Four key aspects of innovation

Introduction

Randy Nelson, the former dean of Pixar University, describes four key aspects that employees in “innovative” companies need to have.

Individuals need to show persistence as they develop mastery — or depth of knowledge — in an area that they are passionate about.
They need to be curious and have a breadth of knowledge. In other words, they need to “be interested, not interesting.”
Individuals need to be good communicators with the ability to translate complex ideas into something understandable and engaging.
Finally, they need to understand collaboration as a way to amplify the ideas and expertise of a group. As a team, these individuals need to take each others’ ideas as a starting point and “plus” them. When given a piece of work, instead of judging, they take it as a starting point and ask, “What can we do with this?” via PD Summer: Ground Rules for the Web Tools Collective | Edutopia. Written by Eric Brunsell Asst Professor of Science Education @ UW-Oshkosh