America Needs You! Why You Should Become A Creativity Champion (And Run For Local Office)

WHY YOU SHOULD BECOME A CREATIVITY CHAMPION
America Needs You! Page 1 - 2008 Thomas Tresser
ARE YOU A photographer. artist. designer. dancer. scientist. educator. writer. computer programmer. researcher. painter. performer. product developer. gardener. educational trainer. film maker. set designer. fashion designer. artistic director. choreographer. gallery owner. producer. actor. singer. poet. dee jay. cook. small business owner. entrepreneur. inventor. cultural worker. community based artist. muralist. graf artist. hip hop maker. animator. architect. union organizer. community organizer. social worker. change agent. nonprofit manager. environmental activist. social justice worker. progressive activist. publisher. soft ware designer.
DO YOU LOVE TO sing. write. create. perform. dance. design. paint. make stuff. garden. invent. build. collaborate. explore. ask questions. cook. do magic tricks. organize people to improve things. work with wood. teach. research. learn. solve problems. make up jokes. produce art. produce events. play with software. hack technology. Ask funny questions. Disobey. Wonder why. Seek justice.
THEN
AMERICA NEEDS YOU!

To RUN FOR LOCAL OFFICE AS A CREATIVITY CHAMPION.
AMERICA NEEDS YOU!

