Good For Tim Hudak, Evolving with the Times

"This 'right to work' issue just doesn't have the scope of the power to fix the issues that are threatening 100 per cent of the manufacturing jobs in Ontario," Mr. Hudak said.

It takes a big man to admit when they're wrong.  This couldn't have been easy for Hudak, but it was the right thing to do and he deserves credit for doing it.

But you still have to feel bad for Dave Brister.

In the interests of moving forward, though, let's focus on the fact that Hudak has shown a willingness to question his own approaches, listen to others and make adjustments were appropriate.

So - those traditional manufacturing jobs.  Change sucks and is really, really hard on those who've already carved their niche in life and would like to keep things that way.  

Here's the deal, though - the reason they're leaving Ontario is because they're going to places with poverty-level wages and almost no protections for labourers.  Like Bangladesh.  Those manufacturing operations that are moving to the States aren't so much creating new jobs down there as putting more work on existing labourers.

Either way, this more-work-for-less-pay approach isn't going to work for those jurisdictions; as we're seeing in Bangladesh, they're just simmering towards the sorts of labour revolts we've already been through that landed us with unions in the first place.

Ontario's solution isn't to freeze our economy in the past with massive industry subsidies that don't work or to reduce our quality of citizen life in favour of old-school work, but to look forward.  That means new opportunities, new dynamism on the part of all employers, employees and labour groups, training and a revisit of our traditional, hierarchical, pay-fixated model of work.

I remain convinced that Hudak could surprise everyone and gain some massive wins by being the Labour Nixon that goes to the Union's China, engaging directly with unions themselves.  

Will he do it?  Probably not.  Politicians tend to be more focused on wins that solutions, to their (and our) detriment.

But hey - he's come this far.  Shows that anyone is capable of evolving with the times when they open themselves to progressive thinking.

Don't Put Brand Before Health

"The finance minister has the confidence of the prime minister," said Jason MacDonald.  "His record more than demonstrates why he continues to be considered the best finance Minister in the world.  For instance, he's already created one million net new jobs since the recession and he's on track to balance the budget by 2015."

God, this makes me sad.

First off - Ministers of Finance don't create jobs.  The only way they'd do that is by directly hiring themselves, which, given the Conservative government's disdain for the public sector, isn't likely.

But it's the rest of the statement that's absolutely tragic.  What does Flaherty's past record have to do with his current health?  It's great that Flaherty's abilities have the confidence of the Prime Minister - so, what's the PM doing to help his number one minister on the health front so he can do his job, or create the right accommodations for him?

Look, I get it - politics is all about finding and exploiting weak links.  Parties have to circle the wagons, deny anything is ever wrong (until they can't, at which point someone goes under the bus) and only ever point to successes.  To do otherwise is to let down your firewall and risk contagion or assault.

Harper's got good reason to position himself this way; if the roles were reversed, he would probably relish pointing out how an opposite member was not up to the job.  It's pretty clear that some of the existing opposition forces are looking for how best to exploit Flaherty's condition as well.

But if Flaherty's not allowed a misstep, if his Party is going to put brand before the man's health, what happens to him?

I've argued before that a good deal of the Rob Ford fiascoes that consume City Hall are related to partisan positioning, an antiquated view on wellness and poor support and training for politicians and their staff.  

Anyone that's been involved with politics has known a politicians who hid illnesses - and in some cases, had their addictions covered up by Parties - so as not to appear weak in the public/media's eye. Politics is a bloodsport, after all - if you can't cut it for any reason, you're not meant to be there.  

But politicians are human - they do a difficult, under-appreciated, poorly supported job, often far away from home.  It's noble work, but so's working in a hospice or serving with the police - but those professions take conditions like emotional fatigue syndrome seriously.  They also, in fits and spurts, do a better job of recognizing and accommodating physical illness.  

After all, it's not about the appearance of doing a good job or being able to point to a history of performance - it's about sustainability.  How do we help people continue to do a good job now and in the future?  How do we support transitions, institutional memory transfer, so on and so forth?  

Perhaps most importantly, because the whole point of work and politics is to support the social construct, thereby supporting individual well-being - how are we ensuring that individual wellness is at the centre of everything we do?

