Day one of the conference was great. It started with a keynote address from Eric Liu, former staff for President Bill Clinton and founder of the Guiding Lights Network. He talked about the power of imagination and innovation and what that can do in workforce and economic development. Couple of highlights from his talk (paraphrased as accurately as I could):
Instant innovation isn't possible. It's like expecting apples to appear when you haven't planted any seeds.
Expert knowledge can be an enemy of innovation. Thinking you know it all stifles imagination.
The one thing in our workforce and economy that cannot be outsourced is our capacity for imagination.
As I captured some of Liu's best lines on my twitter feed, I found a couple of other people in the room were tweeting him too - Barb Chamberlain and Yvonne Thomas.
Later in the day I went to sessions about using the arts for economic development (lesson: treat your artists as a workforce, not a tool) and how to get economic and workforce development stories into the media (things aren't looking so good there). We heard from the state's chief economist Dr. Arun Raha over lunch (recession is over, but will we survive the recovery?). More on those talks and today's events later.
If you were at the conference and learned something you'd like to share, add your comments below.
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