Martin Krieger, USC – Creativity, Innovation, and Entreprenuers

Martin Krieger

Who fosters the best entrepreneurs?

Martin Krieger, professor of planning at the University of Southern California, provides a close look at the nature of innovation, creativity, and the creation of entrepreneurs.

Martin H. Krieger is professor of planning at the Sol Price School of Public Policy at the University of Southern California. He is trained as a physicist, and has taught in urban planning and policy at Berkeley, Minnesota, MIT, Michigan, and USC. His nine books are about mathematical modeling, environmental policy, and about theories of planning and design. He has been a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences and at the National Humanities Center. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society.

Creativity, Innovation, and Entrepreneurs

Studies in the humanities recover for our time, the meaning of figures from history and literature. My work suggestgs that the greatest innovators and entrepreneurs are sacred figures such as Augustine (~354-430 CE), Moses (1393-1273 CE) and, notably, our own mothers.

Augustine figured out how to revitalize the Church, Moses got the Israelites to move, and mothers grow and develop the next generation.

They are entrepreneurs because they recognize opportunities, spread the word, and demonstrate the value of their innovations. They make creativity real and not just an idea.

Now, any innovation is likely to be proposed by many persons at roughly the same time. But it is the first mover who shows that it can be done.  Yet, first movers model themselves after a predecessor. So Augustine modeled himself after Paul. Entrepreneurs succeed if their innovation spreads and prevails over the conventional solutions.

Entrepreneurs show others the value of their innovations. So mothers teach their children to delay gratification and to become disciplined so that they have brighter prospects.

Entrepreneurs recognize innovations, make them work, and disseminate them widely. The chance to employ that innovation is worth it.  Augustine, Moses, and mothers (and parents, at large) are creative entrepreneurs, and are worthy of emulation in Silicon Valley and on Wall Street. Don’t people do refer to their creative and entrepreneurial endeavors as their “babies?”