Capstone: An ESRM Coda

As a teenager in Maryland in the 1950s, Mary Allen Wilkes had no plans to become a software pioneer — she dreamed of being a litigator. One day in junior high in 1950, though, her geography teacher surprised her with a comment: “Mary Allen, when you grow up, you should be a computer programmer!” Wilkes had no idea what a programmer was; she wasn’t even sure what a computer was. Relatively few Americans were. The first digital computers had been built barely a decade earlier at universities and in government labs.

Are you creative? How would you know, or convince your boss? According to a new LinkedIn analysis of member profiles, creativity tops the chart of soft skills that employers are looking for.

A skill is loosely defined as the ability to do something well. The word traces back to Old Norse for “power of discernment.” In the early 13th century, the word was also used to describe one’s “sense of ability, cleverness.” Skills can also be taught, improved, measured and defined—and be done with some consistency and reliability.

Creativity is one of those ineffable skills that’s important—especially for jobs of the future—but hard to pin down. We know when we feel creative, and we know what creative work looks like. Measuring and assessing such work in a way that keeps kids inspired is another matter, though, and schools aren’t known for being good at it. For years, personalities like Sir Ken Robinson have taken education systems to task for actually testing the creativity out of students.

Author and educator Katie White, who’s something of an expert on the creative process, may have a practical solution.

She argues that creativity actually has a very visible side that can be nurtured. “A lot of people think it’s very formless, but the case that I’m making is that it’s actually very observable, and there’s plenty of things that would indicate creativity,” she says. That means teachers can both tease it out and measure it—provided they know what to look for.

Technology companies have been pummeled by revelations about how poorly they protect their customers’ personal information, including an in-depth New York Times report detailing the ability of smartphone apps to track users’ locations. Some companies, most notably Apple, have begun promoting the fact that they sell products and services that safeguard consumer privacy.

Smartphone users are never asked explicitly if they want to be tracked every moment of each day. But cellular companies, smartphone makers, app developers and social media companies all claim they have users’ permission to conduct near-constant personal surveillance.

The underlying problem is that most people don’t understand how tracking really works. The technology companies haven’t helped teach their customers about it, either. In fact, they’ve intentionally obscured important details to build a multi-billion-dollar data economy based on an ethically questionable notion of informed consent.

When was the last time you sat down with a pencil and paper and drew something? For many of us the answer is high school art class or that Paint and Sip evening you went to awhile back. Aside from professionals and a few dedicated hobbyists, few of us make time for sketching, doodling, or any other form of visual art in our lives.

But according to a fascinating new study, the right answer is whenever was the last time you tried to learn anything new. Put away the highlighter (really, science shows they're worse than useless) and skip the flash cards. The fastest way to cram new information into your brain is by drawing it, concludes the research.