Education Innovation

Turning Your School Into A "Skunk Works" of Lateral Innovation

Innovation should not be linear. Most of us are familiar with examples of the great innovation teams from the business and engineering world. Examples such as Xerox- PARC’s group, to Apple’s Macintosh group, to Lockheed Martin’s famous “Skunk Works” have lead many of us to believe that innovative ideas should be developed by groups of “creative people” somewhere outside of school and then be brought into the school for teachers and administrators to execute. That is linear innovation and linear innovation should not be the goal of schools and school districts. Innovation should not be separated from schools and the district.

Group Genius author Keith Sawyer puts is this way..

“If innovation is linear, the idea stage can be separated out and placed in a more creative unit of the organization, and the execution can still take place in a more traditional bureaucratic structure.”

Many of us have been conditioned to believe this is the way is should work in our schools. Let the experts come up with the ideas and then tell us what to do. But if we allow that mindset to continue then the schools or school districts never develop the capacity to bring their creativity, knowledge, and ideas to bear. Simply sitting back and waiting for other to think it up for us does nothing to develop innovation abilities.

Sawyer points out that,"... although separation can be good for short-term creativity, it interferes with long term innovation: An isolated “skunk works” usually has trouble communicating with the rest of the organization because innovation requires collaboration across the company.”

In other words, for the long-term benefit of the school or district, the best innovation is not linear, but lateral. We need to innovation and create together because everyone at the school or in the district is needed to collaborate on the new idea of innovation to effectively implement it and embed it. Collaborating laterally, across the team, the grade level, the department, the school, and the district.

Different cultures, different styles of communication, and different perspectives are natural barriers to those on the outside of the school or district. It makes it difficult to interface with the school or district, which are being asked to execute their innovations.

“The skunk works model places all its hope on one big flash of inspiration that must come from a select group of special people. But we’ve seen that even the most transformative new products and systems emerge from many small sparks of insight. Successful innovative companies keep these small sparks inspiring the next one.”

Lateral innovation occurs when teacher and administrators working next to each other day-in and day-out collaborate on these “small sparks” of insight and inspiration to produce innovation from within. These innovations are more likely to overcome the barriers that innovation from outside faces. Lateral innovation has more buy-in, is more contextual, and more focused.

If you want to make innovation a strength and capacity of your school or district, don’t look outside for linear innovation, but look inside for lateral innovation.

Essential Education: Charles Leadbeater on Collaborative Creativity

Be More Than A School Administrator...Be An Innovation Coach

I have an idea…

"It will never work."
"We don’t have the budget to do it."
"It will take to much time and we just don’t have any to waste."
"The district won’t like it."
"Teachers won’t want to do that."
"That isn’t the way we do things at this school."
"What does that have to do with test scores?"

These are just a sample of the typical answers we in education hear when we have an idea. Don’t scoff to easily, think about it a second. After a few perfunctory, “That’s great” or “Sounds interesting” we generally work our way to some of those responses.

What we need is some principals, directors, managers, and superintendents who encourage and support innovation. If change or improvement is what we seek, then changing what we do or how we do it should be encouraged not discouraged.

Mitch Ditkoff writes at The Heart Innovation, the weblog of Idea Champions, that we need managers who are Innovation Coaches. We need managers and leaders who can encourage and develop ideas.

“Most managers, unfortunately, perceive new ideas as problems -- especially if the ideas are not their own. Bottom line, they don't pay enough attention to the ideas of the people around them. They say they want to innovate. They say they want "their people" to do something different. But they do precious little to support their subordinates in their efforts to do so. They foist their ideas on others and can't figure out why things aren't happening faster.

“That's not how change happens. If people are only acting out somebody else's ideas, it's only a matter of time before they feel discounted, disempowered and... well...just plain dissed. People are more than hired hands; they are hired minds and hearts, as well.”