Tom Tresser, Creativity Champion, Chicago
Table of Contents 1. Introduction Its the creativity, smarty! 2. Summary - 5 "thought bites." Read this if you're in a hurry 3. What is creativity? 4. Creativity is our heritage 5. Creativity is our promise 6. The political argument for creativity 7. Creatives as civic leaders 8. Get ready, Get set, Lead! 9. The Creativity Frame 10. Conclusion -- Profiles of artists and creatives who hold elective office interspersed throughout the text -Join the Creativity Champions community @ ning.com Design this book! About the author Speaking and training opportunities Acknowledgements
1. ITS THE CREATIVITY, SMARTY The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them. Albert Einstein Resolved Innovation will be the single most important factor in determining Americas success through the st 21 century Opening statement from Innovate America National Innovation Initiative report from the Council on Competitiveness, signed by heads of 8 major universities and 11 major corporations. There is an African proverb that says, "If you want to go quickly, go alone. If you want to go far, go together." We need to go far, quickly. We must abandon the conceit that individual, isolated, private actions are the answer. They can and do help. But they will not take us far enough without collective action. At the same time, we must ensure that in mobilizing globally, we do not invite the establishment of ideological conformity and a new lock-step "ism." That means adopting principles, values, laws, and treaties that release creativity and initiative at every level of society in multifold responses originating concurrently and spontaneously. from Al Gores Nobel Peace Prize lecture.
Creativity is priority one for America. Creativity is priority one for the planet. People who know about creativity, who practice creativity and who have mastered creative work have values and skills that are very much needed in public life.
America is a creative nation. Creativity and the drive to innovate is part of our national DNA. America was the first nation invented out of whole cloth it was thought into being. At the beginning, our founders said good riddance to the chains of an oppressive past and welcomed the dawn of an age governed by merit and the robust competition of ideas. As a result, this country has been the home of the frontier and the new since its inception. America has been a fountain of innovation spawning new business models, new technologies, new art forms and new methods of social change. This publication is a call to recognize this reality and to act on it. According to Richard Florida (The Rise of the Creative Class), over 38 million people make their living by 1 exercising their creative abilities and this book is primarily directed to anyone who makes their living using their creative abilities. The book is also relevant to people who are passionate about creativity, regardless of how they earn a living. Elected officials and public sector leaders who want to succeed in governing and growing the Creative Economy will also find this book helpful. Recent research on the leadership challenges facing business and government have pointed out a startling conclusion. It seems that the qualities and mindset needed to lead our increasingly complex institutions are precisely those qualities and experiences possessed by artists and creative professionals. Americas creative worker is a vast untapped reservoir of civic leadership. This book is relevant to anyone concerned with solving persistent civic and community problems. The business press is rich with books looking at creativity and innovation and offering analysis on why creativity is the basis for our future economic well being. One author, Daniel Pink, chronicles the global evolution of the creative economy that now places a premium on the ability to design beautiful and novel product features and
1
The Rise of the Creative Class And How Its Transforming Work, Leisure, Community and Everyday Life, Richard Florida, Basic Books , 2002. His website is http://www.creativeclass.com. He breaks this group of full-time employees into two large buckets: The Super-Creative Core and Creative Professionals (p.328). America Needs You! Page 7 - 2008 Thomas Tresser
unique customer experiences to wrap the products. As a result, he declares that the MFA (Master of Fine Arts) 2 is the new MBA (Master of Business Administration). Every year tens of millions of Americans pursue creative activities and hobbies. And millions pursue what might be called creative or non-traditional lifestyles. And yet, creativity is a poorly understood dynamic. It hasnt come close to a level of public awareness that could be called top-of-mind that, say, people have when thinking about ecological issues and the environment. Most people have a hazy view of creativity and think they're not creative. Our public understanding of creativity is about where our public understanding of ecology was thirty plus years ago. We simply have not yet had an adequate public conversation about creativity in America. Nevertheless, I believe that creativity should be elevated to a national value. By value, I mean a belief or conviction that guides our civic and commercial actions. A national value is a quality that is universally or very broadly recognized as a public good and something to be lived up to - to cherish, celebrate, and propagate. If you accept creativity as a national value, you are saying that America stands for creativity, that creativity is a desired state, that creativity is a central guiding principle for organizing civic agendas. A civic value of this magnitude becomes a filter, litmus test and roadmap for political participation and governance. If creativity were to become a national value it would also become a national priority. If creativity were a national value and national priority, then candidates for public office would be offering platforms on how they would advance creativity as part of their campaigns. Once elected, public officials would be judged partially on the basis on how successfully they delivered on their campaign promises of boosting or advancing creativity. If creativity were a national value, then when a civic leader did something or advocated a policy which degraded creativity or made it harder for people and communities to manifest their creativity - then that civic leader would be criticized for such actions and would be politically vulnerable for doing so. This publication will lay out the case for this argument for making creativity a national value. It will also make the claim that creative professionals and people who are passionate about creativity need to get active in the civic sector as leaders and elected officials. We need creativity champions to come forth in business and civic life. Creative Americans need to contribute their creative leadership toward celebrating, championing, nourishing and accelerating creativity in America. You might paraphrase the 1992 Clinton for President strategic admonition, Its the economy, stupid to reflect this call Its the creativity, smarty. Let's get creative! Tom Tresser Creativity Champion September 2008
A Whole New Mind Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the World, Daniel Pink, Riverhead Books, 2005, p. 54.
2. SUMMARY If you're in a hurry and need the message of this publication boiled down to a few thought bites, here they are: Creativity should be a national value and a national priority. This is because: - America is and has historically been a creative nation its at the core of our national character.
- Creativity is necessary in order to have a rich and evolving democracy - Creativity is a vital and driving force behind American economic prosperity - Creativity is key to solving problems and bringing people together Therefore, - Creative professionals of all sorts are already leaders whose values and skills can solve problems in the civic arena. - We need creativity champions in public life now! So: Get Ready, Get Set, Lead!
My most basic wish for the creative professionals and all change agents who desire a better world is... Stop complaining about government, stop petitioning the government and start BEING the government. Become a creativity champion at the local level. To paraphrase Mahatma Gandhi... BE the candidate you wish you could vote for. Since artists, cultural workers and creative professionals tend to be doers and makers... Stop watching history and start MAKING history. If not you, who? That's it.
3. WHAT IS CREATIVITY? I love creativity. I love to be creative. I love being immersed in creative activities and experiences. Why? I honestly don't know. Why do some people love to cook and some people love to play sports and some people love to garden? I suppose it's a combination of engaging one's talent and inner power and connecting to the world in a positive and action-filled way. Maybe I inherited this passion from my father, who was an entertainer and comedian in the Borscht Belt and my mother who was a teacher and who lived a dramatic life. Over the years I've evolved in my appreciation for creativity. From imaginative play as a child to college study as a teen to a career in the performing arts as a young adult to an organizer and producer of creative programs later in life to a sort of creativity champion - which is where I find myself now. Creativity is a slippery fish to define and measure. But I'll take a stab at it and borrow a definition from Chic Thompson, a consultant and author, who says creativity "is the ability to look at the same thing as everyone else 3 but to see something different." This definition focuses on the inner process of creativity - a person's ability to see and to imagine something in a new way. I like this definition as a starting place. Many people have had the experience of seeing something in a different light than others do or imagining something that is not there, but is suggested by what is. Stefan Manmaw and Wendy Lee Oldfield in Caffeine for the Creative Mind, offer a simple definition of the creative person. Do you make something? If you do then youre creative. Id add a distinction to this definition. You can be a creator if you make something in the physical world stuff, if you make something in the abstract world intellectual content, or if you make something in the social arena a movement, a community, a cause. Howard Gardner, the Harvard researcher who developed the theory of multiple intelligence theory adds an external component to the definition: "The creative individual is a person who regularly solves problems, fashions products, or defines new questions in a domain in a way that is initially considered novel but that 4 ultimately becomes accepted in a particular cultural setting." Gardner adds an action component to the definition - the idea that the imaginative act so lucidly described by Thompson is followed by a series of actions that make that idea real. Gardner also adds a sociological angle. The creative act is first seen by others as an outlaw action, beyond the norm of accepted behavior. The idea or product may seem outrageous at first and may make the creator a lonely person. But, time after time, we see that idea or creative product gain acceptance and become part of everyday usage. So creativity is the ability to see something that others don't and fashion a thing, product or experience that gives life to that new insight. It also implies a willingness to be different. To accept that, on occasion, when we create something, we may surprise, delight, inspire or even offend. We are all creative. It is the theme of this book that creativity is a vital driving force in the American experience and should become a driving force behind American politics. We need to maximize the opportunities for all our citizens to be as creative as they can be. Creativity is not a mysterious prize possessed by a few. Creativity is not a subject too vague to be discussed by the public. Creativity is a subject whose time has come for broad discussion and ownership. We are at the point in this discussion where discussion and understanding was about the environment 36+ years ago before the first Earth Day. After a generation of public action, education, litigation and the popularization of powerful visual metaphors such as the earth seen from space from Apollo 8 we can generally agree that most people can agree that there is a physical ecology. We now grasp the concept of a complex web
3 4
"What a Great Idea! Key Steps Creative People Take," HarperPerennial, Charles Chic Thompson, 1992, p.4. "Creating Minds An Anatomy of Creativity Seen Through the Lives of Freud, Einstein, Picasso, Stravinsky, Eliot, Graham and Gandhi," BasicBooks, Howard Gardner, 1993, p.35. America Needs You! Page 10 - 2008 Thomas Tresser
of physical relationships that bind us together even though the relationships are invisible. We can see the results of toxic spills and we understand the linking of players and causes that are not always contiguous. Looking at our place in nature, we agree that we are all part of the physical ecology and that our actions can help or harm it. No one stands outside of the environment. The same is becoming true for a large-scale examination and discussion of creativity in society. We are just at the beginning of this conversation and have quite a way to go to get to the same conceptual parity that the public has with regard to the physical ecology. But I can see a day when our grasp of the creative ecology will be as deep and we will all be able to agree with the observation that no one stands outside of the creative environment. Were going to need everyone to be as creative as they can be. Albert Einstein knew something about creativity and innovation. Have you heard one of his most repeated quotes? "Imagination is more important than knowledge." What could he have meant by that? He certainly knew a lot. But the scientist and theorist who turned physics upside down and inside out imagined much, much more... This celebrated quote comes from an interview Einstein did for the Saturday Evening Post, October 26, 1929. He said, "If I were not a physicist, I would probably be a musician. I often think in music. I live my daydreams in music. I see my life in terms of music...I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge in limited. Imagination encircles the world." Listen to Albert. Dream big dreams. Imagination comes before the great breakthroughs. Imagination knows no boundaries, no restrictions. Imagination comes before the next beautiful song that will make you weep or make you dance. Imagination comes before the next cure of an "incurable" disease. Imagination comes before the next breakthrough in creating world peace. We all have imagination. We can all dream and ask difficult, even impossible, questions. We can all look around and ask Why is it this way and why cant it be another way? Our collective imagination is more important that our collective knowledge. Our country and planet are facing so many intractable and life-threatening problems. Were going to need our collective creativity to invent our way out of those problems. Were going to need someone like you.
Maurice Cox, Mayor Designing a Better City from the Ground Up
Creative background
Maurice Cox is an architectural educator, urban designer and City Counselor for the City of Charlottesville. Since arriving at the University of Virginia in 1993 as an Assistant Professor of Architecture, he has coordinated the required undergraduate introductory design studio and has taught various graduate seminars focusing on community-based, collaborative processes of urban place making. In 1996 he co-founded the architectural practice of RBGC Architecture, Research and Urbanism. Civic activism and community service characterize all aspects of his teaching, professional practice and academic scholarship, and he is widely known as an advocate for citizen participation in the important planning decisions that affect a community's life.. He serves on the Charlottesville Housing and Redevelopment Authority as a transportation representative to the Metropolitan Planning Organization.
First Baptist Church design by Mr. Cox
First elected Why did you run?
Cost of election What he loved about the process
On creativity and politics
Lessons learned:
Charlottesville City Council in 1996, re-elected in 2000. Served as Mayor for two years. I was a area resident for three years and had become a neighborhood activist around issues like highways through parks and unchecked development. I tried to use normal venues to have a voice and I found myself often rebuffed. So I decided to become a public voice after working so hard without success from the outside. First race was part of a city-wide ticket with two other candidates, joint campaign was about $10,000. I ran as an architect and talked about a vision for sustainable growth, and talked to voters about the public transit system and people were incredible responsive. The process forced me to be plain and powerful in communicating. I had over 75 people involved in drafting my platform, which led to the formation of my own organization and helped develop new leaders with new energy. Creatives have incredible ability to paint visual images and bring a point of view that is refreshing and different to the process of governing. Creativity brings necessary friction to spark innovation. My presence on the city council forced other members to shift perspective. I spent a lot of time recruiting other designers to positions in city government where they could exercise influence. Maurice says: The most important thing I did was take the entire community through a planning process that led to a scrapping of the entire zoning rule book and created a new document based on mixed use. It took three years and led to ordinances that radically changed development in the city.
More information Contact
Tom says: Maurice used the skills of visioning, planning, drafting and convening charettes that he uses in teaching and professional practice to led Charlottesville to a more sustainable, creative and socially just built environment. Not bad for an amateur, first-time officer-holder. http://www.virginia.edu/uvatoday/newsRelease.php?id=2996 http://www.arch.virginia.edu/faculty/MauriceCox
4. CREATIVITY IS OUR HERITAGE Would you believe that creativity was present and necessary at the founding of the United States of America? Try reading this out loud: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. -- That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness." Pretty stirring. Those words, from the opening paragraphs of the Declaration of Independence, lay out some amazing principles and goals. When a group reads the first of these two paragraphs out loud, it's fascinating to hear what they say about how it felt to say the words and to hear them. "Inspiring" is usually the first feeling that is voiced. Others express anger that the sentiments of the Declaration haven't yet been fully realized and some feel hope that they can still make the words come true. "Sounds like poetry" one person commented. I believe the Declaration of Independence is poetry - or rather a piece of prose designed to be read out loud to inspire, persuade and activate. I can imagine the delegates to the Congress meeting in the stifling heat of the spring and summer of 1776 in Philadelphia. The experience has been movingly portrayed in the musical, "1776." My wife and I watch the film version of the Broadway play every Fourth of July. The labors of Thomas Jefferson to craft the document are amusingly portrayed and the piece even shows the editing process, with delegates objecting to key ideas and quibbling over words and phraseology. The movie ends as the play did with a re-enactment of the signing ceremony (which actually occurred after July 4) and the action freezes in the tableau immortalized in John Trumball's famous painting. The movie makes brings to life the arguments and emotions that swirled around the framing and composition of the Declaration of Independence. The event was highly emotional and loaded with political arguments, regional differences, the fervor of independence and the heady feeling of desperation and danger as armed conflict was already under way. What if the rag tag forces of the brash colonies were soundly defeated? What if Philadelphia, itself, was overrun by Royal forces? The founders were in grave danger at virtually every moment in the early stage of the War for Independence. The Declaration communicates the gravity, urgency and necessity for the break from Mother England. It brilliantly lays out the case for the colonies and indicts the King and his treatment of his blameless subjects, showing how the move for independence is justified and based on common sense. It bears repeating that was never done before in the history of nation making.
After laying out the argument and listing the grievances born by the Colonies, the Declaration ends with a paragraph whose first sentence is: "We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States..." Following the signing of the Declaration, copies were struck and rushed to the 13 colonies where they were read aloud in public assemblies up the down the land. In town squares, in public halls, in parks and churches the parchment was held by sturdy hands and read out loud in strong voices. Those voices bore the regional accents of a patch work nation peopled by immigrants from across Europe. But as the document was read and absorbed, something wonderful and unprecedented happened. "On July 8, the Declaration was read to the public in the Pennsylvania State House yard. One of the more ardent independence men, Christopher Marshall, told his diary: 'There were bonfires, ringing bells and other 5 great demonstrations of joy upon the unanimity of the Declaration." On July 19 the Declaration arrived in Boston, and Tom Crafts, a house painter, stepped out on a small square balcony in front of the Massachusetts State House and read it aloud. When he finished a voice rang out God save the American states, and the crowd cheered. Abigail Adams, who was among the crowd, wrote to John: 'The bells rang, the privateers fired the forts and batteries, the cannon were discharged, the platoons followed, and every face appeared joyfulAfter dinner the Kings Arms were taken down from the State House and every vestige of him from every place in which it appeared, and burntThus ends royal Authority in this Stateand all 6 the people shall say Amen.' Amen, indeed. To a 21st Century patriot, the words stir and resonate with a powerful logic and daring. I'd like to think that if I were present at one of those public readings so long ago, I would've thrown my hat in air, shouted "Huzzah!" and rushed home to throw out any remaining vestiges of the Royal authority. The Declaration was an audacious act of creativity. It was a brave act of political imagination. It was an act of treason. And conviction for treason meant confiscation of ones estate and death by hanging. Daring. Revolutionary. Treasonous. Writing the Declaration. Transmitting the Declaration. Listening to the Declaration. All were acts of treason. The point of the document, according to its principal author, Thomas Jefferson, was "intended to be an expression of the American mind and to give to that expression the proper tone and spirit it called for by that occasion." And so it did. It seems to me that the creation of the United States of America was a courageous act of collaborative creativity between the founding Fathers in Philadelphia and the crowds of excited citizens who first heard the Declaration read out loud in the weeks following July 4, 1776. But heres the odd thing. At the time of the Declaration, there was no such thing as a United States of America.
"Liberty! The American Revolution,"Viking, 1997, Thomas Fleming, p. 176.
Letter dated July 21, 1776 from Abigail Adams to John Adams, Massachusetts Historical Society, online collection of Adams Family Papers.
There was no such thing as the United States of America, that is, until the authors imagined it, declared it and their audiences acknowledged it. Until that moment peoples mental maps consisted of their own home state. People defined their points of origin as being from Maryland or Virginia or Massachusetts. After the Declaration, peoples mental maps expanded to encompass a nation. Language invented. Language united us. You could say those public readings were America's first national public political performance art. Perhaps the greatest series of political performances in our nation's history. Creativity was necessary in prodigious amounts for the founding of the United States of America. Creativity was present in 1776 when America's political imagination was stirred and united as thousands of citizens heard the Declaration read out loud for the first time and tens of thousands read it in the months following. John Adams affirmed this creative notion years later in an 1815 letter to Thomas Jefferson. He wrote, "The War was no part of the Revolution...It was only an effect and consequence of it. The Revolution was in the minds of the people, and this was effected...years before a drop of blood was drawn at Lexington." "The United States was the first nation in history to be consciously designed from scratch by the hand of man...it was wrestled out of the abstract realm of ideas by a process of argument and debate, shaped into articles and amendments on paper, then enacted through inaugurations, elections and legislation...Willed into being by Founding Fathers, who heeded Ben Franklin's call to 'Join, or die,' the U.S. and its Constitution are not finished 7 products or sacred scripture; they are works in progress, always capable of amendment and improvement." America is a "work in progress." That's a wonderful and rich metaphor that holds great energy and meaning for artists and creative professionals. It signifies that the work of art called America is a giant collaborative effort that is not done being made. America is not perfect but it is perfectible. The establishment of America was a creative act. The ongoing democratic dance that has unfolded since 1776 has been highly creative - liberating the talents of hundreds of millions and generating trillions of dollars in new economic exchange. We are, indeed, a work in progress, whose end state is not known and is limited only by our collective imagination. This is not to deny the blood that was spilled, ignore the rights that were denied, or excuse the special interests that were appeased. America's heritage can be seen in quite other lights than the ones I've chosen to kindle. Our record on the world stage is also suspect and open to criticism on any number of fronts. This book is about where America goes from this day forward. I'm imagining an America that celebrates and accelerates creativity and which conducts its internal and external affairs using the metaphors and metrics found in the arts and creative arenas. Toward that end, creative Americans, we need to claim creativity as a vital element of our American heritage.
The Making of America Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of a Nation, Introduction, Time Magazine, 2005.
