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The study found that arts and crafts activities - such as painting, dancing and filmmaking - are closely related to success of the scientists, engineers and other innovators who create new companies and inventions that stimulate the economy. Yet during the past decade Michigan has cut funding for the arts by some 90 percent - from about $25 million in 2002 to $2.3 million this year. In Detroit, officials attempting to balance the budget have proposed large cuts to the city's arts and cultural institutions.

Logos surround us in digital and physical space, but we rarely examine the thought and artistic thinking that goes into the design of these symbols. Utilizing a silent vocabulary of colors, shapes, and typography, logo designers give a visual identity to companies and organizations of all types. From cave painters to modern designers, artists throughout history have been reducing the complex down to simple ideas that communicate with the world.

"Pathbreaking research by a group of scholars including Eric A. von Hippel, a professor of technological innovation at M.I.T.'s Sloan School of Management, suggests that the traditional division of labor between innovators and customers is breaking down. Financed by the British government, Mr. von Hippel and his colleagues last year completed the first representative large-scale survey of consumer innovation ever conducted. What the team discovered, described in a paper that is under review for publication, was that the amount of money individual consumers spent making and improving products was more than twice as large as the amount spent by all British firms combined on product research and development over a three-year period. "We've been missing the dark matter of innovation," Mr. von Hippel said from his office in Cambridge, Mass. "This is a new pattern for how innovations come about." "

von Hippel and Baldwin also produced a related, intriguing paper in 2009 that can be found here http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/6325.html entitled "Modeling a Paradigm Shift: From Producer Innovation to User and Open Collaborative Innovation." The conclusion of the paper reads: "We conclude by observing again that we belive we are in the midst of a major paradigm shift: technological trends are causing a change in the way innovation gets done in advanced market economies. As design and communication costs exogenously decline, single user and open collaborative innovation models will be viable for a steadily wider range of design. They will present an increasing challenge to the traditional paradigm of producer-based design - but, when open, they are good for social welfare and should be encouraged."

"No executive can afford to be a Luddite and dismiss all new media. Sometimes it's exactly the right way for you to spend your time (especially if you're "on the way up" and need to build your profile). But too many leaders dive in without thinking through the costs of social media (what else could you be doing with your time?). After all, in this crowded media landscape, sometimes what matters most isn't your use of 21st century technologies. Instead, it's the forgotten 19th century arts (handwritten notes, personal phone calls, and high-quality personal meetings) that can have the greatest impact." Dorie's article misses two important reasons that leaders might need to include social media as part of their activities: 1) Good leaders understand culture, and social media are an important part of culture 2) Good leaders understand media and their effects on how humans organize. Understanding, especially where media are concerned, is best gained through participation. If they were to take Dorie's advice, Napoleon probably wouldn't have read newspapers, Winston Churchill wouldn't have listened to radio, and JFK wouldn't have watched television.