We hope you enjoyed this week’s experiences focused on Power and Energy. Were you inspired to create or invent something? Please share your photos with us on social media using #WeAreInnovationNation!
If you missed anything from our series this past week, check out the recordings and resources below. We hope that you will join us this upcoming week to explore new themes drawn from our Model i Learning Framework, beginning with Be Empathetic.
What We Covered This Week
Power & Energy: How is power created?
STEAM Stories
Join us for a reading of Wind by Marion Dane Bauer and then learn about wood and metal using a lesson from our early childhood curriculum, Innovate for Tots. Watch the video here.
#Innovation Nation
Watch segments related to power and energy from The Henry Ford's Innovation Nation here.
Innovation Journeys Live!
Join us for an Innovation Journey Live when Jessica Robinson, our Entrepreneur in Residence, and Matt Anderson, our Curator of Transportation, talk about electric and autonomous cars. Watch the video here.
Our Friday segment will be a little different this week as we hear from Attorney Michael “Max” Sneyd, an attorney at Kerr, Russell and Weber, PLC in Detroit, Michigan all about patents, copyrights and trademarks. This is a great opportunity for all of our invention convention participants to learn the difference between each, what you might need and what might not apply to your invention, what to consider when developing your invention, how to apply for a patent, copyright, or trademark, how long it takes, and how families can support their inventors in the application process. Watch the interview here.
Learn more below about how our Invention Convention Curriculum activities can to keep your child innovating.
Resource Highlight: Invention convention Curriculum
In our continued efforts to help parents, students and educators during these times of uncertainty, The Henry Ford is providing helpful tips that assist parents in adapting its educational tools for implementation at home.
This week we are highlighting a lesson from the Invention Convention Curriculum. The program is open to students in grades K-12. The lessons teach students skills that will give young innovators the chance to design, build, and pitch an original invention to their peers and judges. Competitions are held at local or regional levels and those qualifying move on to state competition. State qualifiers can then compete at the Invention Convention U.S. Nationals held here at The Henry Ford.
Our Invention Convention curriculum takes young inventors through the complete process of inventing. The activities in our curriculum take young inventors through the seven steps of the invention process. These 7 steps provide the framework for the heart of the Invention Convention curriculum. The lessons are organized by step:
- Identifying
- Understanding
- Ideating
- Designing
- Building
- Testing
- Communicating
Entrepreneurship lessons are also added. We have designed the activities to build skills in invention and engineering while supporting the creation of your students’ very own inventions. You can learn more about the Invention Convention Curriculum Link here. Parents and educators can learn more about Model i here.
Janice Warju is Coordinator, Learning Content Development, at The Henry Ford.
Additional Readings:
- Made in America: Power- Maudslay Production Lathe, circa 1800
- Behind the Scenes with IMLS: Batteries Included
- Test Tube, "Edison's Last Breath," 1931
by Janice Warju, Invention Convention Worldwide, power, educational resources, innovation learning
If you’re ready to bring more innovative thinking, collaboration and can-do spirit to your virtual meetings? These background images will help you conduct your meeting in the original environments that are part of The Henry Ford collections and experiences. They include Thomas Edison’s lab, the Wright Brothers Cycle Shop, Mathematica, Dymaxion House, an 18th-century farmhouse, railroad roundhouse and a real automotive factory.
You can download additional backgrounds from our digital collections.
Here are the instructions to set the images below as your background on Zoom or Microsoft Teams.
Continue ReadingFord Rouge Factory Complex, Henry Ford Museum, Greenfield Village
We hope you enjoyed this week’s experiences focused on Information & Communication Technology. Were you inspired to create or invent something? Please share your photos with us on social media using #WeAreInnovationNation!
If you missed anything from our series this past week, check out the recordings and resources below. We hope that you will join us this upcoming week to explore Power & Energy.
What We Covered This Week
Information & Communication Technology: How can a problem be inspiration for finding a better way of doing things?
