Rhode Island and Providence: a model of transformation through merging business and creativity

December 5, 2006 by Mary Wynne-Wynter 

I attended an interesting panel tonight put on by The Arts & Business Council of Rhode Island about how businesses can use creativity for competitive advantage.  Points compiled from my notes include:

- To meet the challenge of impending work-force shortage and increased outsourcing of any skills that can be automated, large corporations are now considering graduates with art and liberal art educations…thinking of them as ‘performers’.

- Artistic directors base their long-term creative success on the following criteria: a model and culture based on 100% collaboration, sharing, compensation equality and curiosity about the unknown.

- U.S. traditional ‘nuts and bolts’ companies are facing not only a massive loss of knowledge as an aging workforce retires, but also a loss of creativity that was largely unlocked because the conditions and norms for creativity were not in place.

- There’s a gap (a chasm!) between understanding the need for creativity in the business world and an understanding about how to teach it, support it, and incorporate into the corporate culture and social norms.

- Discipline and practice are often forgotten cornerstones of successful creative people, projects and organizations.

My friend Joan who attended thinks Providence is a city on the verge of being an urban change model and that Rhode Island’s history provides a kind of karmic attraction for radical thinkers and artists.

Providence is a renaissance city. Its success is largely based on its commitment to merge business and the arts. If you can, spend some time there and see first-hand the most recent results of a ten-year project and vision culminating in the Avenue of the Arts, Renaissance Providence Hotel and Veterans Memorial Auditorium. Here’s a photo before/after showing what can be accomplished with creativity and change leadership.
old-vma.gif

new-vma.gif

Tonight, when RI School of Design President, Roger Mandle opened the panel by talking about Dan Pink’s book, I was pleasantly surprised and encouraged. He brought up a challenge that I’ve been thinking about: in order to apply creativity in the real and practical world of business, what is a framework for bringing together the left-brain analytical with the right-brain creative/intuitive? 

I’m looking forward to Creative Intelligence, Part II of the series which focuses on the education aspect.  I’m hoping to get insights about how business leaders assess and improve their Creative IQ.

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