01 06/2009 Why Are the Most Creative People in Business Skipping Out on Web 2.0?

From fastcompany.com

These days, we’re all public figures. We’re sharing our friends on Facebook, our photos on Flickr, our music on Last.fm, and our goofy links insightful observations on Twitter.

So when Fast Company set out to capture the personalities of our 100 Most Creative People in Business, we started—where else?—by looking for online profiles. Melinda Gates (#2), for example, has more than 50 Google News hits. J.J. Abrams (#14), Tyler Perry (#21), and Pharrell Williams (#36) all have lengthy Wikipedia entries and flashy professional Web sites. And searching Tyra Banks (#49) on YouTube spawns 21,000 video clips (and several cheap laughs).

But when it comes to sharing themselves—not just their businesses, but their business—our creative class clams up. Only 33 have Twitter accounts. Just 19 maintain personal blogs. And four have Flickr pages. In fact, when we emailed bicycle designer Larry Chen (#89) for a link to his blog or photo account, he started cracking jokes. “I don’t have anything like that,” he replied. “I use my computer for two things: Drawing and flight simulation games.”