STEAM Stories
Join us for a reading of What Do You Do with an Problem? by Kobi Yamada and then learn about plastic and metal using a lesson from our early childhood curriculum, Innovate for Tots.Watch the video here.
Innovation Journeys Live!
Join us for an Innovation Journey Live when Diana Nucera shares how her organization, the Detroit Community Technology Project, is helping kids connect to their virtual learning experiences. Watch the video here.
Kid Inventor Profile
Alex Knoll, 15-year-old student from Idaho developed Ability App, a global app that will help people with disabilities and caregivers search for specific disability-friendly features at locations around the world. Explore these Invention Convention Curriculum activities to keep your child innovating. Watch the interview here.
Resource Highlight: Innovate for Tots
In our continued efforts to help parents, students and educators during these times of uncertainty, The Henry Ford is providing helpful tips that assist parents in adapting its educational tools for implementation at home.
This week we are highlighting, Innovate for Tots. These interdisciplinary, hands-on activities are designed for curious preschoolers, and focus on themed materials that are experienced through storytelling, project-based learning, science, discovery, artifact viewing and home/neighborhood exploration.
Our goal is to provide standards-based learning opportunities introducing our littlest learners to the habits and actions of innovators and the language of innovation through our stories from history. Each lesson includes fine and gross motor skills, science, social studies, literacy and the arts to accomplish this goal. We explore materials used in artifacts from the vast collections of The Henry Ford, as well as our own homes. Our innovating tots will develop their understanding of materials and the ways we have used them, hopefully inspiring their desire to Stay Curious, Collaborate, Empathize, Uncover and Design the artifacts of the future.
The lessons are designed to provide tremendous flexibility. The various components can be completed indoors or out. We have designed them into series of five activities, divided into Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Math (STEAM), English, Language Arts and Literature (ELA/LIT), Social Studies and History (SS/HST), focused on one material or one combination of materials. Each includes the related artifacts from the collections at The Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation which can be shown digitally as well as instructions, pictures, or links for projects. Additionally, A Family Connection provides the family an opportunity to participate in the learning and a coloring sheet are also attached to each material.
Each Innovate for Tots Lesson Plans for Toddler/Preschool teaches the following age-appropriate parts of our Model I – the Habits and Actions of Innovators:
Model I:
Help your tots practice the Habits of Innovators:
-Stay Curious: Ask questions like what, why, how
-Collaborate: Talk about helping, work together
-Learn from Failure: Talk about “trying again," what's another way to...
-Empathize: How did the characters in the stories feel? How might it make others feel
Help your tots practice the Actions of Innovators:
-Design: Make, build, and create
-Uncover: What do you see? (characteristic/properties); What problems does this material help us solve?
Parents and educators can learn more about Model I here.
communication, technology, Model i, innovation learning, educational resources
We hope you enjoyed this week’s experiences focused on agriculture and the environment. Were you inspired to create or invent something? Please share your photos with us on social media using #WeAreInnovationNation!
If you missed anything from our series this past week, check out the recordings and resources below. We hope that you will join us this upcoming week to explore Information and Communications Technology.
What We Covered This Week
Agriculture: How can we optimize planting and gardening to make the world a better place for everyone?
STEAM Stories
We read Growing Vegetable Soup by Lois Ehlert and then learned about seeds, leaves and flowers using a lesson from our early childhood curriculum, Innovate for Tots. Watch the video here.
#InnovationNation Tuesdays
See our agriculture segments here.
Innovation Journeys Live!
This week we welcomed guest innovator Farmer Melvin Parson! He shared the story of his “We the People Opportunity Farm and Center” and how he continues to optimize for the changing times. Watch the video here.
Kid Inventor Profile
Quill, a fifth grader from Iowa, invented the Hot Spot Chicken Insulating Cream to protect chickens from winter frostbite. Explore these Invention Convention Curriculum activities to keep your child innovating. Watch the video Quill’s video here.
