Adobe survey: Working for the government is a soul-crushing, empty experience for creatives

They say that life sucks and then you die. According to a new survey from Adobe, you’d better hope that you don’t get stuck working for the government during that slow, sad arc of your pathetic existence.

Adobe reports that 73 percent of “public sector creative professionals” in the U.S. and Canada believe that government is stifling their creativity. The result is what Adobe terms the “creativity gap” between public and private sector creative jobs.

That could make it harder and harder for government to attract the very best talent to its PR, marketing, and advertising operations as they flee into the warm, liberating embrace of corporate America, where every new idea is nurtured with unlimited resources and a love that allows them to blossom and realize their full potential, rather than being smothered in an endless series of meetings with consultants who bludgeon them to death with dry-erase markers and whiteboards.

The latest findings fly in the face of the image many have heretofore held of government as a bubbling cauldron of innovation, defined by a deft agility that allows it to evolve with the times and brings out the very best in the small nation of bureaucrats who arrive at work every day with a zeal that is the envy of the free world.

Instead, it appears these lost souls who try to tell the stories of government to the public are treading water in a sea of existential dread.

According to Adobe, 94 percent of creative professionals who participated in the poll said governments should be able to foster creativity just as well as businesses. Alas, only 46 percent believe that to be the case now. And worse, 57 percent say their fellow public sector creatives are not “living up to their creative potential.”

“The creativity gap between the public and private sectors is real and presents a tremendous challenge for government, its employees, and the professionals who work there,” said Jerry Silverman, principal solutions consultant at Adobe. “There are very talented creatives in government agencies with the potential to produce world-class communications for government. All they need is for their agency resources to meet them halfway with the right tools and resources.”

There is a slide deck: