under the stat man’s radar. You know that social security report you get in the mail once a year? Well mine is looking pretty blank. Actually the last recorded social security for me was in 2003. Wait till that ponzi scheme comes tumbling down as work changes. My point is, it’s happening, but it’s not countable.
I absolutely agree, Tara and Haile. I think the economy would be far better off if everyone stopped focusing {and reporting} on the jobless rate. Let’s start building on the great creative work that is already being done and stop crying about and trying to fix an antiquated system. Let’s stop trying to repair an 8-track player in a hopeless attempt to make it play iTunes and instead focus on paving the way for the next great iPod.
agree 100% with you..thanks! I am prepared for an unpredictable future