The Creative Economy: How People Make Money from Ideas (Paperback)

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Product Description

Britain makes more money from music than from its car industry. In the United States, the core copyright industries achieved foreign sales and exports of $60.18 billion-a figure that surpasses, for the first time, every other export sector, including automobiles, agriculture, and aircraft. Howkins sets out to explore how we can harness creativity and the industry it sustains to our common interests. The Creative Economy is not about information and the information society. It is about more basic matters, what we humans want and what we are good at.

Managing creative people will be fundamental to business success in the next century, and this book is the first to address the whole business of the creative economy-its importance, and how to manage it. A landmark in business books.

About the Author

John Howkins is Deputy Chairman of the British Screen Advisory Council and has worked as a consultant for Time Warner, ABC, IBM and many other companies and institutions. His previous publications include UNDERSTANDING TELEVISION, MASS COMMUNICATIONS IN CHINA and NEW TECHNOLOGIES, NEW POLICIES.

Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Penguin Global (June 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0140287949
• ISBN-13: 978-0140287943
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #337,954 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Howkins measures the creative economy, January 1, 2010

By	RODNEY J. JENSEN (AUSTRALIA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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Overall, I see this book as a documentary treatment, aimed at a general readership. If there is any criticism of this approach, it is that in the attempt to deal inclusively with all creative/IP-related industries, the material frequently traverses already well trodden paths. Some of that material could perhaps have been jettisoned in favour of a more selective and microscopic focus on fewer industries.

Conversely, Howkin's great strength is his journalistic clarity and ability to sustain interest throughout the book without the usual impediment of overt citation disease plaguing other more pretentious and scholarly treatments. This book is ideal reading material for politicians, schoolteachers and captains of industry alike, in helping us to see the industrial world in a different way. In doing this, Howkins must stand equal to other leading popular theorists like Richard Florida, and Charles Landry.

For anyone who is involved in commercial and artistic processes which require IP protection (and obviously this becomes an obligation for those hoping to make a living from such activities) this book provides an essential wake-up call. As Howkins sums it all up on his final page: "a society that stifles or misuses its creative resources, and signs up to the wrong property contract, cannot prosper. But if we understand and manage this new creative economy, individuals will profit and society will be rewarded."

It is hard to disagree with this simple but powerful conclusion.
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