Resource Highlight: Innovate Curriculum
In our continued efforts to help parents, students and educators during these times of uncertainty, The Henry Ford is providing helpful tips that assist parents in adapting its educational tools for implementation at home.
This week we are highlighting another lesson from the Innovate Curriculum. Designed to accelerate core discipline performance, Innovate helps middle and high school students connect their subject matter to real-world applications through innovation understanding and skills development, unleashing every student’s potential to develop groundbreaking ideas. Students journey from learning the habits and actions of innovators to unleashing the innovator within.
Create your free account today to access four interactive courses featuring:
- Primary source digital artifacts from The Henry Ford’s Archive of American Innovation - Dynamic lessons with real-life stories
- Learn-by-doing activities and interactive content that helps prepare students and their prototypes to participate in competitions
- Exclusive interviews with past and present visionaries
- Celebrity-led tours of today’s most exciting start-ups
- Facilitator guides that help educators and parents guide their students through the courses.
Keep in mind that these courses were designed to be completed in a classroom setting, so feel free to adapt the courses for home use. These courses can be done on their own or in any order, but the recommended sequence is as follows:
INNOVATE 101: Inspire Our Future as an Innovative Thinker
Students learn about the unique qualities that make an innovator, and how innovative thinking can not only solve problems but create world-changing social transformation.
INNOVATE 102: Solve Our Problems
Students learn how innovators uncover insights, define problems, design prototypes and optimize solutions.
INNOVATE 103: Unleash Your Ideas as You Learn to Think Like an Entrepreneur
Students discover how to move ideas forward by identifying customers, what to do to protect their ideas, how to communicate with an audience and how to pitch to investors.
INNOVATE 104: Activate Your Potential
Students get to apply what they’ve learned and turn an idea into action. They’ll uncover an issue, come up with a solution, identify the users and create a unique prototype that they develop, showcase and pitch to others.
If your child is inspired to create an innovation of their own, check out Innovate 102, Lesson 2: Learning What People Need. Use the Innovate 102 facilitator’s guide and the tips below to guide your experience.
- To prep for Lesson 2, you may want to first look at Innovate 102, Lesson 1: Uncovering a Need.
- Begin by discussing what “innovation” means. You can use Innovate 101, Lesson 1 to help frame the conversation.
- Spend some time talking about the Actions of Innovation and the Habits of an Innovator – which ones have you used before? Which ones are less familiar? See page 2.
- Encourage your child to start keeping a “design journal” – see page 1 of the facilitator guide for more details.
- Talk about why it is important to talk to people who will use your innovation.
- Think about the difference between closed- and open-ended questions. Why are open-ended questions more valuable when trying to find out what people need?
- In this lesson, entrepreneur Will Allen demonstrates the power of open-ended questions. Can your child think of times when they asked open-ended questions? Closed-ended questions? Was there a difference in the types of answers they received?
- Practice asking open-ended questions with your child. Learning how to understand what people need is an important skill for all ages!
Olivia Marsh is Program Manager, Educator Professional Development, at The Henry Ford.
by Olivia Marsh, innovation learning, educational resources, environmentalism, agriculture
We hope you enjoyed last week’s experiences all about Social Transformation. Were you inspired to create or invent something? Please share your photos with us on social media using #WeAreInnovationNation. If you missed the anything from our series this past week, check out the recordings by clicking on the links below. We hope that you will join us this week to explore our theme of Agriculture & the Environment.
What We Covered This Week
Theme: Social Transformation: How can ideas – big and small – have an impact on our world?
STEAM Stories
For our reading this week we shared What Do You Do with an Idea? by Kobi Yamadav. (Thanks to Compendium Books for letting us share the book with our fans and followers.) You can try our hands-on activity ideas from our early childhood curriculum, Innovate for Tots, too. Watch the video here.
#InnovationNation Tuesdays
See our social transformation segments here.
Innovation Journeys Live!
In this week’s Innovation Journey Live we learned how Henry Ford’s Model T changed the way people live, work and vacation. Watch the video here.