Coaches empower others to reach within themselves and pull out their best, their best ideas and innovations. We need managers who will coach their people to pull out their best ideas and support them in the endeavor of finding, creating, and developing these ideas into innovative practices that impact their schools and their students. We need school administrators who can become Innovation Coaches.

“If you want to empower people, honor their ideas. Give them room to challenge the status quo. Give them room to move -- and, by extension, move mountains. Why? Because people identify most with their ideas. "I think therefore, I am" is their motto. People feel good when they're encouraged to originate and develop ideas. It gives their work meaning, makes it their own, and intrinsically motivates.

“Who has the power in an organization? The people who are allowed to think for themselves and then act on their ideas! Who doesn't have power? The people who have to continually check-in with others.

“Think about it. The arrival of a new idea is typically accompanied by a wonderful feeling of upliftment and excitement -- even intoxication. It's inspiring to have a new idea, to intuit a new way of getting the job done. Not only does this new idea have the potential to bring value to the company, it temporarily frees the idea originator from their normal habits of thinking. A sixth sense takes over, releasing the individual from the gravity of status quo thinking.”

Nothing is more powerful and unstoppable than empowered and excited teachers. Those are the teachers who can change the world. So we need to be open to and encourage our teachers to bring ideas to us.

“You, as a manager, want to increase the number of new ideas being pitched to you. It's that simple. You want to create an environment where new ideas are popping all the time. If you do, old problems and ineffective ways of doing things will begin dissolving. This is the hallmark of an empowered organization -- a place where everyone is encouraged and empowered to think creatively. Within this kind of environment managers become coaches, not gatekeepers.”

Innovation and change doesn’t happen because you have some catchy vision statement printed on a poster and posted in all the classrooms. That is leadership through lamination. What is needed is leadership through co-creation and co-innovation.

“Creativity cannot be legislated. It cannot be sustained by mission statements and pep talks. What needs to happen is you, as a manager, need to change the way you relate to people. Each encounter you have with another in the workplace needs to quicken the likelihood that their unexpressed ideas will get a fair hearing -- enabling a far greater percentage of them to eventually take root.”

So the next time one of your people comes to you with an idea, be a Innovation Coach and help them develop the idea into something truly innovative.

Mitch suggests…
* "That sounds interesting. Can you tell me more?"
* "What excites you the most about this idea?"
* "What is the essence of your idea - the core principle?"
* "How do you imagine your idea will benefit others?"
* "In what ways does your idea fit with our strategic vision?"
* "What information do you still need?"
* "Who are your likely collaborators?"
* "Is there anything similar to your idea on the market?
* "What support do you need from me?"
* "What is your next step?"

Report Card 2.0-- 32 Traits of Creative People

Robert Alan Black Ph.D. lists 32 Traits of Creative People.
I wonder if these might not make an interesting framework for a report card. Call it the report of the future, or Report Card 2.0.

1. sensitive
2. not motivated by money
3. sense of destiny
4. adaptable
5. tolerant of ambiguity
6. observant
7. perceive world differently
8. see possibilities
9. question asker
10. can synthesize correctly often intuitively
11. able to fantasize
12. flexible
13. fluent
14. imaginative
15. intuitive
16. original
17. ingenious
18. energetic
19. sense of humor
20. self-actualizing
21. self-disciplined
22. self-knowledgeable
23. specific interests
24. divergent thinker
25. curious
26. open-ended
27. independent
28. severely critical
29. non-conforming
30. confident
31. risk taker
32. persistent

Imagine the curriculum that would have to be created to generate evidence of the student's proficiency of these 32 traits. Imagine the learning opportunities that students would need to be afforded to measure their proficiency in these traits.

It could completely change education in some very important and fundamental ways.

Do We Limit Our Children's Creativity?

Do we limit our children's creativity? Take a look at this short clip about one child's creativity and the reactions from parents, teachers, and doctors. I think you will find it thought provoking.

