Chatter Across the Curriculum.

FacultyL Chatter is cheap: possible talk going= on on-line 24/7/365.
Tune in, out,  lurk, play--"local food" &  untapped renewable resource
available for any Faculty for whom it becomes a life-style and shared
environmentality.  Like pick-up basketball, or jazz, or back porch old-
time jam--plinkty plunk playing the old fiddle tunes & break-down
runes of human culture and nature.  Ah, the humanity.


“Clarity is not a virtue.  If everything you say is detailed and explicit,
you won’t give your collaborators room to run.  Put ideas out there
that are half-baked, ideas where you’re not even sure what it means
yet Put yourself in an environment that rewards failure. Creativity is
risky; successful creative people are also the ones who fail the most
often. Creativity is inefficient. Don’t expect every idea and every project
to pan out. Know when to cut your losses and move on.  Innovation
emerges from the bottom up, unpredictably, and it’s only after the
innovation has occurred that every one realizes what’s happened.
Innovation can’t be planned; it can’t be predicted: it has to be allowed
to emerge. Like successful improvisation.

Key to understanding innovation: to realize that collaborative webs
are more important than creative people. The power of this collaborative
web …is what companies must tap into if they want to create a culture that
encourages significant innovation.

Dear John.

You can see how antithetical, diametrically if not diabolically
opposed each one of these Collaborative Innovative Values are
standing next to  the Standard Academic Values of individual
acquisition of skills and content
 
You can see why Gary Hawkins  insists in articulating
the radical difference in these 2 economies . . .  
 
academic/conservatory, say, individual/collaborative,
rigor / innovative, product / process , clarity, consistency,
coherence... & the chatter which might mother invention.
 
. . . because if the distinction  isn’t clear & sustained,  the rigor of
standard “academics”  will always eclipse if not occlude  the mess
& guess of collaborative  innovation.  ( SACS emphasis on
measurement, assessment, evaluation:  all decent finished product
values)
 
Maintaining  the distinction is crucial for realizing the complementary
relationship between the two and for celebrating our diversity in
Learning and Teaching Styles and for forging ahead into 21^st century
embarrassingly rich environmental media and frontiers yet unknown
—us stalwart pioneers.

The beauty of Faculty-L  chatter & local feedback going on: no one need
beg to differ but can improve terms, challenge assumptions, criticize
controlling metaphors, facts, stats, data   without awaiting in horse-drawn
covered-wagon  anticipation the publication of  this or that  rebuttal or
confirmation.

It's like Talk In Class -- we know how important it is to promote, encourage,
make an environment that encourages it:  applied academics, yes?
Critical Thinking as our shared Work Program and Practice.
Or what's a college for?

Best, Sam