Watch this video:

http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/66 (it’s 20 minutes long, but it’s truly brilliant).

Then read this article:

http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Content?oid=503829 (and if you think the situation is different in Canada, for the most part you would be wrong.)

You may also perform these tasks in reverse order. I’m a benevolent dictator.

Remember, how in in my last post I was a titch irritated by how we use a business term to describe the strategizing, planning part of the brain (executive function)?

It’s everywhere. We have learned to apply business principles to science, education, and creativity, just to name three obvious areas. And, it seems to me that these are areas that may not be well served by forcing them into a business model.

Sir Ken Robinson uses the term strip-mining, which, to my ear resonates with truth and not just about education. We also strip-mine our creative people and our thinking people. Let’s find out everything they’ve got, mine it, find it’s market, exploit it, use it up, get it on the shelves with a price tag on it. And when the creative types complain that they’re feeling like they need a bit of time off to fill the well, we’ll sell them classes, and books, we’ll tell them they must not want it enough (which is a bit like saying I guess you just don’t want to win the lottery enough), we’ll teach them how to run themselves more like a business. 

We need a new model. And with business failing so spectacularly in the last few months, maybe this is the time. It’s time to let this one die, so something else can come replace it.