Watch This:

Rob Jacobs

10 Keys for Driving "Elegant Solutions" in Education

Matthew May, author of Elegant Solutions: Breakthrough Thinking The Toyota Way offers 10 practices that can drive the innovation necessary to discover elegant solutions. These 10 practices should be embedded into the work of schools, districts, leadership teams, professional learning communities, or professional networked learning collaboratives.

Let The Learning Lead
“Learning and innovation go hand in hand, but learning comes first.” Or as Michael Fullan would say, “Learning is the work.”

No educator would argue with this. Learning is what we do. I have even gone so far as to say that teachers should be called “Master Learners.”

Matthew explains that, “Learning triggers creativity down the line…”

Learning is at the heart of what great teachers, Professional Learning Communities, Professional Networked Learning Collaboratives, school, and school districts do.

We should be constantly asking ourselves and assessing ourselves against the degree to which experimentation and inquiry is built into our core educational processes.

Learn To See
Matthew advises that we, “Live the customer’s life.” In other words, we need to view problems through the lens of the student, or the teacher, or the parents, or the administrator. “Watch the problem in the context and environment within which it occurs. View it from every conceivable angle.”

In other words, be an Anthropologist. View problems with open minds and through others’ perspectives.

“The phrase in Japanese is genchi genbutsu: go look and see to fully grasp the situation; then and only then, define the problem and design the appropriate solution.”

The key to finding the elegant solution is to make sure you are solving the right problem.

“Successful problem solving requires finding the right solution to the right problem. We fail more often because we solve the wrong problem than because we get the wrong solution to the right problem.” Russell Ackoff (1974)

Ask yourself, how well do you understand the problem your student, teachers, or parents face?

Design For Today
“Focus on clear and present needs. Make sure you’re concentrating on a real need…don’t attempt to manufacture a need.”

There are many issues and problems facing teachers and schools. Focusing on a clear need will ensure the solution is solving a problem with minimal effort, time, and expense.

Many educational plans go wrong because no one bothered to ask what would happen if the idea or solution became a reality. Taking a moment to really assess if this if an idea will result in the solution you are looking for is important.

Think In Picture
There is a reason that one of Marzano’s 9 effective strategies is “nonlinguistic representations.”

Matthew explains, “Pictures and images connect people to thoughts and goals and help turn valuable ideas into action. So get graphic. Whenever you can, wherever you can, start building a visual element into your thinking—Storyboard it, diagram it, mindmap it, whiteboard it, butcher-paper the walls and go crazy.”

School leadership teams, Professional Learning Communities, and Professional Networked Learning Collaboratives should be creating nonlinguistic representations of their problems to help them “see” possible solutions. Are you including a means of creating and capturing images and graphics into your meeting planning?

Capture The Intangible

“It’s the intangible that differentiate and transform…Capture the intangibles that people truly prize, and you’ll find the most compelling elements of value.”

Find those intangibles that define, your school, your PLC, or your PNLC. Think about your values and your culture.

How does what you do in your classroom or at your school connect with you and others on an emotional level? What get you are those you teach and work with in the heart, mind, and soul. That is your intangible.

Leverage The Limits
“Restraining resources rule—resources constraints can spur ingenuity.”

This is about becoming imaginative with what you have. Teachers are some of the most resourceful people I know. Dealing with limited resources and constraining regulations can create a source of creativity.

“All artist work within the confines of their chosen media, and it’s the limits that spur their creativity.”

Education must deal with the restraints of time, location, standards, legislation, and limited physical and financial resources. With no barriers, things would be simple; it requires no creative solutions. But, the very nature of an educational system is “limiting” and so we are spurred to be creative and seek “elegant solutions.”

Though we have many barriers and issues facing us daily in education, we are still required to meet our goals of improving student learning. To do more for students with less should drive our creative powers.

Master The Tension
“Breakthrough thinking demands something to break through.”

Think of the opposing ideas of doing more for students with fewer resources or more constraining regulations. That is tension.

