Nothing depresses innovation like a rescue package. As I’ve said before, innovation shows the greatest gains in times of need. But for very large corporations, the ship turns slowly and the time to innovate is well ahead of the curve. Detroit had plenty of time to retool for the future.

It will be unfortunate that so many autoworkers will be lose their jobs. If congress wants to make a difference, it will support the autoworkers by hiring them for short-term national infrastructure rebuilding while providing education programs for new skills. And support the creation of truly innovative transportation industries that can hire the workers at competitive (not UAW) salaries.

In fact, I would bring Shai Agassi in to take over GM, fund a total retool of the company, and put the autoworkers to work building a national electric grid infrastructure to support the vehicles. Big Oil would need to shift to alternative energy (including…Gasp! “Nuculear!”… another post on that later). We could become energy independent in four years.

The 1950’s were both a time of prosperity and a time of scarcity, at least by today’s standards. Admittedly, I wasn’t there, but I’ve heard a considerable amount of nostalgia from those that were. It was time of scientific and innovative equality. This equality was demonstrated by a respect for common individual’s participation in discovery, and even greater respect for those that had made discovery their lifelong pursuit. And from these ideals came a time of economic growth unprecedented in history. The US set an example that the world would struggle to match. And match they did.

The generation that followed grew up comfortable and secure, while the rest of the world looked on with envy and enthusiasm. In the time it took the new generation to mature, economic superpowers have emerged and today have begun taking their share of the global resource pie. Our complacency has come back to bite us.

What do we do when something breaks or we need a solution? A look at our nation today would show we head to Walmart. As a nation of consumers, we can expect that someone, somewhere would have created a solution and we surely can find it on the local supermarket shelf or at the very least, on Amazon. And in the very unlikely event that we cannot find the solution, most would find satisfaction in the next best thing. This is the hallmark of a nation of consumerism and complacency. And this has been exacerbated by not only consumption, but consumption on credit. We cannot continue down this path and expect economic security.

In order to reverse this trend, we need to return to the paradigm of American ingenuity. We need to once again become a nation of innovation. As the renowned economist Peter Drucker points out, innovation is work. As a nation, we must work together. We cannot expect, as we have been taught as faithful consumers, that others will have the expertise to provide solutions for us to purchase. We cannot assume that innovation can only come from factories overseas.

“Sacrifice” has rarely entered the political lexicon in the past three decades. It has become the proverbial “four letter word.” It is un-American. But what do we really have to lose? Our ability to buy anything, anytime with a never ending line of credit? The providence of wastefulness, for both products and energy, since “it can always be replaced”? We must change our habits. And like a large corporation, it starts with leadership and learning.

Yesterday, the nation elected our 44th president, and one of the few that would dare to consider that sacrifice is on the table for Americans. That our problems our in our hands, that the government cannot bail us out just to continue down the same path. That there will be no quick fixes. And that we must work to make change happen. We have the first of many steps towards leadership.

Taking on the role of change requires leadership at every level of society, from the president to the parent. Every citizen must learn what their habits are and what can be done differently to lead this nation towards a path of innovation and independence. We as a nation should no longer expect government bailouts, nor the next best gadget, to fix our problems. Every citizen must be leaders of their own domain, including work, family, and personal, and be ready and willing to be innovative and to take action.

Learning, specifically education, has been a contentious issue in the past few decades, especially as we’ve come to assess the progress of our students. It is clear from business and industry that the caliber of graduates are not up to expectations. And for that reason, those companies that can afford it, will and are taking knowledge centers overseas. While content expertise, especially in math and science, is undoubtably a necessary asset for a technological workforce preparation,  innovative capacity is often overlooked.

Innovation is a complicated topic and only recently researched, but the fundamental concepts are being to emerge. Innovation is not entrepreneurism, nor invention, but is the precursor to both. Importantly, innovation can stand on its own. Innovation can simply be tweaks to processes or new uses for existing technologies. Innovation is also about streamlining and finding ways to conserve resources. Innovation can be accessible by everyone, especially when immersed in an innovative environment with the right leadership and a willingness to explore.

We have all of the right ingredients to create a new innovative workforce. It starts with leadership, education, innovative learning environments, and inquiry based instruction. And it will require the help of every citizen.

We are therefore assured that contrary to the narrative of Jack the Giant Killer, Jack had no reason to be afraid of the giant. If the giant were ten times as large as an average man, and had similar proportions, he would indeed be a weakling at best. This is because his weight would be a thousand times that of the average man. However, the cross-sections of his bones would be only a hundred times those of the average man so that every square inch of his bone had to support ten times the weight withstood by a square inch of the average man’s bone. Chances were that the giant could not walk one step without fracturing his thighs. Jack had every reason to feel perfectly safe and sound.

(Sahal, Devendra, 1985.”Technological guideposts and innovation avenues,” Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 14(2), pages 61-82, April.)

He knew low frequency radio waves could heat metals without heating surrounding materials (tissue). He also realized heat could destroy cancer cells. And as a self-described tinkerer, he brought it all together…in his garage. He’s know working with researchers to further refine the technology.

There are a facets to this story worth remembering. 1) He was a tinkerer. This provided early prototyping. And 2) (most important) He was willing to tell his story AND someone listened.

