by Mary P Ivy

Created on: April 19, 2010

Defining creativity is difficult and measuring it even more so. But if we consider that creativity leads to inventiveness, we have a key. And if we expand the concept of creativity to include inventiveness in all its forms – not just the arts – then indeed creativity is alive and well. In fact, these are very good days for those with a creative streak. 

One way of measuring creativity and its final products is by looking at the number of patents issued each year. Using these statistics, creativity is quite healthy. In 2004 The Economist magazine reported “the number of patent applications to the Patent and Trademarks Office is growing at around 6% a year.”

The Acting Commissioner of Patents gives us an even brighter picture of creativity, saying the U. S. patent business is booming. He reported in 1999, applications were up 25% in both 1997 and 1998. Since 1996 he reports that patent applications in information-related technologies have risen more than 70% while biotech applications jumped 60%.

In fact, the dramatic increase in patent applications required the Patents and Trademark Office (PTO) to hire an additional 1,500 employees to tackle the backlog and handle the projected continued increase.

Richard Florida reports in his book The Rise of the Creative Class that some “38.3 million Americans, roughly 30 percent of the entire U.S. workforce” are employed in work considered creative. Compare this to the 1910 workforce, when only 10% of workers were employed in creative work. The total number of these workers “began a slow rise” in the 1970s and 1980s and since that time has “virtually exploded.”

So if we explore the influence of creativity as it pertains to the sciences, medicine, technology, engineering and design, or almost any other human endeavor, then it is overwhelmingly obvious that creativity has never been more pervasive.

The arts, traditional repositories of creativity, are thriving as well. More people are turning to all the performing arts for fulfillment and pleasure. There are more festivals, concerts, and arts in the park type programs now than ever before. More movies are produced each year than the year before, more computer games are available than we can ever play, more writers workshops and community theaters reach out to talented - or merely interested - citizens. More choral groups for all ages and interests practice and perform and people of all ages are learning

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