#THFCuratorChat
This week Donna Braden, our Curator of Public Life, explored the diner and its impact on American culture. See highlights from her chat in this blog post.
Kid Inventor Profile
Meet Charlotte from Idaho, inventor of the Emotional Emojis board game. In this unusual time, kids are helping other kids get through. Charlotte’s invention helps kids (and adults) express their feelings with a fun game. Then explore some Invention Convention Curriculum activities to keep your child innovating. Watch the video here.
Resource Highlight: Innovate Curriculum
In our continued efforts to help parents, students and educators during these times of uncertainty, The Henry Ford is providing helpful tips that assist parents in adapting its educational tools for implementation at home. Last week we highlighted our Model i Primer+., a series of five lesson plans that give student opportunities to practice the Actions of Innovation and the Habits of an Innovator.
This week we are highlighting the Innovate Curriculum. Designed to accelerate core discipline performance, Innovate helps middle and high school students connect their subject matter to real-world applications through innovation understanding and skills development, unleashing every student’s potential to develop groundbreaking ideas. Students journey from learning the habits and actions of innovators to unleashing the innovator within.
Create your free account today to access four interactive courses featuring:
- Primary source digital artifacts from The Henry Ford’s Archive of American Innovation
- Dynamic lessons with real-life stories
- Learn-by-doing activities and interactive content that helps prepare students and their prototypes to participate in competitions.
- Exclusive interviews with past and present visionaries
- Celebrity-led tours of today’s most exciting start-ups
- Facilitator guides that help educators and parents guide their students through the courses. Keep in mind that these courses were designed to be completed in a classroom setting, so feel free to adapt the courses for home use. These courses can be done on their own or in any order, but the recommended sequence is as follows:
INNOVATE 101: Inspire Our Future as an Innovative Thinker
Students learn about the unique qualities that make an innovator, and how innovative thinking can not only solve problems but create world-changing social transformation.
INNOVATE 102: Solve Our Problems
Students learn how innovators uncover insights, define problems, design prototypes and optimize solutions.
INNOVATE 103: Unleash Your Ideas as You Learn to Think Like an Entrepreneur
Students discover how to move ideas forward by identifying customers, what to do to protect their ideas, how to communicate with an audience and how to pitch to investors.
INNOVATE 104: Activate Your Potential
Students get to apply what they’ve learned and turn an idea into action. They’ll uncover an issue, come up with a solution, identify the users and create a unique prototype that they develop, showcase and pitch to others.
If your child is inspired to create an innovation of their own, check out Innovate 104: Activate Your Potential. Use the Innovate 104 facilitator’s guide and the tips below to guide your experience.
- Begin by discussing what “innovation” means, especially when creating something new leads people to change how they act and behave.
- Spend some time talking about the Actions of Innovation and the Habits of an Innovator – which ones have you used before? Which ones are less familiar? See page 13.
- Encourage your child to start keeping a “design journal” – see page 8 of the facilitator guide for more details.
- There is no set timeline for creating an innovation or invention. The process can span a few days or several months.
- Learning from failure is an important part of innovation – no one gets it right the first time! Encourage your child to keep trying new ways of doing things.
- Have your child think about how they would pitch their ideas to someone else. They can present their ideas to their families and can even share their pitch on a video call with friends.
Welcome to week two of The Henry Ford’s Innovation Learning Virtual Series. Were you inspired to create or invent something this week? We want to see what you’re making! Please share your photos with us on #WeAreInnovationNation. If you missed the series last week, check out the recordings by clicking on the links at the bottom of this post. We hope that you will join us this week to explore our theme of Design & Making. Keep reading for more details about what’s in store.
What We Covered This Week
Theme: Design & Making — How do we collaborate and work with others?
STEAM Stories
This week is all about sand and glass. Join us for a reading of The Sand Castle Lola Built by Megan Maynor and then get hands-on activity ideas from our early childhood curriculum, Innovate for Tots. Register here.
