“What’s Wrong With America’s Innovation Policies”

What’s Wrong With America’s Innovation Policies – Bruce Nussbaum – The Conversation – Harvard Business Review.

As long as I can remember, there has always been political talk of the need for “more science education” and innovation.

None of this will do a bit of good unless the financial incentives are aligned to encourage more to pursue innovation careers. Innovation is not exclusively about science and engineering either – innovation can occur in business processes, manufacturing processes and service delivery and the arts too. Innovation is about a state of mind.  The President is pushing a constrained view that innovation is about science and engineering and mostly comes from those with college educations.

The good news is the President mentioned “innovation” and recognizes its importance in a globally competitive world. But like the HBR column linked above, both missed the key attribute: innovation is a state of mind. It’s not science, engineering, more teachers, more college graduates, more government funded R&D and big corporations lobbying for more government innovation funding or tax breaks. Innovation has to be a way of life and that means continuous change itself must be embraced.

More from Mike Mandel, Ph.D., here.

“Spokane Economy Not Good, But Getting Better” – KXLY

In the Inland Northwest, unemployment is at 9.1 percent, but date shows that an economic recovery is underway.Eastern Washington University Economist Dr. Grant Forsyth says the economy bottomed out early last year. Unemployment in February 2010 was at 11.2 percent in Spokane County and now it’s at 9.1 percent.

via Spokane Economy Not Good, But Getting Better – News Story – KXLY Spokane.

We hope!

I am not sure the unemployment rate means as much as we think it does (if people stop looking for work, the unemployment rate goes down). This chart gives a better picture of whether jobs are available or not and it does suggest a bottoming has occurred.