Education is too important to be left to educators. At least that's my feeling, and as a professor, I just might know something about this. According to China's Global Times, in a study last year by the International Assessment of Educational Progress in 21 countries, Chinese students ranked first in the world in mathematics, but they were last in imagination and fifth from the bottom in creativity. Which would you prefer? For me, creative people can hire mathematicians—if they need them. But it's much more difficult for mathematicians even to become aware that they need creative help.
At the same time, the Shanghai Daily reports that the patent activity of China's top 500 enterprises is up 13.3 percent from the prior year, yet no one is asking what impact, if any, these patents are actually having. In a recent column in the Financial Times, Tyler Brûlé observed: "I tried very hard to think of Indian, Russian, and Chinese brands that I owned or used, and I couldn't think of any—no Russian design brands in my house, no reservations at any Indian hotels, and no Lenovo laptop in my bag." Granted, brands and innovation are not necessarily synonymous, but there are associations that cannot be denied or ignored...
Bill Fischer writes in BusinessWeek.
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