#InnovationNation Tuesdays
See our design and making segments here.
Innovation Journeys Live!
How do artists use glass to create delicate works of art? Watch the story of studio glass unfold in a live innovation journey. Practice making your own journey using the Model i Primer activity. Register here.
#THFCuratorChat: Design & Making
Learn more about the evolution of luggage design from Curator of Charles Sable.
Kid Inventor Profile
Listen to serial inventor Lino as he discusses his three inventions: Kinetic Kickz, the String Ring and the Sole Solution. Then explore some Invention Convention Curriculum activities to keep your child innovating. Register here.
Resource Spotlight: Model i Primer+ Design Lesson
In our continued efforts to help parents, students and educators during these times of uncertainty, The Henry Ford is providing helpful tips to help parents adapt its educational tools for implementation at home. Last week we highlighted our Model i Primer, a facilitator’s guide that introduces the Actions of Innovation and Habits of an Innovator through fun, learn-by-doing activities.
This week we are highlighting the Model i Primer+. These five lesson plans, named after the Actions of Innovation, are designed as opportunities for students to practice the Actions and Habits introduced in the Model i Primer. Each lesson includes age-appropriate versions for grades 2-5, 6-8 and 9-12. In keeping with this week’s theme of Design & Making, we’ll focus on the Design lesson today. All you need for the lesson are some colored pencils or markers and paper.
We define designing as brainstorming solutions to a defined problem or need. This is one of the trickiest parts of any innovation journey for all inventors. In trying to solve a problem or need, kids can feel overwhelmed by a blank page, or they can get stuck on unfocused ideas. In order to help kids navigate these challenges, the Design lesson introduces two brainstorming techniques: the Zero Drafting technique and the Wishing technique.
Zero Drafting is an ideation technique that encourages kids to get their initial creative solutions out of their heads and on to paper, using information they already know. The Wishing technique encourages kids to frame solutions as wishes, making them more comfortable sharing ideas without pressure of producing real ideas. Combining Zero Drafting with Wishing, students focus on features of their creative ideas to trigger new, more realistic concepts to develop. By ideating feasible concepts, kids will be able to choose one solution to develop further.
When trying the Design lesson in your home, consider these adaptations for each of the lesson’s three parts:
Prep Activities: Begin by suggesting a problem that your kids may want to solve. This can be something simple, like a problem they have during their morning routine or always growing out of their shoes.
Core Activities: Use the Zero Drafting and Wishing techniques to brainstorm fantastical solutions, and then analyze these ideas to generate new, more realistic concepts. You can choose to just use one of the techniques. Brainstorm solutions along with your child.
Follow-Up Project: Have your child pick one of the solutions they came up with, and have them begin to write or draw ideas about how they would make that solution come true. You might be surprised by how your child begins to solve their own problems.
Take it further: Ask your child what Actions and Habits they practiced.
Please share your experience and follow others as they engage in our digital learning opportunities using the hashtag #WeAreInnovationNation.
Olivia Marsh is Program Manager, Educator Professional Development, at The Henry Ford.
by Olivia Marsh, Model i, educational resources, making, design, innovation learning
To help parents, students and educators during these times of uncertainty, The Henry Ford is unleashing its educational tools for people everywhere. While our venues are temporarily closed, access to our digital learning content is wide open. To help you connect with these tools and resources, we’re launching an Innovation Learning Virtual Series starting Monday, March 30. It will highlight our digital learning resources for all ages, including live engagement and hands-on activities.
Look for a new blog post every Friday to check out the theme and virtual experiences planned for the coming week and to find a spotlight on one of our resources. These 20- to 30-minute virtual experiences will take place every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
We believe innovation can be something completely new, but it also can be a significant improvement to an existing product, process or service. To be innovative, the contribution must address a true need and change the way we behave.
