Bringing Meaning to the Marketplace

Abstract

The authors, faculty members at Northeastern University and Boston University, highlight the shifting values and priorities of their Millennial and Gen Z students as they prepare for work in the innovation and entrepreneurship fields. In their classes with both undergraduate and graduate students, they explore the rich intersection between creativity, business, and social impact.

In alignment with worldwide trends, their students want to launch ventures that are meaningful, economically viable, and socially responsive to the challenges of our time. As witnesses to increasing economic disparity, the effects of climate change, political upheaval, culture wars, and pandemics like Covid-19, these generations see clearly that business models based only on profit are outdated. The next generation is demanding a shift in the profit-driven paradigm toward one that is inclusive and responsive to a triple bottom line: People, Planet, and Profit.

Gen Z and Millennial students want to solve problems that truly matter while honouring their individuality; they want to make a positive impact in their communities in a way that is also financially sustainable.

The authors share case studies that emphasize the importance of integrating their four part Make/Care/Strategize/Implement (MCSI) Framework into the fabric of organizations from the visioning stage to implementation:

MAKE like artists

CARE like activists

STRATEGIZE like entrepreneurs

IMPLEMENT like organizers

By implementing the MCSI Framework, the next generation of entrepreneurs will have the building blocks necessary to embrace a more holistic, sustainable approach to business that lays a foundation for a lifetime of meaningful, impactful work.

Bringing Meaning to the Marketplace

Let us paint a picture for you. Or better yet, we will share our story in three acts:

Act 1: Individuals

We see a need for the next generation of students to gain entrepreneurial skills to develop meaningful ventures for the future. Starting with artists and arts administrators, and branching out across university silos to incorporate students from across disciplines, we create graduate and undergraduate courses and introduce the Make/Care/Strategize/Implement (MCSI) Framework.

Act 2: Community

We host a symposium, Art and Ideas in Action: Arts + Business + Social Impact, utilizing the MCSI Framework, and confirm that imaginative thinking, strategic partnerships with key stakeholders, and clear measurable outcomes are essential to inspire meaning and hope during complex times, not just for students but for broader community-based audiences. This symposium is a catalyst for what is now the largest conference for students interested in innovation and entrepreneurship, IDEA Con, hosted annually by Innovate@BU, Boston University.^[1]

Act 3: Society

With the rapid advancement of artificial intelligence and a host of other challenges, we recognize the importance of the integrated MCSI Framework to develop a human-centered economy. Through intentional, strategic integration of creativity, higher education can take the lead in providing a clearer sense of purpose and promoting innovative solutions amongst its students.

Act 1: Individuals

The Beginning: Teaching Professional Skills to Artists

Art students (visual, performance, and music) spend thousands of hours perfecting their craft with little space to gather the tools they need to market their work. Many art students graduate with highly developed artistic expertise in their chosen disciplines but lack the entrepreneurial skills necessary to create the impact they want, and arguably the impact society needs.

When we were asked to co-create an experimental course called Cultural Entrepreneurship within the graduate Arts Administration program at Boston University, we welcomed the challenge to teach artists and arts administrators how to reimagine new revenue streams that support their creative expertise and competencies. With backgrounds in arts, social impact, political organizing, and entrepreneurial consulting, we as instructors emphasized a practical and experiential learning-based approach.

As faculty members, we are committed to unlocking students’ creative and entrepreneurial mindsets, and our courses help students to recognize their potential to be change makers. We challenge our students to create vibrant, economically viable ventures that extend from their visionary entry points as artists and arts leaders. Introducing our students to the vocabulary of startups, from Minimum Viable Product (MVP) to Return On Investment (ROI), we teach the distinctions between various business models, including nonprofit, for-profit, and benefit corporations. While this is basic information for business students, it is rarely talked about in art schools.

Cultural Entrepreneurship as an academic discipline has had a 20+ year history in the UK, drawing international attention with the publication of John Howkins’s book, The Creative Economy: How People Make Money from Ideas.^[2] Nonetheless, in the context of Boston University’s arts administration program, the introduction of this class in 2013 was groundbreaking. Since the course began, we have taught thousands of students, many of whom continue to remain in contact with us. As of 2023, over 40% of those surveyed have launched their own ventures, as both entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs, at the intersection of Arts & Culture, Business & Technology, and Social Impact.

