By Howard Baldwin, Contributing Columnist

One of the challenging issues about deploying broadband – so they say – is the cost. Access rights. Construction. Lawsuits. All have an effect on time and resources. That’s why it was particularly startling when I started finding references to communities that had found ways to deploy broadband using creative financing and cost structures.

For instance, as noted in Laying Fiber: Creative Broadband Installations, the city of Santa Monica used federal stimulus funds and then partnered with other telecommunications companies. As Broadband Communities’ article Santa Monica City Net: How to Grow a Network notes, the city leased a fiber network from a local cable TV operator.

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Tags: broadband, capex, creativity, financing, government, infrastructure, rural

By Howard Baldwin, Contributing Columnist

One of the most aggravating aspects of broadband deployment is the absence of a right answer. A few weeks ago, we asked Private or Public Sector: Who Should Deploy Broadband?. The answer was that there was no clear answer.

More recently, we set out to update Steve Shepard’s 2011 story about Fiber Optic Cable Installation In Sewers, looking for creative ways that companies or countries are using the existing underground passages to deploy fiber inexpensively. Same result: there was no clear answer.

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Tags: creativity, fiber network, innovation, public sector, Service Provider, utility

Steve Wozniak gets excited about education.

He recorded a fantastic talk via WebEx about his experiences getting kids excited about technology in education. His enthusiasm is contagious as he passionately discusses the results of his efforts.

Woz, as he is affectionately known, is a huge supporter of teachers and education. He speaks of his great experiences in school as a child and his incredible respect for his teachers and the schools that he attended.

He acknowledges that testing has its problems, that it’s not as powerful as a subjective judgment. He’d rather see a way to evaluate students that takes into account the individual and his or her talents and needs.

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Tags: creativity, education, WebEX, WebEx Channels, webinar, Wozniak

I have a favourite quote that I re-read every time I’m feeling a little lack lustre and needing inspiration. It’s by Eleanor Roosevelt, and says: “The purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience.”

It’s such a positive and empowering statement that you can’t help but feel that anything is possible if you put your mind to it. Inspiration really does come in so many different forms and through different people.

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Tags: authentic, creativity, diversity, inclusion, Inclusion and Diversity, inspiration, inspire

Any number of case studies can be cited as evidence that innovation and creativity are crucial to business success. Yet results from the European Innovation Scoreboard (EIS) suggest that many countries have much to do before they can be described as ‘innovative’.

So a real problem facing European organisations is that they just can’t recruit enough of those special ‘creative’ people -- right? I’m not so sure. I’d suggest that the statistics say rather more about the way we tap into the innovation within our people than it does about any lack of potential creativity. And the real issue lies with our perception of creative thinking…

The problem can be traced back to 1981 when Professors Sperry and Ornstein told the world that human beings are of two minds. Their landmark “left brain, right brain” experiments showed that the two hemispheres of the brain are dominant in specific functions – left for logical and right for creative.

But an undeserved legacy of Sperry and Ornstein is a belief amongst the business community that ‘right-brain’ creative thinking is a gift that few of us are graced with. The reality is very different. Whilst their work showed that each side of the brain is dominant in specific functions, it also showed they are skilled in ALL functions and that analytical and creative thinking are complementary skills available to and accessible by all of us. Indeed it is simply our misconception that there is a gap between them that very often hinders our ability to be creative or innovative.

The business environment tends to perpetuate the myth that creative or innovative  thinking is for the chosen few. In our information-overloaded lives we tend to ask our people to use the logical, analytical and rational ‘left-brain’ labelled functions. And from childhood we are taught to create lists, to prioritise by numbering, to join the dots, to think ‘logically’, to focus on results, to seek an outcome, to follow the sequence, to take linear notes… the list goes on.

It’s also a fact that, for many of us, it’s not often that we are asked, allow ourselves -- or are allowed by our work situation -- to think creatively. And when we are, it’s no surprise that many of us feel that this is something out of the ordinary and perhaps beyond our grasp.

I believe that creativity and inclusion go hand-in-hand because it is flexibility and creativity that make possible inclusive ways of working. So what are inclusive ways of working? Well first and foremost it’s not everyone doing the same thing in the same way. Of course, there are behaviours that help guide our actions, but inclusion comes about through acceptance of diversity and non-conformity. If we are afraid or unable to be different, to relate our work in our own way, then we will be less able and willing to appreciate and develop the abilities of the people around us.

The challenge I’m giving myself – and you -- is to take a creative or innovative approach to situations both at work and at home.  That doesn’t just mean being different, but being different and better……so let’s mind the gap

Tags: creativity, diversity, inclusion, Inclusion and Diversity, innovation