Matthew warns that we must be careful because, “…we have a natural tendency to ‘satisfice’—give in too early and glom on to the solution that is inevitably less elegant, less than optimal.”

This happens in educational meetings often. Teacher and or administrators sitting around a table, many not wanting to be there, agree quickly to the first idea that seems to make sense. Often though, these are not the best ideas. Too little thinking, conversation, creativity, or analysis has gone into examining the problem and or the solution to have developed a truly elegant solution. We satisfice so we can move on.

What we need more of in education is “integrative thinking.” We need more opposable minds that can manage the creative tension needed to develop solutions for problems like increasing student learning while having more standards to teach and less resources. Or having to create time for learning a new curriculum while simultaneously implementing the new curriculum.

Managing this sort of tension can create innovative ideas for elegant solutions.

Run The Numbers
There is a reason data driven instruction is so in vogue. Data provides facts and insight to back up our instincts.

“Digging into relevant data helps fight the dangers of bias, convention and instinct. There’s nothing better to help make the break with comfortable patterns than solid evidence. Great innovations are based on much more than a feeling.”

Patterns and trends in student achievement data, attendance data, graduation rates, etc., can provide places for inquiry processes to be applied and new ideas explored.

Make Kaizen Mandatory
“Pursuing perfection requires great discipline—create a standard, follow it, and find a better way.”

According to Matthew, research has shown that the, “…average number of ideas submitted per employee annually is 100 time greater in Japanese companies than in U.S. companies.”

We are used to rewarding ideas that succeed. But Matthew thinks we might have the wrong approach if we want to encourage more ideas.

“We have it backwards! The bottom line is that the Western business practice of rewarding only accepted ideas has all but killed the creative drive in corporate America.”

Education does not really “reward” accepted ideas, but creative administrators could think of way to encourage and acknowledge idea, whether they are implemented or not. This would encourage teachers and parents to submit more ideas. The more ideas to select from the greater the chance are of hitting on a winner, an elegant solution.

Matthew says, “We need a better way—kaizen. Kaizen (ky-zen), the Japanese word for the American—made concept of continuous improvement, is all about idea submission, not acceptance.”

“Kaizen has three steps: First, create a standard. Second, follow it. Third, find a better way. Repeat endlessly. Trying to improve and innovate without a standard as a reference is like a journey with no starting point.”

The key to making Kaizen mandatory is finding ways to develop, encourage, and sustain a flow of ideas from teachers, Professional Learning Communities, and Professional Networked Learning Collaboratives.

Keep It Lean
“Complexity kills—scale it back, make it simple, and let it flow.”

Education, like any other bureaucracy has a tendency to make simple things complex. It kills the innovation and motivation within a great idea when we add layers of bureaucratic messiness.

Ask yourself, what ideas are being weighted down with unnecessary complexity. Ask you teachers, your students, and your parents, they will have plenty of ideas. Make it simple.

Following these 10 key practices will ensure that you are targeting the underlying principles of innovation. And through them, your classroom, school, or district may discover its own elegant solution. Remember the mantra, not best, just better.

Pursuing “Elegant Solutions” in Education

What is better than a solution to a problem? The answer is an elegant solution.

Matthew E. May, author of the Change This Manifesto titled Elegant Solutions: Breakthrough Thinking The Toyota Way explains that, “An elegant solution is one in which the optimal outcome is achieved with the minimal expenditure of effort and expense.”

Each day educators confront a myriad of problems. The increasing complexity of the world around seems to create ever increasingly complex problems, be it problems of teaching, learning, curriculum, pedagogy, behavior, finances, collaboration, technology, etc., educators must create solutions to complicated problems every day.

Clearly, we need and want solutions. According to Matthew, “And when it comes to solutions, simple is better. Elegant is better still.”

“Elegant solutions embrace the overarching philosophy of doing far more with much less.” Education certainly has been called upon to do far more with less in recent years. The elegant solution is about finding that wonderful solution within the restrictions of our resources.

