Elizabeth Currid's book, The Warhol Economy, discusses the elements that produce NYC's one-of-a-kind creative industry. But what if these elements don't belong only to NYC anymore?
I let out a laugh when I saw last week’s Onion article, 8.4 Million New Yorkers Suddenly Realize New York City A Horrible Place to Live. It seemed especially silly to me, as I’d just finished Elizabeth Currid’s, The Warhol Economy- a book that identifies the unique characteristics that have made NYC an international mecca of creative production. Despite the fact that the book raves about the benefits of NYC’s unique environment for artists and the career development of creatives, the Onion article got me questioning the future of this city.
Some of the key social and economic qualities that have made New York City so successful as a place for creative and cultural career development have been (and, I would guess, will continue to be) replaced by online social networks. “Every generation has its own neighborhood,” Zac Posen said of NYC to Currid during an interview mentioned in the book. I predict that for Generation Y, and perhaps increasingly for the generations following us, that neighborhood will not be Chelsea or the West Village. It will be online.
Here’s how social media and online networks match up to the key elements that secured NYC’s reputation as an international center for creative development:
1. Low economic barriers to entry in the community
Utilizing social media is catching on quick, and is a relatively cheap endeavour. The rise of New York City as an international hub of creativity also arose from low barriers to entry. Namely, the recession of the 1970s created cheap rents that allowed artists to focus more time and energy on their artwork instead of taking up second jobs to make ends meet. Artists bought up low-rent spaces in many of the same neighborhoods, resulting in communities of creatives with a little more time on their hands and getting a little more bang for their buck. All you needed then was a little bit of money (to afford rent), something to say, and the ability to relocate to New York. In order to enter an online community today, the barriers for entry are even lower. You don’t need to move to New York. You just need a little bit of money (to afford a computer) and that same something to say.
2. Production with no real regard for economic growth
There are more than 900,000 blog posts put up on the Internet every 24 hours. Why do we blog? The answers may be shockingly similar to those of “why do we make art?” Some people blog for emotional release or to create a connectedness with the world. Some people blog to make money, but a lot more people (including myself), blog to create symbolic capital. In other words, to gain or maintain regard as a professional in the field you’re writing about. (I utilize my human capital to discuss social capital on this blog to build my symbolic capital! Yes, these are the things your brain comes up with when you are in grad school…) In fact, according to Pew Internet and American Life Project, to make money is the least common reason why people blog. The main reason? Creative expression. Social media and online expression share the same emotional (and similar economic) fuel that drives NYC’s creative community.
3. Utilizing and building weak ties
In her book on NYC’s creative economy, Currid cites the work of Dr. Mark Granovetter who has published significant studies on the importance of “weak ties.” He found that the ties that were farther away from us (versus our close-knit friends) were most influential in creating success. People with the most weak ties are in the greatest position to “diffuse innovation.” While having social exchanges with random folks on the street in New York City does create weak ties, it’s much less hard to imagine how social media promotes these kinds of relationships. Also, social media makes it easier to track weak ties. One needs only to check their @replies on Twitter to get a good sense of the weak ties they’ve created. Social media is a large network of these weak ties. And more than that, they are more easily tracked and weak ties can more easily grow stronger through social networks than meeting someone on the street in NYC- a method that has worked for generations before.
4. The ease of peer review and access to gatekeepers
Listen to the story of any great artist in NYC and they will tell you the stain of people that they met that helped them get to the top. In NYC, there are places where ‘the cool kids’ hang out. There are places to see and be seen. It’s not a stretch to say that there are a hierarchy of sites upon which bloggers and social medialites aim to be mentioned or linked. My boyfriend’s startup sees a greater rise in visitors when it’s mentioned on Mashable than when it’s mentioned on a random blog. The higher the site is on the totem pole, the more likely your work is to be seen by gatekeepers- key people in your industry with the power to aid you in achieving success. This is the same way it works in posh nightclubs, bars, and museum events in NYC. The reason online interactions may have the upper-hand? They are remote.
5. More creative people leads to economic productivity
You don’t need to be in New York anymore to have access to the most influential gatekeepers, or to get attention for your cause or story. The game is changing. In New York City, the above factors created ideal conditions for the spread, sharing, and development of creatives. Similarly, on web, the above factors create ideal conditions for the spread and development of creatives– but also for non-creatives. In a sense, New York just got bigger. Now it’s the entire world. Or rather, anyone with a computer or access to the library.
