The Creator Class
Joanne Wilson: The Magic of Dreaming Big from 99U on Vimeo.
I was at an event and the CMO of Samsung made a toast to the Creator Class. It really stuck with me. Creators are defined as people who bring things into existence. The past decade we have had an explosion of creators. Many of these people are founders of their own companies while others have taken the road of writing books, creating art, building products, whipping up food products and more.
People who are still in their teens and younger than that have access to tools that will spur generations of creators. A kid can build an app and put it in the Apple store on the off the shelf products available. They can shoot a video and put it up on YouTube. They can come up with an idea, make a video, post is on Kickstarter, get funded and execute on their idea. It is easier to execute on an idea sitting in your den with a group of friends than ever before. It is works great. If it doesn’t who cares because it was fun creating and learning in the process.
The Creator Class will get bigger and bigger over the next decade. You can be a creator while still having a day job with ease. That is different than it was 20 years ago when there was more of a clear cut line between people who created and those who didn’t. Now we can all be creators. We all take photos from our phone every day and that alone is a creation.
I went back and listened to the talk I gave at the 99u conference two years ago. I posted it then but thought I’d post it again because it speaks to the creator in all of us.
Comments (Archived):
If it doesn’t who cares because it was fun creating and learning in the process.Key point. Really important part of all of this. Nothing beats something that starts as fun and ends up making money.
for sure..
Exactly!!!
With all of the opportunity that kids have now to learn and create on their own (in middle school, high school and in college) it’s really amazing that they can even sit still in a classroom all day. Still learning many of the same (stupid) things that we learned when growing up. Things that you will never need to know.Experimentation and problem solving back then was a long and laborious process. Getting a home darkroom together and figuring it all out (no class available) took me quite a bit of time and money. Same when I setup my first business after graduating from college. Amazing how much time was spent on things that today are so trivial to do.One thing that I wonder about though is the lack of adversity with the ease of doing things in the internet age. Not that the upside isn’t good. But there is something to be said with having to struggle for hours or days to figure something out that can be done today easily with a google search.
My son’s high school had a fantastic STEM program. Yes, the students sit though physics and pre-calc, but then they go to Engineering class and actually make things. It’s like a hyped-up version of shop class. You can opt into the program in 9th or 10th grade (though you have to have the grades) and, then, in the last year you have a year-long project where you conceive a product and market plan. Because the program is only offered at one high school in town, the teens from the other high school in town can opt-in and switch high schools just for the time period of the classes or switch schools entirely. Oh, and the classes are college level so you can get AP credit.
Such an exciting time. I love watching my kids take an interest in something and then be able to teach themselves as much as they want about it just by searching online. It’s a real boon for kids (like mine) who don’t thrive in the noisy classroom environment and has the added bonus of stoking that love for learning that traditional school can erode. They can take a natural strength and run with it. This is how creators are made! I have no doubt they’ll both be creators of kind.
I love crating. I restore historic brickwork for a living. I’m working on creating side projects. I have 14 guitars, 3 keyboards and a drum kit to create music on, and I love to write. Not creating kills me. I’m always amazed at the fact that some people don’t know what to do and are bored.
I haven’t had time to watch this whole video yet (but I intend to). What immediately leaps into my mind is the connection between the creators, the innovators, and the cost of living. It’s not lost on me that Gotham Gal and AVC are often posting about similar topics in the same week or day. Fred just posted this on June 18 – http://avc.com/2016/06/vide…It would be interesting to watch both back to back and think about the possibilities.
kitchen table banter. 🙂
I read somewhere that in the future (now?), “There are going to be two kinds of people- creators and consumers. Be a creator.”