entrepreneur

Today, I read the best analysis of the McClellan betrayal by C. Edmund Wright,  where he states that  Bush betrayed us by not hiring the best person for the job.   

Afterall, in the real world, folks who are elevated beyond their capabilities do one thing predictablly when they start to slip in stature; they sell whoever and whatever down the river to maintain their status, because they surely cannot do it on their own talent. McClellan may no longer be welcome in the Oval Office, but he's a star in Keith Olbermann's green room.

For eight years, Bush recycled Texas talent instead of casting the net out wide and recruiting the best conservative person for the job. By the time Scott  McClellan took over, Bush was at the bottom of the Texas talent pool. This has been the greatest disappointment  -- our great world leader turned the Oval office into a college fraternity by only trusting his close clan of Texans or the Bush family. Just look at the irrational choice of selecting Harriet Miers as a candidate to serve on the Supreme Court!

As a keen observer, I believe Bush's Texas loyalty strangled innovation, fresh ideas and new approaches. Rarely, would the Bush administration take time to listen to GOP congressional leaders, leaders of key constituencies or conservatives around the country.  The motto seemed to be Texas knows best.

Management 101 for any company is to hire the best and the brightest. Instead, Bush created an insular community by recycling old ideas and using the same approaches to the same problems....  I hope McCain and others in the GOP will be mindful that loyalty is good, but not at the cost of talent.

(Promoted from user blogs. -Patrick)

In a recent WSJ op-ed, author Michael J. Malone points out that America is continuing its tradition of pioneering new frontiers by becoming the world's first entrepreneurial society.  He isn't just talking about business, but an entrepreneurial and independent spirit that cuts across society, manifesting itself in working from home, home schooling, MySpace pages, Second Life avatars, and creating YouTube videos.  Americans are transitioning from seeing themselves as cogs in a post-WWII industrial machine to behaving as independent creators.

This no doubt is in part a function of what Clay Shirky calls "cognitive surplus", the intellectual free time that is no longer being wasted on passively watching TV and, less and less, sitting in a cubicle.  This has largely been discussed in the context of Obama's success in capturing that cognitive surplus in user-generated content, and the success of wiki sites.

Read on.