Sep 11

Using Location Quotient to Measure Creative Economy

When taking on the--sometimes difficult--task of quantifying an area’s creative economy, you will want access to every tool at your disposal. One useful tool is location quotient (LQ) data. The location quotient can be used to reveal the level of concentration a particular occupation or industry has in a specified... read more →
Sep 04

Data and Reporting available in CVSuite™

The Creative Vitality™ Suite is a powerful tool, containing data that has many potential uses. The online tool offers a few different ways to download data. #1 Regional Snapshot PDF report The one page, regional snapshot PDF report provides an overview of an area's occupations, industries, grants and nonprofits. The... read more →
Aug 18
Jun 22

Community Input Helps Data Make the Case – How the arts commission in a small Washington town tripled its budget

Ellensburg, Washington, is a small community located approximately 100 miles east of Seattle. Seeking to increase its annual budget of $8,000, the Ellensburg Arts Commission approached its city council in 2012. Before saying “no,” the city council requested more information on how increasing the arts commission’s budget would benefit the... read more →
May 28

Counting the Self-employed in Your Creative Economy – Creative Occupations in the Gig Economy

Not many people would be surprised that the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ (BLS) general category of arts, design, entertainment, sports, and media occupations contains the highest concentration of self-employed workers nationwide.¹ Data show that, on average, nationally, self-employed individuals and freelance workers (also known as the “extended proprietor” class of... read more →
May 11
Apr 21
Mar 30
Feb 17

Putting Data to Work

Most in the arts field understand the ever-increasing importance of data for effective advancement of the arts. Newspapers and data-driven blogs such as Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight routinely reinforce that the age of “big data” is upon us, even in the arts. Reports of clairvoyant data predicting elections, crowd-sourced data lowering... read more →
Jan 11