Are You Part of the Creative Class?

In his book *The Rise of the Creative Class: and How it's Transforming
Work, Leisure Community and Everyday Life*, Dr. Richard Florida
describes how the so-called Creatives, the nearly 38 million Americans
in diverse fields who create for a living are causing a shift in
how we "think about why we live as we do today -- and where we might be
headed."

This excerpt from the overview resonated with me, as it may with you:
"Millions of us are beginning to work and live much as creative types
like artists and scientists always have -- with the result that our
values and tastes, our personal relationships, our choices of where
to live, and even our sense and use of time are changing"
(http://www.creativeclass.org). Florida, a Visiting Scholar at the
Brookings Institution and Heinz Professor of Economic Development
at Carnegie Mellon, has stimulated international discussion about how,
as he writes, "the choices these people make already had a huge
economic impact, and in the future they will determine how the
workplace is organized, what companies will prosper or go bankrupt,
and even which cities will thrive or wither."

Florida has forged several partnerships to generate high-quality research on his topic, engage ever-larger constituencies, and generate the thoughtful conversations that keep people involved.

Here are some examples of his partnerships that you might adapt to engage others  in your work. In alliance with the magazine *Fast Company*, he's able to research and report on best and worst cities for Creatives (http://www.creativeclass.org/rankings.shtml).

With adept organizational allies, he generates more solutions and involves more
people (http://www.creativeclass.org/allies.shtm). With a  complementary co-author, Irene Tinalgi, he has a companion book (*Europe in the Creative Age*) sooner and launches videocasts for this new market, Europe. 

You, too, can use the power of partnering to increase your visibility and value to become sought-after as one-of-a-kind. Diover exactly how in SmartPartnering.
*<http://sayitbetter.com/grandstore/SP_1.html>