For an innovation expert, can you work in Innovation in any country?
Innovation requires a rewarding environment both in terms of money and quality of life, and that only occurs in industrialized countries.
India leads the world ranking in number of engineers and scientists in the world and is the largest outsourcing center in computer services. They receive more than 100,000 engineers a year and have a workforce of about 4 million people among scientists and engineers.
Are these countries capable of keeping that talent within their borders?
The answer is NO because it is like trying to cover the sun with your hands.
The departure of so many Indian and Chinese students abroad has brought with it the debate around the brain drain, since each of these countries contributes about 130,000 students in the US and the same in Canada.
But only 20% return with that knowledge to their countries of origin.
The Beijing Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) reports in a study that 80% of students who have studied abroad between 1978 and 2008 have not yet returned to China. Some of the brightest university students do not succeed home again, but are attracted by a salary and quality of life in the United States, Canada, or the United Kingdom and refer some family help to their countries.
What should a classroom creativity program have and a distance learning program?
Of course, quality content.
The contents can be enriched thanks to the diversity of formats that digital systems allow (text, image, audio, video…), integrated in the so-called hypermedia of high interactive value. We are talking about content, but of scientific and pedagogical quality, adapted to these digital systems. Likewise, they are contents developed specifically for the intended training action. To them, obviously, other complementary content, of own or specific elaboration, or recommended, from other authors as well as from different Internet sites must be added.
In reality, universities and their teachers usually teach what they know but not what it takes to create a company, manage financially or be an innovator of products and services, so a philosophy is taught more than knowing how to solve technical, social or financial problems.
In addition, you must have a comprehensive Tutoring.
In these digital environments it is obliged to maintain an almost permanent tutoring service for the student. The latter must have the tutor's office door open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, but not in chats but in Forums.
It is necessary to guard against the different problems faced by a student participating in these systems, that is, the academic perspective, to support the acquisition of competences, but also the personal perspective, guidance and help to solve the different problems.
In addition, a multidirectional communication that refers to one of the fundamental virtualities of these teaching and learning systems in digital environments. The learning communities supported in these environments and on social networks have been shown as one of the most advantageous bets of these new ways of teaching and learning. The potentiality of the collaborative technologies of the Web 2.0, has dimensioned to unsuspected limits both the possibilities of learning between peers and the asymmetric communication between teachers and students.
And finally, an appropriate organizational and management structure, which must adopt a specific approach and very different from those maintained both in face-to-face teaching and in distance learning. Organization of teaching competencies and tasks, their management, design of the use of the platform used, management of personal monitoring of particular problems, academic, administrative and student evaluation.
It should not be neglected to have a platform or virtual environment that makes it possible to anchor the contents there in their different formats, offer all the possibilities of vertical, horizontal, synchronized and asynchronous communication, facilitate teamwork, evaluation processes and the management of students.
This means that training proposals that are based on a fabulous platform or virtual environment for learning are useless, if it is empty of its own content to the participants, or those anchored there lack quality or are methodologically unfocused.
I work in the Interamerican Virtual University and in places like Mentat in a satisfactory way in distance mode, but a lot depends on knowing how to motivate the participants, to consult on how to solve their different problems, be they industrial, social, community, and that alone it is achieved if the teacher has an open mind to this.
One little by little feels that the creative tools it offers are internalized by the participants and that a habit is created in solving problems of any kind.
Ultimately, solving problems is transforming that problem into a business opportunity or improving something that already exists, making it efficient and with a higher return on investment.
And it is defining that over time it is the same participant who proposes the problems of their interest.
And where is the border between what is in person and what is at a distance today?
For me, it is already diluted and it is about convergence of systems and rather than opposing systems, we should talk about the quality of that education, be it with a face-to-face or distance emphasis.
If education is communication, it is dialogue, whether vertical or horizontal, then interaction is a defining element of educational doing.
Furthermore, even with a platform, content and tutor, if it does not energize the group or take advantage of the possibilities of interaction and collaborative work with these technologies, the training is not fully used.
So why are there so many school failures?
The error of the current educational system, which was designed at the end of the 19th century, was organized around "things" and not "people" and that is the biggest mistake.
We all attend school and dedicate countless hours to learning "things", what we commonly call studying mathematical formulas, chemical elements, physical laws, capitals of countries, historical dates, and never to relate, guide, lead, inspire or motivate "people".
Ancient education only has eyes for disciplines and subjects. Your own educational experience consisted of wasting years in class, sitting facing forward, not interacting with anyone under penalty of punishment and listening to a teacher deliver concepts and ultimately, thinking and working with "things" with hardly any space to deal with "people. ”.
So for me the important thing is people and the new way of training people is to participate, collaborate and learn creative techniques.
Creative techniques and the flexibility to combine them enhance the possibilities of arriving at original solutions in everyday situations and problems. You have to internalize them and then create with the assistance of valid procedures.
Without a doubt, the training of the people in your organization is one of the elements that you must improve if you want the organization to differentiate itself from the rest in society.
And how do social networks intervene?
