Lucky country perhaps, but not the creative country: Forget the MBA, get a MFA

Florida suggests that the strong economies of the future will be those that concentrate "not on developing cost-effective centres for manufacturing or basic business processes. Rather they will be countries that are able to attract creative people that come up with next generation products and business processes as a result".

Under the Harvard Creativity Index, Netherlands, Ireland and Greece rate in the top 15 creative countries in the world. Australia, rated below the top 15, spends 0.8 per cent of its annual budget on research and development, whereas Ireland and Greece spend only 0.36 per cent. Only the Netherlands, ranked fourth worldwide behind Sweden, the US, and Finland, spends more than Australia at 0.87 per cent of its national budget.

The question has to be asked: If we spend comparatively larger sums on research and development, why do we not rate in the top 15 creative countries in the world? Why do we not capitalise on our R and D investment? Is there something basic we need to discover and confront about our national creativity and its potential?

Implementation

Australian business management is imbued with a sense of research and development but it lacks the skills, knowledge and confidence to work commercially creatively and innovatively. To change this mindset, senior corporate executives need to put marketplace demands on tertiary institutions to provide formal courses in creativity and innovation. Only under industry pressure will universities be motivated to act to make creativity a recognised program of study and practice.

Once universities oblige, business can then gain vital access to the ever changing, fast-moving knowledge and processes of creativity. They will be able to engage in informed exchanges with the arts industry; employ arts graduates at senior management levels, and through this process actually begin to perceive creativity not as an aesthetic proposition alone but as a complete design system. Put to work intelligently, this system offers the potential for product, service, or organisational differential as a matter of practice. The creative advantage can now be trained and deployed as a national resource to keep competitive pace in the globalisation of business and as a carrier of civilization.

Robert Lutz, chairman of General Motors, summed up the case for creativity when he said, “I see us being in the art business. Art, entertainment, and mobile sculpture, which coincidently also happens to provide transportation."