The MBFA — the New and Necessary Degree I Just Invented to Save the World

In 2005, Daniel Pink wrote The Coming Right Brain Economy, an article in the Harvard Business Review, where he declared that MBA graduates are becoming this century’s blue-collar workers — people who entered a workforce that was full of promise only to see their jobs move overseas. He stated that the MFA is the new MBA.

“The future belongs to a very different kind of person with a very different kind of mind — creators and empathizers, pattern recognizers, and meaning makers. These people — artists, inventors, designers, storytellers, caregivers, consolers, big picture thinkers — will now reap society’s richest rewards and share its greatest joys.”

I believe that in the 15 years post Pink’s article, and with the rise of DIY entrepreneurialism aided via new technologies, the change we need to save the world is found in the intersection between MBA and MFA graduates — the MBFA — a new type of graduate degree.

In my 20s, I was a working ceramist both with a full studio and gallery representation. In my 30s, after moving to Oakland and locating my studio in a residential area, I became deeply impacted by the state of poverty I saw around me. I decided to forego being an artist to save the world and closed my studio.