We treat our course as an incubator for real-world startup ideas, taking students through ideation, testing, and pitching their new ventures. Our students are excited and energized by this learning-by-doing approach. For many, this is the first time they are learning about the workings of the rapidly evolving creative economy, along with the challenges and opportunities for art entrepreneurs.

Our students are growing and thriving, using words such as ‘transformative’, ‘exhilarating’, and ‘eye opening’ to describe their experiences in our class. We have tapped into a desire for a new definition for success: one that includes financial viability, but also creative engagement and social relevance. This makes honing a creative, entrepreneurial mindset an important professional skill.

Our primary focus when we first started in 2013 was to teach artists and arts administrators the importance of keeping an eye on the broader markets and communities while also fulfilling their individual creative purpose. We created a safe community-oriented classroom that encouraged students to get comfortable taking risks while developing their entrepreneurial skills and perfecting their artistic crafts so that they could generate their own economic opportunities.

While we started by teaching artists the skills and language of the innovation and entrepreneurship world, our interdisciplinary approach has now expanded to students from various disciplines. We use a framework that teaches a creative mindset to serve a broader population.

It was in these first classrooms that our MCSI Framework originated:

MAKE LIKE ARTISTS: While creativity is inherent in every individual, we help students access it and integrate creativity into their day-to-day lives. Using the Creative Re/Frame M.A.K.E. Framework we help students get Messy to activate idea generation, be Awake and Aware of opportunities around them, Keep going through their challenges and Enjoy the process. We offer our students the tools and techniques to foster a creative mindset, unlocking imagination to envision new strategic and innovative solutions.

CARE LIKE ACTIVISTS: Caring for the larger community makes for better business and for deeper personal fulfilment. Using a Creative Re/frame C.A.R.E Framework, we help students hone in on the powers of Curiosity, Awareness, Responsibility, and Empathy and connect these elements to unique organizational value propositions.

STRATEGIZE LIKE ENTREPRENEURS: Using design thinking, we empower our students to develop their ventures step-by-step. By right-sizing and strategically structuring business models, students can successfully set specific, measurable, and achievable goals.

IMPLEMENT LIKE ORGANIZERS: We help students translate ideas into action. Urgency, tasks, timelines, and measuring impact are crucial for success. We stay highly focused on final products aimed at the systemic change needed to create long-lasting impact.

CASE STUDY: BENDADA MUSIC FESTIVAL^[3]

Inês Andrade, a doctoral candidate in performance classical piano at Boston University’s College of Fine Arts, traveled from Lisbon to her family’s home of Bendada, Portugal. While she had driven the mountainous windy roads countless times in her life, this year was different. She had been asked to perform a Christmas concert in the newly inaugurated Casa da Música da Bendada, a well-appointed music school built with funding from a European Union grant. The building was beautiful; its soundproof practice rooms and a modern concert hall overlooked the valley below. But aside from the Christmas concert, the hall was largely empty the rest of the year. The town of Bendada has had a long history with music, starting in 1870 when the Sociedade Filarmónica Bendadense was established. This musical history, combined with the economic demise of the region from the 1970s, got Inês thinking. She was performing in a gorgeous music hall, and she realized this was an opportunity to create something more. The seed for the Bendada Music Festival was planted. ‘I always knew I wanted to do more with music than just perform concerts’, she says. ‘I wanted to create something that could make an artistic and economic impact that could help revitalize the whole community. My community’.

As a committed artist dedicated to piano from an early age, Inês had the artist’s discipline to finely hone her expertise, connecting to a purpose that she then shared with others. Inês came to the first part of the MCSI Framework (Make Like an Artist) from an authentic entry point. As an artist, she channelled her creative practice to an intention that fuelled and inspired both herself and others.