The truth is that we aren't.  We put "the economy" before the workers and "the Party" before the Members.  

It's not a crime that Flaherty is sick.  No one should be using illness as a stick to beat him with.  In fact, if he's on drugs that impact his mood, then colleagues on both sides of the House who respect him as a person and want to see him do his job to the best of his ability should be taking this reality into account during conversations (or confrontations).

I don't know Flaherty and I'm not particularly fond of his approach to politics or policy.  But I respect the fact that he is a human being, a husband and a father and, like the rest of us, mortal.

There's a lesson to be learned in this, if anyone's looking - one that ties into a much bigger, emerging picture about social stability and renewing labour in a changing economy.  We can understand the human reality and the social matrix and do both better; strong individuals can and should be the foundation of a strong society.  

But that would be a bit too much like committing sociology.

The Bias Against Creativity: Why People Desire But Reject Creative Ideas

But hey, it's not that decision makers are biased against creativity - honestly, they try to help creativity; shooting down innovative ideas helps weed out the weak ones, right?  After all, any good idea worth it's salt will be intuitive and have a demonstrable track record, right?

Lord, help us, we know not what we do; we're just feeling our way blindly towards the light...


The Bias Against Creativity: Why People Desire But Reject Creative Ideas

Abstract

People often reject creative ideas even when espousing creativity as a desired goal. To explain this paradox, we propose that people can hold a bias against creativity that is not necessarily overt, and which is activated when people experience a motivation to reduce uncertainty. In two studies, we measure and manipulate uncertainty using different methods including: discrete uncertainty feelings, and an uncertainty reduction prime. The results of both studies demonstrated a negative bias toward creativity (relative to practicality) when participants experienced uncertainty. Furthermore, the bias against creativity interfered with participants’ ability to recognize a creative idea. These results reveal a concealed barrier that creative actors may face as they attempt to gain acceptance for their novel ideas.

Do people desire creative ideas? Most scholars would propose that the answer to this question is an obvious ‘yes,’ asserting that creativity is the engine of scientific discovery (Hennessey & Amabile, 2010), the fundamental driving force of positive change (George, 2007), and associated with intelligence, wisdom, and moral goodness (Niu & Sternberg, 2006; Sternberg, 1985). However, while people strongly endorse this positive view of creativity, scholars have long been puzzled by the finding that organizations, scientific institutions, and decisions-makers routinely reject creative ideas even when espousing creativity as an important goal (Ford & Gioia, 2000; Staw, 1995; West, 2002). Similarly, research documents that teachers dislike students who exhibit curiosity and creative thinking even though teachers acknowledge creativity as an important educational goal (Dawson, D'Andrea, Affinito, & Westby, 1999; Runco, 1989; Westby & Dawson, 1995). We offer a new perspective to explain this puzzle. Just as people have deeply-rooted biases against people of a certain age, race or gender that are not necessarily overt (Greenwald & Banaji, 1995), so too can people hold deeply-rooted negative views of creativity that are not openly acknowledged. Revealing the existence and nature of a bias against creativity can help explain why people might reject creative ideas and stifle
scientific advancement, even in the face of strong intentions to the contrary.

Creative ideas are both novel and useful (Hennessey & Amabile, 2010), and novelty is the key distinguishing feature of creativity beyond ideas that are merely well done (Amabile, Barsade, Mueller, & Staw, 2005). Yet the requirement that creative ideas contain novelty can also promote a tension in evaluators’ minds when they judge whether to pursue an idea. Indeed, evaluators have a hard time viewing novelty and practicality as attributes that go hand in hand, often viewing them as inversely related (Rietzschel, Nijstad, & Stroebe, 2009). There are several reasons why. Practical ideas are generally valued (Sanchez-Burks, 2005). However, the more novel an idea, the more uncertainty can exist about whether an idea is practical, useful, error free, and reliably reproduced (Amabile, 1996). When endorsing a novel idea, people can experience failure (Simonton, 1984), perceptions of risk (Rubenson & Runco, 1995), social rejection when expressing the idea to others (Moscovici, 1976; Nemeth, 1986), and uncertainty about when their idea will reach completion (Metcalfe, 1986).