5. CREATIVITY IS OUR PROMISE Creativity is not only a vital component of the American heritage, but it was and remains our promise to ourselves and to the world. In America its not supposed to matter who your daddy was. Or what you had for breakfast. Or who you sleep with. Whats supposed to matter in America is whats in your heart and whats in your head. You place the contents of your heart and head out in the open marketplace of ideas and everyone is free to poke around and try the items for fit and feel. If they like them, they buy them if they dont like them they move on to the next stall, so to speak. Thats why, according to the United Nations, some 38 million people who were not born here are living in the United States right now. We are, by far, the largest destination for immigrants from around the planet. Why? One word. Opportunity. You could say opportunity is just another form of creativity. Part of the creative madness that is the American dream is that you or I or the new arrival is free to re-invent ourselves without regard to lineage. A good idea is supposed to trump pedigree every time. My own grandparents came to the United States in the late 1890s. My fathers father arrived in New York City aboard the S.S. Pretoria in 1898. His profession was listed as musician. His son was raised on Manhattans Lower East Side and joined the Army and flew over 30 missions over occupied Europe as a member of the Eight Air Force. He became an entertainer and worked in the upstate New York Catskill Mountains for over 50 years. I followed in their footsteps for a while and was an actor and theater producer in New York and Chicago. But then our paths diverged an I became a political and community organizer with a grounding in the arts and cultural policy. Now I teach and do training in this field. Pretty crazy, right? But, then again, pretty typical. Thats the point. We dont know, for sure, who will produce the next killer app the technology field swoons about. We cant say for certain who will produce the next miracle cure for a supposedly incurable disease. We wonder where the next fashion or music sensation will come from who will uplift us, inspire us and move us to tears. We wait for the next social innovator who will motivate us, organize us and help us solve our own pressing problems. I can tell one thing with some certainty. Most likely, the innovators who will do these things WONT look like me a balding, somewhat over weight white male of maturing years. If our experience has taught us anything, it is this we all prosper and benefit by being open to the new ideas from new people who DO NOT look like us, worship like us and think like us. So creativity brings us the new, the unexpected, the different. It also bring us US.
6. THE POLITICAL ARGUMENT FOR CREATIVITY Creativity is as American as apple pie and as tasty. This is a book about the connections between American creativity and American politics. The basic premise is that creativity should be elevated to a national value and priority because the country's scientific, economic and democratic vitality depend on a flourishing and renewing American creative output. I've outlined the place that I feel creativity has in the history and heritage of the United States. This is a key premise in laying the groundwork for being a creativity champion. Artists and creative professionals will, therefore, make compelling and credible candidates whose successful creative resume can be translated into winning campaigns for local public office. To translate these insights into a political case that will fire up campaigns and turn out voters and win elections, we need to look at a few key components of a potential political strategy: the message and the numbers. The Message - Creativity is good for America. Creativity is part and parcel of the American heritage. - Creativity and democracy go hand in hand you first must imagine a better world before you can move to change the world to be better. - Creativity is a vital component of our economic well-being. - Creativity is required to solve pressing problems and creativity is the ANSWER to many of our pressing problems. - Over 38 million people work in the creative industries in the United States. - People the creative industries earn more than 50% of the wages earned by full-time workers in the United States. - The creative industries generate revenue in excess of $1 trillion in the United States. - Business groups, think tanks and government task forces have all declared that creativity and innovation should be top priorities of the United States. One group, the Council on Competitiveness, has issued a series of reports as part of a major study of innovation in America. Their report, Innovate America, starts out with this bold statement: Resolved: Innovation will be the single most important factor in determining Americas success st through the 21 Century. The top line message for creativity champions is that creativity fuels Americas progress and prosperity. Creativity champions who offer their own successful resumes as evidence of mastery of the create domain will be attractive candidates who offer an uplifting, positive vision for political engagement They will also offer a repertoire of creative approaches and solutions to pressing local problems. The Numbers If we start with Richard Florida's assertion that there are 38 million people working in the creative economy in America, we have to ask what percentage of them vote and more importantly, will they vote according to some creative class consciousness? As to the first question, hard as it to believe, I can't find any data on voter registration by profession. The only data I could find on voter participation among artists was from the 1998 study that reported 88% of artists
contacted claimed having voted in federal elections in the previous two years and 78% in state elections during 8 the same period. This is significantly higher than the national average. My own experience in working with artists and young creative professionals is that there is a high degree of nonregistration and non-participation in politics. Some creatives may be extensively involved in volunteer work and many participate sporadically in social change, protest and single-issue cause events. There is research that suggest that the more educated you are, the more likely to vote. The highest turnout for the 1996 Presidential election was from people who graduated college. 73% of them turned out to vote. In 2004, 9 80% of people with a bachelors degree or an advanced degree voted. So, if creative professionals are college graduates, they might be expected to vote at this high percentage. This logic is not ironclad, since many creatives may not hold a degree and those that do may exercise an independent streak not in line with this research. Still, 38 million people who make their living from creative efforts is a great place to start thinking about crafting a unifying message that speaks to their mastery of creativity and appreciation of the power of creativity to affect change and propel progress. Besides this large number of people who make a living from their creative efforts, there is a huge pool of Americans who pursue creative activities and hobbies with some regularity and passion. 81.2 million adults participate in some form of cultural activity annually with 62.9 million of those attending some sort of performing arts event. 50% of those attending performing arts events volunteer in some form for a charitable organization. So, reaching into America's arts and culture groups for donors and volunteers to support the campaigns of creative office-seekers seems like a very good idea. Money and people are the fuel of politics. If you can raise money and motivate people to participate, then you have major political assets. Whos Serving Now? There is a huge opportunity for creative professionals to bring their message of the importance of creativity in society to the electorate. There are virtually no artists and creative professionals serving at local level (the number is not zero, but so small as to be statistically insignificant). In 2004 there were 7,382 elected state representatives (State Representatives, State Senators). Men held 77.5% of these elected offices and women held 23%. In 2000 women made up 51% of the U.S. population. The average age of the elected state rep was 54 (the median U.S. age was 36). Whites made up 77%, AfricanAmericans were 8% and Latinos were 4% of elected state representatives. What did these representatives do before they were elected? The same question, for most of them, could also be phrased what are they doing now, while they serve? Most of the elected positions at the local level are part-time, allowing people to keep their regular jobs. Here is the occupational background, where the reps report what they do besides being a representative, since only a few states require reps to be full-time positions:
"The Artist as Citizen: After the Culture Wars," by Dr. Joan Jeffri of the Columbia University Research Center for Arts and Culture.
9
"The Struggle for Democracy," Edward Greenberg and Benjamin Page, Longman, 2008. Also Washington Past story on Census Bureau 2004 turnout report from May 26, 2005.
Attorneys Full-time legislators (PA, CA, NY, MA, IL?) Business owners Agriculture Retired Business managers/executives Educators/teachers/principals Business/non-managers Professionals/consultants Real estate Insurance Medical field College educators Local government employees Broadcasters (anchor people) Homemakers
Source: National Conference of State Legislatures.
17% 15 13 7 8 5 5 4 4 4 3 2 2 2 1.5 1
So roughly 6.5% (Educators, Broadcasters) might be said to have a creative professional background. Bump that up to 10.5% if you include the college educators and medical field. Zero percent of our state representatives and state senators come from the arts professions. Information on the background of people elected to city councils is a bit less detailed. According to the National League of Cities, in 2001 Whites made up 87% of elected city councils, African-Americans were 8% and Latinos were 3%. 13.3% were under 40 years of age and 31% were over 60 years of age. I can find no comparable data for county elected officials. The National School Boards Association has some sketchy data on the people who govern America's 14,890 school systems. Their 2002 research reports school board members were 85.5% white, 7.8% African-American and 3.8% Latino. Overall, the boards were 61.1% male. 93% of these boards were entirely elected positions. Women are vastly underrepresented in the federal and state judiciaries. Women hold 18% of the seats on the U.S. Court of Appeals, 17% of the seats on the U.S. District Court, 28% of the seats on the States Supreme Courts. It is safe to say that the field in local elections is wide open for creativity champions to introduce themselves and compete.
Dom Betro, President of $18 million social service agency, says As a City Councilman, I can make a difference, I can make things happen
Creative background
Cost of election
What he loved about the process
Lessons learned
Since 1985 President/CEO of Family Service Association of Western Riverside County, an $18 million social service agency that employs 450 people and which serves 55,000 people annually. Also Instructor of Management at the University of California, Riverside, since 1989. Elected to City Council, City of Riverside, California, in 2004. Defeated for re-election in 2007 by 7 votes. To make a difference on issues Ive worked on all my life - to impact policy and make it possible to deliver more quality services in the community. First campaign was a very tough race against an Assistant District Attorney (which in his area is usually an automatic win). Spent total of $150,000 (matching opponent), mostly from $100 and $200 gifts. Won by 43 votes in a run-off. I find it very natural to transfer my skills as a nonprofit executive to the political arena. I enjoy campaigning and its a challenge to develop the strategy and engage the voters. I love it. Its been a lot of fun. We need more people from this sector, whether it be arts and culture or human services, but with this strong community nonprofit experience, to get involved in electoral positions because it is certainly within our skill sets and we are well positioned to do this. I find it very natural to transfer my skills to this process. Dom says: To my creative peers you need to be bold, to take risks and be willing to take your knowledge and experience and help your communities and your government in new ways in elective office. Become a policy maker and impact the issues that are near dear to you should be perfectly consistent with the reasons why you got into this work in the first place. It should be a natural evolution of your talent and passion. Tom says: Dom was busy in his four years helping to guide the redevelopment of Riversides historic downtown, including a renovation of the 1928 Fox Theater into a performing arts center and developing a $1 million continuum of care comprehensive service plan to deal with homelessness after convincing the business community to take a holistic approach to this problem. Thats what can happen when you move from being an outsider begging the system to do the right thing to being a creative leader who can help make the right things happen. http://www.philanthropy.com/free/articles/v18/i13/13002201.htm http://www.betroforcouncil.com
7. CREATIVES AS CIVIC LEADERS Satisfied With the Current Lot? Are we getting excellent leadership from the people who currently hold elective office? Are you satisfied with how your local, regional and national elected officials are doing their jobs? Do you trust them? National polling says you dont think your elected officials are very trust worthy. Every year the Gallup Poll asks people to judge the ethical standards of various professions. People are asked to rate the honesty and ethical standards of members of a particular profession as being very high, high, average, low or very low. Only 9% of Americans say their Congressmen have very high or high standards. 20% say their local officeholders have very high or high honesty and ethical standards. At the bottom of this list are lobbyists and car salesmen, with only 5% ascribing very high/high standards to them. By the way, nurses score at the top of the Gallup honesty poll - with 83% of respondents believing nurse's honesty 10 and ethical standards are "high" or "very high." Grade-school teachers come in second, with 74%. Clearly, there's room for improvement in shoring up the public's faith in the honesty of their elected representatives. If our democracy is going to survive, it seems to me that we better start electing representatives that are effective and in whom we place our trust to act for the common good. I believe that creatives are seen to effective and trust worthy. Some of the most compelling and effective people Ive known are leaders of arts groups or community-based organizations. These people are already leaders in their respective fields. They get things done and have extensive local networks. I know that many artists and cultural leaders have high name recognition in their communities and for good reason. Having a well known name and a trusted local brand are two fundamentals for building a grassroots campaign for local office. How Do You Know a Great Leader When You See One? What sorts of qualities do our leaders need to have as we delve into the 21st Century? Let's look at what the best thinkers see as critical for both the commercial and civic arenas. The Center for Creative Leadership, based in Greensboro, North Carolina was founded in 1970 and is "an internationally recognized resource for understanding and expanding the leadership capabilities of individuals and organizations from across the public, private, nonprofit, government and education sectors." Their programs impacts "some 20,000 leaders and 3,000 organizations each year...across all sectors in our global society, serving more than two thirds of the Fortune 100; state, local, and national governments and government agencies; nonprofit organizations; and educational institutions and school systems." They've looked at leadership dynamic for over thirty years laid out their thinking in a 2003 report. "Complex challenges require richer and more complex ways of creating direction, alignment and commitment. The way people talk, think, and act together -- the culture of the organization along with its systems and structures -- are what need to become richer and more complex...At CCL we believe that making the leadership process more collective, pushing the process beyond one that depends primarily on individuals, enriches the process...Getting more people working together in more ways increases the likelihood that people who are able
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Lobbyists Debut at Bottom of Honesty and Ethics List, Gallup Online, December 10, 2007. America Needs You! Page 21 - 2008 Thomas Tresser
to make the needed changes themselves will become influential in the leadership process. We call this 11 connected leadership." Here are the three capabilities successful organizations will need to deploy and which leaders must develop, practice and reward: - Shared sense-making - Before problem-solving comes the process of discovering what needs to be solved and why. - Connection-making - Seeing and developing relationships inside an organization and linking it to new internal and external partners and seeing past pre-existing boundaries. - Navigation-making - How to journey into new territories and experiences being well-prepared yet nimble enough to learn, adapt, change and re-plot a course towards success. These conditions apply to leading communities and government not just to running corporations. Our communities are more complex, more connected and more fractious. I think these three key abilities described as needed to successfully navigate the new shoals of modern organizational problems are held by just about every creative professional Ive ever worked with. Creative people and working artists are all about sense-making. They are constantly exploring, learning and creating forums for sharing these explorations. Creative workers are often human hyper-links that connect new resources to new applications to new spaces. They routinely live at the boundaries of what is known and what is soon-to-be-known and are comfortable with ambiguity and the new. Artists also demonstrate nimbleness and flexibility and a high degree of resourcefulness as they make do with limited budgets, changing work situations, new materials and their own evolving interests. The Greenleaf Center for Servant-Leadership in Indianapolis was founded by retired A.T. & T. training executive Robert K. Greenleaf in 1968. He wrote a book in 1970, "The Servant as Leader," that has influenced a generation of writers and thinkers on leadership dynamics. His way of looking at leadership has come to be called as servant-leadership. Greenleaf described this way of leading: The servant-leader is servant first It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first. Then conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead. He or she is sharply different from the person who is leader first, perhaps because of the need to assuage an unusual power drive or to acquire material possessions. For such it will be a later choice to serve after leadership is established. The leader-first and the servant-first are two extreme types. Between them there are shadings and blends that are part of the infinite variety of human nature. The difference manifest itself in the care taken by the servant-first to make sure that other peoples highest priority needs are being served. The best test, and difficult to administer, is: do those served grow as persons; do they, while being served, become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become servants? And, what is the effect on the least privileged in society; will they benefit, or, at least, will they not be further deprived? I would add to that definition Do the served become more creative and have more opportunities to learn, collaborate and explore their creative talents individually and collectively? Here are the ten qualities that servant-leaders possess that allows them to lead effectively to solve the complex organizational challenges that our communities and business are facing: 1. Listening: Leaders have traditionally been valued for their communication and decision making skills. Although these are also important skills for the servant-leader, they need to be reinforced by a deep commitment to listening intently to others. The servant-leader seeks to identify the will of a group and helps to clarify that will. He or she listens receptively to what is being said and unsaid. Listening also encompasses
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"Leading Together: Complex Challenges Require a New Approach," Wilfred Drath, senior fellow and group director of the Leadership for Complex Challenges practice, p.6. America Needs You! Page 22 - 2008 Thomas Tresser
getting in touch with one's own inner voice. Listening, coupled with periods of reflection, are essential to the growth and well-being of the servant-leader. 2. Empathy: The servant-leader strives to understand and empathize with others. People need to be accepted and recognized for their special and unique spirits. One assumes the good intentions of co-workers and colleagues and does not reject them as people, even when one may be forced to refuse to accept certain behaviors or performance. The most successful servant-leaders are those who have become skilled empathetic listeners. 3. Healing: The healing of relationships is a powerful force for transformation and integration. One of the great strengths of servant-leadership is the potential for healing one's self and one's relationship to others. Many people have broken spirits and have suffered from a variety of emotional hurts. Although this is a part of being human, servant-leaders recognize that they have an opportunity to help make whole those with whom they come in contact. 4. Awareness: General awareness, and especially self-awareness, strengthens the servant-leader. Awareness helps one in understanding issues involving ethics, power and values. It lends itself to being able to view most situations from a more integrated, holistic position. As Greenleaf observed: "Awareness is not a giver of solace--it is just the opposite. It is a disturber and an awakener. Able leaders are usually sharply awake and reasonably disturbed. They are not seekers after solace. They have their own inner serenity." 5. Persuasion: Another characteristic of servant-leaders is a reliance on persuasion, rather than on one's positional authority, in making decisions within an organization. The servant-leader seeks to convince others, rather than coerce compliance. This particular element offers one of the clearest distinctions between the traditional authoritarian model and that of servant-leadership. The servant-leader is effective at building consensus within groups. 6. Conceptualization: Servant-leaders seek to nurture their abilities to dream great dreams. The ability to look at a problem or an organization from a conceptualizing perspective means that one must think beyond day-today realities. For many leaders, this is a characteristic that requires discipline and practice. The traditional leader is consumed by the need to achieve short-term operational goals. The leader who wishes to also be a servant-leader must stretch his or her thinking to encompass broader-based conceptual thinking. Servantleaders are called to seek a delicate balance between conceptual thinking and a day-to-day operational approach. 7. Foresight: Closely related to conceptualization, the ability to foresee the likely outcome of a situation is hard to define, but easier to identify. One knows foresight when one experiences it. Foresight is a characteristic that enables the servant-leader to understand the lessons from the past, the realities of the present, and the likely consequence of a decision for the future. It is also deeply rooted within the intuitive mind. Foresight remains a largely unexplored area in leadership studies, but one most deserving of careful attention. 8. Stewardship: Peter Block (author of Stewardship and The Empowered Manager) has defined stewardship as "holding something in trust for another." Robert Greenleaf's view of all institutions was one in which CEO's, staffs, and trustees all played significant roles in holding their institutions in trust for the greater good of society. Servant-leadership, like stewardship, assumes first and foremost a commitment to serving the needs of others. It also emphasizes the use of openness and persuasion, rather than control. 9. Commitment to the growth of people: Servant-leaders believe that people have an intrinsic value beyond their tangible contributions as workers. As such, the servant-leader is deeply committed to the growth of each and every individual within his or her organization. The servant-leader recognizes the tremendous responsibility to do everything in his or her power to nurture the personal and professional growth of employees and colleagues. In practice, this can include (but is not limited to) concrete actions such as making funds available for personal and professional development, taking a personal interest in the ideas and suggestions from everyone, encouraging worker involvement in decision making, and actively assisting laid-off employees to find other positions. 10.Building community: The servant-leader senses that much has been lost in recent human history as a result of the shift from local communities to large institutions as the primary shaper of human lives. This awareness causes the servant-leader to seek to identify some means for building community among those who
work within a given institution. Servant-leadership suggests that true community can be created among those 12 who work in businesses and other institutions. Reflect on what these leadership experts are telling us. Our leaders need a new mind-set and new skills in order to make sense out of the complexities modern life presents us. Leaders need new ways of organizing and motivating people as learners and problemsolvers in order to create successful outcomes - be it in business or civic life. Artists and creative workers have the values and tools outlined as requirements for 21 century leadership. I've seen these values and skills applied and played out in numerous situations in the performing arts, social change work, community development programming and grassroots organizing efforts. The creative class is a largely untapped source for civic leadership. But what, exactly, is it about artists and other creative professionals that make them excellent candidates for 21 century leadership? Here are the main skill sets that I believe creative professionals possess that answer the above check-list of leadership "must-haves."
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Cara Jennings, from feisty performing activist to city commissioner!
Creative background
Cara Jennings is a long-time environmental activist and an anarchist. She cofounded the Radical Cheerleaders. From their web site: Radical Cheerleading is Protest+Performance. It's activism with pom poms and middle fingers extended. It's screaming F*** CAPITALISM while doing a split. The Radical Cheerleaders started when once upon a time, two magical sisters from the land of Florida named Cara and Aimee decided that regular old protests on street corners holding signs and waving at oncoming traffic was just not RADICAL enough. They made pom-poms out of plastic bags and passed their cheers out in zine form. Soon enough, Radical Cheerleading spread like blue bonnet margarine on vegan biscuits. Squads are popping up at an alarmingly bad ass rate, from us here in Memphis, to Austin, New York, Atlanta, New Orleans
