 | | Dr. David R. Hopkins |
It is hard to believe that fall quarter is almost over and Thanksgiving is just around the corner. It’s been exciting for me to watch the academic year unfold and to kick off our Year of Innovation.
Since we started our Year of Innovation, I’m sure many of you have been thinking “What does innovation really mean?” Innovation is using creativity to add value. It is harvesting knowledge from a wide range of disciplines, from science and technology to art, business, and health care. In other words, innovation emerges from the collaboration of people with diverse perspectives and skills.
The first step to achieve our vision of becoming Ohio’s most innovative university is actually quite simple. We need to take a step back and objectively look at what we’re doing. Do we continue on the same track or is there a better way?
Innovation is about creating a culture—a culture of creativity and collaboration, of thinking differently and challenging the status quo. How do we best utilize our resources? How can we be proactive rather than reactive? How can we be nimble and anticipate needs? How can we shape our future? How do we serve our community and the region? And very important to me and Provost Angle, how do we make sure you have the resources and support to allow you to be successful?
Every day, many of you have creative and innovative ideas about how to improve the way you do your own work. You may have a suggestion on how to streamline a process, how to save money, or how to provide better service. You may create a new course that better meets the needs of our students and the demands of the workforce, foster a new discovery through research, or develop a new project that expands our community outreach. Your ingenuity and imagination are what has sustained this university for more than 40 years, and they are what will make us the most innovative university now and in the future.
Innovation is at the heart of all successful organizations and can be the defining factor in how one organization gains a competitive edge over another. This commitment to innovation depends on all of us being comfortable with sharing ideas and opinions. One example of a culture that encourages innovation is Google, where everybody is a hands-on contributor and everyone wears several hats.
Google encourages team members to pursue their dreams by following a 70/20/10 model. Seventy percent of the time they work on Google’s core business of search and advertising applications. Twenty percent of the time is spent on developing new programs, and 10 percent of the time employees are allowed to pursue their own high-risk/high-reward projects. Google Earth was the result of one of those projects.
At Google, innovation and collaboration go hand in hand. This is the same type of culture we have been building at Wright State, where faculty and staff continue to have the freedom to pursue their professional interests, to make their own discoveries, and to solve their own problems. I encourage each of you to challenge the status quo and offer new ideas. Refuse to accept “no” for an answer if you believe there is a better way of doing things.
On Monday, November 16, all of us will have the opportunity to engage in collaboration and put our innovative ideas to practice during a special “Day of Innovation.” I invite you to participate from your own desktops in virtual brainstorming sessions. We’ll pose questions, tackle problems, and toss around ideas and possible solutions with our partners on and off campus. This will be a unique event unlike anything you’ve ever seen before at Wright State.
Our “Day of Innovation” will culminate with a talk by Peter Hancock, as part of the Presidential Lecture Series. Dr. Hancock heads the Minds in Technology/Machines in Thought laboratory at the University of Central Florida. In the next few days, we will be sending you more information about Dr. Hancock’s lecture and our “Day of Innovation.”
As a final thought, I encourage you to look to your own co-workers, such as our recent faculty and staff award recipients, for inspiration on innovation. These individuals have incorporated innovative practices into their daily work, teaching, and research. Join us at upcoming Presidential Lecture Series events. These speakers will give you new insight into how innovation is being used in a variety of areas from arts and literature to sports and journalism.
Innovation is the key to our ongoing success as a university that attracts the best and brightest students, faculty, and staff. It is the impetus for growing this region and keeping talented graduates in Ohio. I look forward to talking with you more about this and to listening to your ideas for expanding Wright State’s culture of innovation.
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