The Creative Economy
About the Crow's Nest
"My grandfather Bob McCracken began writing the Crow's Nest in 1935. He was 25 years old.
"After a judge threw my grandfather in jail in 1945 for writing a Crow's Nest column criticizing the judge's conduct in a trial, my grandfather and the paper appealed all the way to the Supreme Court - and won. (Read More »)
Austin’s creative sectors are more important to our economic future than you might think.
An Hour a Day
I wrote a novel before I was elected to the city council. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.
Writing a novel takes creativity, but it also requires incredible discipline. For three years, I woke up at 5:30 each weekday morning and wrote for one hour. Some mornings, the progress seemed glacial. But over time the progress built, and by 2000 I had finished a manuscript and edited it twice through.
That summer, the Austin Writers’ League selected my book as a finalist in its manuscript competition. Within a year, I had an agent. I allowed myself to feel the exciting prospect that I might actually sell my book and become a full-time novelist.
I never got it published, but I don’t regret trying. I love writing. That’s the thing about creative pursuits like writing. You can make a career doing it. But given the long odds, immense time investment and low payout, it’s a questionable thing to do if all that drives you is your career. You write because you feel a calling.
The Creative Economy
Of the emerging sectors in the 21st Century Economy, clean energy and biotech have received considerable national attention, and justifiably so. These sectors will produce huge numbers of jobs in all skill levels. Their products will improve lives and tackle humanity’s biggest challenges.
But the creative economy is a much bigger deal than even many Austinites may realize.
Consider this. The local economic impact from productions at Austin Studios exceeded $100 million last year and $1 billion since 2001.
Or this: South by Southwest’s annual impact exceeds $110 million.
Or this: According to the Austin American-Statesman, Forbes last year cited these factors in Austin’s economic success:
* a strong tech employment base
* a steady stream of talent from the University of Texas
* “thriving music and film sectors,” and
* “the city’s reputation as a haven for creative types.”
Or this: most of Austin’s technology employers consider digital media to be their top growth opportunity. AMD, Dell, Freescale and IBM are all major leaders in digital media technology. According to the Statesman, Austin is home to more than 50 video game development companies and is considered one of the top cities in the country for game development.
The creative economy is central to Austin – both to our economy and to our identity. That means the negative impact of losing our creative economy would be much greater than the number of lost jobs.
Indie is the future.
How do we secure our current creative economy jobs and create new opportunity? This question is particularly pressing now. Production in Austin of major studio films has plummeted since New Mexico and Louisiana started major incentives programs. Many talented film crew workers have moved to Louisiana – even the creative class goes where the opportunity exists.
To lead in the creative economy sectors of the 21st Century economy, we need to start with this vision: Make Austin a national leader in the creative economy sectors of film, digital media and music by focusing on independent digital filmmaking and independent creative media.
That vision is achievable. By implementing the strategies I describe in my Seven Steps to Securing Austin’s Economic Future – the same strategies that Austin first used to transform ourselves into a global technology leader – we can lead in the creative economy, too.
Austin’s Creative Economy strategy should include –
- Creating infrastructure for innovation. The upgrades to Austin Studios are an important start. A Creative Economy Incubator modeled on the Sundance Institute’s incubators for independent filmmakers would build on these new cutting edge facilities to create a vibrant creative economy ecosystem.
- Recruiting new jobs and retaining existing companies. The loss of our local film talent to Shreveport shows what happens when your existing jobs move away. We will need elected leaders to personally recruit creative economy employers. We will need expanded incentives to recruit films and TV series. We will need to recruit video game and music publishers and firms with expertise in digital media distribution to empower local creative artists.
- Empowering people through job training. Austin filmmaker Juan Garcia writes, “Austin can create more opportunities in film/digital media by focusing funding efforts and research into new and emergent media technology in both the K-12 and college levels. A solid educational foundation in media literacy is the key to producing more creative/high tech jobs in Central Texas.”
- Practicing unity and intense cooperation. Again, filmmaker Juan Garcia say it best: “With the many high tech industries already calling Austin home, filmmakers, educators, engineers and researchers alike could combine efforts to make this city one of the top global centers of digital media.”
Our community’s creativity is central to Austin’s uniqueness, to Austin’s national image and to our quality of life. If we simply try to hunker down during this period of economic turbulence, we could find ourselves losing much of what gives Austin an economic advantage and which gives our community its soul.
If we have the vision to lead in the creative economy, however, our future will not only be brighter and more prosperous. The Austin of our future will still feel like the offbeat, eclectic and unapologetically weird Austin of today.
Second chapters
After I finished my first novel, I started my second novel. My first novel was a thriller titled South by Southwest; my second was very different. It is a very personal delayed coming of age story set in my hometown of Corpus Christi titled All My Friends Are Becoming Surfers for Jesus.
I was 110 pages into it when my son Ford was born. That’s when the combination of being a sleep-deprived dad, practicing law and serving on the city council made my calling as a writer to take a hiatus.
I still think about the book all the time, and I’ve tried to pick up writing again a couple of times. But when it comes to writing fiction, the toughest thing about elected office is all the breakfasts you have to attend – it becomes practically impossible to reliably carve an hour out each morning.
My fiction writing will be something waiting for me when I have finished my elected service. In the meantime, I really miss that hour each morning of quiet contemplation and creating.
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