SubscribePaper 24: Summer Fill-In-The-Blank Writing Assignment
It’s summer – time to spend just a bit of your time kicking back doing summer reading.
And time for the ChangePapers.org SUMMER WRITING ASSIGNMENT.
Don’t worry. This is a quick and painless one. And if you do it right you can supercharge someone else’s thinking too.
Our challenge: spend no more than five minutes thinking about the question below that most fits your passion/area of expertise (please choose just one). Then spend five minutes (nobody’s keeping time, of course) sharing your fill-in-the-blank answer to the question, along with a little bit of explanation for your blank-filling. Here are the questions: READY, SET, THINK!
1. If the North Carolina K-12/community college/university system (your choice) could do one thing to increase the number of graduates it produces that are creative-thinking, entrepreneurially-minded, synthesis-making, non-victim-mentality innovators who can rock the innovation economy, it would be to ……(DON’T LET THESE CUT INTO YOUR TIME, BUT IF YOU ARE STUMPED OR JUST NEED PRIMING, food for thought here and here)
2. If state/local government wanted to do one thing to develop more game-changing, difference-making, efficiency-producing, people-serving government workers or government programs, what we would need to change would be……(food for thought here, here and here)
3. If North Carolina wants to be acknowledged as having the world’s most innovative social/nonprofit community — one that develops innovative solutions to social problems regularly; one that incubates, hatches and brings to scale new solutions as a habit, not as an accident; one that draws social innovators like moths to a virtuous flame of passion and vision — the change that we need to make is…..(food for thought here)
4. If North Carolina wanted to be ground zero for game-changing innovative companies, the place breakthrough modern-day Wright Brothers come on a wing but with more than a prayer to grow and take advantage of an unfairly advantageous environment that grows young companies and innovation like kudzu on an empty parking lot, the most important change we should make is to…. (food for thought here and here)
You can of course respond to someone else’s answers as well. Then we’ll look for ways to get your ideas out to all those on the Governor’s Innovation Council and other concerned groups.
In the meantime, we’ll post your answers as they come in, but need them by July 1.
Question 4: To attract companies… we should partially support companies that engage in high-risk innovation. One example of this approach comes from France. Since 2004, firms that are less than 15 years old and spend at least 15 percent of their budget on research and development may qualify as young innovative companies (Jeunes Entreprises Innovantes). This status makes them exempt from income taxes for three years, exempt from social contributions for 7 years and eligible for reimbursement of the research tax credit for 8 years. This status acknowledges the tremendous risk that some innovative companies endure and simultaneously limits public assistance to the company’s startup stage.
Leslie: I’m really struggling because these problems are interrelated. One of the significant barriers to starting a business or recruiting a business is well-trained, well-prepared people, which is a symptom of the educational system. Another barrier to growing or recruiting business are the incentives, especially tax incentives and available funding for new businesses, which is linked to the government question. What we need are linkages between these various perspectives and communities that unite these goals and create a “community” that shapes the educational system to create people who don’t expect a job, but expect to create their own careers. We need a community that reinvests in the creation of companies and helps them grow, rather than overly burden the businesses with taxes and regulations, and we need a community that provides more funding for businesses to start and to grow. We can’t solve one of these problems you’ve listed above without significant involvement from other actors and influencing the outcomes of other questions you’ve asked. More than anything we need a vision that unites the purposes and goals of the four constituencies you’ve identified and creates a means for these groups to work together for the common good of the people of North Carolina.
Jeffrey: As usual you are dead on. Everything is interrelated if we are to build an innovation infrastructure. I’m hoping as we stitch together the ideas from various people we’ll have a better idea of what the most important elements of that culture will be and how to connect the dots!
Question 1: If the North Carolina K-12/community college/university system could do one thing to increase the number of innovative graduates it produces…, it would be to:
Develop an educational pathway for job creators. At the university level we have pathways that prepare students to be graduate students; prepare students to be researchers; prepare students to be consumers of jobs. What we don’t have is a pathway that prepares and supports students to be creators of jobs. We have myriad programs that encourage entrepreneurship and creativity at the K12, community college, and university levels but no formal pathway. We also have a growing number of innovative, partnering campuses (like the Centennial Campus) but these campuses still lack a “platform” for supporting and developing the creative energy of of young people driven to innovate – and ultimately to create jobs.
Phil Emer
Friday Institute
Phil: This is a really interesting idea. We do have a number of campuses that have developed entrepreneurship minors (and in some cases majors), and others that have student based entrepreneurship or innovation competitions that drive off of student-created business plans, but it sounds like you are arguing for something more significant — a true culture change where students might get a message systematically from the time they arrive on campus till the time they leave — that they are going to be expected to be innovators throughout their post-education career, and that the best way to do that is to acquire the skills and abilities they need to be job creators: that way they can be sure that their innovation will have passionate leadership to make it successful (from themselves). Getting to that sort of cultural shift, even for a minority of students, will require some real adjustments.
What are the 2-3 highest leverage things we could do to create the type of opportunities Phil is highlighting? And what would be the equivalent changes needed at a high school and community college level to make similar changes?