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On Character and Servant-Leadership: Ten Characteristics of Effective, Caring Leaders, Larry Spears, CEO of the Greenleaf Center. Richard Sweet is the only architect to serve in the U.S. Congress in the 20th century. He was elected to the House in 1990 and 1992 from New Hampshire. He was appointed Ambassador to Sweden by President Clinton in 1996. Mr. Swett is a fellow of The American Institute of Architects and a senior fellow of the Design Futures Council. Ambassador Sweet has thought long and creatively about leadership and the role of the creative professional in the life of the nation. So much so that he's written a book, "Leadership By Design: Creating an Architecture of Trust." I'm indebted to his insights on servantleadership published online by Design Intelligence online magazine at http://www.di.net/articles/archive/2357. America Needs You! Page 24 - 2008 Thomas Tresser
Cost of election
What she loved about the process
Great quote Lessons learned
City Commissioner, Lake Worth, Florida March, 2006, at age 29 I was active in the community for four years and was frustrated with decisions being made and I wanted to use the electoral process to bring new ideas to the table. Issues I was interested in included affordable housing, green practices for the city, curbing gentrification and getting government to benefit more people and getting more people to participate. Raised $5,000 for the first race, 100% from small donations. She had to participate in a run-off and raised another $4,000. Her opponent was a local developed who spent $35,000 on his race. Won the run off with 1,800 votes. I was really excited to go door to door and engage in conversation and tell my story. When you knock on doors people are gracious and appreciative of the fact that youve taken the time to listen. People from business use money to win, creative community can use creativity to win change. Creativity is an incredible tool that cant be underestimated as an asset when running for local office. It played out in my race and helped me win. Being in government is like chewing a piece of fat. You dont get very far very fast. Cara says: Im delivering the goods in non-traditional ways. Its more in what projects Ive voted down so far projects that I feel dont have popular support - than what Ive been able to propose. As a young person new to this job, Im spending a lot of time reading city documents, educating the other commissioners and getting a Green Planning Board to guide development. Tom says: If an anarchist radical cheerleader can get elected in a conservative state like Florida, despite being heavily outspent by a local developer, I think we can conclude that voters are perfectly willing to give a creative candidate with a sound platform a chance. In These Times article - http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2665/ http://www.lakeworth.org
Does This Sound Like You? (1) Passion and Persistence "What really counts is to strip the soul naked. Painting or poetry is made as we make love, a total embrace, prudence thrown to the wind, nothing held back." - Jean Miro A lot has been written in the last ten years about emotional intelligence. Heightened performance in the business setting and a more balanced life are two of the results of a person's mastery of the non-rational or noncognitive aspects of knowing. Creative people have always lived in a place where the senses and emotions were not second class citizens. Perhaps unfairly, artists have been labeled as unbalanced or anti-social and there is a romantic notion of the "starving artist" living in the garret and seeking alienation. Creative people are more "emotion-centric" or in touch with their emotional intelligence then most people. I hate making such sweeping generalizations, but it seems to me that creatives are more at home with and around emotion.
Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi has written extensively about the mental state he calls "flow," the experience of doing something fully and enjoyably - not necessarily for money or professional goals - but because the experience, itself is rewarding. He identified nine aspects of Flow: - There are clear goals every step of the way - There is immediate feedback to one's actions - There is a balance between challenge and skills - Action and awareness are merged - Distractions are excluded from consciousness - There is no worry of failure - Self-consciousness disappears - The sense of time becomes distorted 13 - The activity becomes an end in itself I've seen creatives in the Flow - I've experienced myself occasionally. People who can enter this state easily get stuff done and they often do so in innovative and resourceful ways. One of the leadership attributes that creatives possess, therefore, is a burning passion to create and when they are involved in the creative process, the clock and calendar become meaningless. This passion or drive makes creatives sometimes seem single-minded or oblivious to the rest of the world. But this passion also makes the creative person hard to stop when she gets going and inspires others to join along. This is a very useful trait in a public leader. Related to this state of being and doing is a feeling of optimism. I don't mean that creative professionals are universally optimistic or that the work they produce is always cheery or Pollyannaish. But I do think that to engage in the creative act, regardless of the subject matter or form taken, is essentially an act of optimism. To create is to hope. To have hope is often irrational but it powers so much of what is valuable and worth cherishing in the world. (2) Out-Of-The-Box Thinking/Outrageous Question-Asking "Dare to be naive" - R. Buckminster Fuller Can you think of the last time someone told you "You can't do that. That's impossible!" Or have you been told, "We've never done that before here - that won't work here." Have you been discouraged from trying something or some avenue of investigation at work? Have you been told "We don't have the money to do that" when trying to solve a problem? Has being told "that's impossible" stopped you from doing the "impossible"? If you can recall a few instances of this, then I submit you have an extraordinary attribute of leadership. Somehow you did the "impossible." You marshaled the available resources, got people to help, rolled up your sleeves, found new resources and plunged ahead. You may not have succeeded 100% of the time, but you probably succeeded in doing the "impossible" more often than not. This ability to challenge old assumptions, to ask new and provocative questions and to take an unorthodox approach to problem-solving, is a persistent feature of the creative person. You don't care that it hasn't been done or it looks hopeless or your idea seems "off the wall" and "out of the box." Sometimes. I'm sure, you're not sure where you get the ideas you get - where you get the perspective on a problem that has escaped everyone else. But you do see around the corner and see connections that others miss. You may respect tradition and the lessons passed on by previous masters or experts, but you're not afraid to try something new, unprecedented and not found in the rule book. There is a brashness about the creative American -- maybe because we don't have that long a collective history and because we all came from different countries and bring a polyglot mishmash of traditions to the public square.
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"Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention," Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, HarpersCollins, 1996, p.111113. America Needs You! Page 26 - 2008 Thomas Tresser
Consider the application of creative thinking to civic issues. It's not that aren't thoughtful and learned experts at work in the public policy arena already. We certainly have an enormous number of think tanks, lobbyists and citizen groups on any given issue. But our governing class are mostly cut from the same cloth. There's plenty of room in local government for divergent thinkers and creatives who approach problem solving in a holistic and artistic manner. Remember what Einstein said about the need for new thinking: We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them. (3) Empathy and Easy Inclusion "Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes)" - Walt Whitman Creatives are extremely empathetic. "Empathy" is defined as "the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present without having the feelings, thoughts, and experience fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner." Creatives routinely take the viewpoint of the Other. They can put themselves in another person's shoes and see the world from their viewpoint. They do this when they write, when they act, when they create a new product, prepare a lesson plan, plan a special event. "What does it feel like to be another person?" is a question they regularly grapple with. This activity is part of their research as they prepare for role to play, or part of the research when preparing a marketing plan. If you ask an actor, "Is it possible to hate the character you're playing -- even if the character is unsympathetic?" The answer is "No." You must always find something to like, something to champion, in every character you play as a performer. This method of working -- preparing for a performance -- is just one way that creatives employ intentional empathy as part of their routine. Closely aligned to the quality of empathy is inclusion. Perhaps this is because creatives live a bit outside of the norm or have felt themselves outsiders, or perhaps creatives see the value in the unusual. I maintain that creatives tend to be more open to difference. I'm not saying that no creative professional is guilty of prejudice or bigotry. I'm saying that, as a class of people, creative professionals are more open to difference than most people. It's part of their operating system. Not just open to it they seek it and value it. This aspect of the creative persona is extremely important when we're looking at civic leadership. Since America is becoming increasingly non-white and since we're operating in a global economy, understanding and respect for difference is simply a "must-have" for civic leaders. In Chicago non-whites are already a majority. According to the 2000 Census, whites comprise 42% of the city's population. According to recent census reports, Texas became the fourth state where "minorities" are the majority of the population. Texas joined California, New Mexico and Hawaii with majority-minority populations. Five other states are close behind in this measure, with Maryland, Mississippi, Georgia, New York and Arizona all having 40% minority populations. At this rate America will be more than half minorities by 2050. Sort of makes the term "minority" out dated, doesn't it? If you add the fact that every company faces competition from players around the globe and add the importance of the growing economies of Brazil, India and China, then you have a public imperative to think outside of the "old white man" box. Earlier I asked rhetorically if it was possible to predict who the next Steve Jobs would be or where the next Jonas Salk would come from. I doubt very much that he will look like me or come from my neighborhood. I doubt very much if "he" will be a "he." Being open. Being willing to accept the new and different. Being not just tolerant, but eager to accommodate difference is now an absolutely vital mindset for leadership. 4. Truth Seeking/Truth Telling
"The experience of doing anything well -- from the minor scale to the Hammerklavier Sonata -- is an irreplaceable event of the spirit." - Robert Crudin Creatives are explorers and investigators seeking what is true and constantly asking questions. Not that anyone can claim to have actually found the fount of all truth - but rather much of our creative work is aimed at discovering and uncovering truth. Creatives are concerned with being authentic, with trying to separate what they believe to be true from trends, fads and outright lies that we being fed to us through so many channels. This is a very important distinction for civic leadership. Americans feel that theyre being lied to on a daily basis. They feel their government is lying to them -- meaning elected representatives and the spokespeople for the executive branch. They feel that the advertising and marketing messages theyre being inundated with are lies and attempts to manipulate. And increasingly, people feel that the news media is lying - or at best incompetent to tell me truth about what business and government has been up to. I recall reading "Teaching as a Subversive Activity" by Neil Postman and Charles Weingartner over 35 years ago. They recalled an interview that Ernest Hemingway gave in the 1950's where he was asked about how he prepared and worked as a writer. He said that writer's needed a bullshit detector. That, in a nutshell, Postman and Weingartner, affirmed , was what education should give all students -- a built in BS detector. In other words, to have critical thinking skills and be able to distinguish truth from lies in public life. I loved that image and it's stayed with me through the years. I researched the original interview where Hemingway made the statement. "A writer without a sense of justice and injustice would be better off editing the Year Book of a school for exceptional children than writing novels," Papa told George Plimpton in an interview from the Spring 1958 issue of the Paris Review. "The most essential gift for a good writer is a built-in, shock-proof, shit detector. This is the writer's radar and all great writers have had it." (p. 88) Isn't that a great way to sum up the import of a well rounded education? To be able to tell when you are being lied to. To be able to sort out the special interests and come to a reasonable conclusion about who's got what ax to grind when you're told something. To be able to detect the smell of double-dealing, lies and hypocrisy - that should be the hallmark of a great education. I love that sentiment. Is your BS detector sounding shrilly day and night? Does the parade of drivel that passes for news make you grind your teeth? When you hear public officials speak in platitudes and opaque bland-isms, do you want to laugh? When you read of another U.S. corporation paying a billion dollar fine for sleazy or illegal practices but admitting no wrong, do you want to scream? If so, then we need you to apply your imagination to new ways to explain, to reveal, to question and to report on what government is, isn't and should be doing. 5. Intrinsic Worth Valued My feeling that the concept of creativeness and the concept of the healthy, self-actualizing, fully human person seems to be coming closer and closer together, and may perhaps turn out to be the same thing. Abraham Maslow Should the profit motive drive decisions of government regulation and public policy? Should government operate like the private sector? What, exactly, should be the main mission of government to simply get out of the way of business, to provide opportunity to all citizens, to take an active role in shaping a citys or nations future? It seems that the current school of thought tips the argument in favor of government getting out of the way of private enterprise and not to think big thoughts or try to fix any persistent social problem. How do you think thats working so far? One of the features of creative work is that, for many, it is its own reward. Sure, many of us hope to earn a living from our creative work. But making money is not what drives the creative process. There is an intrinsic value to making and experiencing creative work. Sometimes this is deemed impractical and irresponsible. It might seem that way to people who are extremely practical and see things in a linear or cut-and-dry perspective. But arent the best and most precious things in life beyond price? What is the value of a laughing baby or a questioning
mind or a beautiful park? If public policy is only formulated according to profit and loss statements or a mindset driven by corporate logic, we could abdicate our social and environmental stewardship and loose long term benefits for the many in favor of short term gains for the few. It seems to me that we need leaders who can balance the overwhelming drive to create short-term profit against the harm to the planet and the body politic. It would be wise to have some leaders who can envision, give voice to and champion some notion of the commonwealth and the greater good. Artists and creatives do this all the time and could bring this mindset to the public sector. 6. Creative Maker/Creative Do-er "There ain't no rules here! We're trying to accomplish something!" - Attributed to Thomas Edison upon being 14 asked by a new worker at Menlo Park where the lab rules were posted. Creatives create stuff. They have the ability to take an empty page, empty canvas, or empty space and rearrange, apply and build - and the result is something. This something is often provocative, beautiful, thoughtful, inspiring and perplexing. But before the assembling and applying can begin, they first have a vision or inspiration which fires up your creative work. Even if the assignment is a business problem or engineering application - the creative ideation comes first. When I was a volunteer organizer for the Industrial Areas Foundation Chicago organizing effort in the mid 1990's, I attended their basic training session. The IAF was founded in 1940 by Chicago organizing pioneer Saul Alinsky and believes in bringing citizens together across traditional boundaries of race, religion and geography. They believe in building lasting organizations whose members are other organizations -- houses of worship, neighborhood groups and unions. The common work undertaken by these powerful meta-organizations is aimed at winning real improvements in working people's lives AND altering the relationships of civic power in the region where the work takes place. During the evening training session the trainer was explaining the process by which organizers seek to engage a community and move toward common action. "Imagination precedes implementation" he said. As I understood the maxim, an organizer has to be able to make real and vivid in the minds of the community not just the threat but some better vision of the future where the threat has been removed and something better has been instigated. Paraphrasing all these years later, I describe this process in this way: You cant move towards a better vision of the world without a vision that moves you. To do otherwise is purposeless reaction and is likely to take your organizing effort in an unpredictable and undesirable direction. When I heard the trainer use that phrase, It struck me immediately that this process is a fair description of what an artist does on a daily basis. The ability to see some image or vision - even if it's imperfect - and to move purposefully, organizing your energy and materials at hand to bring that vision into reality. I'm engaging in this process right now. I've been thinking and working on the issue of creativity and civic engagement for 17 years. It's been a very long work-in-progress, much of it improvised and done in front of a live audience. But it's also a product of reflection, reading, interacting, interviewing, failed actions and reviews of current events. This book is based on a presentation I started doing in 2004, which I now call "The Politics of Creativity - A Call to Service." I've been experimenting with blending entertainment, performance, inspiration and training on and off since I produced an evening of political performance and political speeches at Club Lower Links in 1991. I hope to further experiment with the form this publication takes - turning it into a webbased document, adding collaborative blog-like features to each chapter, and perhaps turning it into a performance. Creative professionals get creativity and see that it's an essential ingredient in problem solving, community building and democratic practice. They can help explain this under valued and misunderstood dynamic to the general public and they can help everyone exercise and apply their creative abilities toward the common good.
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"At Work With Thomas Edison," Blaine McCormick, Entrepreneur Press, 2001, p. 108. Creativity quotes in italics are from "Creators on Creating - Awakening and Cultivating the Imaginative Mind," edited by Frank Barron, Alfonso Montuori & Anthea Barron,Tarcher Penguin, 1997. America Needs You! Page 29 - 2008 Thomas Tresser
The main point is -- creatives create and that is no small thing. America needs more imagination applied to her civic problems in order to show new paths to solutions. You can do this. We need you to do this. 7. Sharing, Collaborating, Ensemble Building "It takes a village to survive" - Isabel Allende Creative professionals are used to working in a team environment. In fact, although creativity resides in a person and is expressed by a person's actions, it's often the fact that creativity is often the result of a context. For many creatives, creativity takes place as a social transaction - producing creative work as a reaction to a shared experience with inputs from others. Theater and dance performers routinely work in an ensemble setting where the group must quickly assimilate the combined talents of the whole to produce a seamless product. Marketing and product development managers work in teams. Advertising creatives work in high-pressure team environments. Artists who work in community settings frequently are called on to manage groups of community residents or teens and combine team-building with arts skills training. Think of the process of preparing a play for production. On the first day of rehearsal a group of (usually) strangers meet for the first time. They are introduced to a creative management team led by the director and are given their scripts - the common text that will bind them for the next few weeks of rehearsal. The director has a vision for bringing the script to life and works with her production team of designers to realize that vision. She guides the actors to meld their particular personalities. talents and perspectives on their own characters to tell a seamless story that begins when curtain goes up on opening night. Actors may try things in the rehearsal process that express their characters in relationship to the other characters and the given dialog and situation. An actor may have a theory about why his character is doing a certain thing and what he wants to achieve in the scene. A director may give an actor feedback during the rehearsal and ask the actor to try playing the scene differently, with a different motivation or tact. If the director feels that something an actor has done is not serving the play - if that action is out of place - the director might also give the actor feedback at the end of rehearsal as she delivers her notes. All the actors hear all the notes and each actor acknowledges the note and is expected to absorb and act on that note. This process is repeated over and over again as the actors work with one another in rehearsal and on their own. Directors have many techniques to get the performances they feel are required for the play. Some have group exercises that the company does at various points in the rehearsal process. Some ask the actors to do different sorts of research - sometimes by reading, sometimes by going somewhere and observing. As a performer I've received hundreds of such notes and benefited from the feedback loop a good rehearsal process provides. You learn to submerge your ego and "take the note" and do your best to follow the director's guidance even if you feel strongly that your approach to the character was right. In a few short weeks the group of strangers transforms into an ensemble whose work product is a (hopefully) smashing production that will flow effortless and will excite and engage the audience. This process of team building goes in varying flavors all across the creative landscape. Take the jazz ensemble. Jazz is a wonderful way of talking about democracy in America. The way a jazz group interacts is extremely relevant for the conduct of business and civics. There was a marvelous symposium at Lincoln Center in December of 2003 called "Jazz and American Democracy" hosted by Jazz at Lincoln Center Artistic Director Wynton Marailis, moderated by PBS' Charlie Rose and featuring the 42nd President of the United States, William Jefferson Clinton. The President had this to say about the connection of jazz to the American experience: "You find a lot of parallels in the way America developed in other ways. Jazz is about creativity within a certain order. It's sort of made for a people that are creative and entrepreneurial. It also gave black people a little way to be free and escape from the boxes they were in, which was an extra added benefit, and it gave white people a way to get out of a lot of their stereotypes, if they had enough musical ability and rhythm to get into the act... And I think there is something about freedom and jazz that work together. I mean, it's no accident that jazz was important in the Czech Revolution.... Cornell University historian, Michael Kammen, commented: "Let me [say] something about parallels between jazz and democracy. .Within jazz, there has to be room for improvisation, but within a structure. We've all heard that a million times. But there are these wonderful quotations from performers who played, for example, with Jelly Roll Morton, who say that "he wanted each of us to have our solos, he encouraged us to improvise, but he
was always there as composer, as arranger, and if we ran out of ideas he would play some little tune on the piano and that would inspire us to come up with improvisations." So the notion of individualism within structure is terribly important to jazz, and it's also very important to democracy. A story that goes back to Alexis de Tocqueville, in the most famous commentary ever written about democracy in America, "Democracy in America," where he pointed out that Americans are immensely proud of their individualism, but also they are a nation of organizers -- they like to belong to something." Farah Jasmine Griffin, Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia made this observation: "Jazz also teaches us that - that it is a form that is about conversation and dialogue, and as a part of that conversation and dialogue there is also a place for dissension. Dissension is available for you there, and it's not dissension in a way that is about destroying, but it is a dissension that is about creating. So you think of an example like...the most famous one is probably the break between swing and bebop. People think about that all the time as a dissenting moment. But it's not a moment of the absolute rejection of everything that came before. It's a moment of building on what came before. Right? That you can't move forward without that kind of dissent. Traditions can't move forward. Our nation can't move forward. We can't move forward. So it's maybe creating a new mythology, but always understanding the one that we bring with us. Right? The history that we bring with us." We need a healthy dose of ensemble building in politics and civic affairs. Creative professionals would bring this skill set to facilitate the bringing of diverse groups together in order to solve pressing problems. The jazz of democracy. Sweet. Creativity champions would help make our democracy swing, groove and evolve! These seven qualities are a short list of the qualities I believe artists, creative professionals and change agents possess. We should be about finding new ways to enter public service and start applying these abilities to doing the public's work. To simplify this menu of creative civic mindsets and skills, use this short cut: P. O. E. T. I. C. S. P = Passion and Persistence to succeed O = Out of the frame thinking, Outrageous question asking E = Empathy, Eager to see the world through anothers Eyes T = Truth seeking, Truth telling I = Intrinsic value recognized and sought C = Creative, maker, doer S = Sharing, collaboration, ensemble building
