Creative professional

A 'creative professional' who is also known as a 'creative specialist' is a person who is employed for the extraction of skills in creative endeavors. Creative professions include writing, art, design, theater, television, radio, motion pictures, related crafts, as well as marketing, strategy, scientific research and development, product development, engineering, some types of teaching and curriculum design, and more. Since many creative professionals (actors and writers, for example) are also employed in secondary professions, estimates of creative professionals are often inaccurate. By some estimates, approximately 10 million US workers are creative professionals; depending upon the depth and breadth of the definition, this estimate may be doubled.

Although creative professionals have been a part of the workforce for more than 500 years, several events during the past decade have altered industry and public perception of these workers.

The change in status began in the late 1990s when demand for creative workers was high due to the internet boom. Creative workers found that their talents in graphic and interactive design were valuable, and so, the workers began to develop independent cultures in select cities throughout the world, notably San Francisco, New York City and Boston. Some smaller cities, such as Austin and Portland also became centers where creative people found abundant opportunity. This trend has been documented in author Richard Florida's book, The Creative Class.

As the creative workforce has evolved in the post-dot.com era, creative workers have continued to flourish. Daniel Pink's book, A Whole New Mind, describes the transition in American business from information age to conceptual age. Pink describes information-era jobs as expendable and exportable, and offers that the MFA may yield more value for newer American workers than the MBA might generate in today's economy.

The Creative Professional, by Howard Blumenthal, describes the phenomenon from yet another perspective: that of the individual worker now emerging as a serious business professional with specific skills on par with lawyers, accountants, doctors, and other workers who are perceived to be within a special class. The book describes the unique business and career issues for the individual creative worker.

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