The power and possibilities of social networks to enhance those levels of interaction that enhance the exchange of information, debate and mutual benefit and enrichment are not discussed. And these relationships can agglutinate affections but also improve the effectiveness of work, learning results because highly favorable relationship and work environments are usually created. The spontaneity of the interventions in the networks tends to favor both formal and informal learning.
Schumpeter says that the success of innovation is a function of private business initiatives and the entrepreneurial capacity of organizations. Innovations are impossible without organizations and universities.
There are necessary conditions, but they will only be sufficient if they are combined with a favorable environment for them to take place.
Furthermore, innovating in business now finds that in a hyper-connected world, in whatever you try, you will find that, somewhere else, someone is doing it better, cheaper or faster.
This is crucial and understanding it will save you a lot of headaches and you have to do something differently.
Can everything that is different be considered creative?
Not necessarily. For the different to be defined as creative, it must have social acceptance and be of use to one or others. And for it to have an impact, it needs to find the right target audience.
This is developed with proper training and techniques.
Creativity training with techniques that improves?
It serves specifically to improve:
- a new look at reality that allows it to be modified.
- Incorporate elements that improve the ability to analyze and solve problems.
- discover and understand how internal resources are enhanced
- alternatives are generated and discover opportunities where others do not see them.
They apply to both art and science and companies must delve into the concepts and efficient tools.
Are companies then responsible for all job training?
There is the belief that the solution for everything should be the company, its partners and managers; but we are all the company.
The company, through its executives, must create an ecosystem that stimulates change and provide the appropriate tools so that all its collaborators can trace their own path, guided by the values of the company.
Said ecosystem must be characterized by flexibility and openness where values such as trust and tolerance prevail in dynamics of continuous collaboration.
These are the main features of what is known today as a culture of innovation and of course the motivation of each employee is different, and those who demonstrate facilities will be promoted.
What then is the relationship between art and science?
There is a lot of relationship, more than you think. The issue is that art is seen from an erroneous, subjective and endless creativity perspective and behind all art there are hours of design and hours of reflection. There is a constant search through some methodology. I think that the great difference between science and art is the way they answer the same question and while science explains, art symbolizes.
Science, as it is currently thought, relies on a positivist method but many scientists consider that method terminated and we have to go behind Popper towards Bunge, who once again rescues a quota of creativity and relativizes establishing a precise method..
That is why TRIZ is studied, it is recognized that the laws and inventive principles are effective and are in constant revision.
What examples would you give for an appliance?
Through systematic innovation, new products are developed with an original design and where in several cases water, detergent and fabric softeners have been replaced by another way of washing and wringing clothes.
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And what other projects can you work on?
We operate with problems from the American universities of Harvard and Stanford and the Japanese school in Nagasaki and the theoretical bases are given in our own classes and seminars.
Our idea is that every problem contains a business opportunity and that the greater the difficulty of the problem, the greater the business opportunities. Emphasis is placed on the fact that an entrepreneur must know how to take advantage of all the resources available in his environment and even without money to start a business.
Something that was requested last year was to use a post-it package and get a business started in four hours, and the winner was a team that sold an advertisement claiming to disconnect disused electrical devices to an electric company for a figure greater than 40,000 pesos.
Another case was with a package of elastic bands to make an advertisement detailing at least thirty uses of the bands in solving people's domestic problems.
Another case was that each group of entrepreneurs make money with an initial capital of 100 pesos and three hours of deadline, where the various winning teams offered from selling restaurant reservations, to taking the pressure of their car and bicycle tires for free and charging three pesos if they need a compressed air booster, or place free advertising on Internet sites in exchange for emails from friends.
Another case was with only ten clips to build a business in a span of two hours and there were six winning teams with super creative ideas.
With more training, there are many more teams with abundant new and sustainable ideas.
And mobile learning?
The main role of m learning I think is to reinforce knowledge acquired by other methods and give you instant support on customers, products and operating standards.
When considering m-learning for a company or academic institution, you must take into account a number of factors. The history of e-learning should help us avoid falling into the same mistakes with m-learning.
In a very general way we can accept that the attitude that triggered the training based on Information and Communication Technologies and e-learning was that of "we have powerful computers so we are going to use them to teach"
In principle, this precept is perfectly acceptable, many of the pioneers in adopting the technology were greatly disappointed by boring courses, uninformed teachers and a lack of coordination and integration with traditional training tools.
But some time passed and e-learning began to reach its potential.
The attitude today is "we have powerful mobile devices so we are going to use them to teach." And it is impossible not to find similarities with those first steps of e-learning.
It is very easy to be seduced by m-learning. Smartphones and tablets such as the iPad, with their color touch screens, which offer dynamic consumption of educational content.
Organizations must support the worker with information related to products, customers, procedures and standards with easy access, making it possible for them to solve typical work situations in a short time. Or refresher courses for specific aspects of the position can be provided when needed.
However, simply providing m-learning to people who are not prepared or without any support will not work. It must be presented in an appropriate way and with extensive and quality didactic material and this is one of the main lessons we learned from e-learning.
In addition, the logistics of the remote location must be adequate, that is to say, Internet access, one-to-one support, content according to each group of participants and a motivating environment.