Guy Padgett, Very much at home: a gay mayor in Wyoming
Creative background
First elected
Why did you run?
Cost of election
Lessons learned
Was Executive Director of the Wyoming Symphony Orchestra at time of first election, and former staff member at an art museum. In spare time plays Xbox Simpsons Road Rage and reads diplomatic histories of Renaissance-era Italian nation-states. He was trained as a graphic designer. Elected to City Council, Casper, Wyoming in 2002 and re-elected in 2006, now serving until 2010. Elected to mayor by unanimous vote by fellow council members in November 2005. At 27, was youngest mayor of Casper, and first openly gay. Wyoming is an aging state. An ongoing joke here is that our biggest export is young people. I ran to show young people a different way that we really care about young people. Its important that everyone feels that can participate, that they do participate. Spent $3,000 for his first race and got 58% in the general election. Used friends and family to do a door-to-door campaign. Considers that an average-to-low amount for Casper campaigns. I believe people should be judged by their character and not by any one characteristic. Ive found that to be true in Casper. My getting elected had nothing to do with my sexuality. Its about bus systems, its about fixing roads and serving the community. I designed and produced my own campaign flyers and mailing pieces. I couldnt afford to hire an outside designer. One of the biggest things in running a campaign is the way you communicate your message. The skills I had from making a case in grant wiring communicating simply and in a compelling manner was very relevant. Also the ability to present data in a way that speaks to the heart as well as to the mind was key in building coalitions and persuading people. Guy says: For America to truly function we need to put aside our differences to come together. That makes us stronger as a country. When we close ourselves off to ideas, to people, to philosophies then we cut ourselves off from solutions and potential benefits. Tom says: Casper is the home town of Matthew Sheppard, a classmate of Padgetts who was murdered in nearby Laramie in 1998. A major building in Casper and a football field are named after another native son, Dick Cheney. So I think its a huge deal that a young man who is openly gay and highly motivated by a desire to serve the community was twice elected to local office. In a time when many politicians lead by dividing people and fermenting hatred, it is a tonic and restorative for American democracy to see such a creative person win local election. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/16/national/16casper.html http://www.casperwy.gov/content/council/members.asp
8. GET READY, GET SET, LEAD! Study What to Do What? In 1780 John Adams was serving as U.S. Envoy to France and the Netherlands. With America at war Adams found himself thousands of miles from the fight, from his home and his beloved wife, Abigail. On May 12 he wrote her from Paris: "My dear Portia - To take a Walk in the Gardens of the Palace of the Tuilleries, and describe the Statues there, all in marble, in which the ancient Divinities and Heroes are represented with exquisite Art, would be a very pleasant Amusement, and instructive Entertainment, improving in History, Mythology, Poetry, as well as in Statuary. Another Walk in the Gardens of Versailles, would be usefull and agreable. But to observe these Objects with Taste and describe them so as to be understood, would require more time and thought than I can possibly Spare. It is not indeed the fine Arts, which our Country requires. The Usefull, the mechanic Arts, are those which We have occasion for in a young Country, as yet simple and not far advanced in Luxury, altho perhaps much too far for her Age and Character. I could fill Volumes with Descriptions of Temples and Palaces, Paintings, Sculptures, Tapestry, Porcelaine, &c. &c. &c. -if I could have time. But I could not do this without neglecting my duty. The Science of Government it is my Duty to study, more than all other Sciences: the Art of Legislation and Administration and Negotiation, ought to take Place, indeed to exclude in a manner all other Arts. I must study Politicks and War that my sons may have liberty to study Mathematicks and Philosophy. My sons ought to study Mathematicks and Philosophy, Geography, natural History, Naval Architecture, navigation, Commerce and Agriculture, in order to give their Children a right to study Painting, Poetry, Musick, Architecture, Statuary, Tapestry and Porcelaine."15 Can you picture this lone American Revolutionary sight-seeing in 18th Century Paris? His job is to secure support and funds for the struggling American cause and he's taken some time to take in the magnificent sights of the royal capital. He'd love to linger. He'd love to go on at length in the letter to describe these sights. But his awe at the trappings of Paris is tempered by his steely practical and somewhat pedantic nature. His conflict produced an observation and pronouncement that has become enshrined as one of the great quotes of a great man that gets repeated over the years out of context and devoid of commentary. He says that as admirable as these "Objects" are, they are not the stuff of young America - not yet, anyway. "The Usefull, the mechanic Arts, are those which We have occasion for in a young Country." These are the items that America needs to study and practice. As for his own priorities. He appreciates the sights and could easily devote time to taking in "Temples and Palaces, Paintings, Sculptures, Tapestry, Porcelaine, &c. &c. &c" But that's not his mission or his inclination. Where he is right now - where America is - leads him to say "But I could not do this without neglecting my duty. The Science of Government it is my Duty to study, more than all other Studies Sciences: the Art of Legislation and Administration and Negotiation, ought to take Place, indeed to exclude in a manner all other Arts." But this sacrifice - and it is a sacrifice - is not meant to be for all time. The reason for the fight for independence, the reason for the suffering and conflict is to advance to a time absent of conflict and war. At some future time we can return to the gardens and sculptures and spend the time in making these items, contemplating them and writing about them. In the final paragraph he starts out this famous pronouncement by writing "that my sons have the liberty to study Painting and Poetry, Mathematics and Philosophy." But he crossed out "Painting and Poetry" and gave that as the birthright of his grandchildren. His final paragraph has come down in modern texts as the oft quoted: I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain. In his view, the first generation commences the struggle and sets the machine of governance in motion imperfect and ill-equipped. The second generation perfects the infrastructure by mapping the known world and exploiting it. If all goes well the third generation will reap the benefits of this work by living in a peaceful world of
15
Massachusetts Historical Society online archives, letter from John Adams to Abigail Adams, May 12, 1780. America Needs You! Page 33 - 2008 Thomas Tresser
abundance with enough time to devote to the arts - to subject matters that are not related to conquest, trade or practical necessities. This thoughtful and far-seeing sentiment expressed his own sense of purpose and hoped-for end state for the American Revolution. But it also makes an assumption about the artist or creative person that suggests that that person is unengaged with politics, struggle and social movement. I'd like to suggest a new reading of this famous quote. In fact, I'd like to flip it completely on its head.
Study to be a creative professional so that you may engage in politics and champion creativity, prevent war, and work to creatively engage our fellow citizens in the life of the American commonwealth.
In other words, start at the end of John Adams' professional evolutionary chain. As an artist or creative professional, you have a set of values and skills that America needs in her political arena. Rather than disengaging from current affairs and the mechanics of government, we need you to actively engage in those activities. And we need you to do so in order to avoid future conflicts that would tear America apart as well spread conflict abroad. Perhaps Mr. Adams assumed artists and creative professionals wouldn't want to engage in this way. If that were the case, he need to have only looked at his fellow delegate to the Continental Congress, Benjamin Franklin. Mr. Franklin was a key leader in the move to draft the Declaration of Independence and later, the U.S. Constitution. He is my model for a exemplary creative citizen. He was a writer, an entrepreneur, an inventor, a humorist, an organizer, a politician, a diplomat and finally a philanthropist. He often created pioneering forms or organizations to carry on work in every one of those efforts. In fact, might we imagine a time when creativity becomes the dominant metaphor to describe civic and commercial success. Images, terms and the creative mindset could replace the images and mindsets attached to sports and war which are the current metaphors that we use to describe so much group activity in America. Let us all strive to fire up our creative engines on as many cylinders as the formidable Dr. Franklin. In the meantime, creative activists can engage in public work in a number of ways. We can start taking small steps and work our way up the creative civics menu of action. A Menu of Creative Civics I'd like to offer up a menu of civic participation activities that creative professionals might try. (1) VOTE Here's an interesting factoid. For all the energy and anger expended around the 2004 Presidential election, in the end, only 2 million plus votes separated the winner and loser. However, Almost 79.3 million people who COULD'VE voted chose not to. The number of people who did not participate in the election was almost 40 times the number of voters who gave the President his re-election victory. Only 61% of all citizens who could vote in 2004 did so. The story of getting and keeping the right to vote is a long and dramatic one and is at the heart of America's ever evolving democratic promise. If people need a reason to vote, perhaps we in the creative fields can help tell that story anew. But first we have to be registered to vote and we need to vote. Every time. Every election. A bit of good news in this pitiful story of American civic apathy is the rise in the numbers of young people who are voting. Nearly five million more young adults voted in 2004 than had voted in 2000. 51% of eligible voters aged 18 to 29 voted in 2004, up from 42% in 2000. That still leaves plenty of room for improvement. So please, register to vote.
(2) REGISTER OTHERS TO VOTE It's fairly easy to become a Deputy Registrar and then you can register others to vote anywhere, any time. Each jurisdiction does this a bit differently and the rules for taking registrations close to an election also vary. In Chicago you have to be registered 30 days before the election in question in order to be able to cast a vote in that election. A Deputy Registrar can register people to vote at arts fairs, in front of the supermarket, at festivals and just about every place else except within one hundred feet of a bar or where liquor is dispensed. All voter registration work is non-partisan and you can't wear a "Vote for Jones" button or have any campaign literature displayed. Setting up a voter registration campaign is a wonderful civic project and can involve many people. Producing materials for the campaign that advertise it and give reasons to vote is a great creative assignment.
TRY THIS!
Set up a voter registration table in the lobby of your arts space. But do it in coordination with other cultural organizations in your area on a set weekend. Announce it in the press and in your messaging to audiences/subscribers. If you run a creative organization, try designating an employee to be a deputy registrar and offer to register employees, cast members, visiting artists, etc. You can also do voter registration at farmer's markets, art fairs, music festivals, clubs (outside) and gallery walks. The organization, Declare Yourself, has a lot of great ideas on this (www.declareyourself.org).
(3) BECOME AN ELECTION JUDGE There was massive voter fraud and disenfranchisement in the 2000 and 2004 elections. Every election in every city needs trained election judges to ensure that the precious right to vote is not striped from citizens by political operatives or fraud committed to give candidates fictional votes. In many cities you actually get paid for this work. In 31 states citizens UNDER the age of 18 can serve as election-day workers. Here's a brief description of the duties of election judges from the United Nations sponsored Administration and Cost of Elections Project. The National Association of Secretaries of State's website (www.nass.org) has links to state election offices. But you can just call your local board of elections to get the scoop on becoming an election day judge.
TRY THIS!
Visit the New Voters Project website at http://www.newvotersproject.org/home. (4) LEAD LOCAL COMMUNITY IMPROVEMENT EFFORTS Try joining your PTA, block club, neighborhood improvement association, chamber of commerce, young professionals network, or Sierra Club. If you belong to a church, temple or mosque, join their social action committee and help engage in community problem-solving. Lead by example. Bring your creativity and problemsolving skills to the table.
TRY THIS!
Many large cities have a civic leadership acceleration program that places up-and-coming leaders from different backgrounds together for a year of learning and fellowship. You need to apply and its usually pretty competitive. In Chicago the program is called Leadership Greater Chicago and I was a member of the Class of 1990 when I was the Managing Director at Pegasus Players Theater. I met some wonderful people from the business and government arenas and learned up close and personal about many issues confronting the region. The Community Leadership Association (http://www.communityleadership.org) can tell you if there's a similar program near you. (5) PUSH CREATIVITY AND PUBLIC POLICY RESEARCH If you're academically inclined or have a relationship with a school or foundation, start a think tank dedicated to creativity and public policy. Conducting research, doing field work, teaching and broadly exploring the intersections of civic life and creativity will broaden our understanding of the creative ecology. This sort of work has direct impact on political discourse, agenda setting and budget priorities. We measure what matters. The
same might be said for policy. We research what matters and we publish studies and policy papers on what matters. I teach a number of classes that connect the arts, creativity, policy and civic engagement, such as The Politics of Creativity, The Artist As Activist, Creative Tools for Social Change, and International Creativity Policy.
TRY THIS!
There are a number of cultural policy programs operating at universities around the country: - Columbia University, New York Research Center for Arts & Culture - http://www.tc.columbia.edu/centers/rcac - University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia Social Impact of the Arts Program - http://www.sp2.upenn.edu/SIAP Americans for the Arts, Washington, DC http://www.artsusa.org/information_services/research/institute_community_development/default.asp - Princeton University, New Jersey Center for Cultural Policy Studies - http://www.princeton.edu/~artspol - Ohio State University, Columbus- Program on Arts Policy & Administration - http://arted.osu.edu/APA/index.php University of Chicago, Illinois Cultural Policy Center - http://culturalpolicy.uchicago.edu - University of Wisconsin, Madison Bolz Center for Arts Administration - http://www.bolzcenter.org - Vanderbilt University, Tennessee - The Curb Center for Art, Enterprise and Public Policy http://www.vanderbilt.edu/curbcenter (6) COALITION BUILDING WITH SOCIAL CHANGE EFFORTS OK, this one's not for beginners. But if you're a dynamic creative leader with a strong base and a great network in your city, think about building a bridge to large-scale social change or civic efforts going on in your region that do not, on the face of it, seem to be about creativity. There are many aggressive and effective citizen's groups working for affordable housing, sustainable development, affordable health care, quality education and increased education funding and human rights. If you're a leader or board member of a cultural organization or a creative professional association, this is fertile ground for collaboration and relationship building.
TRY THIS!
Funding for public education and the quality of that education is a huge issue in many states. Heck, the public schools in Oregon had to close early in 2007 because they ran out of money and in my own state, Illinois, one-third of our 893 school districts are in financial trouble. This is a great opportunity for arts, culture and creative professional organizations to band together to help end these structural inequities - to use their combined talent pools and base of constituents to solve the problem. Advocacy.org is a great site with a deep set of resources on organizing and coalition building. (7) HELP ELECT CANDIDATES WHO WILL BE CREATIVITY CHAMPIONS Look at who's running for what in your region. Is there a good candidate for city council, mayor, state representative or Congress - someone who you know and who has already taken good positions on education, economic development, or the environment or who has been seen as a uniter? If so, approach the campaign and offer to form a "Creatives for Smith" committee to help with the election. If there's no one who seems to be on the right side of these issues, maybe you need to bring a small group of creative leaders together and recruit a candidate. Here are the steps for organizing a "Creatives for Smith" committee: - Join with a five or six colleagues who are leaders in their creative fields. With the permission of the campaign, organize yourselves as "Creatives for Smith" and decide on who will chair. Strategize on another 10 to 20 people to invite to a larger meeting. At that meeting the candidate will address them to fire them up. Before then your small group will draft a "Creative Industries Policy Paper" or platform for the campaign to review and approve. This may take some time if it's a big campaign. You want this policy statement or platform piece to be issued publicly and on the campaign website. Ideally, the candidate will release this platform at a creative place in the district and make it a press event. Some examples of arts and culture platforms developed in the early 1990's for candidates for local and federal office in Illinois are available online at http://www.tresser.com/artspolitics/policy.html. - At the larger meeting of potential committee members pass out the statement and have the candidate address the group and take questions. After the candidate has left the chair then asks everyone to sign on as members
of the "Creatives for" committee and contribute $100.00 and pledge to bring their personal/professional mailing lists with them to an upcoming mailing party. - Use some of the funds collected to print up a direct mail piece to go to the combined list that this group is assembling. In the mailing will be a letter from the committee singing the praises of the candidate as someone who gets their issue and will be a huge supporter once elected. As evidence, include the Creative Industries policy platform paper. Also include a response card coded so the campaign will know that your group has generated the responses. Follow the rules of benefit fundraising - have people write short personal notes on the letters that go to their own lists. If you arrange it, a phone bank for follow-up calls is great. - NOTE: You may not use your organization's mailing list only your own list. Also, this work must be done on your own time, after or before work - if you work for a nonprofit organization. You should list the members of the committee and their organizations and titles - under the list of names put this note: "Organizations listed for identification purposes only." - Once your committee is organized and does its first mailing, there are many other activities you can undertake on behalf of the candidate. You can compile a list of volunteer artists to perform at fundraiser coffees and house meetings. You can do creative voter registration work. You organize your own creative fundraiser and enlist creative talent for graphics, entertainment, catering, decorations and logistics. You can organize street theater and parades. Hey, you're the creative ones, right? (8) AND THEN STAY AROUND TO ORGANIZE A "CREATIVE INDUSTRIES ADVISORY COUNCIL" Say you've been instrumental in organizing the "Creatives for Smith" committee and were successful in raising dollars, recruiting volunteers and drafting campaign positions. And let's say that your candidate has won. Congratulations! You're now part of the Establishment. You're a (small) power broker. The next step, and real pay off for all this volunteer labor, is to have extracted a promise from the candidate to empanel a Creative Industries Advisory Council after the election. Now you work with the newly minted elected official's chief of staff to select a liaison on the staff who will be your conduit to the official. With your core leadership team you now put together a large committee - maybe as big as 50 people, depending on how big the district is and how large the creative sector is in the district - who will come together on a quarterly basis to advise the official on policies and positions that affect the creative industries in her district. Good news - this work you CAN do in your capacity as a nonprofit manager. If you work for a for-profit firm, perhaps you can get some release time for this work. You are rendering a public service to an elected official. You can leverage this relationship in many ways. Again, use your imagination. You might help craft a ten-year planning process for the future of the creative sector in your region. You might have a summit with performances and lecture. You might do an arts contest or poetry slam on the theme of "What would a creative [name of city or region] look like?" Naturally, this is a two-way street and your committee will be called upon by the official for her pet projects. When it comes election time again, you now switch gears and re-convene your original leadership team. Acting after hours, in a political mode, you must decide if your group will continue to support the official - who is once again a candidate. If so, you re-constitute the "Creatives for Smith" team and begin the dance all over again. You can also try your hand at a Creative Economy organizing initiative aimed at the business and policy community. This type of effort is divorced form the political cycle and is aimed at leveraging your area's creative assets. Here's a short list of local and regional Creative Economy planning initiatives from around the country: Creative Economy Initiative Sponsored by "The Creative Engine - How Arts and Center for an Urban Culture is Funding Economic Growth in Future, New York New York City Neighborhoods" City Council for The Creative Economy Council New England Independent, Creative Tampa Bay nonprofit group Cool Cities Initiative State of Michigan Website www.nycfuture.org http://creative-economy.org www.creativetampabay.com www.coolcities.com
Imagine Iowa 2010
Iowa Dept. of Cultural Affairs
http://www.culturalaffairs.org/about/imagine_iowa
Envision San Diego
City of San Diego, San Diego State University, KPBS-TV
http://www.envisionsandiego.org
(9) BECOME THE CANDIDATE YOU LONG TO SEE Run, Baby, Run! This is where Id love for many of the readers of this book to end up. There are over one hundred thousand local elected positions across the USA. We need folks to serve on school boards, library boards, park district commissions, city councils and country commissions. These are mainly part-time positions with no pay or nominal pay. In some large states and large cities, local elected officials are paid more substantial wages. I hope this book has convinced you that you are perfectly able and needed for these positions. Jennifer Granholm was elected Governor of Michigan in 2002. In November of 2003 she addressed the annual conference of ArtServe Michigan, the state's arts advocacy organization. She inherited a budget crisis that forced her to make a number of controversial cuts in the state's programming. One of these was a 50% hit for the Michigan arts council. She nevertheless faced an audience of artists, arts administrators and culture supporters with, of all things, a call for artists to run for office! "Although I have said that everything is on the table to resolve the $1 billion deficit, know that I am sympathetic. But I need your creativity and some of the other skills that belong to the artist and are needed in the domain of budget-making: skills like unflagging persistence, like the painter's intense attention to detail, the musician's capacity to stand dissonance, the writer's turn of compelling phrase, the director's ability to heighten tension and drama. And we need you to help create economic growth. We need you to help provide the fun, the life, the entertainment, the color, the buzz. It is the arts that fuel the growth in our cities. It is the arts that provide the magnetism to bring people here, the creative class that provides the interest, the odd, the delightful, the humor, the music, the aesthetics. Finally, we need you as a counter-balance to our fanatical materialism. You remind us that the internal Sturm und Drang of the starving actor is well worth a delicious moment on stage. You remind us that dark periods do not all need to be medicated with the latest antidepressant, but sometimes reflect the soul's struggle to give birth to something new. You are the ones who give birth to humor in a world that gets too darned serious about a rude driver, a mean nun or a self-important governor. In times of war and high unemployment you give life spice and, like a great painter, you give life perspective. And about this disconnect between art and politics: It is true that politics ends up flattening down the artistic edge. For in this line of work, you are either a zero or a sum. You are a Democrat or a Republican. You are pro-this or anti-that. There is little room to be nuanced, textured, deep or subtle. So, I think that we just ought to elect more artists. Not just wrestlers and movie stars, either, but musicians and painters, dancers, filmmakers and poets. Just don't run for governor for another 7 years." - http://www.michigan.gov/gov A PLAYWRIGHT PRESIDENT?
Vaclav Havel on Intellectuals + Politics