Drawing on the authentic objects and real-life stories we have collected, our Model i Innovation Learning Framework provides an interdisciplinary approach to learning based on the Habits of an Innovator and Actions of Innovation. These habits and actions come together, expressing any unique innovation journey. This framework underpins every innovation learning resource that we will showcase in the coming weeks.
What’s Coming Up Next Week?
The theme for the week of March 30 is MOBILITY. How do you get to where you’re going?
STEAMStorytime
Monday, March 30 at 10 a.m.
Pre-K-Grade 2
Join us as we read How Trains Work and learn how to access a lesson from our early childhood curriculum,Innovate for Tots that includes a lesson plan, activities, reading lists and coloring pages of The Henry Ford's artifacts.
Registration Link: https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_ha6Vus7nQ8uz-gvqEHJTmA
Innovation Journeys Live!
Wednesday, April 1 at 1 p.m.
Grades 3-12
Ever wondered how our Allegheny Steam Locomotive came to be? Hear and see the story unfold in a live innovation journey.Practice making your own journey using the Model i Primer activity.
Registration Link:https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_BPY_gTGnRwuLh25Gqib_QQ
Supportive Resources
"What if a Locomotive Powered by Fire and Water Could Haul More Freight Than Ever Before?"
1884 Locomotive Roundhouse and 1941 Allegheny
Kid InventorDay
Friday, April 3 at Noon
All Ages
Hear from kid inventor Ariana as she discusses her face mask invention. Then explore some Invention Convention Curriculum activities to keep your child innovating.
Registration Link:https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_eHUdp6t1S4Si4wqBY84oPw
Resource Spotlight: Model i Primer
This week’s resource spotlight focuses on our Model i Primer, a facilitator’s guide that introduces the Actions of Innovation and Habits of an Innovator through fun, learn-by-doing activities that are easily implemented at home. You can download the free Model i Primer here.
How do I use the Primer?
Page 4: Begin by discussing what innovation means with your children. What everyday household objects could you change or adapt?
Page 5: Show your children the Model i framework, and talk about the Actions of Innovation and Habits of an Innovator. What do they mean? Which ones do they already use? Which ones do they want to work on? Work together to learn and practice them — consider documenting your progress in an innovation journey.
Page 6: Send your kids on a digital scavenger hunt. How many items can they find? Are they inspired by any of the innovators’ stories they found? Why?
Pages 9-10: Get inspired by reading the innovation journey of the Wright brothers, and then create your own. Have your children ever invented something? Solved a problem? Have them grab some markers and paper to draw their own journeys.
Check out the links to The Henry Ford’s digital collections and resources that are embedded in the primer, including digitized artifacts, Innovation Nation video clips and stories written by our expert curators.
Feel free to share your experience and follow others as they engage in our digital learning opportunities using the hashtag #WeAreInnovationNation.
Did you find these resources of value? Consider making a donation to The Henry Ford.
Model i, COVID 19 impact, educational resources, innovation learning
This fall we welcomed Rich Sheridan, CEO (and Chief Storyteller) of Menlo Innovations, to The Henry Ford as an Entrepreneur in Residence. Rich is our second EIR to join us in 2019, following Melvin Parsons, founder of We The People Growers Association in Ypsilanti. Hear more about Melvin's story below.
Thanks to a grant, the William Davidson Foundation Initiative for Entrepreneurship has allowed The Henry Ford to provide the next generation of entrepreneurs with hands-on learning opportunities. This initiative includes the Entrepreneur-in-Residence program, a public speaker series featuring influencers in entrepreneurship, workshops and the expansion of youth programming that leverages the institution’s Archive of American Innovation to create a deep and engaging understanding of invention, innovation, and entrepreneurship from a young age. 
Photo courtesy of Menlo Innovations.
Learn more about Rich, his background, and his passion for cultivating joy.
Tell us a little bit about yourself and your company, Menlo Innovations.
