The quote in the headline is from University of Chicago sociologist Ron Burt, quoted in the New York Times in 2004: "The usual image of creativity is that it's some sort of genetic gift, some heroic act," Mr. Burt said. "But creativity is an import-export game. It's not a creation game." 

The author goes on to write about how homogeneity stifles creativity, and how people who live and work at the intersection of worlds have a confluence of ideas in their worlds which trigger new associations and new opportunities.

Here are some links to look at the creative world of the Ann Arbor area, with a particular perspective on how the import and export of people and ideas to the area drives that work.

Import

Any city with a major research university goes through the perpetual process of recruiting new people to the area and new students to its programs. The recruiting task is done in part by having people from the area evangelize its qualities directly, and in part by making sure that every organization ranks highly on every possible objective measure that would put it on someone else's radar who is looking nationally or globally for a place to be.

It's not necessary to import entire companies if you can instead import and localize international organizations that match the particular key skills of your area. Ann Arbor has shown a ready ability to import any and every national and international organization that has a franchise model of existence. From the oldest of the Masonic fraternal lodges to the industrial-era Rotary and Kiwanis organizations, the area has institutions that are recognized worldwide. In the technical community, we have adopted and made our own such international programs as Ignite, TEDx and Maker Faire, and by doing so have broken out of institutional structures that stop at a funding boundary or the edge of a tax district.

Area agriculture has been immeasurably enriched by the hoop house, which was imported from research at Michigan State University and is extending the growing season all over the area. The long-running and year-round Ann Arbor Farmers Market provides the exchange point not only for speciality crops like winter fresh local greens to come into the area, but also the gathering point for the community to organize to improve and share those efforts.

Even with good ideas and good people, you still need money to fuel the whole effort and to buy potatoes and eggs and coffee for enough people to keep them hungry for learning and not just hungry for their next meal. The area economy is utterly dependent on the University of Michigan's prowess in importing money into the area, with more than $1 billion in grant-funded research in fiscal year 2009.

Links

• Ann Arbor SPARK area marketing efforts lead with the tag line "The address of innovation."
• University of Michigan undergraduate admissions promises an "environment of limitless possibilities."
• Today's University Record announces that Michigan is tops in research and development spending among public universities, and second place behind only Johns Hopkins nationally. Stephen Forrest, vice president for research, is quoted: "We're there because we earned it, one grant at a time."
• Today is TEDxDetroit, which is attracting the area's "leading creators, catalysts, entrepreneurs, artists, technologists, scientists, thinkers and doers" to a day of talks. You can tune in live to the presentations.
• My first sighting of a hoop house in the field was from Shannon Brines at Brines Farm in Dexter. In the April 8, 2010 Detroit Free Press: "Hoophouse ventures prove crops can thrive year-around in Michigan."
• SELMA Cafe's Farmer Fund is financing hoop houses expansions in the area, including work for Brother Nature Produce in Detroit , Sunseed Farm in Ann Arbor, Spirit Farm in Detroit, Needlelane Farm in Tipton, Portage River Farm in Pinckney and Capella Farm in Ann Arbor. Lisa Gottlieb and Jeff McCabe lead the effort.

Creativity

Creativity is hard to measure and equally hard to define.

At times, it is measured in the number of new efforts created and new artifacts that have some distinctive local color or original qualities. As distinct from old institutions that keep on keeping on, these are efforts that reflect some combinations that often come up from import of new ideas.

Some measures of creativity include new business starts, new patents, new organizations, new restaurants featuring cuisine that was heretofore unavailable or new combinations.

Part of the creative mix is your awareness of the surroundings. How well do you know what is happening nearby, and how well are you plugged in to networks that regularly bring in new ideas? The parts of the world that don't have a strong and active local media culture to find and share interesting things have a hard time sustaining creative endeavors, just because not enough people find out about them who are not already part of the inner circle of people who know.

Links

• Help wanted: creative thinkers to solve business problems, a July 2010 column by Tamara Real of the Arts Alliance in AnnArbor.com.
• Richard Florida, author of "The Creative Class," notes that Ann Arbor always shows up on the radar of national creativity metrics in his September 23, 2010 Atlantic piece Density Hubs Across the USA: "The maps are striking. They show how spiky and bicoastal this geography is. The highest-density places are clustered in the East Coast Bos-Wash region and in the West Coast in the regions around Silicon Valley and Greater Los Angeles. Outside of these locations, only Chicago, Boulder, and Ann Arbor rank highly on multiple measures. It's worth pointing out the prominence of Ann Arbor on the list, the home of the University of Michigan located just outside Detroit. Its relative concentrations of creative class density and human capital density rival the most innovative and propulsive regions of the country. Clearly, there are bright spots within the Rustbelt economy, even right next to some of its most intractable problems of economic collapse. Detroit does not rank better than 100 on any of the measures conducted."

Export

There are always more people graduating from U-M who could possibly go to work in the county, and always people who are on short stays in the area for graduate or professional programs who want to be here but have a place to go on to or to go back to when they are done.

Several local cultural institutions have made an exceptional success of exporting themselves to the world along with the exodus of Michigan graduates. U-M football is a drawing card for alumni worldwide, and a good solid Ohio State - Michigan rivalry will even draw fans from both schools to share a beer in the odd hours in a far corner of the world. Zingerman's has grown its businesses in part because it has a unique understanding of how to export a distinct set of local food tastes to alumni, and foodies, all over the place.

Links

• Zingerman's Mail Order is featuring a peck of heirloom Michigan apples, shipped direct from the orchard to you.
• Where to watch the Michigan - Ohio State game in your favorite city? I wish I had an exhaustive list.
• University of Michigan Law School admissions department says: "In the past five years, Michigan graduates have gone to an average of 31 states each year. It is rare for a law school to be so truly national, and it means that no matter what employment market you are interested in, you are likely to find a significant number of Michigan Law alumni to connect with."
• The "I want to go back to Michigan" song sings a familiar, and old, refrain.
• Michigan Expats, created for "Michiganders who have left the state to pursue job opportunities, but who still love Michigan and consider it home.
• Yooper in Exile, my own on-again, off-again personal weblog about the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, written from the perspective of someone who doesn't live there.

Edward Vielmetti writes a daily Links column about Ann Arbor for AnnArbor.com. Contact him at edwardvielmetti@annarbor.com.