Carsten Beck is the Director of Research at the Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies. The CIFS examines the trends and tendencies that affect our future. In the last couple of years, the Institute has concluded that many of these very diverse trends signal a development that means that society will increasingly be driven by creativity and innovation – and that these will increasingly be a greater part of everyday life. Carsten sat down with PSFK to explain what the implications of this rise in creativity may yeild.
1. What is the story behind Creative Man?
Let’s first go back to the nineties, when the institute published the book "The Dream Society", which argues that all phenomena in society are emotionalised.
Three years ago we did some brainstorms here at IFF to see if and how society had developed since. Was The Dream Society still valid? Were there new developments?
Not long into our debate, the topic of individualisation came up. We are moving away from predefined mass phenomena to individualised activities and thoughts. Then we looked at what could happen if we projected this development into the future.
Would this still be The Dream Society? Would brands be able to continue applying pressure on the market with their usual messages?
We agreed that this was not the case. The power of defining brands would shift to customers, individuals and to society, whether at work, in our private lives, basically everywhere and anytime.
So we wrote a book, Creative Man, about this development. In this book, we argue that interests are more of an individual than collective nature. We as individuals wish to invest a lot of energy and to become much more involved in what we are interested in than before….
This applies – at least here in Scandinavia – to family life; it is enormously important to be a good mother or father. It applies to work, where we are moving away ever further from the industrial society. Today, we work both with our brains and our hearts. Our activities move to the left side of the brain. This is not to say that boring jobs will disappear. But they are becoming less.
2. What are the implications for consumption?
In terms of consumption, this means that for example "discount" [eg. low cost stores such as Aldi or Wal Mart] will still play a role in our lives. This also means that consumers will define areas of their lives where they will become much more involved in and become an active part of.
In the olden days, and still today, you could boast with your riches, that you had good taste and that you were buying the right brands. This is becoming more difficult in a world where money is more readily available and where brands are ubiquitous.
Individuals therefore must look for something new. "The New" is individual, it is creative.
Here’s an example: in Poland, IKEAs competitors offer nice white designer sofas, too, with a little extra: an embroidery set. Customers can add their own embroidery to the purchased furniture – and boast about it. "I emboidered this butterfly", they’ll say. "If I can do embroidery and you can’t, then I can boast" they’ll be thinking.
It is very trivial, but it is happening in many places, for example within the fashion industry, and there sneakers in particular. You are able to co-design an ever increasing number of products.
3. Does this mean Creative Man will replace the Dream Society?
Again: this doesn’t mean that brands will disappear, or that price will not matter in the future. People sometimes misread what we say. It means that there’ll be an extra "layer", if you want. Aspects of the industrial age or the Dream Society still exist and always will. Creative Man is on top.
The evolution from the Industrial Age into Dream Society had to do with emotionalisation. You had to find your soul and talk to marketing people, which is slightly exagerated but it is a valid description.
Creative Man has much stronger implications. At the core, it means that power will shift from companies to the market. To me, this translates into loss of power to CEOs, companies, marketing bosses or to me and you as part of the workforce.
It also means that companies will have to engage into deeper relationships with their customers. They will have to be involved much more within the value chain. This has strong implications for company culture, its way of thinking and practicing a dialogue, if nothing else.
This also translates into much more fragmented market segments, which is also almost impossible to manage with standard market communications mechanisms.
From an individual perspective, there is a much wider choice of causes and interests we can engage in. Beyond idealistic interests, such as politics or ecology, we can now also proactively engage in brands. Companies should realise this.
4. What are the implications of Creative Man for groups of people as a collective?
Creative Man is at the core about individualisation. It is about one’s life as a project. Of course, we will still engage in peer groups, but we are increasingly able to select this group ourselves, compared with earlier days. Thinking of the Long Tail, there will be more and smaller groups with common interests.
As for our Western society, IFF believes that creativity is the single most defining aspect that will keep us competitive on a global scale. Industry jobs have moved to other parts of the world, and so has the Dream Society to a certain degree – upcoming economies have reached that stage. Since we can’t compete on labour cost or emotions, we will have to learn to come up with a constant flow of great ideas.
Thank You
Facebook
Twitter
Digg
Reddit
StumbleUpon
; return false&h=116&w=116&zc=1)
