We MANIAC's have known for some time that we are engaged in worthwhile efforts that can result in some truly amazing solutions to perplexing problems. But it's always nice to receive some external validation, and this came in the form of a recent report published by IBM, cited in a cover story on the "Creativity Crisis" in Newsweek magazine. The IBM Report, based upon a survey of over 1500 CEO's across 60 countries, concluded that skills in leading through complexity were required for the 21st Century, and that this meant inviting creativty throughout the organization to address changes in buisiness models, infusing 'disruptive innovations' into planning processes, and otherwise managing ambiguity, uncertainty, and complexity.
Sounds like what MANIAC is all about, doesn't it? I encourage you to read the Newsweek article as well, as it cites a number of other interesting aspects regarding our education system and how it is failing to teach these core competencies, as well as research on creativity and brain research that shows the links across creative processes in the arts and engineering. To me, this points to the benefits of more personalized, holistic, integral approaches to education, such as those championed by Sir Kenneth Robinson, Parker Palmer, Alfie Kohn, and others (whose talks and books I encourage you to peruse), as well as insights shared by W. Brian Arthur in his recent book, The Nature of Technology. Arthur painstakingly charts the processes of innovative change across domains and history, concluding that we must both become expert within specific fields and simultaneously lower the boundaries across fields so we can encourage intentional infusions of ideas and perspectives that may not mesh with our dominant conceptual paradigms and modes of inquiry.
Finally, I want to encourage you to view a recent Charlie Rose interview on public television, in which he spoke with one of the Newsweek reporters (Ashley Merryman), the editor of Science magazine (Bruce Alberts), and a Harvard professor doing research in this field (Aaron Berkowitz).
What do you think about these things?
Harry
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