The problem, as Matthew points out is, “…elegant solutions aren’t obvious, except, of course, in retrospect.”

So what to do then? The answer is to make your classroom, your Professional Learning Community, your school, and your district more innovative.

Now innovation is a powerful word that elicits all sorts of ideas and reactions. Many believe that innovation is the realm of inventors, research and development departments, technology companies, or lone geniuses. While that may be the image, it is not the reality.

David Neeleman, founde of Jet Blue says, “Innovation is trying to figure out a way to do something better than it’s ever been done before.”

Read that carefully. He didn’t say we must do it better, but that we must try to do it better. Innovation in this way is a process, not a destination. Every educator I know is capable of trying to figure out how to do something better than its ever been done before. Most educators are constantly tinkering with their instruction methods, plans, etc. They are innovating. Professional Learning Communities try to do things better. Schools try to do things better. Doing things better provides solutions to problems.

Matthew says, “…when I refer to innovation, I mean solving the problem of how to something better than ever.”

It is important to remind ourselves that innovation, doing something better than its ever been done before, is susceptible to a few “big traps.”

According to Matthew there are 3 big traps to avoid on our way to finding elegant solutions.

1. Swinging for fences
“This is the ‘homerun or bust’ trap, which invariably destroys a strong batting average over time. It carries with it huge risk, usually accompanied by high cost.”

Education has seen this trap time and time again. Instead of changing how we deliver curriculum, we scrap the entire curriculum and buy new curriculum, spending thousands of dollars and causing a ton of frustration in the process. Instead of figuring out who is actually using technology, we buy dozens of laptops and LCD projectors. We keep swinging for the fences.

2. Getting too clever
“This is the ‘bells and whistles’ trap, which can easily get out of control in an effort to outdo competitors. It carries with it the danger of complexity and customer alienation.”
Teachers are notorious for trying to come up with the next great project, the one that outdoes the teacher next door and gets their picture in the paper. Too often, what happens is parents get upset at all the work they end up doing, students are confused, and administrators get frustrated.

Administrators love to create the next big “program” that is going to take learning to the next level. Schedules are created, new curriculum purchased, complicated plans and procedures developed, meetings are scheduled, etc. They get so clever, they outwit themselves, and the students don’t benefit.

3. Solving problems frivolously
“This is the ‘brainstorm’ trap, which is misguided creativity far afield from company direction. It’s a symptom of poorly defined work, and fraught with waste. There’s a reason we call it an organization.”

Sounds like the ultra-new behavior management and tracking program, which includes staff development, new forms, and a computer database to solve a student behavior problem that doesn’t really exist. Solving a problem that doesn’t exist.

Maybe it’s the new 8-step purchasing request process, when the teachers could simply just shoot an email or ask the principal in person. What problem did we solve?

So now that we know what traps to avoid, what are the key principles for creating or discovering and elegant solution?

Matthew explains there are 3: ingenuity in craft, pursuit of perfection, and fit with society.

1. Ingenuity in craft
Ingenuity in craft means that we accept limitations. Education is filled with limitations, rules, regulations, laws, bureaucratic thinking, corrosive or inflexible cultures, limited resources, etc.  We use limitations to our advantage by viewing it as a challenge to overcome and a problem to solve. “No challenge, no creativity.” Limitations challenge our minds to find the elegant solution, without challenges what motivation would we have?

It also means we, “…pursue the simple question that drives the thinking behind every breakthrough, big or small: Is there a better way?”

2. The pursuit of perfection
“If ingenuity is the starting point, perfection is the vector. Approached as a process, it can drive breakthroughs. Approached as a goal, it can actually block innovation.”

It’s all about the chase. The mantra should be, “No best, only better.”

We need to embrace the twin wins of ideate and initiate.

3. Fit with society
The goal of innovation and the pursuit of the elegant solution is meaningless if it doesn’t fit with what your school needs. The solutions need to fit within the larger system of the school’s needs and function.

