Florida resetting our economic default status

Economic-development guru Richard Florida has a new book out. Called The Great Reset – with a nod, I hope , to Kurt Andersen’s 2009 work about the current economic crash, Reset — it’s Florida’s look at what this enormous change in our national financial circumstances  could bring about in our terms of economic-development trends such as home-ownership and geographic fluctuations in population. To get a taste, take a look at this interview of Florida by Conor Clarke in the Atlantic.

The answer is, somewhere really and bravely creative

Where would you rather be?

No matter who you are or where you live, you probably wish you had a somewhat different life or home. Or at least a vacation house. But the sad and unavoidable fact is that everybody and every place has problems, including the most glamorous.  You know? Even California’s broke — and the Riviera’s polluted and the wealthier-than-the-queen J.K. Rowling pays insanely high taxes. (And what a wo-mensch she is for doing so).

What makes one person or place happier than another is not  a lack of problems, but how imaginatively and effectively he, she or it solves those problems. And since even the most creative among us need a little coaching now and then, people keep finding the annual Creative Problem Solving Institute to be helpful.

The institute, a program of the Creative Education Foundation, presents a hands-on learning experience based on a system of thought that helps you come up with creative solutions even when you think you don’t have any.  It will be held  June 21-25 this year, in Buffalo, N.Y., and one of the speakers will be Disney Imagineer Tony Baxter, who’s worked on the Mouse Company’s entertainment projects for 40 years.

So if you’d like your drab, economically depressed town to be more like Paris  and your humble life to be more like Bono’s or Christiane Amanpour’s or Shen Wei’s, don’t get bummed — fame, wealth, achievement , or just a good way to lose 20 lbs. and get a  job may be only one inspiring idea away. Just unlock your brain.

Next-gen news professionals have guts – and imagination

You might think, with the news industry as financially beset as it is, that none of the current crop of  college kids would want to major in journalism. But as I was happy to discover Saturday at the Society for Professional Journalists Cleveland Chapter spring conference, titled Rise Up in Cleveland, a lot of young people out there find journalism both interesting and promising.

A number of them attended a panel I was on called The Journalist as Entrepreneur, giving me hope that the industry’s next generation is already thinking about how to re-imagine journalism in effective, profitable and highly creative ways. As panel leader Chris Seper, co-founder and president of  the online start-up MedCity News, pointed out, what looks like an era of disaster for the news business is actually a time of unsurpassed opportunity for media entrepreneurs.

That’s true of many fields these days, and the more total the industry implosion (banking? real estate?), the bigger the opportunities are. I know that money people by definition are cautious people, but what everybody needs right now — from the humblest job seekers to the entire U.S. economy – is investors with daring, people who understand that the future is going to have to look a whole lot different from the past and who ardently want to make that future happen now.

It’s no time to be timid. And I’m excited to see that, in the news industry at least, some of our youngest adults are also our bravest. I’m betting they’ll be among the most innovative, too. You can find out what some of them are thinking and doing by checking out the RJI News Collaboratory.

Social networking: Progress or evil genius?

You may be able to answer that question a lot more easily once you start reading our latest Geniocity.com blog: The Skeptic’s Guide to Social Media  by communications expert James Krouse.

Whether you’re seeking old classmates, creating an I-Love-Pomeranians group  or marketing your new film/political org/stainless-steel scone mold, you’re probably watching whole days disappear down the bottomless time pit that is online networking … and either loving it or about ready to hang yourself from the nearest espresso-maker. James feels your pain and can argue for the gain of having a globeful of contacts within instantaneous reach  - as the author of  literary works and a marketing/publicity guru, he lives on both sides of the digital divide and bridges that chasm with a dry humor that offers all of us a sound footing.

The Skeptic’s Guide debuts today. I’m proud to welcome James to Geniocity.com’s growing blog roll of field experts, whose insights about the creative frontiers of everything from art and learning to business, politics and the law will keep you entertained, informed and poised on the cutting edge of innovation, with a fascinating view of what’s coming next. 

Thanks for reading.