Laying the groundwork for innovation

Nicholas Negroponte: “Innovation is inefficient. More often than not, it is undisciplined, contrarian, and iconoclastic; and it nourishes itself with confusion and contradiction. In short, being innovative flies in the face of what almost all parents want for their children, most CEOs want for their companies, and heads of states want for their countries. And innovative people are a pain in the ass.” [MIT Technology Review]

I’ve always thought that when it comes to education, wider is better than deeper. If you have a wide range of interests, you are much more likely to find alternative answers to problems.

The education of an architect (Mr. Negroponte has an architectural background, as do I) is a very good preparation for a variety of endeavors. Students are exposed to engineering problems and mathematical concepts and the history of human shelter design. (My favorite course in the university was called “Poetics in the land of MTV.” A great intro to Marshall MacLuhan.)

I don’t think there could have been a better course of study to prepare me for the challenges of working in the world of web development.

February 11, 2003 | Archived in Business