Does the innovation solve a problem in the context of the classroom, the professional learning community, or the school? A great idea that doesn’t fit within the context of the school is going nowhere.

These three principles are the signposts that guide creative and innovative thinking and energy toward the pursuit of elegant solutions. Being careful to avoid the 3 big traps, educators can discover solutions to problems that are optimal for the context with minimal expenditures of valuable effort, time, and expense. Any solution that can do that in education is definitely elegant.

Practicing Wisdom Stewardship in Professional Learning Communities

Professional Learning Communities need to demonstrate A.W.A.R.E.N.E.S.S, an acronym for focusing on A specific task/goal, Wisdom, Abilities, Response-ability, Education, Network, Experiences, Skills, and Scalable.

The “W” in AWARENESS is Wisdom. By Wisdom I am referring to Wisdom Stewardship. Wisdom Stewardship is the term I call for the surrounding, broadening, learning, capturing, and sharing of the best ideas and solutions within a Professional Learning Community.

Surrounding
Professional Learning Communities that practice the Wisdom Stewardship associated with AWARENESS surround themselves with the best knowledge and the best talent.

The “best knowledge” simply means that the Professional Learning Community seeks the best information, data, ideas, practices, methods, strategies, research, etc., from the best sources. PLC practicing Wisdom Stewardship have a drive for the “best knowledge” they can get their hands on, from the best sources, and use it to increase student achievement.

The “best talent” means that Professional Learning Communities are constantly using their individual and overlapping Personal Learning Networks to network and connect with the very best sources of “best knowledge.” It is important to note, that the “best talent” may be sitting at the table or maybe across the country depending on what is needed. Professional Learning Communities that practice Wisdom Stewardship must always view each other as starting point for “best knowledge” and “best talent”, but be humble enough to extend into their networks and scale up their membership as needed.

In other words, Professional Learning Communities that have AWARENESS combine the “best knowledge” and the “best talent” to create wisdom which they become stewards of. 

Broadening:
While the primary starting point for pursuing “best knowledge” and “best talent” will always be the members of the Professional Learning Community sitting together, having AWARENESS requires the PLC to use their Personal Learning Networks to broaden their scope and their reach to obtain “best knowledge” and “best talent.”

Technology based collaborative networks (Twitter, Facebook, Ning, etc.) allows PLC to increase their “surface area” of reach and access to knowledge and talent. Using technology to increase “surface area”, PLCs are demonstrating good stewardship of wisdom, regardless of geographic location or formal connection to the school or district.

Broadening insists that teams use their technology based Personal Learning Networks to seek out diversity of perspective. Teams should have multi-disciplined networks filled with people from a many disciplines in, and I would suggest, even out of education. Teams should seek the greatest cognitive diversity (to a point) that is possible. Broadening from themselves to a diverse team of “useful outsiders” whose wisdom can be called upon and leveraged by the team.

Learning:
As Michael Fullan would say, “Learning is the work.” Professional Learning Communities demonstrate Wisdom Stewardship when they learn together, especially when they learn in context together. PLCs that practice AWARENESS should make every attempt to learn with each other and in context. PLCs that use Wisdom Stewardship develop capacity as individuals as well as a team. Growing in skills, in knowledge, in methodology, experience, and ability, together, is being a good steward of team wisdom.

Capturing:
Wisdom Stewardship also requires that wisdom, those best ideas, best practices, innovations, etc., be captured. There are numerous technology platforms that can be used to capture the wisdom of the team and teams can follow their own preferences, but whichever technologies teams choose to use to capture their wisdom, the best choices will be those that are easy to use, easy to access, and easy to share. Being a good steward of wisdom means that there must be a way to go back, to remember what has been learned or what has been done. Wisdom Stewardship asks the team to gather, collect, save, archive, and memorialize their wisdom for future use.