Uncertainty is an aversive state (Fiske & Taylor, 1991; Heider, 1958) which people feel a strong motivation to diminish and avoid (Whitson & Galinsky, 2008). Hence, people can also have negative associations with novelty; an attribute at the heart of what makes ideas creative in the first place.

Although the positive associations with creativity are typically the focus of attention both among scholars and practitioners, the negative associations may also be activated when people evaluate a creative idea. For example, research on associative thinking suggests that strong uncertainty feelings may make the negative attributes of creativity, particularly those related to uncertainty, more salient (Bower, 1981).

This evaluative process is not necessarily overt, making the bias against creativity potentially insidious. In fact, there is often strong normative pressure to endorse creative ideas (Flynn & Chatman, 2001) and a strong social desirability bias against expressing any view of creativity as negative (Runco, 2010). This resulting state is similar to that identified in research on racial bias; a conflict between an explicit preference towards creativity and unacknowledged negative associations with creativity (Gaertner & Dovidio, 1986). In other words, uncovering a bias against creative ideas requires a method more subtle than simply asking directly. Therefore, we decided to employ a measure that assesses explicit attitudes in addition to implicit attitudes which are less susceptible to self-presentation biases and normative pressures (Greenwald, Poehlman, Uhlmann, & Banaji, 2009). In two studies, we test whether uncertainty measured and manipulated in two different ways, promotes a greater bias against creativity relative to practicality. In the second study we investigate whether this bias deters peoples’ ability to recognize creative ideas.

EXPERIMENT 1

Method
Participants and Design

Participants (N = 73) were randomly assigned to one of two conditions: uncertainty (n = 28) or baseline (n = 45). 51% were men (mean age= 22.74 years). Each participant took an implicit attitude test (IAT) as well as an explicit attitude test to assess their bias against creativity relative to practicality.

Procedure and Materials

Participants in the uncertainty condition were told that they might receive additional payment based on a random lottery (not performance). Participants in the baseline condition were not given the opportunity to receive extra money. A pilot study (N = 82) verified that the uncertainty manipulation evoked significantly higher uncertainty feelings than a baseline condition. All participants took an openness to experience inventory (Costa & McCrae, 1992), a trait which is highly related to creativity (Feist, 1998).

Participants’ automatic mental associations with creativity versus practicality were assessed using the Implicit Association Test (IAT) (Greenwald, McGhee, & Schwartz, 1998). This measure relies on test-takers' speed of response to represent the strength of their mental associations. The IAT measures participants’ reaction times when rating pairings between an attitude object (e.g., creativity or practicality) and an evaluative dimension (e.g., good or bad). In the computerized version of the IAT, this pairing is achieved by using the keyboard (say, a left key) to be pressed in response to items from the two paired categories, creativity+bad, while  another key (say, the right key) is pressed for the other pair, practicality+good. The speed at which this pairing is completed compared to opposite pairing is interpreted as a measure of the strength of the implicit evaluation. Our IAT used words that reflected creativity (e.g. novel, creative, inventive, original) versus practicality (e.g. practical, functional, constructive, and useful). In addition our IAT used words that reflected good (rainbow, cake, sunshine, laughter, peace, heaven) versus bad (vomit, hell, agony, rotten, poison, ugly). The block order was counterbalanced such that half of the participants performed the creative + good component first, whereas the other half performed the creative + bad component first. The IAT effect was formed by subtracting response latencies for the creative + good task from the creative + bad tasks. We scored the IAT using the D statistic (Greenwald, Nosek, & Banaji, 2003), a method less influenced by procedural variables, such as order or counterbalancing, as well as cognitive ability (Cai, Sriram, Greenwald, & McFarland, 2004). The implicit bias score was calculated by subtracting creativity from practicality attitudes; higher values indicate more bias against
creativity relative to practicality.

Participants also rated their explicit positive and negative associations with creativity and practicality. Specifically, participants rated their attitudes towards creativity and practicality on a 7-point scale ranging from 1=strongly negative, 4 = neutral, and 7= strongly positive.

Participants assessed attitudes towards creativity (e.g., creative, inventive, original, and novel;
alpha = .77), and practicality (e.g., practical, functional, constructive, useful; alpha = .88). Participants indicated positive associations (i.e., above the scale mid-point) with both creativity (M=5.37, SD=.75) and practicality (M=5.43, SD=.91). Explicit bias was calculated by subtracting creativity from practicality associations (M=.06, SD=.91).

