Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Innovation Nation by John Kao

Creativity, sounds like fun. What does it look like in a classroom, office, community?

3 comments:

JohnBr said...

In Innovation Nation, John Kao contends that the nation that best promotes innovation will dominate the global marketplace in the 21st Century. The U.S. has always led the way in innovation, but that leadership status is now threatened by other nations that previously were never considered able to compete.

Kao cites Singapore and China as examples, each of which have made a concerted effort to stimulate innovation through the recruitment of talent and the emphasis on math and science in their schools. He contrasts this with the U.S., which has made obtaining Visas more difficult since 9/11 and where only 40% of our high school students take advanced math and science courses prior to graduation.

The U.S., Kao suggests, should focus its innovative efforts on solving the world's "Wicked Problems." These are complex, messy problems that lack clear solutions that can be discovered by a single discipline. We, in the US are more accustomed to solving "Tame" problems that have clear boundaries and lend themselves to linear thinking.

We need to recognize that innovation springs from the collective intelligence of many. That is not born fully-formed, but is the result of many false starts and failures.

How can we prepare our students to be innovators? How can we transform out schools into innovation training grounds? Is it possible? If so, what are the first steps?

Diane Thomson said...

How can we prepare our students to be innovators? How can we transform our schools into innovation training grounds? Is it possible? If so, what are the first steps?

Perhaps we could bring Dr. Sam Micklus to speak to an audience of teachers and principals.

http://www.zoominfo.com/people/Micklus_Sam_5598850.aspx

JohnBr said...

Let's try to get Dr. Miklus to speak. It might be good to try to do this as a video conference. I would like to start promoting videoconferencing again. Or we could video stream it.