BLUEPRINT FOR AMERICA’S CREATIVE FUTURE

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Redefining the Future of Work in America — we’re building a national creativity infrastructure to fuel a 25% growth in America’s creative dynamism across ALL sectors within a decade. Join us to invest in the currency of the future: the art + science of creativity.

We Focus On Creativity In Companies & Cities

Led by the University of Colorado Denver and the Brain Capital Alliance, Imaginator Academy is a future of work skills initiative focused on creativity and social wellbeing in organizations. We are on a 10-year mission bringing together arts, science and business to reclaim a sense of wonder in the American enterprise.

Here’s why focusing on organizational-level creativity is important!

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Innovating Through Culture

Only 7 percent of companies benefit from the growth triple play of unified creativity, analytics, and purpose. Companies using just one of the capabilities—either creativity, analytics, or purpose—saw an average growth rate of more than 6 percent. Adding a second component saw growth rates climb to more than 7 percent. For those that employed the full triple play, growth rates climbed to more than 12 percent.

McKinsey & Company, 2021

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Creative Stagnation

Over the last decade, significant declines in American creativity, business dynamism, workplace social well-being, and youth mental health have been recorded (Kim, 2016; Akcigit, 2023; Murthy, 2022; Murthy, 2023). Meanwhile, despair, defined as the loss of hope, has been found to burden the nation’s wellbeing (Graham, 2021). These are a few examples of ongoing cultural shocks and shifts negatively impacting the creative capital of American labor and its innovation ROI.
~Theo Edmonds, America’s Creative Economy Evolution, 2023

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Social Brain Capital

Employee experiences shape the cumulative “social brain” of a company’s innovation approach. Brain skills like creativity, curiosity, flexibility in thinking, emotional/social intelligence, self-control, awe, resilience, hope, trust, belonging, compassion, happiness and a sense of purpose define what’s possible.

Brain Capital Alliance, 2023

Innovating Through Culture

McKinsey & Company | 2021

Creative Stagnation

Over the last decade, significant declines in American creativity, business dynamism, workplace social well-being, and youth mental health have been recorded (Kim, 2016; Akcigit, 2023; Murthy, 2022; Murthy, 2023). Meanwhile, despair, defined as the loss of hope, has been found to burden the nation’s wellbeing (Graham, 2021). These are a few examples of ongoing cultural shocks and shifts negatively impacting the creative capital of American labor and its innovation ROI. ~Theo Edmonds, America’s Creative Economy Evolution, 2023

Social Brain Capital

Brain Capital Alliance, 2023

Creativity Infrastructure Tools

Science challenges the narrow understanding of creativity so often promoted in the media. Reinvigorating America’s creative prowess requires intentional, sustained collaborations between arts, science, and business. Here’s three tools we use for bringing them together in building America’s creativity infrastructure.

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Cultural Analytics for Future of Work

Our data-supported, digital-forward, quantitative approach uses scientific methods to visualize where there are hidden opportunities to improve workforce creativity and social wellbeing. This allows us to find and act on emerging opportunities faster than ever before.

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Creativity Sciences

We get it. Creativity can feel threatening to some. But, creativity is only dangerous if you don’t know how to use it. We are connecting America’s top cognitive, behavioral and social brain researchers with artists and business leaders to create something extraordinary and meaningful.

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Creativity Alliances

Through public-private partnerships built on Social Brain Capital, we have the audacious goal of building a national, interconnected infrastructure that seamlessly merges art, science, business, and education, all guided by a strategic blueprint for igniting transformational creativity across the American enterprise.

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Cultural Analytics for Future of Work

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Creativity Sciences

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Creativity Alliances

Let’s move beyond the transactional and incremental.

We’re looking for curious visionaries to invest in America’s creative future with us. Explore transformational possibilities with Theo Edmonds.

