Chocolate Cubed

This morning’s NYTimes business section had an article by Janet Rae-Dupree about the people and companies trying to get tax credits for innovation, because innovation creates jobs.  I wholeheartedly agree and want to mention a couple of examples.  Yahoo!, Google, Intel, Apple and Pfizer are just a few of the many examples of companies that created hundreds of thousands of jobs by innovating.  Google’s success generated almost 20,000 jobs according to WikiHow and that is not including all the peripheral Google-related jobs.  The SEM business took a whole new twist when Google launched adwords and its auction model.  SEO is now a full-time job for many people and that is because search engines now drive businesses.  

Joseph Stiglitz was quoted in the article as saying all our bailouts are focusing on the past, not the future.  Will throwing money at corporations for innovation work?  or should the government be investing in small businesses?  I am not sure either will work effectively.  This is a little farfetched, but what about making all college graduates publish at least 1 academic paper before graduating?  This would show them the power of creating new ideas and the validity of peer review.  I am not sure it would create jobs, but it would certainly make our society one of thinkers and creators, two ingredients for innovation.

This morning’s New York Times had an op-ed piece by David Brooks titled “The Biggest Issue” which talked about education in the U.S. and how the biggest problem facing us is the education slowdown.  Brooks makes the point that the United States education rate has slowed drastically, causing a gap between the rich and poor and stagnating growth as a society.  I agree with Brooks completely:  education is the key to our success as a country, but how do we get back on track?  How do we get more people to get higher educations?  How do we interest people to train and do better?   Read the rest of this entry »