Social media networks have other advantages that NYC (or any physical location) lacks. This may change our idea of location as ideas are spread freely with no regard to physical region. For instance, time plays a different role. You don’t have one chance to hand over your business card- as you might when running into an ideal client on the street that you may never see again. You can send a message (or respond to that message) at your leisure. This may lead to more strategic communications. Also, places with more people see more economic activity, and for that very fact, it is a good idea to know what’s happening online.
*These five points are based upon select points in Currid’s The Warhol Economy: How Fashion, Art and Music Drive New York City. Check out the book to learn more about how they relate to NYC’s economy and social structure.
Advance Review: Earth, Inc – on Sustainable Profits
April 2, 2010
What will dinosaurs and companies that are not integrating “green” practices have in common in the next century or so? Extinction.
How’s that for a call to action for slow-movers.
Earth, Inc, a soon-to-be released book by Gregory Unruh published by Harvard University Press, has a simple bottom line: in order to be sustainable and remain competitive, companies must utilize nature’s own rules. Corporations like S.C. Johnson, UPS, Kodak, Coca-Cola, and Clorox are leading the way in creating material product processes that mimic nature– and are (nearly) as earth-friendly. If companies are unable to follow suit in order to leverage sustainable practices across product lines, these companies will fade away. The world keeps moving, after all.
This book is particularly enlightening for those who are nonbelievers in the power of for-profits to evoke large-scale, positive change. Indeed, in the examples Unruh mentions, these changes must be done by these kinds of companies. By utilizing processes similar to nature, companies are uncovering ways to make a buck by incorporating sustainable practices.
Though grounded in sustainable profits, the book reinforces popular lessons in innovation that hold true across industries:
1) The best way is often the most simple way (In the book, this is materials parsimony): In Earth, Inc, we learn that the bulk of earth’s productivity is composed from only carbon, hydrogeny, oxygen, and nitrogen (which form animo acids, proteins, and sugars). That is nearly all that nature needs to create almost everything we know of life. The first rule in creating sustainable profits is to create materials parsimony— or, to keep it simple.
2) The power of constraints (In the book, this is creating sustainable product platforms that fit into the five constraints Unruh identifies): The idea that the only way out of a box is to invent your way out holds true here. Companies that can work within the five rules for sustainable profits (materials parsimony, power autonomy, value cycles, sustainable product platforms, and function over form), are truly the most innovative because they are leading the way in creating greener businesses that also turn a profit.
Earth, Inc. makes you think about the story of stuff on the production level. I don’t think about Patagonia products the same way. The book is short, to the point, and easy to read. As an individual with interest in sustainable profits but no former knowledge of production terms, there were times when I had to read sentences twice. Even in these cases, Unruh uses terms in a way that makes their meaning easy to unravel.
This video has long become a youtube favorite, but it’s worth including here. It gives you an overview of the issues facing the world of non-sustainable profits, and provides a good basis for understanding the need for practices uncovered in Earth, Inc.
If you produce goods or want to know more about the future of the product cycles of items you consume, read this book. Even if you aren’t extremely interested in these things, you should pick up the book. At the very least you will learn something about the direction in which the world is moving… Just read it if you want to keep up.
I owe a big thanks to Brazen Careerist’s Penelope Trunk, who spotted this book, recognized it was up my alley, and Harvard Business Review- who sent an advance reader’s copy my way.
“The Two Cultures” Meet in Museums
July 28, 2009
Photo from blogs.discovermagazine.com
In a way, the modern-day threat of science illiteracy persuaded me to seek out C.P. Snow’s Rede lecture “The Two Cultures.” The lecture was championed during the last event that I coordinated at Pacific Science Center in Seattle: a panel discussion presented by the Northwest Science Writers Association, titled “Dumb, Getting Dumber? The Cost of Scientific Illiteracy.” Snow’s lecture was recommended during the panel as a classic read for anyone seeking to bridge the gap between the arts and sciences.
Here’s a quick (and vastly oversimplified) summary of C.P. Snow’s 1959 lecture: the hostile divide between the cultures of science and the humanities was an increasing problem of the time. According to Snow, the polarization of these cultures leads to intelligent minds (namely, intellectual minds in the humanities), ignoring the fact that the study of science will lead to scientific revolutions which, in turn, increase our global ability to close the gap between the rich and the poor caused by industrialization. In (very loose) sum, the culture divide prohibits those in the arts from aiding scientists in ultimately closing the gap between the rich and the poor. (It’s no wonder that this book was recommended by science researchers!) The gap between the rich and the poor is an area of concern for Snow, and he reports in the successor piece, “A Second Look,” that he initially thought to call his famous lecture, “The Rich and the Poor” instead of “The Two Cultures.”
