NYT: Innovative Minds Don’t Think Alike

I’m sharing with you a couple of snippets of a thought-provoking piece written by Janet Rae-Dupree for the New York Times:

It’s a pickle of a paradox: As our knowledge and expertise increase, our creativity and ability to innovate tend to taper off. Why? Because the walls of the proverbial box in which we think are thickening along with our experience.

Look for people with renaissance-thinker tendencies, who’ve done work in a related area but not in your specific field, she says. Make it possible for someone who doesn’t report directly to that area to come in and say the emperor has no clothes.

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May Revolution: By Popular Demand

Once upon a time in the Río de la Plata:

On May 25, 1810, the Primera Junta began in Buenos Aires, removing Viceroy Baltasar Hidalgo de Cisneros from power. On July 9, 1816, Argentina declared its independence from the Spanish Crown.

In the morning (of that Friday 25), the collective Cabildo Abierto was prepared to reject the resignations, holding that the Junta had no faculties to relinquish a power that had been endorsed by the population.

Today, almost two centuries later but also by popular demand:

Welcome to Dell Open Source. You asked, we listened. For advanced users and tech enthusiasts, we’re happy to offer a new open-source operating system, so you can dive in and truly enjoy a PC experience just the way you want it.

In addition to the FreeDOS systems we already offer, we are proud to announce PCs with Ubuntu.

77 Ways to Learn Faster, Deeper, and Better

If someone granted you one wish, what do you imagine you would want out of life that you haven’t gotten yet? For many people, it would be self-improvement and knowledge. New knowledge is the backbone of society’s progress.

Here are 77 tips related to knowledge and learning to help you on your quest. A few are specifically for students in traditional learning institutions; the rest for self-starters, or those learning on their own.

Sowing the Seeds for a More Creative Society

Mitchel Resnick, Professor of Learning Research at the MIT Media Laboratory, develops new technologies and activities to engage people (especially children) in creative learning experiences.

In the 1980s, many people talked about the transition from the “Industrial Society” to the “Information Society.” In the 1990s, people began to talk about the “Knowledge Society.” But as I see it, we are now in a transition towards the “Creative Society.” Success in the future (for individuals, for companies, for nations as a whole) will be based not on what we know or how much we know, but on our ability to think and act creatively. Unfortunately, current educational practices are woefully inadequate.