Vaclav Havel, then the President of the Czechoslovak Republic, a playwright and former dissident who spent a number of years in his country's jails for his words and work, said the following at a Joint Session of Congress (February 21, 1990): The salvation of this human world lies nowhere else than in the human heart, in the human power to reflect, in human meekness and In human responsibility... If I subordinate my political behavior to this imperative mediated to me by my conscience, I can't go far wrong.... This is why I ultimately decided -- after resisting for a long time -- to accept the burden of political responsibility. I am not the first, nor will I be the last, intellectual to do this...If the Hope of the world lies in human consciousness, then it is obvious that intellectuals cannot go on forever avoiding their share of responsibility for the world and hiding their distaste for politics under an alleged need to be independent.... When Thomas Jefferson wrote that Governments are instituted among Men deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, it was a simple and important act of the human spirit. What gave meaning to that act, however, was the fact that author backed it up with his life. It was not just the words, it was his deeds as well. 9. THE CREATIVITY FRAME Im asking creative professionals to consider seeking leadership roles in public life, including running for local office. This is because I think they have a unique set of values and talents that will allow them to be of great service to their communities and the nation. But wanting to serve and convincing others to let you serve, or in the case of an election, getting 50%+1of the votes cast, is quite another matter. I believe the true test of the arguments laid out in this book will take place when someone runs for local office as a creativity champion and is able to tell their story in such a way as to make the power and promise of a Creative America come alive and relevant for their constituents. Voters will want to know why they should vote for this person how will the creative candidate solve pressing problems and bring value to the community in a way that a more conventional candidate will not? If we do run for local office on the basis of our creative credentials, we ought to have some sort of coherent statement about the role of creativity in the life of the community and some positive agenda to bring our ideas to life. In running for office youre going need a strong passion to serve, a resume that suggests experience and credibility, a clear and consistent message that will compel and persuade people to support you (volunteer, give money and cast their vote) and finally, an organization that will help you campaign and win. This is not the place for a discussion of the tactics and mechanics of running for office as a creativity champion. Im working on a website and campaign manual for that purpose. But a great deal has been written in the political press about the importance of creating, framing and communicating messages in doing successful and effective politics. Id like to offer a few ideas for the framing approach to this work a place to start when thinking about your message your reason for running and for serving. Dr. George Lakoff is Professor of Linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley and a co-founder of the Rockridge Institute. His books, Moral Politics (1996) and Dont Think Of an Elephant Know Your Values and Frame the Debate (2004), and Whose Freedom? The Battle over Americas Most Important Idea (2006) have laid out the concept of framing. His work has been seized upon by progressive strategists as a way of first explaining the success of conservative politicians over the past 20 years, and second, as a way to think about putting together a compelling political agenda.
Lakoff argues that big ideas forcefully and simply articulated are powerful drivers of public debate and public policy. He who frames the debate wins the debate. We respond to these big ideas and we seem to be 16 organizing our political engagement as a result of which set of big ideas we identify with. Id like to offer three approaches to framing the message of creativity and politics. The frame you adopt will depend on your background and personal analysis of how you can help your community or city. FRAME 1 THE DEMOCRACY FRAME Core belief: America is the land of opportunity and freedom. Despite our checkered past and our slow march to equality for all America holds out the promise of equality and advancement for all, irregardless of your pedigree. There is a direct correlation between the strength and vitality of our ability to be creative and our ability to do democracy. Benefit statement: Creativity fuels democracy and democracy demands creativity. We want new people and new beliefs and new points of view to mix, collide and re-form. America is all about welcoming the new and giving every person a unique voice in civic affairs. When we ask questions and dream of what can be we are exercising our creative civic muscles. Iconic Leader: Benjamin Franklin I love reading about Benjamin Franklin. He was a scholar, an organizer, a conspirator for the American Revolution, a diplomat, a master negotiator, an inventor, a philanthropist, an entrepreneur, a humorist and a patriot. Hes my personal hero and model creative citizen. I even have an action figure of Franklin that I use in all my training programs. Walter Isaacson, the President and CEO of the Aspen Foundation and former CEO of CNN, wrote a very well received biography of Franklin, Benjamin Franklin, An American Life (2003). He distilled a short list of Franklins drivers or framing values: An aversion to tyranny A free press Humor Humility Idealism in foreign policy Compromise Tolerance
From: Time Magazine, June 29, 2003 www.time.com/2003/franklin/bffranklin.htm Stories to tell: If youre entrepreneur, have you started a business despite being told it was impossible? If youre an artist or cultural worker, have you built your organization to be effective and serve the community in new and creative ways? If youre a creative professional, have you solved complex problems or created high-performance teams composed of people with diverse backgrounds that have achieved results where other approaches failed? These sorts of stories bring for the creative, rule-breaking and team-building skills of the cultural professional. Potential policy issues: - Tolerance must give way to inclusion and welcoming of difference. - New mind sets needed for solving complex and persistent problems sweep away corruption and cronyism. - Equal rights legislation, including equal pay for women, civil union for same sex couples, anti-hate crime initiatives and enforcement of existing discrimination statutes. - Re-invigorating civic education in public schools, including American history, Bill of Rights, public service and internship opportunities, and using schools as laboratories for civic learning.
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http://www.rockridgeinstitute.org/projects/strategic/simple_framing America Needs You! Page 40 - 2008 Thomas Tresser
SoundBite: America is a work-in-progress and were all artisans -- citizen-inventors of our commonwealth -- lending our vision and talent to making America a masterpiece!
FRAME 2 - THE ECONOMIC FRAME Core belief: Americas economy is driven and has always been driven by innovation. Now, more than ever, we need to maximize our ability to innovate in order to have businesses that will continue to grow and employ us. Benefit statement: Creativity leads to innovation. Innovation drives prosperity. Creativity resides in people but can be retarded or maximized by what kind of environment we provide for people. We cant predict who will be the next Louis Armstrong, Jonas Salk, Bill Gates or Martin Luther King. America prospers when artificial restraints are removed from a persons ability to create, to invent and to contribute to their maximum. Iconic leader: Steve Jobs Have you seen an iPod today? Have you seen Toy Story or Finding Nemo? Mr. Jobs is the embodiment of creativity and entrepreneurialism. Widely credited with starting the personal computer revolution with Apple cofounder Stephen Wozniak, Jobs was one of the first techno-nerds that have transformed modern society. Apple was founded in 1976 when Jobs was 21 and Wozniak, 26. They looked like hippies. Jobs was a college drop out, having attended only one semester. Here they are in 1975. If these two had approached you for start-up funding for their project, would youve have given them the time of day? Mike Markkula did. Markkula was a member of the marketing staff at Fairchild Semiconductor and Intel and had amassed a large amount of Intel stock options by the time the company went public in 1971. Wealthy and extremely knowledgeable about the tech industry, Markkula was looking for business opportunities when Jobs called him to help pitch to potential investors. Markkula was won over by the young inventor-entrepreneurs. When Markkula arrived at the garage Jobs and Wozniak were using in 1977 he was impressed. When the partners showed him their new machine and ran through a few displays, Markula forgot how Jobs looked. He forgot where the company was headquartered. He forgot about all the reasons he shouldnt get involved. And he 17 offered to help them draw up a business plan and get their venture off the ground. The rest, as they say, is history. In this case - the history of late 20 Century American design, personal computing and American use of technology. Stories to tell: What businesses, schools, nonprofit organizations or social movements started in your community or thriving there? These organizations were all started by creative entrepreneurs. Tell their stories and link it to your own where possible. What inventions were created in your state? What lists of firsts can your community boast about? What are your own pioneering accomplishments?
th
Mr. Markkula purchases one-third of Apple for $250,000. Hes REALLY smiling now.
Image from Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Markkula
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iCon Steve Jobs: The Greatest Second Act in the History of Business, Jeffrey S. Young, Wiley, 2005, p.44. America Needs You! Page 41 - 2008 Thomas Tresser
Potential policy issues: - Education and literacy. We cant possibly have an innovative and inventive economy if our citizens are illiterate and poorly educated. - Access to capital and credit. We need flexible and accessible sources of seed funds and micro-credit to fuel entrepreneurs, social inventors, inventors and other risk takers especially from minority groups and fringe groups. - Human rights and creating conditions of inclusion where difference is welcomed, valued and valued. If you create a climate where people feel welcome, regardless of how different they may be, you may just be making a home for the next Steve Jobs. SoundBite: America's success depends on innovation. Creativity fuels innovation. If you discriminate, you eliminate. The future depends on addition, collaboration and innovation. Creativity knows no boundaries - it's not a red state or a blue state thing. Its a big brain thing.
FRAME 3 THE ARTS BUILDS COMMUNITIES FRAME Core belief: The arts are one of the purest forms of expressed creativity. Teaching the arts and making the arts available to children and adults accelerates achievement in every area of community life. We want our children exposed to the arts at every grade level and given the opportunity to practice different art forms as part of the standard curriculum. Creative arts should be available and accessible in every neighborhood. Benefit statement: Arts and cultural programs have proven over and over again their power to elevate, engage, enrich and activate people of all ages. In schools, we have seen arts programs transform tough schools and give even the hardest to teach students new avenues of success and growth. In distressed urban and rural communities cultural programs have sparked economic development, community solidarity, social change, and lasting opportunity. Years of public polling have shown that people understand the value of arts in the schools and in their lives. Arts and cultural programming and therefore, cultural workers should become our highest priority for local development and educational excellence. Also, transformation initiatives employing an arts-based strategy are extremely cost effective and deliver tremendous bang for the buck. Iconic leader: Bill Strickland Mr. Strickland is the President and CEO of Manchester Craftsmen's Guild and Bidwell Training Center, Inc. (http://www.manchesterguild.org), both founded in 1968 and located in Pittsburgh. Manchester Craftsmen's Guild is a multi-discipline, minority directed, center for arts and learning that employs the visual and performing arts to foster a sense of accomplishment and hope in the urban community. Its mission is to: Educate and inspire urban youth through the arts and mentored training in life skills; Preserve, present and promote jazz and visual arts to stimulate intercultural understanding, appreciation and enhancement of the quality of life for our audiences; and, Equip and educate leaders to further demonstrate entrepreneurial potential. Recent accomplishments: A recently completed eight million dollar campaign for the construction of a 62,000 square-foot facility as a mortgage free asset for both agencies. The facility includes a 350seat performing arts music/lecture hall, library, art studios and labs, lunchroom facilities, an IBM Center and specially designed classrooms for vocational training. Strickland has recently completed the development of a 70,000 square-foot medical technology complex, which has exceeded eight million dollars in value. Mr. Strickland was awarded a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship in 1996 and has been nationally and internationally recognized for his vision, effectiveness and creative solutions to pressing economic and educational problems. In 2002 The PostAmerica Needs You! Page 42 - 2008 Thomas Tresser
Gazette named him Number One of the Top 50 cultural forces in Pittsburgh (see story at http://www.postgazette.com/lifestyle/20020602strickland0602fnp3.asp). Read this story to see why Bill and the Manchester Craftsmens Guild offers a roadmap for using the arts as a comprehensive community development tool:
A UNIQUE NONPROFIT ARTS INSTITUTION WITH SERIOUS BUSINESS ACUMEN COULD SOON BECOME A NATIONAL MODEL With a $12 million yearly budget and the motto that "Creativity is the catalyst for change," a Pittsburgh arts center and training program with uses the creative arts to inspire inner city kids and adults to create better futures for themselves. The Manchester Craftsmen's Guild/Bidwell Training Center (MCG/BTC) not only teaches the arts, but also houses a center for jazz performance, a record label, and a real estate office, which leases office space. In January 2003, MCG opened a new $4 million greenhouse where young people grow orchids and hydroponic tomatoes to train for careers in horticulture. It's all part of founder Bill Strickland's mission, to harness the arts to inspire inner-city kids and adults to create brighter futures. "The worst thing about being poor is what it does to the spiritthe arts reconnect people to their spirits," says Strickland, who believes the arts also pave the way for successful entrepreneurial thinking. Strickland, a Republican, was appointed in April to the President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities. He is seeking George W. Bush's commitment to build two organizations based on the Manchester Craftsmen's Guild in every state. The MCG/BTC budget comes from a combination of fundraising and business revenues. The MCG Jazz Center includes a Jazz record label, MCG Jazz, and a performance space that draws some of the best names in the business, such as jazz great Nancy Wilson, who recorded an album here during the last week of January. In that same building, each year, 400-500 teenagers from the Pittsburgh Public Schools sign up for after-school classes in ceramics, photography, drawing and design. MCG says last year, a remarkable 86 percent of the participating seniors went on to college, as opposed to 30 percent from Pittsburgh's public schools at large. And alongside these arts programs, job-training programs draw on the stimulating artistic energy of the place, and offer associate degree and diploma programs. Strickland believes his project works, because, first of all, "Art helps people reconnect to their spirits." When people engage in the arts, he says they get in touch with themselves again, and accomplish the not-so-small feat of making life worth living again. And he says art and entrepreneurship go together. "Artists are essentially entrepreneurial: an entrepreneur always starts with a blank canvas. Artists say 'Hey, I see this image in this canvas,' says Strickland. That imagination is the same part of the brain where entrepreneurship lies: the place that visualizes and institutionalizes that kind of thinking." The MCG/BTC budget comes from a combination of fundraising and business revenues. The MCG Jazz Center includes a Jazz record label, MCG Jazz, and a performance space that draws some of the best names in the business, such as jazz great Nancy Wilson, who recorded an album here during the last week of January. In that same building, each year, 400-500 teenagers from the Pittsburgh Public Schools sign up for after-school classes in ceramics, photography, drawing and design. MCG says last year, a remarkable 86 percent of the participating seniors went on to college, as opposed to 30 percent from Pittsburgh's public schools at large. And alongside these arts programs, job-training programs draw on the stimulating artistic energy of the place, and offer associate degree and diploma programs. Strickland believes his project works, because, first of all, "Art helps people reconnect to their spirits." When people engage in the arts, he says they get in touch with themselves again, and accomplish the not-so-small feat of making life worth living again. And he says art and entrepreneurship go together. "Artists are essentially entrepreneurial: an entrepreneur always starts with a blank canvas. Artists say 'Hey, I see this image in this canvas,' says Strickland. That imagination is the same part of the brain where entrepreneurship lies: the place that visualizes and institutionalizes that kind of thinking." Other MCG-inspired centers are already being considered in San Francisco and Los Angeles, California; Richmond, Virginia; and Cincinnati, Ohio. From: American Communication Foundation: http://www.acfnewsource.org/art/manchester_guild.html Stories to tell: There are hundreds of arts organizations whose work has been documented as contributing significant economic, educational and social improvement benefits to their communities. Is there an after-school arts or cultural program or in-school culture-based learning program in your community? Are there artists or America Needs You! Page 43 - 2008 Thomas Tresser
creative professionals working with neighborhood improvement groups? Does your city or region have a Creative Economy initiative? How about an business or science accelerator?
SoundBite: The arts inspire, the arts teach, the arts brings people together and the arts trigger enterprise and re-vitalization. Everyone is creative and if we can unleash our creativity we will have the greatest source of beauty, community improvement and personal achievement at our disposal and its a perpetual source of renewable energy!
Here are several websites that have stories and program models for arts and community development: Community Arts Network - http://www.communityarts.net The Community Arts Network (CAN) is a portal to the field of community arts, providing news, documentation, theoretical writing, communications, research and educational information. Headquartered at its Web site on the Internet, CAN is a program of Art in the Public Interest (API), a nonprofit organization based in North Carolina.
National Assembly of States Arts Agencies - Creative Economy Resource Center - http://www.nasaa-arts.org/artworks/creative_economy.shtml - Research Center Arts and Learning Resources for State Leaders - http://www.nasaaarts.org/nasaanews/al_research.htm The Presidents Committee on the Arts and Humanities The Coming Up Taller Awards http://www.cominguptaller.org The Coming Up Taller Awards recognize and support outstanding community arts and humanities programs that celebrate the creativity of America's young people, provide them learning opportunities and chances to contribute to their communities. These awards focus national attention on exemplary programs currently fostering the creative and intellectual development of America's children and youth through education and practical experience in the arts and the humanities. These are just three suggestions for framing your campaign or for presenting yourself as a civic leader. The key is developing an authentic, passionate and principled message about why you are the right leader for the office you are seeking. Be yourself. Be creative. You can do it!
Richard Howorth, Mr. Mayor, what book should I get my ten-year old niece?
Creative background
A lifetime resident of Oxford, Mississippi, Richard and his wife founded Square Books in the central town square in 1979. William Ferris, director of the Center for Southern Culture at nearby Ole Miss said Square Books really is an anchor in the soul of Oxford. Oxford was the home of Nobel laureate William Faulkner. The bookstore operates an annex for remainders, operates a caf, hosts a weekly radio show, operates a kids program and offers a full schedule of author visits and readings. Richard also served as the President of the American Booksellers Association, a trade group representing 1,200 local independent book stores. Elected Mayor in 2001. Re-elected in 2005. Won first election by defeating incumbent by 119 votes. I was dissatisfied with the current council. They werent open and had made some bad decisions. I tried to help them but it got to the point where I was adversarial with the mayor. I realized that being a politician
Lessons learned
was not what I wanted to do with my life but I also realized that if I didnt at least try to run for public office that I was essentially forfeiting my voice as a citizen. I filed with five minutes left before the deadline. I was going to run for alderman but a friend had already filed and the mayors slot was vacant. In a democracy I really believe each of us has an obligation and privilege to serve in public lifeIt requires you to listen to all sides to respect each and every citizen. Should creatives run for office? Yes, some of the most important elements of creativity in our society are being compromised. The Patriot Act and the religious conservative movement are serious matters that are compromising the traditional abilities of artists in this country. Richard says: Its an incredible personal experience. Running for office allows you to walk around a neighborhood and knock on peoples doors and say Hi, Im running for office what are your concerns and ideas about the future of our community? That leads to terribly interesting conversations and you learn something. So I would encourage people to attempt it. You have a lot to offer. Tom says: Richard has brought the quiet authority of a lover of books and local culture and the experience of an entrepreneur and advocate for freedom of expression and a new tone to local government. Reading about the changes that have occurred in Oxford as a result of his bookstore and public service, you get the impression that the civic space has changed and the city is enjoying both economic and civic prosperity. http://jthiggins.com/sites/richardformayor/index.shtml http://www.oxfordms.net/boards/aldermenindex.htm
10. CONCLUSION If you made it this far, then you are EXACTLY the kind of person I'm talking about when I say "Creative professionals and people who love creativity should run for local office." You GET it. You CARE. Now you've got to SELL it to your community. You've got to TELL it - your personal story of creative accomplishments and how they make you uniquely poised to propel progress in your neighborhood or city. My fellow creative Americans, I'm on my old scruffy knees BEGGING you to take up the challenge and be the creative leader you want to see in America. Be the creative leader we need and deserve! Were counting on you.
YOUVE READ THE BOOK, NOW JOIN THE ONLINE COMMUNITY!
Click over to http://tinyurl.com/LinkedIn-CC and join The Creativity Champions Group at LinkedIn. Over 2,400 creative professionals and innovation scholars and researchers from around the world! Were connecting around the goal of advancing creativity and innovation in business and civic life.
CALLING ALL DESIGNER, VISUAL ARTISTS, WEB AUTHORS ---
DESIGN THIS BOOK.

