I believe in education. As an at-risk student who earned his degree as an adult I see and understand the value of education, and the impact it can have on your life to help you change your legacy.
With that said a few years ago “the next big thing” hit the education world, and so I decided to try it out. MOOC’s (massive open online courses) were all the rage and we see places like Stanford, MIT, and Coursera really leading this space, and changing education on a global scale. Locally, Vanderbilt University jumped into this arena and so I had to try one being the early adopter of all things that I try to be.
The class I took was Leading Strategic Innovation in Organizations and it was led by Dr. David Owens and a couple of wholesale NBA jerseys grad assistants. He was the former CEO of Griffin Technologies, and his resume speaks for Ideas itself. He is an engineer at heart, and that is reflective in his teaching style.
Dr. Owens presented to us that in order for innovation to be successful it must satisfy 6 types of constraints. The space where these constraints overlap is where the solution to successful innovation can be found. Often we use clichés like “think outside the box,” and really that is misguiding. What we need to do is think “inside the box” to find the space where solutions satisfy these constraints simultaneously. So let me walk you through this…
Individual Constraints – We don’t enlarge our toolset. What this means is we don’t challenge ourselves or are not challenged to think differently.
Group Constraints – Our culture doesn’t support risk. Ideas are killed by group member’s Use behaviors.
Organizational Constraints – Our organization isn’t structured to support innovation. What this means is companies don’t value innovation as a strategic piece of the puzzle.
Market Constraints – Utility and value are not offered. This means industry fails OUT to recognize an opportunity.
Societal Constraints – We don’t accept an innovation as legitimate. What this means is that it does not support our aspiration and values. An example would be cloning. A Miami Dolphins Jerseys scientific marvel, but we would never accept it as a society.
Technological Constraints – The technology we use isn’t fully developed. This means the innovation isn’t quite ready Jerseys for prime time.