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Frans
Johansson is, in the argot of young people today, the
"new" Richard Florida. In
the realm of thinking about the origins of
creativity, the 33-year-old author of "The
Medici Effect" picks up where Florida
leaves off in "The Rise of the Creative
Class."
Florida,
as loyal readers of this column know, changed the
way the United States looks at economic development
with his ground-breaking book[1]. Members of what Florida called the
"creative class" -- artists, educators,
scientists, entrepreneurs and solvers of complex
problems - contribute disproportionately to
innovation, entrepreneurial activity and economic
vitality. The key to developing prosperous
communities, he argued, is to attract and retain
these Creatives. And the way to do that is to
shape the kind of communities they like to live in.
Florida
became an immediate sensation because his ideas did
such a good job of explaining why some metropolitan
areas were thriving in the Knowledge Economy and
others were stagnating. In Florida's estimation,
Creatives gravitate toward cosmopolitan communities
characterized by cultural and ethnic diversity,
tolerance and openness to newcomers. That was good
news for regions like Boston, Seattle, Austin,
Washington, San Francisco and innumerable college
towns. But it was a dead end for cities that lacked
the means to emulate those glittering cities and
that,
given their often-antithetical value systems, didn't
want to become like those centers of cultural and
political liberalism even if they could.
Florida displayed his political and philosophical
colorations overtly in his second book,
"The Flight of the Creative Class"[2].
Rather than arguing for openness and inclusion
generally, he blamed cultural and political
conservatives for creating a climate of intolerance
in the U.S. -- overlooking equally egregious
examples of intolerance and muffling of dissent on
the political and cultural left.
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Johansson
published "The Medici Effect" about
two years after "Creative Class"
appeared. Like Florida's book, "Medici"
was an instant hit. Although the impact of "Medici" has been felt less in economic/community development circles than in the corporate world,
Johansson's fresh thinking about innovation has
much to commend |
itself
to communities that don't choose a
Richard Florida-style path to prosperity.
Individuals and enterprises,
Johansson says, can cultivate
breakthrough insights that lead to artistic,
scientific and entrepreneurial achievement by moving toward
"the intersection of ideas, concepts and
cultures." Innovation
and breakthrough insights occur at "the
intersection" because that's where novel
combinations and possibilities are most likely to
arise. Creativity,
he suggests, can be made into
a formal process involving exploration of the
intersection, the generation of ideas, continual experimentation and
the tolerance of risk and failure.
It's a process that can be applied anywhere...
Or
so it seemed to me when I read "The Medici
Effect" last year. I
never imagined that I'd have the opportunity to
discuss Johansson's ideas with him personally, but the
world works in strange ways.
While moderating a
panel last year about creativity at the Creative Change Center
(C3) I used some concepts
from "The Medici Effect" as a framework
for discussion. As it happened, Marc Lockhart, a
Harvard Business School chum of Johansson's,
was in the audience. We chatted afterwards, and the
next thing I knew, Lockhart had invited Johansson to
Richmond for a low-key meet-and-greet tour. Johansson was kind enough to agree to
a luncheon interview, and Lockhart chose the perfect
setting -- Plant Zero, a renovated warehouse in old
Manchester that now houses workshops and galleries
for local artists.
For
all his recent success, Johansson comes across as
refreshing and unaffected. Tall and lean, he flashes
a wide grin and shakes hands enthusiastically. He
talks with animation and tears into a sandwich with
gusto. Johansson clearly enjoys his sudden fame,
much as a school boy enthuses over a new GameBoy,
but he does not appear impressed with himself.
"My
goal was just to get the book published and get the
ideas out," he says. "Now, 17 months
later, you look back and... Wow! What's happened has
been way beyond my expectations."
"The
Medici Effect" struck a chord
with a wide audience seeking the elixir of
innovation and creativity, and Johansson is much in
demand as a speaker. Addressing corporations and
conferences around the world nearly amounts to a full-time job.