IM LOOKING FOR CREATIVE COLLABORATORS TO APPLY DESIGN
IDEAS AND
BRING YOUR OWN
CREATIVE PERSPECTIVE TO THE

SUBJECTS ADDRESSED IN THIS BOOK.
IF YOUD LIKE TO COLLABORATE ON FUTURE EDITIONS

AND PRODUCE AN INTERACTIVE VERSION FOR THE WEB
EMAIL TOM TOM@TRESSER.COM.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Tom Tresser is a consultant, producer, educator and trainer works with individuals, companies and communities to leverage and amplify their creative assets in order to solve problems, create economic value and trigger civic engagement. In 2007 he designed and produced training programs for the provincial government of Saskatchewan on how to use the arts and creativity for local economic development. He was director of cultural development at Peoples Housing, in north Rogers Park, Chicago, where he created a community arts program that blended the arts, education and microenterprise. Tom has acted in some 40 shows and produced over 100 plays, special events, festivals and community programs. He was an arts activist, having organized support for proarts candidates and developed a cultural policy think tank at Roosevelt University in the early 1990s, where he taught Arts & Public Policy. In 2003 he was appointed Visiting Fellow in Arts and Culture at the DePaul University College of Commerces Ryan Center for Creativity and Innovation. Tom was elected to the Abraham Lincoln Elementary Schools Local School Council and served from 2004 to 2006. He was a co-founder of Protect Our Parks, a neighborhood effort to stop the privatization of public space in Chicago. He was a lead organizer for No Games Chicago, an all-volunteer grassroots effort that opposed Chicagos 2016 Olympic bid. He has taught workshops on The Politics of Creativity A Call To Service for arts service organizations in six states. He has taught a number of classes on art, creativity and civic engagement for Loyola University, School of the Art Institute, the Illinois Institute of Technology, and DePaul University. Tom also consults with arts organizations on strategic planning, audience development and peer-to-peer marketing. Tom has published a web-based project, America Needs You! about the need for artists to get involved in politics. Tom was the Green Party candidate for the position of President of the Board of Commissioners of Cook County in November 2010 election. Tom recently taught Got Creativity? Strategies & Tools for the Next Economy (IIT Stuart School of Business), Introduction to the Creative Economy (online for Project Polymath), and Acting Up Using Theater & Technology for Social Change (online for DePaul Universitys School for New Learning). Tom is currently working on establishing a new nonprofit enterprise, The CivicLab, to build and distribute new tools and experiences for government accountability, civic engagement and community improvement. Their first project is a citizen-powered investigation of the Tax Increment Finance program, The TIF Report.
CREATIVE LEADERSHIP TRAINING

I offer a range of presentations, training programs and entertainment experiences that will inspire, delight and amaze your creative constituents! - "Stand Up for Creativity!" One-Day and Two-Day Training Programs - Turn the artists and creative professionals in your city on to the challenges and tools of organizing, leading and running for local office. This program will inspire and begin to equip creatives interested in translating their personal creative skills and accomplishments into public political campaigning.
"Creative America Concerts" - If you control or have access to an arts space or civic space, you can program an event that mixes performance and political education. It's fun, it's informative and it's creative! "Imagining a Creative America" Town Meeting - For universities, civic organizations, planning initiatives and economic development programs who want a different way to spark a grassroots planning effort, this experience will do the trick. We can tailor the event to your state or city, e.g., "Imagining a Creative Oregon" or "Imagining a Creative Louisville" - which we have actually run. The result is an evening of unexpected and often moving testimony from participants that can be folded into a policy document or case statement.
Our training session includes a team exercise where the participants run a colleague for Mayor and must come up with a campaign plan, creative materials and a 2-minute stump speech!
LET TOM TRAIN YOU TO LEAD IN PUBLIC LIFE!