Sharing:
The final key to Wisdom Stewardship is sharing out the wisdom with others. Professional Learning Communities who practice Wisdom Stewardship are very concerned with K.W.O.K, or Knowing What Others Know. This is the Japanese concept of “Yokoten.” An idea, or wisdom, must be shared. PLC must overcome the hoarding culture and develop a culture of yokoten, which insists that for the good of the school, the students, the district, and education in general, great idea, solutions, and wisdom is shared with others. The technology choice in which the team captured their wisdom should make it easy to share with others.

Wisdom Stewardship surrounds, broadens, learns, captures, and shares the developed wisdom of the team to benefit students and their peers. It is a key part to having a Professional Learning Community that has AWARENESS.

Note: It is for all of the above that I believe the Professional Learning Community will need to evolve into the Professional Networked Learning Collaborative.

Successful Student Thinking In The Digital Age

In his fantastic book Everything Is Miscellaneous, David Weinberger takes the reader through a tour of the digital order that is changing how we approach knowledge and information. This new digital order, built on bits, not atoms, allows students to think about information and knowledge in different ways. In a way, it is very similar to what Edward de Bono spoke of in his book Lateral Thinking, which was first published 37 years ago, in 1970.

Edward de Bono compared vertical thinking with lateral thinking.

“Vertical thinking is analytical, lateral thinking is provocative.”
The physical world requires that we spend a great deal of time developing a very structured set of codes, rules, and organization so information can be found. The digital world make it possible to organize information any way that makes sense to us. We are not limited to the space on a card catalog or a label. We can put as much information into a digital bit of information as we can imagine.

“With vertical thinking one has to be correct at every step, with lateral thinking one does not have to be.” Make a mistake in the card catalog or reading a label and you are not going to be successful in your search. But, as we know, there are multiple ways to search for something in search engines. Make a mistake, and you simply change your approach. You are never out of the game in the digital world because other people like you may have thought about your subject in the very same way. Our students need to learn that there are multiple approaches to a problem or an issue.

“Vertical thinking is sequential, lateral thinking can make jumps.” The physical world of information is very sequential because of the limits of physical space. The digital world allows us to jump around to look at subjects loosely related to the information one is seeking or to quickly jump to tried and true resources or new resources that have never been viewed before. It just takes a click.

“With vertical thinking one uses the negative in order to block of certainty. With lateral thinking there is no negative.” The physical world of atoms allows very few ways to organize information, while the digital world allows virtually unlimited ways to organize it.

“With vertical thinking one concentrates and excludes what is irrelevant, with lateral thinking one welcomes chance intrusions” The digital world welcomes more information, even it seems irrelevant to most. It may be very relevant to a few. Therefore as Weinberger says, “… solution to the overabundance of information is more information.”

“With vertical thinking categories, classifications and labels are fixed, with lateral thinking they are not.” For example, a type of dog, say a Rhodesian Ridgeback can be classified only so many ways in the physical world or card catalogs, charts, and shelves. Usually, following biology terms such as vertebrate, mammal, etc. Space limits what you can do. But without the limits of space, such as in the digital world, the same dog could be tagged as things with four legs, things that chase cars, things that eat dog food, things that have a tail, things that have paws, or things that bark. The choices are almost limitless. It all depends on how one chooses think about the subject, which allows one to be very creative in their approach.

“Vertical thinking follows the most likely path, lateral thinking explores the least likely.”
Anyone who has spent anytime on the web can tell you they reached some cool website or found a great book, but they have no idea how they got there. Click after click after click we follow our thinking down “the rabbit hole” and discover what we might be looking for in very odd ways. This isn’t true for a library. It will be very predictable. It will be the “most likely path.”

“Vertical thinking is a finite process, lateral thinking is a probablistic one.” I want to find a book, I look on the shelf and there it is. In the digital world though, I find the book I am looking for and 5 others that are related to the first. I then investigate one of those and discover pictures, video, and music all because someone else thinks it relates. As I continue probing I gain even more information and resources which to use.