Although generally outdated in terms of the science verses humanities schism, Snow’s lecture uncovers stereotypes that remain polarizing in our current world. However, it is no longer the divide between the cultures of science and the humanities that demands our urgent attention, but the divide between these intellectual cultures and the everyday man.
Snow’s hope was to make science accessible to those in the humanities because, in his mind and at the time, that group was least open to accepting the credibility of the sciences and scientific research. In Snow’s understanding of the world, the intellectually elite must work together in order to evoke change and make the world a better place for everyone else. Today, education-based institutions are one-upping Snow’s ideas in their attempt to make science research accessible to everyone– not just the literary elite.
C.P. Snow. Photo from physicsworld.com/blog
Museums and education-based institutions have long since begun to break down the walls built up by highly specialized intellectuals prior to the mid twentieth century. C.P. Snow’s lecture, though it does reinforce these walls, began a public debate about highly intellectual cultures. At Pacific Science Center alone, there were several programs and grant-based initiatives aimed toward uncovering ways to make current science research accessible to the public. Many of the special events that I coordinated filled these same initiatives in making science– and the scientists themselves– less scary to those who don’t know anything about carbon dating, tsunami detection, or genetic conflict. “The Two Cultures” paints both scientists and those involved in the humanities in that same, potentially scary light that current institutions are still aiming to shed.
But the problem of polarization still exists, though the players have changed and (from this perspective) both of the intellectual cultures are on the same team. How can we make the ideas of those intellectual cultures accessible to the public?
Here are a few generalizations (stereotypes, perhaps) from Snow’s lecture that museum professionals are, in a sense, tying to tackle head-on:
- Snow claims, “Non-scientists tend to think of scientists as brash and boastful…On the other hand, the scientists believe that the literary intellectuals are lacking in foresight, particularly unconcerned with their brother men, in a deep sense anti-intellectual, anxious to restrict both art and thought to the existential movement.” It is no surprise that this may be the way that the general public views these two highly intellectual cultures as well.
- In regard to his experience as a scientist in the scientific community, Snow explains: “We prided ourselves that the science we were doing could not, in any conceivable circumstances, have any practical use. The more firmly one could make that claim, the better.” I cannot speak as to whether or not this is still true within the field of science, but it is certainly a claim that institutions are tying to smooth out with regard to making science research accessible. It is often easier to make scientific research accessible when there is a way for the public to relate the issue to their everyday lives.
Though hostilities between the intellectual cultures of science and humanities may still exist in the academic realm, I argue that it does not demand as strong a call to action as the gap between these intellectual cultures and the rest of society. Museums and institutions are aiming to cure this polarization, and though the context here my be different, Snow’s original message still holds true: “The polarization is sheer loss to us all. To us as a people, and to our society. It is at the same time practical and intellectual and creative loss.”
On Nudge, by Thaler and Sunstein
July 12, 2009
Photo from www.nudges.org
I came across Nudge; Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness in the bookstore at The University of Chicago under a large sign reading, “University Affiliated Authors.” Ian was immediately drawn to it and kept telling me that it was the perfect book for my interests. He does not share my passion for public administration, and though he and I did love the constant references to our favorite locations and the practices of our alma mater, Nudge is a book that everyone can enjoy.
I absolutely recommend this book for anyone interested in public administration, public policy, government, human behavior, and collective human welfare.
The back of the book states, “Nudge is a book about choices– how we make them and how we’re led to make better ones.” That may sound dull or ambiguous to some, but this is the kind of book that you simply cannot read while you’re around another person, because it is filled with interesting and often surprising research that makes you want to turn to somebody immediately and say, “I bet you didn’t know…”
“Authors Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein offer a new perspective on how to prevent the countless bad mistakes we make in our lives– including ill-advised personal investments, consumption of unhealthy foods, neglect of our natural resources, and other numerous bad decisions regarding health care, our families, and education. Citing decades of cutting-edge behavioral science research, they demonstrate that sensible “choice architecture” can successfully nudge people toward the best decision without restricting tier freedom of choice. Terrifically straightforward, informative, and often very entertaining, this book is a must read for anyone with an interest in our individual and collective well-being.”