Ten Years & Three Bold Moves

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BOLD MOVE 1: American Creativity Census/Index

World Economic Forum ranks creative thinking as the #2 skill for future success, yet no national database scientifically and consistently measures this crucial asset. The American Creativity Census/Index fills this gap with a triennial census of creative skills across all sectors. By scientifically measuring creativity, America becomes the first country to establish an investable creativity skills infrastructure, setting the global standard.

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BOLD MOVE 2: Wondervation Pilots

To revitalize companies, industries and civic environments, like innovation districts, we use the quantitative data from the census to test some “big bets” through a portfolio of well-defined, artist-scientist pilot experiments in different cities and industries. All grounded in the belief that improving human flourishing of groups and teams results in a bigger innovation return on investment.

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BOLD MOVE 3: Storytelling for Impact

Inspired by TED and SXSW, our final bold move is to create a national storytelling community focused on wonder—the art and science of being human. Our storytelling community hub explicitly tackles the tensions between arts, science, and business, enriching America’s innovation discourse. Amplifying a collective voice that’s not just about networking but is committed to developing the skills essential for the future.

BOLD MOVE 1: American Creativity Census/Index

World Economic Forum ranks creativity as the #2 skill for future success, yet no national database scientifically and consistently measures this crucial asset. The American Creativity Census/Index fills this gap with a triennial census of creative skills across all sectors. By scientifically measuring creativity, America becomes the first country to establish an investable creativity skills infrastructure, setting the global standard.

BOLD MOVE 2: Wondervation Pilots

To revitalize a sense of wonder in companies, industries, and civic environments, like innovation districts, we use the quantitative data from the census to test some “big bets” through a portfolio of well-defined, artist-scientist pilots in different cities and industries. All grounded in the belief that improving human flourishing of teams results in a bigger innovation return on investment.

BOLD MOVE 3: Storytelling for Impact

7 Steps for Igniting the Brain Capital Industrial Strategy

ABSTRACT: Brain health also plays an increasingly critical role in an economy predicated on “brain capital” (which encompasses an individual’s social, emotional, and cognitive resources). The world is increasingly relying on brain capital, where a premium is put on brain skills and brain health. Along these lines, we define a brain capital industrial policy as a public sector strategy that focuses on building economic resilience through an emphasis on cultivating citizens’ brain health and brain skills to contribute to an innovative and thriving economy.

Read Full Paper at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy

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Lead Organizations

University of Colorado Denver

CU Denver is redefining the model of tomorrow’s public urban research university to lead to a more equitable and innovative society.

We know that, for the last 300 years, higher education was designed to meet the needs of the privileged few.

We see it differently: We strive to make education work for all. Education has the power to transform lives, expand economies, and uplift communities, and everyone must have access to these opportunities. That is why we seek to become the nation’s first equity-serving institution—an inclusive, supportive university where all can excel.

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Brain Capital Alliance

Following on from the success of the OECD Neuroscience-inspired Policy Initiative, the Alliance launched an expanded, multi-national, and multi-organisational programme. The programme focuses on neuroscience-inspired investment and public policy innovation as the two most powerful levers for change. It brings together radically diverse stakeholders spanning fields from brain science to policy, economics and finance.

Brain Capital is a new asset class which recognises brain skills and brain health as indispensable drivers of the brain economy. The Alliance brings together world-class contributors from various backgrounds to explore approaches to building Brain Capital at societal scale.

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Collaborating Imaginators

We are “network of networks” made up of experienced educators, researchers, artists, business leaders, architects and culture futurists. Together, we are on a mission to create an inclusive community for the future of work in a brain economy. Join us as we explore the power of creative intelligence at work.

Theo Edmonds, (he/they) – Culture Futurist & Imaginator Academy Director/Co-Founder, Global Co-Lead of Brain Capital Alliance Creativity Workgroup

Julia Mahfouz (she/hers) – Prosocial Leadership Scholar/ CU Denver Co-Founder

Roni Reiter-Palmon – I/O Psychologist & President-elect, American Psychological Association (Division 10 – The Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity and the Arts; Division 14 – The Society of IO Psychology)