Free Software meets Cultural Creatives?
September 4th, 2006A chance comment in Safia Minney’s blog set me off on a Google hunt for Cultural Creatives, a term I hadn’t come across before. It turns out that the term was coined in 2000 in a book The Cultural Creatives: How 50 Million People Are Changing the World by Paul H. Ray and Sherry Ruth Anderson. It’s a shorthand for the “optimistic, altruistic millions” who worry about and are active in issues like global warming, rampant consumerism, factory farming, GMOs, exploitative trade conditions, junk television…
In the UK we are used to finding such folks reading The Guardian in their early stages, progressing on to The Ecologist in more advanced stages. Ray and Anderson’s startling claim was that there are 50 million of them in the USA; they’re affluent and well-educated; and if only they’d recognise each other they’d be a huge force for positive change (they might even get their country to sign up to Kyoto 
. Hence the label “Cultural Creative” (which personally I find really cringeworthy, but unfortunately it’s out there now).
I find this fascinating, in that my left-brain is attracted to free/open-source folks, and my right brain is attracted to the cultural creatives. By another coincidence, Bruce Byfield has a piece in Newsforge today where he talks about the Free Software Foundation recognising the need to break out of the geek ghetto and appeal to the strong ethical stance of activist groups in the wider world.
It looks like the cultural creatives should be their first port of call… maybe I should have another go at getting The Ecologist to print my piece on open-source.
January 25th, 2008 at 5:03 pm
hi, I was trying to find out if there was actually a group of people in the UK considering themselves to be cultural creatives when I found your site. Until recently I worked for the Ecologist, and wanted to advise you that it is worth trying again….. I don’t know if you have any experience of journalism? May I suggest that you head up your article with a very large attention getting headline, and use as short sentences as you can with bullet points. It should be something to whet their appetite rather than giving them a long document to read. This is the kind of thing the E is beginning to write about, but all editors get so many proposals that they barely have time to look at them all.
Don’t mention my name…..I left on good terms but I was the ad manager, and that doesn’t count for anything with editors ! And what about the Independent? They have a wider audience. as a Scot I must ask you what Meall Dubh means. something black?
best wishes
Zayda
January 25th, 2008 at 7:15 pm
Thanks for your encouragement. I’ll give “The Ecologist” another try – it looks like Harry has moved on too
“Meall Dubh” is a “dark hill”. You can see further from the top of a hill – if the hill is in darkness and everywhere else is in light, it is a wonderful sight (like the photo at the top of the page).
John