This is great! I will refer to it in a meeting in 2 weeks with the economist of our state's (Connecticut) Business and Industry Association to discuss forming a joint initiative of businesses who hire creative professionals and the local professional organizations (Graphic Designers, Press Club, PR, AMA, Creative Directors, etc.) to learn more about the Creative Economy here. Specifically, my hypothesis is that that the project based "share" of the Creative Economy is growing very fast and there is a lot of room for improvement for the mutual benefit of both businesses and the creative professional "vendors".
This is an opportunity the government won't get as quickly as private business will. Government analysts labels us in a way that dismisses us as irrelevant. When I did the business plan for COMRADITY, I used the IRS and the Bureau of Labor Statistics information to estimate the size of the project based independent professionals in the "creative business", locally. The IRS source is the "Non-Employers". Yep that's what they call us. (Even though most projects today involve hiring and collaborating with a team of diverse specialists.) But since we are not employed nor technically employ anyone else, we don't help the government meet its job number KPIs. So we are currently worthless to politicians and government policy wonks. Oh and the other source of information is the Bureau of Labor Statistics unemployment statistics. We are in the category (I think it is U-4) of people who are not employed by not seeking employment. The label they have put on this category - "Discouraged Workers". I don't know about you, but all the project based independent creative professionals I know are anything but discouraged. They prefer to have the freedom to choose their projects. On that note . . . Happy 4th of July! Hope you are celebrating the freedom of independence! K- -- Visit this forum on the web at http://discuss.coworking.com --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Coworking" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