Back in Boston for her final semester prior to receiving her doctorate, Inês enrolled in the Cultural Entrepreneurship class. Inês used the course to workshop her vision and build skills using the MCSI Framework to:

• Make Like an Artist by building on her credibility as a well-established musician.

• Care Like an Activist by owning her authentic connection to the town of Bendada, its long history as a music centre, and undertaking research to more fully understand its current plight.

• Strategize Like an Entrepreneur by networking to build a sustainable funding model.

• Implement Like an Organizer by partnering with the Portuguese Secretary of Economic Development, Portugal State Tourism office, and the Boston University community.

Integrating the four pieces of MCSI, Inês was able to turn her idea into a viable international program that has had a quantifiable impact in the region and beyond. But she knew she couldn't do this alone, nor did she want to. She formed a formidable partnership with a fellow doctoral candidate in performance piano, Edoardo Carpenedo. Edoardo took the same graduate class the following year so they could have a common language and vision as they prototyped their venture they founded together, the Bendada Music Festival.  

In the summer of 2024, the Bendada Music Festival completed its 9^th year with a record number of students, ranging in age from 14 to 22 years old. Music teachers from around the world, and corporate, community, and governmental partners, all gathered to enjoy captivating concerts. Thousands of audience members from local communities came together in unique concert venues ranging from 12^th-century castles to 16^th-century churches. The local community participates in the Bendada Community choir, hosts a folk festival in the town square alongside the music festival, and houses students in individual homes. Along with the hundreds of students and instructors who hone their skills through the festival each year, Bendada citizens participate as musicians and concert goers, and restaurants and hostels benefit from the increase in tourism and revenue.

Act 2: Community

The Ripples: Recognizing the Need for MCSI in a Larger Context

As impact-oriented educators as well as community-based professionals we wanted to share our learnings in the classroom with a larger audience. We set out to create an opportunity for our students to network with innovators within the corporate, nonprofit and political arenas, as well as to share our resources and learnings with the broader Boston community so that it was not sequestered to the campus. We understood the importance of igniting the power of interdisciplinary partnerships to scale the impact of what we were creating in the classroom. Building on the MCSI Framework, we partnered with the BU’s College of Fine Arts, Questrom School of Business, and the BU Arts Initiative to introduce a unique, creative public symposium: Arts & Ideas in Action: Arts + Business + Social Impact.

Tapping into our own collective creative mindset to make our vision a reality, we cared like activists, reaching out to cross-disciplinary stakeholders to work with us to infuse energy, hope and purpose into a welcoming space. We strategically built cross-disciplinary alliances across the campus as well as the city to create an impactful agenda. And we implemented a rich, community-based, inclusive conference filled with energy, hope, and measurable outcomes at Boston University on 11 November 2016.

The theme of the conference was optimism and hope. We planned to model how the arts and business communities could work together toward a common good, despite being unlikely bedfellows. We incorporated our students into conference planning through an Ambassador program and invited our communities from outside of the university. The planning committee agreed that it would be best to hold the event after the US Presidential election. The 11 November 2016 date seemed ideal—the event would happen toward the end of the semester but not too close to the holidays. Three days before the symposium, surprising election results revealed a very divided country. And as any good organizer, innovator, entrepreneur, or improv actor knows, our job was to remain nimble while working with dynamic variables.

After the US Presidential election, the direction of our symposium shifted from confidence to confusion, from optimism to uncertainty. We were bringing together Boston’s business and arts community after a highly divisive election. We asked ourselves, ‘How can we acknowledge the tense post-election climate without being political? How can we maintain a tone of collaboration and promote goodwill among people who potentially held opposing beliefs?’. Originally, we thought that the symposium would offer innovative networking opportunities; now we feared that the audience would be unable to span their differences.

Our sold-out crowd filled the newly renovated Boston University Graphic Design department’s space. Attendees from Boston-based for-profits, nonprofits, and government agencies gathered with higher education administrators, faculty, and students to explore the question, ‘What happens when art and business join forces to create stable economic opportunities and build vibrant communities while addressing societal needs?’.

