Street Life

I am guessing that 'the recession' will result in more and more roadworks around Auckland as a way of 'stimulating' the economy. Public works are easy to initiate, there are few metrics for their success or failure (hard to fail with upgrading roads) and it transfers relatively unskilled workers most likely to be 'let go'.

When my partners and I started Idealog magazine a part of the pitch was that New Zealand's economy needs to diversify with a greater emphasis on innovation, creativity and increased emphasis on copyrights and other forms of intellectual property.

From out first issue we were criticised for suggesting that primary production would ever be anything other than the backbone of the the New Zealand economy. That was three years ago. Since then commodity prices have swollen to record highs (so much so that milk solids were being called White Gold). Prices have tanked since and the the global economic downturn doesn't look like ending anytime soon.

Now more than ever investment should be focused on creating genuinely sustainable industries like the creative industries - which consume few resources, can transport across the web and earn residual royalties and payments long after the initial conception and implementation has taken place.

Offering subsidies to creative producers to invest in audio and video recording equipment, editing software, tools for networking and collaboration, creating marketplaces and connections might offer greater long term returns than in capital intensive and heavy-freight solutions.

Of course, when I discuss the creative economy I refer to:

* Advertising
* Architecture
* Art markets
* Crafts
* Design
* Designer fashion
* Film and video
* Interactive leisure software
* Music
* Performing arts
* Publishing
* Software and computer services
* Television and radio;

...rather than imaginative thinking as a verb.

Comments

Johnny Bunko competiton

The Great Johnny Bunko Challenge from DHP on Vimeo . There's a young chap in Indiana, one Alec Quig , who has written to me about creating a career based on a polymathic degree, from which he has recently graduated. He's an interesting young man and his concerns about going forward in life are the anxieties we all face at crossroads in our lives when we are forced to make choices. Dan Pink's latest book The Adventures of Johnny Bunko: The Last Career Guide You'll Ever Need might help: "From a New York Times, BusinessWeek, and Washington Post bestselling author comes a first-of-its- kind career guide for a new generation of job seekers.There's never been a career guide like it.the fully illustrated story (ingeniously told in Manga form) of a young Everyman just out of college who lands his first job. Johnny Bunko is new to parachute company Boggs Corp., and he stumbles through his early days as a working stiff until a crisis prompts him to find a new job. St

Ze Frank thinks so you don't have to

Ze Frank appeared on my radar when I saw his presentation among the excellent TED Talks videos . This morning I was reading Russell Davies planning blog in which he referred to a clip by Ze Frank - Where do ideas come from. Here's the transcript: "...Hungry Hippo licks Aunt JEmima [sic] writes, "Are you ever gonna break into song again? Are you running out of ideas?" Hungry Hippo licks Aunt JEmima, that's a good question. I run out of ideas every day! Each day I live in mortal fear that I've used up the last idea that'll ever come to me. If you don't wanna run out of ideas the best thing to do is not to execute them. You can tell yourself that you don't have the time or resources to do 'em right. Then they stay around in your head like brain crack. No matter how bad things get, at least you have those good ideas that you'll get to later. Some people get addicted to that brain crack. And the longer they wait, the more they convince themse

Sexist Advertising and stereotypes

Advertising lives in the short-form world. Because mass media is so expensive the 30 second commercial is conventional and because there is so much clutter simplified signals are essential to 'cut through'. One form of communication short-hand used as a default is the stereotype - "A stereotype can be a conventional and oversimplified conception, opinion, or image, based on the assumption that there are attributes that members of the "other group" have in common. Stereotypes are sometimes formed by a previous illusory correlation, a false association between two variables that are loosely correlated if correlated at all. Though generally viewed as negative perceptions, stereotypes may be either positive or negative in tone." In the 1950's and 60's when men dominated advertising stereotypical impressions of women as inferior or subservient were not only commonplace but usual. It was normal to show women as housekeepers, largely because most wer

ThoughtSpurs

Search This Blog

Street Life

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Johnny Bunko competiton

Ze Frank thinks so you don't have to

Sexist Advertising and stereotypes