This post is adapted from a presentation I gave at Xerocon Denver 2015. In it, I talked about the progression our economy has made from agrarian, to industrial, to service, to knowledge, to what I believe is here in some industries, and now surfacing in the accounting industry — the creative economy. See this link if you’d like to read the full text.
If you look at our nation’s history, you’ll notice the progression from survival (agrarian economy), to possessions (industrial economy), to freed up time (services economy), to intellectual pursuits (knowledge economy). Some of you may recognize the parallel to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. I suggest we as a society, and as an economy, are moving our way up that hierarchy.
So what comes next? I believe there’s a new age brewing — it’s been around for a little in the broader market actually. But I believe our field, accounting, is now entering the creative economy. In this landscape, it’s not acres, it’s not physical capital, it’s not hours, and it’s not even intellectual property that governs the economic paradigm: it’s our ability to tap into the human capacity to imagine and create. That’s what the market will reward the greatest. And that’s why the largest taxi company doesn’t own a single vehicle (Uber), one of the largest lodging companies doesn’t own a single building (Airbnb), and the largest content company doesn’t have any journalists (Facebook).
The next ten years or so, I believe, will be a drama between the characters of Knowledge (we’ll call him Kevin), and Creativity (we’ll call her Cora) — something I call, “The Tale of Two Economies.”
Continue reading “Accounting Enters the Creative Economy”