Results and Discussion

Table 1 shows descriptives for all major variables. An ANCOVA controlling for openness to experience revealed no significant differences in explicit bias when comparing the high (M=.02, SD=.83) and low uncertainty conditions (M=-.11, SD=.96), F(1, 70)= .07, P=.78. However a second ANCOVA also controlling for openness to experience revealed that participants in the uncertainty condition showed an implicit bias against creativity relative to practicality (M=.15, SD=.54) which significantly differed from participants in the baselinecondition who showed an implicit bias in favor  of creativity relative to practicality (M=-.23, SD= 47), F(1, 70)= 13.13, P=.001; condition accounted for 11% of the variance in implicit bias.

Discussion

Experiment 1 shows that people hold ambivalent attitudes towards creativity. While participants in the baseline condition evidenced positive implicit associations with creativity relative to practicality, participants in the uncertainty condition exhibited an implicit bias against creativity relative to practicality. In Experiment 2 we wished to extend these findings to show that the motivation to reduce uncertainty when problem solving can activate the creativity bias. Specifically, scholars propose that effective creative problem solving includes both generating many novel options and subsequently reducing uncertainty by identifying the single best option from the set (Cropley, 2006). We propose that this latter orientation towards identifying the optimal solution may prime an uncertainty reduction motive or intolerance for uncertainty and thereby evoke the creativity bias. Additionally, we explore whether the creativity bias might also deter the recognition of a creative idea.

EXPERIMENT 2

Method

Participants and Design

140 undergraduate students (55% female; mean age= 20.66) were randomly assigned to
one of two conditions: high tolerance for uncertainty (n = 70) and low tolerance for uncertainty
(n = 70).

Procedure and Materials

Participants in the high tolerance for uncertainty condition were told to write an essay supporting the statement, “For every problem, there is more than one correct solution” while those in the low tolerance for uncertainty condition were asked to write an essay supporting the statement, “For every problem, there is only one correct solution.” A three item manipulation check assessed uncertainty when evaluating an idea (e.g., “I feel uncertain about this idea),” anchors from 1 = not at all, 7 = very much so (alpha = .78). Participants in the low tolerance condition were significantly more uncertain (M=4.36, SD=1.23) than those in the high tolerance condition (M= 3.87, SD=1.33; F(1, 133)=5.14, P=.025). After being exposed to the experimental manipulation, each participant took the same implicit and explicit creativity-practicality bias tests used in Experiment 1. Subsequently, participants were asked to rate a creative idea which we pre-tested using a different sample of undergraduates (N = 36) who rated this idea (a running shoe with nanotechnology that adjusted fabric thickness to cool the foot and reduce blisters) as being highly creative (M=5.82, SD=.80), novel (M=5.62, SD=1.02), and practical (M=5.85, SD=.92) on a 7-point scale ranging from 1=not at all to 7=extremely so. Before exposure to the manipulation, participants also took the openness to experience inventory.

Participants rated the idea using the creativity scale, employing the same six synonyms for creativity used in both the implicit and explicit bias tests (M=5.41, SD=1.05, alpha=.78).

Results and Discussion Bias Against Creativity

Table 2 shows descriptives for all major variables. An ANCOVA controlling for openness to experience revealed that participants in the low tolerance for uncertainty condition were not significantly different in their level of explicit bias against creativity (M= .20, SD=.81) as compared to participants in the high tolerance condition (M= .22, SD=.94), F(1, 133)= .14, P=.71. However, a second ANCOVA controlling for openness to experience revealed that participants in the low uncertainty tolerance condition were more implicitly biased against creativity relative to practicality (M= .07, SD=.43) than participants in the high uncertainty tolerance condition (M= -.16, SD=.46), F(1, 133)= 7.87, P=.007, who exhibited positive associations with creativity relative to practicality. A third ANCOVA controlling for openness to experience identified that participants in the low tolerance condition rated the idea as less creative (M= 5.06, SD=1.06) than participants in the high tolerance condition (M= 5.76, SD=.93), F(1, 137)= 15.48, P=.000.

