Here’s an interesting article by Randall Fielding in PLD - the official magazine of the ELDA (European Lighting Designers’ Association) and the IALD (International Association of Lighting Designers).

The opening paragraphs make some interesting points.

In a world where advanced degrees in professional disciplines are rapidly becoming a commodity, prosperity belongs to individuals with the ability to react with agility to unpredictable market forces, data, and events.

Fortunately, responding …

According to Paul Bracken in his article Futurizing Business Education (Futurist magazine July-August 2008), there are four major characteristics of the turbulent world businesses are faced with today:

Technology – rapidly and dramatically transforms industries.
Political risks – decisions at a political have direct impact.
Blurring of industry boundaries – businesses are chasing radically new markets beyond the bounds of their traditional offerings.
New competitors with different strategic personalities – emerging economies …

Does the subtleties and nuances, the richness and adaptability, of a language impact a culture’s (a population group’s) ability to innovate?

If the language:

is rich with borrowed words;
is open to playful metamorphosis by the majority of the population and not just the hyper- educated elite;
is actively used by many people in diverse (but not isolated) geographical regions so has to promote both variation and cross pollination);
has been in use …

The difference between a truly professional outcome (one that is produced by a craftsperson) and an amateur outcome lies in the craftperson’s ability to see and work with the big picture as well as the details.

As the saying goes, God may well be in the details; but the truly sublime can only be experienced as a whole. The big picture is where all the individual pieces come …

A nice piece on design, seeing, opportunities and creative thinking: http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/43

Observation: Sidewalks in Singapore appear to be built without any awareness of the buildings on either side. I am not just referring to aesthetic differences either. Walking down a street often entailed the constant stepping up, stepping down, or stepping over ledges or open gutters between sidewalks of different buildings.

Thought: This approach to urban development seem to indicate compartmentalised thinking. The designers and planners of a new …

Wonder

The first thing needed for innovation is a fascination with wonder,” says Dawna Markova, author of “The Open Mind” and an executive change consultant for Professional Thinking Partners. “But we are taught instead to ‘decide,’ just as our president calls himself ‘the Decider.’ ” She adds, however, that “to decide is to kill off all possibilities but one. A good innovational thinker is always exploring the many other …

Do cats have molars? What are the implications of an anecdote like this on teaching and learning?

Facts and raw data can be had easily.
The memorisation/regurgitation of such is perhaps of decreasing importance. Perhaps it is only sufficient to remember tags/markers/keywords, so as to enable the retrieval of info in greater depth when required.
These skills will become more important: research, critical analysis, thinking, synthesis…

The …

The demand for innovation (the myriads of definitions thereof) is certainly out there more so than ever before, judging by the magazines and media. I am talking about business innovation here – that is new ways to design, run and “be” a business.

I predict that increasingly many colleges and universities will start offering degree programmes and qualifications in “Innovation”. It will be interesting to see the different approaches.

Notable …