Since starting my own business again, and after visiting Artopod of The Creative Lodge, I am sure of one thing about the future: we will see a dramatic increase of corporate clusters – small companies taking on larger projects under a joint flag. We’re already moving in that direction, and looking at the generation coming into the job market now, I see a large number who are actually better fit to work in such environments than as regular employees.

The Creative Lodge in Northern Sweden is a group of smaller corporations that since a couple of years ago have become on of Sweden’s most successful producers of material like commercials, short films and music videos. They are centered around North Kingdom, who have international customers like Adidas and Coca-Cola, and have won numerous prestigious awards like the Cannes Cyber Lion, the Clio and the Swedish Golden Egg.

All members of this collective work with their own projects as well and are specialists in their area; they are at the cutting edge of what they do. The strength of the cluster is that they together are both updated and have a great span of knowledge. For more complex projects, they can bring in in-house competences, without having to employ like larger agencies do. This combo makes them extremely competitive on a creative market where technology advances daily.

This is also the way we are working with some projects at freelance collective Frilansarna, where we are 13 self-employed journalists, photographers, designers and project managers. Some of us are looking more and more at, together, both creating our own products and offering services that compete with creative agencies. We are finding that we can offer alternatives that are both financially attractive and better fit the needs of customers than agencies often can. Just as with the Creative Lodge, we are not tied to having to occupy expensive employees – but can man our projects freely solely based on competence. And there’s a maybe even larger plus that I have not gone into yet: as we are 13 people with our own companies, we are also 13 sales people constantly on the market looking for jobs. And while a regular sales rep knows his business rather well, our girls and guys are all experts in their field and can therefor represent us more efficiently.

The new generation of professionals coming into their own now, are another sign of the changing times. Just like with earlier shifts, there are huge gaps between what the generations would like to do and how they act. And while there are numerous people born in the 70s who have problems with authorities, the increase in the coming 10-20 years are dramatic. Having worked professionally with sports for numerous years and with close friends in teaching, I’ve seen and heard all too well the change in how the new generation responds to coaches/teachers, parents and other leaders. Let me tell you one thing: it’s not a cake walk. I would sum it up in one sentence: “Please help me, but don’t f*cking tell me what to do!” Pardon my language…

That’s the most negative side, but of course there are a lot of things these digital natives are better at than at us. They are born into the WLAN world, they can interpret and spread information quicker than we say ‘ABC’, they are used to making critical assessments, and are quick to adapt new technology. When it comes to the driving forces behind development, which is very much tech based nowadays, we will soon become obsolete. This generation will not have time to wait for us getting it, they will push for change and see it coming long before us.

So what will they do? Become entrepreneurs, start their own businesses! Where they are the authority and where they decide the tempo of their own work and what trend to follow when. And as they are used to share and like to work together with their friends, they will form social and creative clusters. Just like the Creative Lodge in Skellefteå and Frilansarna in Gothenburg, but probably faster, smarter and more adaptive than we could ever imagine.

“Your old road is rapidly agin’. Please get out of the new one if you can’t lend your hand. For the times they are a-changin’.” – Bob Dylan, The Times They Are a-Changin’ (1964)