Quite possibly, Edward de Bono wrote 37 years ago about the type of thinking that would actually allow us to be even more effective in the digital world of bits described so wonderfully by David Weinberger.

Successful student thinking in the digital age is "lateral" and "miscellaneous."

11 Traits of Highly Creative Students

Dean Rieck is a highly creative and successful direct marketing copywriter. He recently posted this piece “Do You Have These 11 Traits of Highly Creative People?” on the wonderful site Copyblogger.

As my title suggests, these 11 traits should be encouraged and developed in our students.  Standards, standardized testing and approved curriculum is important, but is not enough. We need to develop what students will truly need in to be successful in the future. Creativity is the edge they need and we need to do our best develop it.

So with thanks to Dean, here are 11 highly creative traits that students need to develop.

1. "Have the COURAGE to try new things and risk failure. Every big breakthrough starts as a harebrained idea. This doesn’t mean you should constantly go off the deep end, just that you should balance your routine portfolio of solutions with an investment in the new and untried. Over time, the risk is usually worth the reward."

2. "Use INTUITION as well as logic to make decisions and produce ideas. When Matt Drudge designed his Web site, he listened to his gut instead of the Internet gurus. He kept it simple, small, fast, and some would say ugly and primitive. But it works for him, making The Drudge Report one of the most recognizable and popular sites in the world."

3. "Like to PLAY, since humor and fun are the ultimate creative act. Which is to say you just have to lighten up. We all have goals, and quotas, and deadlines, but it’s not life and death. When you enjoy yourself, your brain relaxes and is able to produce more and better ideas. One of those ideas may be just what you’re looking for."

4. "Are EXPRESSIVE and willing to share what they feel and think, to be themselves. Blogging is the ideal arena for injecting your personality into your work. People are emotional creatures and respond better to people who appear real, honest, and open. Not only is it more interesting, it can also be more persuasive."

5. "Can FIND ORDER in confusion and discover hidden meaning in information. Research and critical thinking are key tools for the creative person. Information is to the brain what food is to the stomach. So-called “writer’s block” or creative burnout almost always results from a lack of fresh information and having nothing meaningful to say."

6. "Are MOTIVATED BY A TASK rather than by external rewards. You must like the challenge of writing, explaining, teaching, and persuading. Sure, you can make money along the way, but if you’re in it just for the money, you’re not going to be a fountain of new ideas."

7. "Have a need to FIND SOLUTIONS to challenging problems. Even the most creative writers won’t have a solution for everything. If they claim to, they’ve stopped thinking. Highly creative people are those whose eyes light up at a question they can’t answer. That’s the opportunity to learn something new and produce remarkably creative content."

8. "Will CHALLENGE ASSUMPTIONS and ask hard questions to discover what is real. Writing, blogging, or business rules aren’t really rules, only rules of thumb. If you want to wield true creative power, you will always take what others advise with a grain of salt. (That includes all of us gurus who love to don our pointy wizard hats and pontificate on the secrets of success.) If you don’t know something from personal knowledge or experience, you don’t know it at all."

9. "Can MAKE CONNECTIONS between old ideas to produce new insights. Combine the little doodles you make on a white board with online video and you get CommonCraft, a new approach to explaining things to people in a way they can easily understand. Sometimes the best solutions are simply two old ideas jammed together."

10. "Will PUSH THE ENVELOPE in order to expand the boundaries of what is possible. There was a time when no one thought you could make money on the Internet. Now it’s a huge, multi-national business platform. Instead of dividing the world into the possible and impossible, it’s better to merely divide it into the tried and the untried. What have you not tried yet?"

11. "Are willing to TEST new ideas and compete with others based on results. Isn’t that what they mean by the “market of ideas”? Isn’t that what business competition is about? If you’re afraid of being wrong or losing, your creativity will suffer."

We are sending our students out into a globally competitive world. Core knowledge, literacy, the ability to think and learn should be combined with creative traits to prepare students for the future they will face.