Saying we need a new approach to education and learning, Richard Florida, who recently updated his book, "Rise of the Creative Class," writes that
The tectonic upheavals our economy is enduring are the result... of a deeper and more fundamental shift - the passing of the old industrial order as it gives way to the emerging Creative Economy....
Everyone agrees that education is important, but our definition of education must be broadened. Just as the United States once sank vast amounts of public and private funds into canals, railroads, highways, and other physical infrastructure to power industrial growth, the country today needs to massively increase its investments in its human creative capital."
If you've been following IdeaFestival developments this year, or better, if you've bought your all-access pass to IdeaFestival 2012 - thank you! - you know that education and its changing nature will play a big role this year. Higher education in particular is undergoing enormous change, as Richard DeMillo will discuss. A list of 500 free online courses tweeted earlier this week - you are following us, right? - drew click after click. Thanks to technology, more and more top instruction can be had online, from learning the basics of cosmology from Leonard Susskind at Standford to studying ancient and midieval philosophy at Notre Dame. Some institutions will soon offer credit, according to the New York Times. It's no stretch to say that the best in human understanding has never in history been so widely and freely available.
That's the thing about innovation, isn't it? One never knows where and when it will occur. Having been upended by technology, educational institutions must think about their role as gatekeepers, as credential givers. And who knows what changes may be coming to health care and energy, to name two other prosperous industries. As "the old industrial order" gives way, its the smart and industrious, the lateral thinkers able to make new connections and then act their discoveries, that will benefit.
At the IdeaFestival, we specialize in new connections.
So where does the creative class earn the most? Florida lists his top twenty cities here.
Wayne
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