Do you ever just happen upon one of those great comments that makes your stomach find itself in your throat? I swear, I happen on these things all the time, so I’m going to be a big piece of cheese and send them out once in a while. This one actually came out during my MBA graduation and I really found it interesting.
Our time of knowledge and creativity requires diversity. Human potential is the great leveller. It defies and obliterates the social categories we have imposed on ourselves. It defies gender. It doesn’t care about race. It annihilates ethnicity. It means that all are required to contribute.
- Richard Florida, Rotman School of Management
Florida has written a fair amount about the rise of creativity and urban communities, but has also included the virtue of weak ties among his list of creativity-inducing favourites. What does he mean? Well, tight-knit communities – just like small towns – breed similar thinking and a reduced willingness to take innovative risks. Strong ties in communities don’t allow for the same form of brainwaving that weak tied communities – like those in overall urban spaces – do.
What does this mean?
We talk frequently about building communities and building relationships. We build theories and promotions around these ideas, ensuring that each member of our client’s identified target community impacts another, and so on and so on.
But are we, as marketers, victims of the same? We ensure that we’re engaged collectively. We go to the same conferences. We see the same speakers. We share jargon and (often detested) neologisms. We have the same conversations at the after-parties. We are different, but are we also the same?
Is this form of community breeding homogenization across the idea spectrum? How do we ensure that we continue to think critically and ask smart questions on behalf of our clients and ourselves? How do we ensure that we maintain the diversity that allows us to continue breeding exceptional creative work?
Entries
September 19th, 2008 at 11:55 pm
Sadly, we’re all creatures of habit.
I can’t speak for you in the marketing profession, but as a designer/creative, I find my best ideas always come from my exploration into the unknown.
Exhaustive repetition and the daily trips to the familiar are breeding grounds for imitation and lackluster imagination. This is why familiar design and branding always seems to move in a robotic circular pattern.
Change your surroundings.
September 20th, 2008 at 11:25 am
Yeah, I’m a huge fan of keeping many doors open – including ones that disagree with my own thinking – for this reason.
I worked in design many years ago and truly felt that it had to be the professional in which it was most difficult to stay… creative? Truly, though, finding/seeing new in physical/visual reality/interpretations every single day just truly boggles my mind.
PS: I loved the Metronauts logo.
September 21st, 2008 at 12:46 pm
It’s an interesting question…
I came across a study that relates the openness of social networks to the likeliness of breeding extremism (link).
There’s also a neat article in the NYTimes from a while back about the benefits of creating new habits by forcing oneself to experience new (and perhaps awkward) things (link).
September 21st, 2008 at 1:29 pm
Oooh, I really loved that second link, thanks for sharing, Jasper…
September 22nd, 2008 at 4:22 pm
MESH, UnMesh – http://socialcapitalvalueadd.com/2008/06/04/mesh-unmesh-the-danger-of-social-capital/
September 22nd, 2008 at 10:14 pm
Hello, matching research interests! Hah.
September 23rd, 2008 at 6:30 am
I think it really depends on the kind of community in which you’re involved. I’ve seen it work both ways. If you have open-minded, creative individuals in the group, it can be beneficial to everyone involved. I really miss having my creative community around for inspiration.
September 25th, 2008 at 12:30 pm
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