CREATIVE INTELLIGENCE

Check out the latest issue of Bloomberg BusinessWeek–The Design Issue. This is great news. When McGraw-Hill sold it to Bloomberg a few years back, design coverage pretty much disappeared. It’s back in a splendid package of stories that offer insights by many of the best designers around the globe. And the design of magazine layout is pretty swell too. Who did it? http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-01-24/the-design-issue.

BBW launched its first Design Conference a few months back and appears to be ramping up its coverage at a critical time. The Designers Fund and the long list of designers starting successful companies is merging the entrepreneur/startup/design/innovation/creativity spaces.  All business media has to cover design and creativity these days.

I’m on an Acela train heading to Harvard where a design conference is about to be held that is organized by Harvard Business School students in conjunction with Harvard’s new I-Lab (as in Innovation). Sign of the times. The students belong to the HBS design club. Design clubs are the fastest growing clubs in business schools.

Creativity is the source of real economic value and we are rediscovering that today. Sure, you can squeeze profits out with efficiency and lower cost supply chaining. But BIG profits comes with original products that have deep meaning for people who can engage with them. That involves using Creative Intelligence to generate Economic Value, Growth and Profits. I call it Indie Capitalism.

Great to see BusinessWeek back in the game.