The first full day session of Stand Up For Creativity! was offered on January 22, 2005 in Chicago. There was a blizzard that day that dumped about a foot of snow on the city. Despite the blizzard-like conditions 40+ people spent the day in learning and fellowship. It was one of the most exhilarating events Ive ever been involved with.
Email Subject: "THAT WAS THE BEST $20 I'VE EVER SPENT!" (we charged $20.06 for the training session) Our experience today was energizing and exciting and EXACTLY what I was looking for -yes, yes, let's re-stock the depleted political talent pool with some of our own! Please let me know what I can do to help launch Creative America including stuffing envelopes - whatever you need help with, please let me know. I have public relations and publicity experience (private sector) have delivered media training, produced a video news letter, handled press contacts, developed and implemented public relations and publicity strategies, managed a large budget, a staff of six people and a prestigious (expensive) outside communications firm. I was also a working actor for about 7 years - basically I've been on both sides. Let me know what you need - and if I don't hear from you, you'll be hearing from me! Email Subject: "THANK YOU FOR BELIEVING IN US" I want to thank you again for all the hard work and preparation that went into organizing yesterday's event at the Bailiwick. The confidence you and your guest speakers have in artists' ability to become social leaders is very heartening. I came away from the day with a lot to think about, some decisions to make, and more research to do. I feel as if a creative, spiritual gauntlet has been thrust at my feet. It would be marvelous to talk with you about some of the factors I'm juggling along with this challenging option. Regardless of whether or not I choose to march down the political path -- I would like to keep in touch with your organization, and make whatever contribution seems wise. America Needs You! Page 49 - 2008 Thomas Tresser
Blog AHA, NOW WERE GETTING SOMEWHERE! Because Tom is exactly right. Art is about creating the unseen, the unknown or exploring the unpalatable. Walking into a room of people with all different talents and figuring out who does what when and why and keeping backbiting/infighting to a minimum. Another big difference is the reliance on cooperative metaphors - you can lose a war or a basketball game - you can't really lose a play, it just doesn't be it's best. There's less reliance on fear and more on hope. Kinda like I've been stewing in my head and on this blog for the last four years. Tom wants to help begin the installation of a system of channels to train, educate and groom creatives all over the country to take back at the local level and then extend it on up. Essentially: Grow Your Own Candidates. I liked Roll Your Own better though. Finally, someone talking my language! I wanna party with Tom Tresser! Online Essay Perhaps one had to take the fight squarely into the political arena, learn how to handle power, how to galvanize bureaucracies, how to motivate large numbers of people to care, dare, push, and change. Perhaps I had to practice what I had preached all last week, delivering a homily at a Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Liturgy and reprising it for middle school students at my daughter's school (on President Bush's Inaugural Day, no less). Perhaps I had to let The Spirit work to transform society not only through my characters but also through me. That's why I powered my PT Cruiser down frozen streets to hear what Tresser's Brigade had to say. Kevin Conlin asserted that no one knows better than artists how to create something out of nothing. Nicole Gotthelf described years of politicking as performance art. Tresser analyzed the skills needed to run and serve in public office. From fundraising to logistics, innovative problem-solving to tactful compromise art and politics require many of the same gifts. To my utter amazement, the Creative America Project is trying to throw a life preserver to the world, and that life preserver is... artists! They dare to believe that artists if not art itself can change the world. And last Saturday they made more than a decent case for giving "creatives" a spin on the real world stage of politics and power.
SPEAKING TOPICS
The Artist as Leader A flexible presentation that can be offered as a 30 minute key note address, a 90-minute interactive workshop or an all-day leadership development. Tom presents the case for America as a creative nation from the Revolution to the present. He describes the seven leadership skills exercised by artists and creative professionals that make them excellent leaders in the public sector. P.O.E.T.I.C.S. "The Politics of Creativity - A Call to Service" - 90-minute presentation that lays out the argument for creativity as the basis for a winning politics and makes the case that creatives have leadership skills needed in public life. This is a highly entertaining and interactive presentation that includes elements of lecture, performance, audience participation and concludes with a sing-along! "Creativity At Risk - Threats and Opportunities for the Creative Ecology" - 90-minute presentation on the basics of the Creative Economy, laying out the metaphor for the ecology of creativity in America and where the threats and stresses are coming from.
WHAT PARTICPANTS SAID

National Performing Arts Convention "I attended Tom's seminar "Creatives as Leaders" at the National Performing Arts Convention in Denver. He perfectly articulated what I have suspected for years now -- that artists and creatives have a unique ability to influence public policy if only we would stand up to be counted! I have seen this in action and it was a breath of fresh air to hear Tom say it publicly. The next day I attended another meeting of the 50+ people from our group that attended the conference together. At least one person stood up and said that as a direct result of Tom's seminar, she planned to run for local office in the next five years. One can think of no higher praise for Tom's work than that!" - Laura Murphy , Adjunct Instructor, Adams State College Art Department , VP, Monte Arts Council, Monte Vista, Colorado College for Creative Studies in Detroit. "I would like to commend Mr. Tresser for his work with the Creative America Project. Mr. Tresser shows an uncommon dedication to civil service, public policy and political leadership. His presentation was well thought out and extremely educational. He was able to not only engage the student body at the College for Creative Studies but provided new and meaningful information on civic responsibility and engagement. On a very practical basis, Mr. Tresser shows students how politics affects them as citizens and as artists and he demonstrates an immense amount of knowledge regarding U.S. history and contemporary politics and public policy...I encourage any organization that wishes become more civically engaged in their community or would like to learn more about the America Needs You! Page 50 - 2008 Thomas Tresser
realm of contemporary politics and civic engagement to host the Creative America Project and Tom Tresser." - Daniel Long, Student Programming Coordinator ArtPride New Jersey "Thank you for motivating this group of arts advocates who need to move to the next level of civic involvement. Your presentation is a 'wake up call' for those who believe they are already doing all they can to make a difference, and helped them realize that with not too much additional effort they can assume leadership positions in the public sector and be even more effective agents for change!" - Ann Marie Miller, Executive Director, ArtPride New Jersey Art Midwest's annual conference "Tom's presentation, 'The Politics of Creativity,' blew me away! If you're tired of arts and culture taking a back seat in your community, here's how to get behind the wheel and turn your creative experience into leadership for your community. I think artists and cultural managers need to hear this message. If you want fundamental change for supporting the arts in your community, your school or your government check out the Creative America Project and this presentation." - Steve Duchrow, Executive Director, Raue Center For The Arts, Crystal Lake, IL. "Thank you, Thomas, for that very inspiring experience. We were still talking about it today. You should do this at art schools around the country. I walked into your session because I have very real ambitions to run for public office in the near future. I've been throwing the idea out to people just to see what they think and I have gotten some very serious "Yes, you should. You'd win" comments. Keep up the great work. You are on to something fantastic!!" - Shelly-Marie Rios, Assistant Director, Community Arts Partnerships, College for Creative Studies, Detroit. ArtServe Michigan "Great presentation. Can he bottle himself so we can all take him home to inspire??" - Attendee at ArtServe Michigan presentation. Arts Wisconsin "I attended Creative America's workshop at Arts Day in Madison, Wisconsin. I found Mr. Tresser's ideas interesting. He advocates that creative people should run for office to make political change. It's his contention that artists and other creative people would use their creativity in politics and learn how to organize to influence change. His workshop was informative and got me thinking about more involvement in politics. I would recommend his workshop for anyone who is thinking about being a political organizer and who wants to know how political climates are built."
For more information, visit: http://www.tresser.com or email tom@tresser.com.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all others. - Marcus Tullius Cicero THANK YOU AND THANK YOU AGAIN! My life, my work and this book could not have been possible without the endless love and support from my wife, Merle Green Tresser. She's the smartest person I know. Creative. Principled. Passionate and angry about the way this country is moving. But she also is analytical and strategic in her criticisms and proposed remedies. I've urged her to run for Congress for years. She laughs and maybe one of the reasons I wrote this book is to persuade her and others like her to take a chance on running for office. A special note of gratitude to the thousands of creative workers who labor every day to improve their communities; to help make beauty, meaning or change happen. And to Richard Florida for sparking a national and international conversation on the role of creativity in the life of the community.
I spent three years trying to organize the Creative America Project as a tax-exempt nonprofit organization dedicated to inspiring and training artists, cultural workers and creative professionals to lead in the public sector including running for local office. My inspiration was the extremely successful Leadership Institute (see www.leadershipinstitute.org). I was able to get a number of arts service organizations interested in the concept and attracted a very accomplished board, I could not get the Internal Revenue Service to render a decision on our tax exemption application. After three years, I gave up trying and the effort evaporated. The founding members of the Creative America Project board of directors: William Cleveland - Founder and Director of the Center for the Study of Art and Community http://www.artandcommunity.com. Kevin J. Conlon - Co-founder and President, Conlon Public Strategies - http://www.conlonps.com. Dr. John Eger - Lionel Van Deerlin Endowed Chair of Communications and Public Policy at San Diego State University, President of the World Foundation for Smart Communities http://www.smartcommunities.org. Sondra Myers - Senior Associate, The Democracy Collaborative http://www.community-wealth.org. Charles Shaw Activist, author and founder of Newtopia, Charles Shaw is an award-winning journalist and editor, author of the critically-acclaimed memoir, Exile Nation: Drugs, Prisons, Politics & Spirituality, and Director of the documentary, The Exile Nation Project: An Oral History of the War on Drugs & The American Criminal Justice System. http://www.exilenation.org Dr. Margaret Wyszomirski - Director, Arts Policy & Administration Program, Ohio State University https://arted.osu.edu/people/wyszomirski The members of the Creative America Project National Advisory Council: Douglas Blandy - Associate Dean of Academic Affairs for the School of Architecture and Allied Arts, a Professor and Program Director in the Arts and Administration Program, and the Director of the Institute for Community Arts Studies at the University of Oregon. http://aad.uoregon.edu/faculty/dblandy
Kathie deNobriga Artist, Community arts organizer, member of the City Council, Pine Lake, GA www.pinelakega.com former director of Alertnate R.O.O.T.S. - http://artisticlogistics.org/consultants Joey Coleman - Principal, Blue J Marketing & Design - www.bluejmarketing.com. Michael C. Dorf - Partner at Adducci, Dorf, Lehner, Mitchell & Blankenship, P.C. http://www.adlmb.com/site/epage/57776_706.htm Richard Howorth - Founder of Square Books, http://www.squarebooks.com, and two-term Mayor of Oxford, Mississippi (2001-2009) and Board member of the Tennessee Valley Authority. Jeff Jones Activist and independent consultant California http://www.queerculturalcenter.org/Pages/Jones/JonesWhy.html Kitty Kurth and Kevin Lampe - Principals, Kurth-Lampe, Chicago. Kurth Lampe is a Chicago-based strategic communications firm with an international reach with Chicago know how. Complicated ideas are turned into compelling and persuasive messages. http://www.kurthlampe.com. Rosemarie Mincey, Ph.D. - Visual Artist, Activist, Educator, and Organizer Tennessee Rosemarie is a member of the Adjunct Faculty of the Womack Family Educational Leadership Graduate Program at Middle Tennessee State University. http://www.mtsu.edu/graduate/faculty/gfedul.shtml Daniel Bretton Tisdale - Artist, Educator and Activist, CEO, Founder and Publisher of Harlem World Magazine. http://www.harlemworldmag.com. The folks at Your Plan B Company: Jamey Brumfield, David Birdwell and Catherine Larson for their design of the Creative America logo and their design and initial hosting of the Creative America website. You guys rock! http://www.yourplanb.com.
** For some final inspiration, listen to Patti Smith's rockin'
"People Have the Power"
**
Purchase: http://www.myspace.com/pattismith/music/songs/people-have-the-power-28272687
Entire written contents by Thomas Tresser, 2008.


America Needs You! Why You Should Become A Creativity Champion (And Run For Local Office)

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WHY YOU SHOULD BECOME A CREATIVITY CHAMPION

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Maurice Cox, Mayor Designing a Better City from the Ground Up

First Baptist Church design by Mr. Cox

First elected Why did you run?

Cost of election What he loved about the process

On creativity and politics

America Needs You! Page 12 - 2008 Thomas Tresser

More information Contact

America Needs You! Page 13 - 2008 Thomas Tresser

"Liberty! The American Revolution,"Viking, 1997, Thomas Fleming, p. 176.

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First elected Why did you run?

What he loved about the process

On creativity and politics

More information Contact

America Needs You! Page 20 - 2008 Thomas Tresser

Cara Jennings, from feisty performing activist to city commissioner!

First elected Why did you run?

What she loved about the process

On creativity and politics

Great quote Lessons learned

More information Contact

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Guy Padgett, Very much at home: a gay mayor in Wyoming

Why did you run?

What he loved about the process

On creativity and politics

More information Contact

America Needs You! Page 32 - 2008 Thomas Tresser

America Needs You! Page 37 - 2008 Thomas Tresser

Imagine Iowa 2010

Iowa Dept. of Cultural Affairs

Envision San Diego

City of San Diego, San Diego State University, KPBS-TV

Vaclav Havel on Intellectuals + Politics

http://www.rockridgeinstitute.org/projects/strategic/simple_framing America Needs You! Page 40 - 2008 Thomas Tresser

First elected Why did you run?

What he loved about the process

On creativity and politics

More information Contact

America Needs You! Page 45 - 2008 Thomas Tresser

YOUVE READ THE BOOK, NOW JOIN THE ONLINE COMMUNITY!

America Needs You! Page 46 - 2008 Thomas Tresser

CALLING ALL DESIGNER, VISUAL ARTISTS, WEB AUTHORS ---

DESIGN THIS BOOK.