Category: Articles
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West Virginia Building its Research Muscles
Some exciting announcements on steps forward in West Virginia’s quest to become a more significant player in university research. As many of you are aware, a strong R&D infrastructure is critical to economic growth in today’s innovation economy. First, WVU unveiled its new Health Sciences Learning Center and the WVU Erma Byrd Biomedical Research Center.…
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Huntington Gets Even Greener
Richard Cobb is an advocate for Cabell County’s neighborhoods. He is the chairperson of the Huntington Human Relations Commission, a member of the executive committee of the Cabell-Huntington Chapter of the NAACP and a past citizen member of the Herald-Dispatch Editorial Board. He founded Adopt YOUR Block – Be a Litter-Gitter, a litter abatement group…
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The Questions, My Friend?
On June 23, 2008, I posted an article called, “The Answer, My Friend?” Its focus was wind energy as an alternative to mountain top removal mining. Obviously, the title winks and tips its hat to Dylan; but it also paved the way for today’s post, “The Questions, My Friend?” Ken Ward writes in the Gazette…
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Making a New Generation of Innovators
One of the most exciting speakers at this year’s Create WV Conference is Dale Dougherty. You may not have heard of him, but those in the publishing and Internet worlds certainly do. He was the co-founder of O’Reilly Media, one of the earliest and largest publishers of computer and software manuals. Today, he is credited…
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Creative Class Roadkill
Dr. Richard Florida, the leading voice of the creative class concept, often highlights the fact that creative class workers cluster together in just a handful of major creative hubs in the U.S. and the world. What does this mean for those regions that do not currently have the creative magnet industries? Should we give up…
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WV Student Voices Shout Disrupting Class
Read the comments from a just-released survey of WV’s middle and high school students. http://wvde.state.wv.us/tt/2008/survey2008.pdf Compare that to the central themes of Disrupting Class – the customization of learning opportunities made possible by technology, new roles for teaching professionals, making the case for different schools. A match made in (Almost) Heaven
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Education Innovation
createwv.typepad.com Dr. Curtis Johnson, co-author of Disrupting Class, will bring many stimulating ideas to the 2008 Create WV conference in October on how West Virginia schools can begin delivering children with the skills they’ll need for 21st century success. The Charleston Daily Mail recently ran this story about his ideas on how schools need to…
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Global Challenges CEO’s Face
In a brief post on Harvard Business Publishing’s blog (thanks Rich Shaffer), Umair Haque highlights four major challenges that CEOs and other leaders face in developing growth and long-term prosperity. The short summary: To a certain extent, West Virginia’s long history of not being on the cutting edge of economic growth has shielded it from…
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Disrupting Class-The Charleston Visit
On Aug.5-6, Dr. Johnson, co-author of Disrupting Class, spent some serious face time with individuals and organizations involved with public education in our state. I don’t know if it was his engaging manner, engaging message or just the fact that people wanted to be engaged, but he started a conversation about how WV could begin…
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Benchmarking Our Creative Efforts With the World
Now and then, it’s a good thing to check in on other regions and their efforts to build a creative economy and attract the creative class of entrepreneurs/employees that are required for it to thrive. Here are a few groups around the country (and world). What can we learn from their successes and failures? createwv.typepad.com…