Seven Strategies for Changing the World

Reposted from Psychology Today:

Bob and Michele Root-Bernstein were recently honored by the Korean government with an invitation to provide the keynote address at the 2014 TECH+ conference, TECH+  standing for Technology, Economy, Culture and Humanity.  The goal of the conference was to highlight how these four fields can be integrated to foster open innovation, design, green growth, and the arts through innovation and entrepreneurial business practices.  Organized like a series of TED talks on steroids, the forum was hosted by the Ministry of Knowledge Economy (MKE), the Korea Institute for Advancement of Technology (KIAT), and the JoongAng Ilbo (part of JoongAng Media Network, a leading media group in Korea).

Bob provided a summary of many of their fundamental ideas about creativity in a talk entitled “Seven Strategies for Changing the World”. These strategies have been culled from Bob’s thirty years of personal experience as a management consultant for major biotech, pharmaceutical, and chemical companies as well as their ongoing study of successful innovators from every imaginable discipline.

Each strategy can be summarized with a single verb: 1) Imagine; 2) Question; 3) Doubt; 4) Constrain; 5) Train; 6) Match; 7) Act. And each strategy Bob presented can be learned and practiced separately, with benefits for everyday problem solving, so they are well worth keeping in mind whenever you undertake any new project. Together, they are far more powerful, representing a roadmap for transformational change. Here are more details on each strategy…

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Moonshot Thinking [VIDEO 3:46]

Moonshots live in the gray area between audacious technology and pure science fiction. Instead of a mere 10% gain, a moonshot aims for a 10x improvement over what currently exists. The combination of a huge problem, a radical solution to that problem, and the breakthrough technology that just might make that solution possible, is the essence of a moonshot. See more about people attempting “moonshots” today at http://www.solveforx.com

An Exciting New Kind of Learning is Taking Place in America

Reposted from Wired:

Americans need to learn how to discover. Being dumb in the existing educational system is bad enough. Failing to create a new way of learning adapted to contemporary circumstances might be a national disaster. The good news is, some people are working on it.

Against this arresting background, an exciting new kind of learning is taking place in America. Alternatively framed as maker classes, after-school innovation programs, and innovation prizes, these programs are frequently not framed as learning at all. Discovery environments are showing up as culture and entertainment, from online experiences to contemporary art installations and new kinds of culture labs. Perhaps inevitably, the process of discovery — from our confrontation with challenging ambiguous data, through our imaginative responses, to our iterative and error-prone paths of data synthesis and resolution — has turned into a focus of public fascination.

Discovery has always provoked interest, but how one discovers may today interest us even more. Educators, artists, designers, museum curators, scientists, engineers, entertainment designers and others are creatively responding to this new reality, and, together, they are redefining what it means to learn in America.

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Teaching and Facilitating Entrepreneurship in the School Setting

“As an educator of at-risk youth for over thirty years, I’ve seen only one thing consistently bring children raised in poverty into the middle class: entrepreneurship education. Owner-entrepreneurship education empowers young people to make well-informed decisions about their future, whether they choose to become entrepreneurs or not. Our students discover that, like every individual, they already own five powerful assets: time, talent, attitude, energy and unique knowledge of one’s local market. They learn to use these assets to create businesses and jobs, and build wealth in their communities. I’ve seen apathetic kids whose families have been on welfare for generations get excited about school and their futures. They discover that they can participate in our economy and earn money. They quickly realize that to do so, they must to learn to read, write and do math. “

User Generated Education

I grew up in a family where my grandfathers and father were entrepreneurs – they started and ran their own businesses.  My paternal grandfather, as a young man, bought a small vacuum cleaner sales store and later, changed it to selling entertainment electronics.  Later, with my father, they moved to a larger space with increased inventory.  A smaller store was opened in a a town nearby where I was a sales clerk during my teenage years.  Their small business was a financial success as it supported our families with a strong middle class lifestyle for close to fifty years.  I rejected this entrepreneurship spirit.  Making money never interested me (I am a teacher, for gosh sake).

Fast forward to last year – I had the privilege of visiting Blanche Kelso Bruce Academy (BKBA) in Detroit and spending some time with its superintendent, Blair Evans.  Mr. Evans demonstrated the school’s digital…

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