Oh… and he had time. Few great ideas develop in there entirety overnight. Creativity takes time. My personal experience has found being rushed and having a million things on my plate greatly hinders creativity.

We know a few things about what makes innovation and entrepreneurship successful. One important facet is to “get out of the box”. Bringing in novel ideas, especially those that question rather than concede, create opportunities for getting creative juices flowing. This often involves bringing together minds from often disparate places. Crossing disciplines and careers. Non-intentional networking needs to occur.

The convergence of technologies may create new structures to make this happen, and Twine could be one of the leaders. What we need is a way for ideas and interest to become digitized, then linked, and opportunities for discourse to be embedded in the structures. Then for the owners of the ideas to see the links, the other owners, and have the ability to continue the discourse.

It’s a complicated process, something that humans can accomplish on a small scale. But for it to work across organizations and wide physical boundaries, involving greater numbers of people and ideas, we really need machines.

I’d like to see how Twine evolves. In fact, I’d like to see what happens when you add it to a school that embraces cross-discipline project-based learning. Students could be given the opportunity to share their projects and interests, and allow Twine to facilitate the connections to students with similar interests.

Facebook has the potential to network, but it is intentional. Twine could facilitate non-intentional networking.

2. Compatibility. Back to the realization that some great technologies out there are incompatible with current modalities of teaching and learning. I would love to see more Web2.0 tools in the classrooms, but these tools require (gasp!) collaboration and creativity, neither of which are part of the didactic, lecture based models.

An idea that is incompatible with the values and norms of a social system will not be adopted as rapidly as an innovation that is compatible. The adoption of an incompatible innovation often requires the prior adoption of a new value system. (p.15)

Again, as much as we can, the K20 Center uses bridge technologies. Innovations that can be used in the current paradigm of teaching and learning, but give the freedom to push the envelope. The point is to introduce innovations that enhance however the students are being taught. And with the right professional development and the right leadership, teachers will begin to see how the technologies can really engage students in 21st century skills.

First, I really like his definition of innovation:

An innovation is an idea, practice, or object that is perceived as new by an individual or other unit of adoption.

There are some compelling aspects of education and technology with regards to this definition. Common education has been a slow adopter of innovation and I want to know why and how this can be fixed. This issue is at the core of what the K20 Center does. The concept of innovation as an idea and practice is very important for education and I’m beginning to sense that many, if not most, believe innovation to be related strictly to tools (technology). We know from research (at the K20 Center and elsewhere) that technology adoption in education is most successful when fused to a change in school culture. That change in culture is, in itself, an innovation.

A second important aspect of this definition surrounds the concept of “perceived”. Using a laptop is not an innovation to me. I’ve been doing it for years. The ways I use a laptop may be innovative. But for many educational leaders, putting their hand on a keyboard is innovative. Using a trackpad to move the mouse cursor is innovative.

If an idea seems to be new to the individual, it is an innovation.

Leaders can have a difficult time with innovation adoption. I’m sure their is more psychology worth investigating, but I suspect if an individual’s knowledge base has gotten them the top of the ladder, it can be a challenge to admit their is more worth learning. Unless, of course, one is threatened with extinction. Social service leaders may have the most difficulty with adoption of innovations.

Rogers writes (p.12) an important question innovation researchers address is

…how the perceived attributes of an innovation, such as it’s relative advantage, compatibility, and so on, affect its rate of adoption…

Drilling down into these attributes, the beauty of the K20 Center’s work using the IDEALS model for school change begin to emerge. I’ll tackle one attribute per post:

1. Relative Advantage. Kids are learning so why change? Assessment strategies are key here. If education assessment creates the wrong perception of effective learning, we might as well go home. NCLB isn’t helping in this regard. Assessment of learning is a complicated beast and stupefying it to the level of NCLB will do more harm than good. But what alternatives do we have? Plenty. But proper assessment takes time and wasting it on pouring data into the heads of children does not help.

But let’s assume we begin assessing kids on their problem solving abilities. Not multiplying 3 times 3, but how do you evenly arrange 9 desks in a room? It’s the process we are interested in, not the solution. And it is the process that should be assessed. In the real world, there are multiple solutions to complex problems. In school, we teach our kids there is one right answer and infinite wrong answers. This is not real world preparation. Does this mean we shouldn’t teach the basics? Yes. They’ll learn the basics when they discover the wrong math creates inconsistent results and integral errors when complex problem solving. And please, don’t underestimate kids’ ability to do complex problem solving and project-based lessons. Learning 2.0.

How does the K20 Center contribute to addressing the relative advantage attribute? We take into account the current culture of education. But show that it’s real power comes after cultural change. Some of the best tools for educational change are poorly fitted for the current paradigm of teaching and learning. It’s unfortunate because there are some really awesome tools available to schools that engage kids in complex problem solving and project-based learning.

Nonetheless, there are what I would term, bridge technologies. Technologies that can be effective in both paradigms. And the best technologies are ones that bridge and direct learning towards the new paradigm. These are also technologies that can easily be re-purposed. Here’s one: the laptop computer. Like many innovations, you’ve got to be careful with it. It can send you backwards as well as forward, depending on how you use it. Why? I’ll have to get to that on another post.