Let's get innovative

By LAURIE STUART
Posted 1/29/20

“Come gather round people wherever you roam, and admit that the waters around you have grown, and accept it that soon you’ll be drenched to the bone. If your time to you is worth saving, …

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Let's get innovative

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“Come gather round people wherever you roam, and admit that the waters around you have grown, and accept it that soon you’ll be drenched to the bone. If your time to you is worth saving, then you better start swimming or you’ll sink like a stone, for the times there are a’changin’.”

Bob Dylan wrote these prophetic words more than 50 years ago. Undoubtedly, they have always been true. But somehow, it seems they were never truer than now.

Times are a’changin’. And with these changing times, we are invited to be changing too.

With change and the disruption that it causes, we are compelled—inspired, hopefully—to be innovative. Our changed situation requires different solutions.

It requires innovation.

Innovation, in its modern meaning, is “a new idea, creative thoughts, new imaginations in form of device or method.”

Innovation is a process, not a result. It is a process that changes as it implements change. It is ever listening to itself and everyone involved.

Innovation, especially on a civic level, transforms our communities. Through innovation, we all have the capacity to co-create new solutions for solving community problems.

Innovation is invigorating. It is combining things in a new way. And the best news about innovation is that the most clever and smart innovations or solutions emerge when people with different skillsets and interests apply themselves to the same situation.

That combination—of using different skillsets and being focused on combining things in a different way—yields great results. Innovation helps not just in identifying and reporting civic problems but also in conceptualizing, designing and developing, and implementing solutions as well.

Innovation happens when a wide range of citizens come together as a community to promote a shared view.

And with that, The River Reporter seeks to promote this concept and this dialogue. Each quarter we will highlight businesses and individuals who are innovating new possibilities and fostering community as they do it.

If you have a story that involves innovation, give us a ring or drop us a line.

innovation, changing, adapting,

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