To acknowledge the political sea change, we updated our introductory slide deck to include a Toni Morrison quote: ‘This is precisely the time when artists go to work. There is no time for despair, no time for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal’. We knew that no matter how people voted or what political views they held, we stood by the belief that the arts have the power to connect, fortify and help us to build equitable, healthy, empathetic, respectful communities that benefit everyone.

To our delight, the tone of the symposium honoured our original vision to create an atmosphere of hope and possibility, but with even more energy and focus. Not only did artists need economic opportunities, but it was abundantly clear that businesses needed creative partners to help reimagine new ways forward. We began to think about the potential for arts and business collaborations to develop in a larger socio-economic context.

When Boston University’s BUild Lab IDG Capital Student Innovation Centre opened their doors in 2017, we partnered with them as creative practitioners in residence to expand upon the model of the Arts & Ideas in Action: Arts + Business + Social Impact symposium to design and grow what is now the largest cross disciplinary student innovation conference in the USA, IDEA Con.^[4] Fast forward to October 2024 and IDEA Con, now with over 700 participants registered from 25 colleges and universities, incorporated an exercise from the MCSI second module of CARE Like an Activist through interactive CARE Cafés with all the participants in the auditorium.

These CARE Cafés were introduced by first posing the questions: ‘Where does creative innovation come from? And ‘What are problems worth solving?’. The CARE Cafés provided an opportunity for attendees to verbalize to each other what motivates them to get involved in something beyond themselves by exploring their CARE: an acronym for Curiosity, Awareness, Empathy, and Responsibility.

Prompts included:

WHAT big problems are you curious about?

HOW do you want to address these problems?

WHERE do you think this interest/desire comes from?

WHY are you the one to address this? Why now?

WHAT is your unique entry point into this problem?

WHO else do you want to talk with to explore this problem/opportunity?

Once attendees had an opportunity to gather their individual ideas through a journaling exercise, they were put in two long lines and participated in a time-based speed dating-like activity. By giving individuals an opportunity to explore what they care about and articulate it to others, we allowed them to make authentic connections with a larger community, hatch partnerships, and deepen their sense of meaning from the event.

In addition to the CARE Cafés, IDEA Con highlights young creative entrepreneurs by giving them opportunities to share their stories in five-minute, TED Talk-style presentations. These speakers follow the MCSI Framework, inspiring attendees to tap into their own wellspring of curiosity. Over the years IDEA Con has featured student innovators such as:

Max Bard.^[5] A graduate of Boston University’s MFA program, Max is an interdisciplinary artist who uses recycled materials for his pieces with clients ranging from Google to national parks and galleries. IDEA Con hired Max to create a sculptural piece during the day-long conference emphasizing the theme of sustainability. His pop-up artist studio on the first floor of the Questrom School of Business at IDEA Con was an interactive practice inviting attendees to comment, share and discuss his piece in real time emphasizing the importance of Making like an Artist.

Ellice Patterson.^[6] While studying for her MS from Boston University, Ellice was also establishing her non-profit organization Abilities Dance Boston that uses dance as a tool to advocate for intersectional disability rights. Ellice was a speaker for IDEA Con and modelled the importance of Caring like an Activist by creating a venture that aligns with her belief that dance should be inclusive of all body types. Her dance troupe then joined her on the stage to share their work and a performance with the audience.

Anj Fayemi.^[7] A rap artist and computer scientist from Nigeria, Anj was studying at MIT when he stumbled across a problem he was uniquely suited to solve. He was getting ready to release a new album and wondered, ‘How can artists use technology to directly interact and grow their fan base?’. He founded his for profit company, Rivet, in his third year at MIT and shared his story at IDEA Con from ideation to implementation underling the critical aspects of Strategizing Like and Entrepreneur and Implementing Like an Activist.

While continually refining the MCSI Framework, we have had opportunities to introduce the approach to thousands of students, professionals, and international dignitaries. We have found that no matter the age, experience, or industry there is a deep connection to incorporating the four quadrants of the MCSI Framework to make more meaningful work. The MCSI Framework clarifies and encourages participants to pay attention to the distinct puzzle pieces starting with authenticity and ending with solving problems that matter.

