Roland Piquepaille's Technology Trends
How new technologies are modifying our way of life


vendredi 17 janvier 2003
 

You all know that Nicholas Negroponte helped found the MIT Media Lab. In this column, he says expertise is overrated. To build a nation of innovators, we should focus on youth, diversity, and collaboration.

Here is the introduction.

Innovation is inefficient. More often than not, it is undisciplined, contrarian, and iconoclastic; and it nourishes itself with confusion and contradiction. In short, being innovative flies in the face of what almost all parents want for their children, most CEOs want for their companies, and heads of states want for their countries. And innovative people are a pain in the ass.
Yet without innovation we are doomed -- by boredom and monotony -- to decline. So what makes innovation happen, and just where do new ideas come from? The basic answers -- providing a good educational system, encouraging different viewpoints, and fostering collaboration -- may not be surprising. Moreover, the ability to fulfill these criteria has served the United States well. But some things -- the nature of higher education among them -- will have to change in order to ensure a perpetual source of new ideas.

He asserts that we need a very heterogeneous culture to foster innovation and that we should listen to young people instead of giving good jobs to experienced people -- just because they're experienced.

He also thinks that "two additional ingredients are needed to cultivate new ideas. Both have to do with maximizing serendipity. First, we need to encourage risk. [..] The second ingredient is encouragement for openness and idea sharing -- another banality nearly impossible to achieve."

He concludes with the following paragraph.

The ability to make big leaps of thought is a common denominator among the originators of breakthrough ideas. Usually this ability resides in people with very wide backgrounds, multidisciplinary minds, and a broad spectrum of experiences. Family influences, role models, travel, and living in diverse settings are obvious contributors, as are educational systems and the way cultures value youth and perspective. As a society, we can shape some of these. Some we can’t. A key to ensuring a stream of big ideas is accepting these messy truths about the origin of ideas and continuing to reward innovation and celebrate emerging technologies.

A last note: I totally agree with him.

Source: Nicholas Negroponte, Technology Review, February 2003


12:44:32 PM  Permalink  Comments []  Trackback []


Click here to visit the Radio UserLand website. © Copyright 2004 Roland Piquepaille.
Last update: 01/11/2004; 11:41:45.

January 2003
Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat
      1 2 3 4
5 6 7 8 9 10 11
12 13 14 15 16 17 18
19 20 21 22 23 24 25
26 27 28 29 30 31  
Dec   Feb



Search this blog for

Courtesy of PicoSearch


Personal Links



Other Links

Ars Technica
BoingBoing
Daily Rotation News
Geek.com
Gizmodo
Microdoc News
Nanodot
Slashdot
Smart Mobs
Techdirt
Technorati


People

Dave Barry
Paul Boutin
Dan Bricklin
Dan Gillmor
Mitch Kapor
Lawrence Lessig
Jenny Levine
Karlin Lillington
Jean-Luc Raymond
Ray Ozzie
John Robb
Jean-Yves Stervinou
Dolores Tam
Dylan Tweney
Jon Udell
Dave Winer
Amy Wohl


Drop me a note via Radio
Click here to send an email to the editor of this weblog.

E-mail me directly at
pique@noos.fr

Subscribe to this weblog
Subscribe to "Roland Piquepaille's Technology Trends" in Radio UserLand.

XML Version of this page
Click to see the XML version of this web page.

Technorati Profile

Listed on BlogShares