Great Thoughts from Fast Company

Posted on | March 6, 2009 | No Comments

I was just reading Fast Company’s, March 2009 issue. The cover article is “The World’s 50 Most Innovative Companies.”

In the Letter from the Editor section, Robert Safian, made some observations that I thought were worth getting out to those who follow this blog.

Mr. Safian said, “The one incontrovertible truth about is era: Only creativity and aggressive innovation – in the face of hardship and layoffs and seriously tough choices – will fuel a turnaround.”

In other words, YOU and I are the real hope for any lasting economic turnaround. We, the innovative thinkers, are the ones who have to pay attention to what is happening around us and communicate our thoughts to each other that new ideas, technologies, and business practices can emerge.

Mr. Safian also said of the United States, ” We as a country are paying the price for an era when financial engineering counted more than breakthrough products and services.”

It is now time to get back to what made us great in the first place. We need to re-establish ourselves as brilliant thinkers. People whose primary goal is to solve problems. We need to see what needs to be done and do that thing. Then we can see if there is money to be made from the thinking and innovating that we do! While math and science skills are emphasized in school, thinking has sort of taken a back seat.

At the end of his article, Mr. Safian made this observation, “In the midst of our troubles, remarkable things have happened, and they will continue to happen – if we prune the unproductive and broken, and nurture those enterprises that point to a more positive future.”

We cannot be afraid anymore to work hard to make our enterprises productive, to make them lean, and to allow new and sometimes unconventional thoughts drive major changes in our economy as well as our lives. This country has been great for a long time and for a variety of reasons. But amidst them all thoughtfulness and innovation have their positions at or near the top.

Let’s take the challenge laid down by Mr. Safian and choose early in this year that we are going to become the innovators that bring real, lasting, and beneficial changes to this country and the world at large.

Just my thoughts ….

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