I am a #PureMichigan kid. I grew up in Mount Clemens, Mich., just north of Detroit and attended Chippewa Valley High School where I started learning to program computers on a teletype in 1971. I then went to Ann Arbor and received a bachelor of science in computer science and a master of science in computer engineering from the University of Michigan. After graduation in 1982, I decided I loved Ann Arbor too much to leave and have been there ever since. I married my high school sweetheart, Carol, and we raised our three daughters (Megan, Lauren and Sarah) in a house we’ve been working on since we bought it in 1983. We have two granddaughters now and two more (twins!) on the way.
I co-founded Menlo Innovations in 2001 with James Goebel. We are a contract software design and development firm in downtown Ann Arbor with a mission to “end human suffering in the world as it relates to technology.” Our goal since our founding is to return joy to technology … for the people who use the software our team creates, for the people who pay us to design and build it, and for the people who do the work.
Our team has done lots of work in the automotive industry, the healthcare industry, logistics, retail, in just about every technology and platform available.
Do you have a specific memory about your first visit to The Henry Ford?
Growing up in Clinton Township (near Mount Clemens), there was a program offered every summer that I believe they called Summer Recreation. Most of the activities were at the elementary school I attended. They also offered field trips and once a summer they took us to Greenfield Village. I loved it every time I went. My specific memories include rock candy (!), the steam engine train, the Wright Brothers bicycle shop, the horse-drawn carriages, the Model-T fleet, the blacksmith shop, the glassblowing, and of course, the Menlo Park lab of Thomas Edison.
Inside Menlo Laboratory.
What inspires your most about Thomas Edison and his Menlo Laboratory?
As a kid, I got goosebumps whenever I entered that lab. I’m not even sure if I knew what had actually happened there. I could sense the human energy that existed there, the camaraderie, the inventiveness, and the excitement of creating things that had a chance to change the world. I loved the fact that there was a “lab” that was wide open and filled with such fascinating equipment, above a machine shop. My favorites toys as a kid were Erector sets, electrical experimentation kits, LEGO blocks, chemistry sets, and a microscope. In my mind’s eye, I saw all of this at work in this lab and this was a place that adults worked! I wanted that in my own work life.
What have you been working on with The Henry Ford as our EIR? What excites you most about your time here?
The Henry Ford wants to ensure they offer practical relevance to the problems we face in our world today. Businesses and engineers at those businesses have the opportunity to create great impact. The adults running those firms and working there need inspiration (just like we kids did). Businesses today need creativity, imagination, invention and innovation more now than ever. What better place to inspire and begin such a journey than The Henry Ford.
My project is to help the amazing team at The Henry Ford imagine an innovation space that businesses can use to bring their teams, their ideas, and perhaps even their customers to play, explore, invent and ideate. The space itself will be right in the middle of the museum. Thus, teams who use that space will be able to use the museum as a sort of lab for creating, drawing important lessons from the past and they ideate about the future. As William Pretzer said in his book Working at Inventing, “Henry Ford’s goal was to create a museum that would not only record the past but would shape the future as well. It would use the past to encourage visitors, especially the young, to aspire great achievements of their own.” It certainly worked for me!
Why is it important to put joy into your work every day?
I have to admit, my desire to create Menlo Innovations was a selfish one. I wanted to create a workplace I wanted to come to every day, with energy, enthusiasm and inspiration. The beautiful thing is that this kind of environment is contagious. We actually get over 3,000 visitors every year who come from all over the world just to see how we do what we do. They can feel the energy of the place and we end up talking about the “business value of joy.” The visitors often ask, “Why is joy so important?” I present them with a rhetorical question: “Imagine half of my team had joy and the other half didn’t? Which half would you want working on your project?” Everyone chooses the joyful half (of course!). I then ask them why?
“They’d be more productive.”
“They’d care more about the outcome.”
“They’d produce higher quality.”
“They’d be easier to work with.”
There is, in fact, tangible business value to joy. We know this. Thomas Edison knew this. Henry Ford knew this. Now it’s time for the rest of the world to get on board.
innovation learning, education, childhood, educational resources
