Pre-Ramble: What better time than this back-to-school week to think about thinking, innovation and the proposition of lifelong learning. 

Cut to the MIT Media Lab, a covey of designers, engineers, artists and scientists who conduct a staggeringly broad array of research around “the impact of emerging technologies on everyday life.” 

Tucked into the academic mêlée that is Boston, this hotbed of geeks and geniuses established in 1980 by Professor Nicholas Negroponte and former MIT President and Science Advisor to President John F. Kennedy, Jerome Wiesner, has developed new approaches to physical and social “human adaptability,” cognition and learning, and merging our physical world with digital technology. In this unique culture of “learning by doing” …  

… researchers develop new technologies that  ”empower people of all ages, from all walks of life, in all societies, to design and invent new possibilities for themselves and their communities … future-obsessed product designers, nanotechnologists, data-visualization experts, industry researchers, and pioneers of computer interfaces work side by side to tirelessly invent—and reinvent—how humans experience, and can be aided by, technology.”

Part of the point here is, “Wow – look at all the neat stuff these guys are working on!” … The other, more important message is that there is so much to know and do and experience “out there” in the world, that you might want to seize this opportunity to strap on your backpack and look to the cool productive air of fall to redirect your energy around some new exciting and enriching experiences.

The Take-Away: Hey – if not now, when? … Conduct your own inquiry into the things that are most intriguing to you. One place to kick-start your process might be to look into the Lab’s “Lifelong Kindergarten” project. Here, on a mission to create a more creative society, researchers look at new ways to “engage people in creative learning experiences.”  Go ahead and eat the paste, if you want … In the spirit of ”blocks and fingerpaint,” the group works to expand upon tradition ways of thinking, ultimately to incite “a world full of playfully creative people, who are constantly inventing new possibilities for themselves and their communities.” 

Class is in session!!

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