A hierarchical regression showed that the relationship between experimental condition and creativity ratings (B = -.64, t (134) = -3.81, p < .001) became less significant when including implicit bias in the model (B = -.56, t (134) = -3.30, p < .01). A 95% bootstrapped confidence interval of the indirect effect of condition on creativity ratings through implicit bias did not include zero [-.24, -.02], demonstrating partial mediation (Preacher & Hayes, 2004). Mediation analyses controlled for both explicit bias and openness to experience at each step indicating that relatively low levels of uncertainty tolerance led to higher levels of the implicit bias that in turn contributed to lower ratings of creativity controlling for participants’ explicit bias and general openness to experience.

Discussion Bias Against Creativity

Experiment 2 both replicated the finding that uncertainty promotes negative associations with creativity relative to practicality, and extended this finding by showing that the bias against creativity interfered with participants’ ability to recognize a creative idea.

GENERAL DISCUSSION

Robert Goddard, the father of modern rocket propulsion, endured ridicule and derision from his contemporary scientific peers who stated his ideas were ludicrous and impossible. This example is not unique, and would puzzle creativity theorists as research shows that expert raters who are themselves creative are even more likely to accurately recognize and assess creativity (Hennessey, Amabile, & Mueller, 2010; Runco & Smith, 1992). Our results show that regardless of how open minded people are, when they feel motivated to reduce uncertainty either because they have an immediate goal of reducing uncertainty, or feel uncertain generally, this may bring negative associations with creativity to mind which result in lower evaluations of a creative idea. Our findings imply a deep irony. Prior research shows that uncertainty spurs the search for and generation of creative ideas (Audia & Goncalo, 2007; Tiedens & Linton, 2001), yet our findings reveal that uncertainty also makes us less able to recognize creativity, perhaps when we need it most.

Beyond merely having a preference for the status quo or familiar ideas (Eidelman, Crandall, & Pattershall, 2009; Zajonc, 2001), our results suggest that people have ambivalent feelings towards creativity. On one hand, participants in the baseline and uncertainty tolerance conditions demonstrated positive implicit associations with creativity relative to practicality. Additionally, 95% of participants in the high uncertainty and uncertainty intolerance conditions rated their explicit attitudes towards creativity as positive- higher than ‘4’ the mid-point of a 7-point scale- and statistically equivalent to practicality. On the other hand, the implicit measure Bias Against Creativity identified that participants in each high uncertainty condition associated words like “vomit,” “poison,” and “agony,” more so with creativity than practicality. Because there is such a strong social norm to endorse creativity and people also feel authentic positive attitudes towards creativity, people may be reluctant to admit that they do not want creativity; hence, the bias against creativity may be particularly slippery to diagnose. The implicit measures may have picked up negative associations with creativity under conditions of uncertainty because the methodology is more resistant to social desirability bias (Greenwald et al., 2009).

If people hold an implicit bias against creativity, then we cannot assume that organizations, institutions or even scientific endeavors will desire and recognize creative idea even when they explicitly state they want them. This is because when journals extol creative research, universities train scientists to promote creative solutions, R&D companies commend the development of new products, pharmaceutical companies praise creative medical breakthroughs, they may do so in ways that promote uncertainty by requiring gate-keepers to identify the single “best” and most “accurate” idea thereby creating an unacknowledged aversion to creativity. In addition, our results suggest that if people have difficulty gaining acceptance for creative ideas especially when more practical and unoriginal options are readily available, the field of creativity may need to shift its current focus from identifying how to generate more creative ideas to identifying how to help innovative institutions recognize and accept creativity.

Future research should identify factors which mitigate or reverse the bias against creativity.

REFERNCES
Amabile, T. M. (1996). Creativity in context: Update to "The Social Psychology of Creativity."
(Vol. 317). Boulder, CO, US: Westview Press.

Where We Stand – and Where We’re Headed

Nearly a million young Canadians are out of work and more than half aren’t even looking for a job, according to the first study of its kind by Statistics Canada.

The phenomenon, dubbed “NEET,” which stands for Not in Employment Education or Training, is an area of growing concern to policy-makers around the globe.

The pace of technological change means most jobs require at least some training, which few employers are willing to provide.