Question 1: If the North Carolina university system could do one thing to increase the number of innovative graduates it produces…, it would be to take all students:
In Pennsylvania, Penn State is required to take any graduating student from High School. At UNC CH for example only 45% of students who apply are accepted from North Carolina, 55% are from outside and most return. Out of State students pay more, but most leave after, maybe its time we put students before the politics of ego, space and money. After all entrepreneurs and innovators are people who look at things differently, play by different rules, by concentrating purely on those who play the GPA/SAT game, one is effectively filtering out many of the original thinkers and more applied minded.
Question 4
Provide financial incentives for companies to move here, provide early stage funding, provide institutional support, create a center of Innovation near the beach.. who wouldn’t want to live and work near a beach this article from SF Chronicle explains why Entrepreneurs are flooding to New York..
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2010/06/17/businessinsider-why-this-latest-wave-of-new-york-startups-is-just-getting-started-2010-6.DTL
Question 1. If the North Carolina university system could do one thing to increase the number of faculty it has that are creative-thinking, entrepreneurially-minded, synthesis-making, non-victim-mentality innovators who can rock the innovation economy, it would be to
pay attention to recent research.
The research supports the notion that scientists are most productive and innovative early in their careers. In “Rising Above the Gathering Storm”, the National Academies of Sciences recommends giving $500,000 research grants to early career scientists as a means of fostering innovation.
North Carolina could follow suit, by giving grants to the most gifted early career scientists who promise to stay in the state.
Extend state R&D tax credits to any innovation activity. This would mean that any firm that actively undertakes an innovation project or initiative could qualify for tax credits. Currently most R&D tax credits are for firms that manufacture physical products, but only about 30% of our economy is based on manufacturing. Let’s create an innovation economy and encourage innovation in all companies by extending the R&D tax credit to an innovation tax credit.
1. If the North Carolina K-12/community college/university system could do one thing to increase the number of graduates it produces that are creative-thinking, entrepreneurially-minded, synthesis-making, non-victim-mentality innovators who can rock the innovation economy, it would be to ensure that all students are focused on a career pathway to a career in which they could use their personal talents and skill to “create a job/career opportunity for themselves.”
Currently we focus students on preparing for the next level of education and the public schools/community colleges/universities do not guarantee them an opportunity to job shadowing in the career areas of their interests, and do not connnect them with mentors who could help them to learn about the career fields of interest to them.
By focusing students on examining a job field/career in which they could create a career for themselves, they would have to begin to think entrepreneurially and creatively in order to determine how to create their own niche.
Currently as I said earlier we focus on preparing for the next level of education no matter what the career aspiration of the student. We need to focus career guidance and career development in the schools/community colleges/universities on creating their opportunities and not continue the guidance mentality of “university for all” and then get a job with a large company and hope that they will become a successful citizen.
Currently 87% of American businesses have 5 or fewer employees. Most businesses in the US have no employers and our public schools and universities are overlooking preparing students to be “job creators” instead of “job takers”.
In order to graduate students would have to have their plan for becoming a self-sufficient effective citizen in place and be focused on implementing it. Parents and society would benefit greatly from this change in mind set which would be established early in the student’s education experience. All course work would be designed to allow the student to add value to their talents and skills in order to be a more valued entrepreneur in their chosen career pathway.
Think of the Innovations that would come out of the minds of these young people who were focused on creating a future for themselves instead of gaming the system to advance sucessfully to the next level.
Horace: Are there any schools that have adopted this approach? Any results so far?
2. If state/local government wanted to do one thing to develop more game-changing, difference-making, efficiency-producing, people-serving government workers or government programs, what we would need to change would be……(food for thought here, here and here)
…better long-range planning.
State government does very little long-range planning and what is done tends to be disjointed and uncoordinated. This is not uncommon, in that most if not all state governments rely on reactionary decision-making, “muddling through” based on the most recent crisis hyped by the media and the political winds. However, North Carolina can and should do better, as it once did. In order to foster innovation and in order to move our state forward faster than other states and nations, we need to reestablish a planning function that takes a longer term and more comprehensive perspective.
Elements of the charge for an entity that helps develop plans and set goals for the future could include making recommendations regarding: restructuring of state budgetary priorities (currently done within silos and with few if any rewards for innovation or efficiency); modernizing the state revenue system (replacing what is now a series of perennial study commissions); revisiting the distribution of state, county, and municipal responsibilities (possibly revisiting the very organization and boundaries of counties, cities, and towns); and fostering a culture of entrepreneurship, small business support, and innovation for our long-term benefit as a state. As significant as these challenges are, they may be just the proverbial tip of the iceberg compared to what is needed (for a recent review of the crisis facing state and local governments, see: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1997284,00.html).
Anticipating some negative reactions, let me also say that planning does not equate to bigger government. Better planning would result in more focus, intentionality, and reallocation of resources, with measureable results that are not dependent on new resources. Successful businesses must plan effectively, reward efficiency and performance, and welcome innovation; so should government. As business guru Jim Collins has said: “Greatness, it turns out, is largely a matter of conscious choice, and discipline” (from Good to Great and the Social Sectors: Why Business Thinking is Not the Answer).