Earlier this week I attended BOOM (Bits on our Minds), the Computing and Information Science Department's showcase of undergraduate technologies. Once I got over the fact that undergrad engineers look about 12 years old, I began talking to some of them about their creations. I saw robots, and 3D printers for food, green technologies, and of course, video games.
There was one aspect of the afternoon that stood out: it is really really fun to see things, and by things, I mean inventions. Even if the inventions are totally purposeless and will never meet the hands of a consumer, they represent progress, evolution, and to borrow a cast aside ideology from the Obama campaign--hope.
That business people often do not interact with things is odd. We interact with money, markets, customers, partners, debt, and equity, but we are not inventors and many of us have never built anything ourselves.
The truth is that making things is therapeutic. So, put away your yoga matt, fire your psychologist, and go make something, write something, or play a song on the piano. Those young, idealistic undergrads may well have a thing or two to teach us after all.
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