Nearly a million young Canadians are out of work and more than half aren’t’ even looking for a job, according to the first study of its kind by Statistics Canada.

Long-term unemployment leads to problems with income, financial well-being and psychological problems.

In some countries, high levels of youth unemployment have led to riots and demands for social and political change.

What does it all mean?  How do these strands all connect?  Where are we going next?

That question, ironically, is where we should draw comfort.  Wherever we have come from, we’re all headed to the same place.  All that’s lacking is leadership to show us the way.

“I’m trying to free your mind, Neo.  But I can only show you the door.  You’re the one that has to walk through it.”

Dutch Disease, Canadian Cure: Mental Health and the Knowledge Economy

Even if it were true that one sector were gaining at another sector’s expense, that is not evidence of a “disease.”  It is evidence of the economy.  That’s how it works.

Andrew Coyne, National Post

In the global knowledge economy, a country’s greatest strategic advantage is its capacity to discover and innovate.

Stephen Toope, National Post

Diagnosing the Illness

Canada’s manufacturing sector has taken a beating over the past several years.  The former mill town where I was born and raised (Cornwall, Ontario) is one of many communities across the nation that saw the majority of its jobs, tax base and community life blood pick up and move to greener pastures.

NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair blames this manufactured migration on Dutch Disease – the focus of the Canadian government on supporting our natural resource exports (ie. Alberta Oil) over other sectors of the economy.  To me, that’s like placing the blame for not having a job solely on the back of an unemployed person.  It’s a simplified interpretation of a far more complex picture.

Canada’s manufacturing loss has been to emerging economies, places like India, China and Brazil.  In these countries, employers have less obligations to their employees around payment, vacation, health and safety.  A rise in Canada’s dollar might be a stick discouraging manufacturers from continuing here, but lower responsibility costs elsewhere is just as much a carrot. 

What Canadians – and these manufacturers themselves – seem to forget is that these responsibility costs in Canada have resulted in a healthier, better educated populace with better access to services, opportunities and each other.  By empowering individuals and creating a more level playing field, Canada has increased the quality-of-life of its citizens.  It isn’t by chance that so many leaders and innovators, people ranging from Don Tapscott to Mike Lazaridis and Jim Basillie are Canadian (not always by birth, but definitely by experience).

Meanwhile, in other countries, the rights that Canadians fought for generations ago are in increasing demand in these surging economies.  Governments are being pressured to support their citizens, a responsibility that will inevitably fall back on the shoulders of industry.  Far from escaping responsibility costs in the Western World, these tumbleweed businesses have actually served to foster labour movements elsewhere.  It’s elegant, really, when you think about it.

Finding the Cure

Despite the positioning of Canada’s Finance Minister, Canadians are past the point of being willing to move to wherever to find work and take any job to make a buck.  Amiable lot though we are, we won’t stand for a return to the labour migrations of the Dirty 30s.  To Canadians, home and dignity will forever have a higher value than our dollar. 

That’s fine, because there is a growing industry out there that is less reliant on location for success.  In the Knowledge Economy, it doesn’t matter where you are in the world, only that you have access to the tools and training that foster innovation.  Empowered Canadians – people, again, like the author of Wikinomics and Growing Up Digital or the founders of RIM – are at the forefront of new technologies, new processes and new approaches to success.

Yet, Canada is also undergoing a labour rights movement.  Like many other Western countries, there is a growing focus on mental illness and the social and economic losses incurred by a poor understanding of how mental health works and how mental fitness is accommodated.  This unheralded business crisis has spawned strategies and studies in jurisdictions around the world.  Responses include plans like Canada’s first, national mental health strategy.

At the same time, we are experiencing the rise of the social entrepreneur – Conscious Capitalists who see profit as a stepping stone towards meaning and legacy, rather than an end in and of itself.  These entrepreneurs, conscious of the impact of their actions on future generations (as they themselves are the first generation of Canadians being told to expect a lower quality-of-life than their parents) are largely focused on reducing our national carbon footprint, not through expensive schemes but as a matter of efficiency.

Mental health and innovation – these two things are inextricably linked.  As the Occupy movement helps spurn mental health protests and as governments and industry increasingly turn to young entrepreneurs to craft tomorrow’s action plans, these two things will merge.