Act 3: Society

Reframing Future Economies

We have arrived at Act 3 in our story. In Act 1, our goal was to introduce entrepreneurial skills to art students, which we then grew into an interdisciplinary approach to creative entrepreneurship integrating our MCSI framework. In Act 2, our perspective broadened to reveal how the MCSI framework can serve a larger community through the symposium Arts & Ideas in Action: Arts + Business + Social Impact and later, through the IDEA Con Student Innovation Conference.

Our Gen Z and Millennial students are acutely aware of the uncertain economic future with the rapid advancement of artificial intelligence and a host of challenges including climate change, economic disparity and political unrest. They seek employment that reflects their triple bottom line values, provides financial security and offers hope for the future. If they can’t find these opportunities in existing companies, they are committed to building new ones. And our students are not alone—in the Deloitte 2023 Gen Z and Millennial Survey: Waves of Change: Acknowledging progress, confronting setbacks, 22,000 Millennials and Gen Z’ers across 36 countries responded with a deep concern for unethical business practices and political unrest.^[8] With businesses holding the locus of power in our time, Millennials and Gen Z’ers look to business leaders to rise up to address economic greed, disparity and the impending impacts of climate challenges.

Researchers from UK-based research organizations, Nesta and Pearson, assert that the future will require both human and machine capacities. As automation and artificial intelligence expand in the workplace, so will the need for deeply human skills like ‘originality, active learning and the fluency of ideas’.^[9] The MCSI Framework offers student innovators the opportunity to cultivate and integrate deeply human skills into their ventures. As educators, we believe higher education is poised to lead a paradigm shift, providing students with the language and tools to become our future creative, caring, and strategic innovators.

We have arrived at the end of Act 3, but the curtain does not close. Universities are poised to play a key role as incubators for interdisciplinary collaboration and socially responsible innovation. Through a holistic approach that integrates making, caring, strategizing, and implementing, together we can create the meaningful businesses of the future.

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Wendy Swart Grossman and Jeannette Guillemin

Wendy Swart Grossman is both a faculty member at the Questrom School of Business at Boston University as well as a co-founder of Creative Re/Frame, LLC.  With a background in global presidential politics and NGO and non-profit social impact organizations, she infuses creativity into her classrooms and client spaces to drive authentic community centered change to amplify the voices of her students and clients missions. 

Jeannette (Jen) Guillemin is both a faculty member at the D’Amore-McKim School of Business at Northeastern University as well as a co-founder of Creative Re/Frame, LLC. With a background spanning arts leadership, counseling, and experiential learning, she integrates creativity and reflection into her classrooms and client collaborations to cultivate ethical leadership, foster resilience, and spark community-centered innovation.

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[1] See ‘IDEA Con 2024’ (Boston University) <https://www.bu.edu/innovate/events/idea-con/> accessed 19 December 2024.

[2] John Howkins, The Creative Economy: How People Make Money from Ideas (Allen Lane 2001).

[3] See ‘Bendada Music Festival’ <https://bendadamusicfestival.com/> accessed 19 December 2024.

[4] See (n 1).

[5] See ‘Home’ (Max Bard) <https://maxbard911.com/> accessed 19 December 2024.

[6] See ‘Abilities Dance Boston’ <https://www.abilitiesdanceboston.org/> accessed 19 December 2024.

[7] See ‘Where we began’ (Rivet) <https://www.rivet.app/about-us> accessed 19 December 2024.

[8] ‘2023 Gen Z and Millennial Survey’ (Deloitte) <https://www2.deloitte.com/cn/en/pages/about-deloitte/articles/genzmillennialsurvey-2023.html> accessed 19 December 2024.

[9] Hasan Bakhshi, Jonathan M Downing, Michael A Osborne, and Philippe Schneider, ‘The Future of Skills Employment in 2030’ (Pearson and Nesta, 2017) <https://media.nesta.org.uk/documents/the_future_of_skills_employment_in_2030_0.pdf> accessed 19 December 2024.