Interview with Judy Estrin, author of a new book "Closing the Innovation Gap"

A great interview from Robert Scoble, sit down and watch when you have time to listen to all. Does healthcare enter here, you bet. Do we want the government to stay in the dark ages? Maybe, as they might spy on us, but we don't mind Google and Microsoft doing it...does the government have the capacity today to drive changes? What kind of conversations are we having today? Intelligent, or as he states are we more focused on just discussion the sex life of a 17 year old, well unfortunately the latter seems to be what drives some of the media today, an in essence, who really cares, there are a few million 17 year old daughters out there each with their own sex life for goodness sakes.

T he problems are deep enough and complex, so the simple solutions we would all like just may not exist, more teamwork between government and non profits. The market is driving many short term solutions with investments, so as a whole, we may not be able to visualize the long term interests and effects. "Closing the Innovation Gap" should look to be one big seller. After listening to this interview, I was so impressed, first of all she spoke my language, or a lot of it, let me say. I should clarify this, not my language really, but the same philosophies and someone not afraid to talk about it.

We need mentors, be a good example for others, on Twitter, Friend Feed, etc. She is realistic and addresses the fact that some of these solutions are over whelming, and yes it is, but search out and find your area of passion to create on small change. Good words to live by and not really anything new in a sense, but something we just flat out lose focus on, due to the overwhelming deluge of information and work we do today.

One good point, sometimes you can get fooled, and nobody knows this better than healthcare, whether on purpose or simply a series of events. I think I need to read this book, very impressed with the "down to earth" comments and forecasting analytics I heard in this interview and all done with a cell phone.

Thanks to Robert for sharing, as we all should do. BD

"How about our nation’s policies toward innovation?....We’d rather talk about some 17-year-old’s sex life or download the latest shiny object from Google. Question: how did that shiny object get here?

So, yesterday I went and talked with one of the formost experts on innovation: Judy Estrin. She’s on the board of directors of Walt Disney and FedEx. She’s written a book on the topic, Closing the Innovation Gap.

Here’s the video shot with my cell phone of our 40-minute conversation about the topic. But, remember, you must not discuss this. It’s in the unwritten rules of politics this year. Instead, head over to Memeorandum and see what you are allowed to talk about. Today’s topic: whether the press is fair when dealing with Presidential Candidates

http://scobleizer.com/2008/09/03/the-political-topic-that-must-not-be-discussed-in-usa/