Innovation and the knowledge economy

The future is a horizon of unknown scale. It’s waiting for us, the explorers, the adventurers, the visionaries who suspect that we have so far seen only the slightest hint of who we might become. But it’s also calling to the practical, those with tools in their hands and their feet on the pavement. They are the ones who will turn imagination into reality, vision into action—and action matters.

Zuckerman presents a paradox “While it’s easier than ever to share information and perspectives from different parts of the world, we may now often encounter a narrower picture of the world than in less connected days.” Zuckerman compiles compelling evidence that Americans are reading less international news now than they did in the decades before the Internet, even though it’s now technically easier than it has ever been to access information from faraway places. 

American Libraries Magazine, the magazine of the American Library Association, delivers news and information about the library community.

According to research by the Insight Center in Oakland, California, an informal cash and barter economy of self-employed individuals and small enterprises consists of some 4.2 million workers nationwide who drive an often unnoticed stream of economic activity thriving outside the formal economy. They are artists, trades people, chefs, musicians, and a wide range of other occupations. Persistently high unemployment rates and even higher underemployment rates drive much of this activity as these small-scale entrepreneurs and other self-starters find a livelihood for themselves outside of the institutionally-based economy that excludes them due to their lack of education or because of their race or immigration status. This level of enterprise is, not surprisingly, also reflected in worker’s ethos. Opinion surveys conducted by Pew and others between 2008 and 2012 show that far from being takers, most Americans see themselves as “makers.” - See more at: http://www.iftf.org/future-now/article-detail/the-other-kind-of-makers/#sthash.HIdTSMbL.dpuf

Brainpickings put me onto this timeless wisdom from famous eccentric James T. Mangan’s 1936 book You Can Do Anything!