Inoculation

Canada is on the right track and has an opportunity to be a world leader in connecting cognitive ability and creativity, consciously.  While it is highly unlikely our manufacturing sector will ever recover, it is increasingly apparent we don’t need it to.  Natural resources aren’t a long-term sustainable enterprise, nor are current practices in Canada as environmentally sound as they could be.

Natural resource dollars stimulating the Knowledge Economy and empowering social entrepreneurs, however, is a win-win.  These Conscious Capitalists, with greater access to venture capital and partnerships with natural resource extractors, can find new ways to reduce the footprint of resource extraction on the one hand and explore new opportunities in the creative industry.

To fully harness the capabilities of creativity, we need to understand how it works and how to foster it.  That means, understanding the impact of work, home and social environments on cognitive development as well as a less stigmatic view on the underlying genetics.  Occupational Mental Health and Safety, Mental Fitness and a focus on Conscious Capitalism – it’s the same confluence of history we saw during the industrial revolution, only we’ve moved from physical well-being to cognitive well-being.

Welcome to the 21^st Century; welcome to the Conscious Society.

What Is Success?

Success isn't a line trending upwards. Success is a circle.

You don't say.

Catch the Idea Train - Re-Sourcing R&D to Social Entrepreneurs

Over the past few weeks I’ve had the opportunity to listen to and speak with some of the brightest, most successful people in the province.  These fortunate encounters came at three events in particular: The ORION Network’s THINK2012; The Graham Boeckh Foundation Next Frontier in Mental Health Symposium and the Canadian Club of Toronto’s presentation to Mark Carney, Governor of the Bank of Canada, with the Canadian of the Year award.

While these folk came from backgrounds as diverse as finance, academia, policy and mental health care, each brought a lot of the same themes forward, independently: the need, for example, for disparate silo-based industries (particularly in the public sector) to really integrate into a proper, efficient, coordinated system; the need for some new, connective tools to bring partners together to find new solutions and reduce the duplication, gaps and overlaps built into our existing pseudo-systems; the need to do government, finance, industry differently.  The biggest challenge of all – how to build in transparency and accountability where some top-dogs might not want it, ensuring that our institutions work for the public good, not just the CEO’s or shareholders’ wallets.

Last night, I sat in a room of primarily young, enthusiastic social entrepreneurs at The Centre for Social Innovation (CSI) Annex location for a presentation by Geoff Mulgan, Chief Executive of Britain’s National Endowment for Science Technology and the Arts.  He and I agreed that the social changes we’re undergoing right now (and he was touching the same conceptual elephant as the blue chip crowds I’d heard elsewhere) are similar to those faced during the Industrial Revolution.  The world has changed, opportunity has changed, work design needs to change – but the champions of the 20^th Century model of business-as-usual aren’t in the right head space, so to speak, to harness our 21^st Century potential nor solve our 21^st Century challenges.

The social entrepreneurs in that Annex basement, full of ideas on how to reduce waste and turn it into power, how to redesign public health to be more accessible to target groups, how to sell oneself in an age of social media, etc. – they’re the ones who will generate these opportunities and solutions.  They’re doing it already.  They just need others to believe in them, give them a chance, give them some support.

These two groups (the holders of capital/the means of production and the social entrepreneurs) are tiptoeing around each other like heartbreaking new friends, needing each other but not sure how to reach out in meaningful ways, how to balance the risk and trust concerns that come along with fastening new relationships.

But they do need each other – and society needs for them to work together.

Here’s how to bridge the gap.  Big industry and government musn’t look at social entrepreneurs as would-be capitalist successes, although some of them could be.  Instead, the people with resources should support the people with ideas as an outsourced Research and Development capability.  In other words, supporting these social entrepreneurs isn’t a maybe-investment in tomorrow’s opportunities or a form of charity, but a direct cost of doing business and staying competitive.

The ways in which government, the private and Not-For-Profit sectors and now, the Social Entrepreneur movement communicate are changing; there are those of us creating the right linkages, developing conduits for these conversations to happen.  It’s going to be an exciting new world.

The Knowledge Economy train is leaving the station fueled not by coal, but by ideas.  And it’s not too late to get on board.