Johansson is still amazed at how the book generates
interest at the highest levels of business and
industry. In one
two-day conference about Asia, he says, he will address 50
CEOs. "It's just them and me!"
Johansson
comes by his insights into the creative process
honestly. He is a one-man cultural intersection
himself: His father is Swedish and his mother, of
mixed African-American and Cherokee ancestry, hails
from Hickory, N.C. He has lived roughly half his
life in Sweden and half in the U.S.
He
also has first-hand experience applying innovation
to the marketplace. After graduating from Harvard
Business School, he started a healthcare consulting
company, which his cousin now runs. He then
launched a software company... in 1999, at the
height of the dot.com frenzy. When the crash came,
he shut the company down. "We sold software to
other software companies," he recalls.
"It's like someone turned off the switch."
Moving
then to New York City, Johansson buckled down to write
"The Medici Effect." When the book
was published, he'd burned through his savings,
maxed out his credit cards and had $2.45 to his
name. "I remember exactly," he regales.
"I had a $1 bill in my wallet and $1.45 in my
money market account!"
The name
of the book alludes to
the flowering of creativity in 15th-century Florence
under the influence of the Medici family. The
Medicis lured sculptors, scientists, poets,
philosophers, painters and architects from all over
Europe. Bearing diverse perspectives from different
fields and cultures, these brilliant artists and
thinkers contributed to one of the
greatest bursts of innovation in human history.
What
happened in Florence may be impossible for most
communities to replicate, but it still offers
lessons that others can benefit from. Creativity can be managed, Johansson
says. For individuals and enterprises, here are the basic steps:
My
interest was in applying the Medici Effect to
economic and community development. It's one thing
for individuals and businesses to seek the
intersection. But can entire communities create,
like the Medicis did, a culture of
creativity?
Other
economic developers have been asking similar
questions, Johansson observes. They are not issues
that he has focused on in a disciplined way, but he
has been giving them some thought. What he
can say with some confidence, he says, is what won't
work.
Force
feeding a particular industry is rarely a good
idea,. Most
breakthrough technologies and business models spring
from passion on an individual level, he observes. There is no way
that a group of political or civic leaders can
predict who will succeed and who will fail.
"You can't 'decide' to focus on
this or that," he says. "The only
time that works is if something's happening already. An
example. If you said 10 years ago, that the new
Mecca for the film industry would be New Zealand, no
one would have believed it. But Peter Jackson, the
director of the Lord of the Rings, made it
happen." Only now does it make sense to
support the film industry.
"What
you must do is encourage entrepreneurship
generally," Johansson says. "To make something
succeed, you have to encourage everything.
... If something does succeed, it will attract
talent and supporting industries. Then you can step
in and support it."
Another thing that communities can do, he suggests, is
bring together people with different backgrounds,
cultures and disciplines. But it's not enough just
to put them all in the same room: People naturally gravitate
to others with whom they have something in common.
Polite chit-chat rarely leads to anything. It helps
to have a stated goal, an agenda or a facilitator.
"You must actively explore the
intersection."
Finally,
Johansson says, communities should invest in building human
capital. Education, of course, is critical. But the
grow-your-own approach to building human capital can be supplemented by
recruitment of skill sets in demand in targeted industries.
For instance, Orlando, Fla., which has a growing
high-end computer gaming industry, has formed an
institute to draft talented graphic designers. If
Orlando didn't have a computer gaming industry, it
would make no sense to recruit graphic designers, he
observes. But once an industry arises, economic
developers can stimulate growth by building human
capital in that industry.
It's
still early in the game. No region has yet perfected
a policy for stimulating creativity. "Allow for
experimentation," Johansson advises. "Don't
expect to get it right the first time."
--
February 27, 2006
Footnotes
1. Bacon's
Rebellion reviewed "The Rise of the
Creative Class" in its inaugural
edition.
2.
Bacon's Rebellion reviewed "The Fright of
the Creative Class" as well. Read the review.
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