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Jump’s work has elements of management consulting and a bit of design-firm draftsmanship, but its specialty is conceiving new businesses, and what it sells is really the art of innovation. The company is built on the premise that creative thinking is a kind of expertise. Like P.&G. and Mars, you can hire Jump to think on your behalf, for somewhere between $200,000 to $500,000 a month, depending on the complexity and ambiguity of the question you need answered. Or you can ask Jump to teach your corporation how to generate better ideas on its own; Jump imparts that expertise in one- and five-day how-to-brainstorm training sessions that can cost $200,000 for a one-day session for 25 employees.

What’s clear is that in recent years, much of corporate America has gone meta — it has started thinking about thinking. And all that thinking has led many executives to the same conclusion: We need help thinking. A few idea entrepreneurs, like Jump, Ideo and Kotter International, are companies with offices and payrolls. But many are solo practitioners, brains for hire who lecture at corporations or consult with them regularly. Each has a catechism and a theory about why good ideas can be so hard to come by and what can be done to remedy the situation.

“We’re not only blind to certain things, but we’re blind to the fact that we’re blind to them.”

We’ve created Pine Tree Poetry to interlace students, their peers, parents, teachers and school librarians in a quest for poetry writing excellence. Rarely do students earn kudos or trophies for their writing, but at Pine Tree Poetry, we are dedicated to rewarding the fine writing achievements of students who are 5 – 18. Pine Tree Poetry contributes four important elements to the realm of student poetry. We: 1. Receive, read, evaluate, pick (a few) and publish the best poems written by poets ages 5 – 18. 2. Support schools by awarding thousands of dollars each year for much-needed library materials. Some awards are based upon the number of poems submitted while others are selected at random from among all particiipants. 3. Give a free copy of The Pine Tree Poetry Collection to the library of every school that has one or more students published. 4. Highlight the life lesson that many will write and the best will be chosen. We are not a vanity publishing company! We’re out to change the world one poem at a time and we invite students, parents, librarians, teachers and those who love the written word to join us.

Google disclosed Thursday that it continuously uses enough electricity to power 200,000 homes, but it says that in doing so, it also makes the planet greener

But when it calculates that average energy consumption on the level of a typical user the amount is small, about 180 watt-hours a month, or the equivalent of running a 60-watt light bulb for three hours

“When we hit the Google search button,” Mr. Horowitz said, “it’s not for free.

"It's amazing what you can do with boxes and junk," he says. That could almost be the slogan of the New York Coalition for Play, which provided the boxes and junk. The nonprofit association ran one of the two dozen booths at the Ultimate Block Party, an event last fall that brought together companies like Disney, Crayola, and Lego, along with researchers from Columbia and MIT, and attracted thousands of parents and children. The goal was to "celebrate the science of play" and to push back against the notion that education happens only when students are seated at their desks, staring at chalkboards, and scribbling furiously in their notebooks.

Within the world of those who take play seriously, there are multiple camps, each with its own dearly held tenets. There are the Free Players, who argue that play is a human right and that adults should more or less leave kids alone. There are the Play Skeptics, who see play as useful for blowing off steam but are dubious about its cognitive upside. And there are Play Moderates, who advocate a mix of free play, adult-guided play, and traditional classroom instruction.

Sandseter began observing and interviewing children on playgrounds in Norway. In 2011, she published her results in a paper called “Children’s Risky Play From an Evolutionary Perspective: The Anti-Phobic Effects of Thrilling Experiences.” Children, she concluded, have a sensory need to taste danger and excitement; this doesn’t mean that what they do has to actually be dangerous, only that they feel they are taking a great risk. That scares them, but then they overcome the fear. In the paper, Sandseter identifies six kinds of risky play: (1) Exploring heights, or getting the “bird’s perspective,” as she calls it—“high enough to evoke the sensation of fear.” (2) Handling dangerous tools—using sharp scissors or knives, or heavy hammers that at first seem unmanageable but that kids learn to master. (3) Being near dangerous elements—playing near vast bodies of water, or near a fire, so kids are aware that there is danger nearby. (4) Rough-and-tumble play—wrestling, play-fighting—so kids learn to negotiate aggression and cooperation. (5) Speed—cycling or skiing at a pace that feels too fast. (6) Exploring on one’s own.

This last one Sandseter describes as “the most important for the children.” She told me, “When they are left alone and can take full responsibility for their actions, and the consequences of their decisions, it’s a thrilling experience.”

the final irony is that our close attention to safety has not in fact made a tremendous difference in the number of accidents children have.