At large, the book is about choices (as mentioned), but it is also about libertarian paternalism. It asks big questions about how choice architects (those people who choose where food is placed in the cafeteria, or the default settings for our retirement plans, or whose name should appear first on a presidential ballot) should go about making the choices that they make and how they effect our collective behavior. Thaler and Sunstein remind us that there are several small and large “nudges” that companies and the government can give to people to help them make wiser choices. As we know from experience though, not all choice architects have the one’s well-being in mind. For instance, it is often the case that once you sign up to receive a free magazine, you are kept on the mailing list long after the promotion is over, and you find yourself paying for these issues later. Until you have the energy to call the magazine and request to be taken off of the list, you’ll be paying for these magazines. Due to pure inertia, several individuals stay on these lists for much longer than they’d intended- if they had intended to pay for the magazine subscription at all!
Here are five sneak-peak studies and thoughts relating to nudges, from Nudge. All of these ideas are directly from the book, and the research behind them is cited there. These are intended to be quick tidbits to whet your appetite for this perspective-changing book. For more information on these points, read the book or check out the Nudge website.
1. There is a stretch of Lake Shore Drive in Chicago, where the road makes a series of S-turns. Many drivers ignored the reduced speed limit during this stretch of the road, and were in danger of wiping out on the curves. In order to battle this problem, the City of Chicago used a small visual nudge: “at the beginning of the dangerous curve, drivers encounter a sign painted on the road warning of a lower speed limit, and then a series of white stripes painted onto the road… When the stripes first appear, they are evenly spaced, but as drivers reach the most dangerous portion of the curve, the stripes get closer together, giving the sensation that driving speed is increasing. One’s natural instinct is to slow down” (39). There’s even a great aerial shot of Lake Shore Drive in the book, depicting these unevenly-spaced white lines. These white lines are nudges.
2. Thaler and Sunstein make the distinction between two types of thinking in human beings: the Automatic System (immediate, instinctive doer) and the Reflective System (deliberate, self-conscious planner). To illustrate the difference between the two systems, Thaler and Sunstein show you 3 seemingly-simple math questions that you’ll, most likely, answer incorrectly due to your Automatic System taking over; our brains take the short-cut and believe to have the correct answer without taking the time to utilize our Reflective System. The authors comment on our relationships with our own Automatic and Reflective systems. For instance, it is often our Automatic System that gives into temptation and decides to eat a cookie just hours after after our Reflective System aided us in constructing a healthier diet. Nudges are sometimes aimed to help make healthy decisions more automatic.
3. Nudge sites several behavioral research studies that illustrate our incredible tendency to follow the herd, and brings up questions about how to positively influence that heard. Here’s one of the many examples that I found interesting: It’s no secret that our eating habits are influenced by those around us. “On average, those who eat with one other person eat about 35 percent more then they do when they are alone; members of a group of four eat about 75 percent more; those in groups of seven or more eat 96 percent more” (64).
4. Here’s an example of a positive nudge used to decrease energy use in San Marcos, California: residents in three hundred households were informed of their energy use in relation to other houses in the neighborhood. “Households that consumed more than the norm received an unhappy ‘emoticon’, whereas those that consumed less than the norm received a happy emoticon” (70). The largest energy consumers showed a much bigger decrease in consumption when they received the negative visual emoticon than energy users who were only told of their high energy usage. But the fact remains that when their household usage (with or without emoticons) was reported to them in the context of comparing them to their neighbors’ energy usage, the individual household decreased its energy consumption.
5. Wording of options– and wording in general– are other avenues for utilizing nudges. There are several examples of this in the book, but this one is straightforward: In regard to charities, “people will give more if the options are $100, $250, $1,000, and $5,000 than if the options are $50, $75, $100, and $150” (24).
These rather straight-forward insights into nudging don’t even begin to approach the bigger issues tackled in the book, such as mortgages, health care, loans, marriage and education. As I mentioned, libertarian paternalism plays a large role in the book; nudges can be used to help people make better choices, but it does not force people into anything. Individuals at all times maintain their freedom and do not need to– say, slow down on Lake Shore Drive– but, for those tuned in to the radio and their Automatic Systems, some aid is offered to avoid a potentially-dangerous situation.
My name is Colleen Dilenschneider I work in museums and nonprofit organizations. I believe that community engagement is the key to new philanthropy and it lies at the intersection of marketing, program production, and fundraising. I am currently a graduate student studying Nonprofit Management (MPA '2011) at the University of Southern California. Learn more about me 
