The Innovation Code

CHAPTER 11

The Innovation Code Within

Patrick wanted to be a professor. His dreams went beyond ivy-covered campuses and comfortable offices with overflowing bookshelves. Although his interests in the somber poetry of English medieval martyrs were even more obscure than those of his grad student cohort’s, his aspirations were bigger. He didn’t want to become just another charming tweed-wearing colleague at a faculty party talking incessantly about some arcane factoid only two other people in the world knew or cared about. He imagined becoming the kind of broad-minded raconteur whose musings are accessible to anyone and everyone—the sort of public intellectual with ideas that transcend the limits of discipline.

When Patrick got into a PhD program ...