Another peak experience today. I’ve been invited to my high school alma mater Riverdale Country School to give a Convocation speech with the new headmaster Dominic. The occasion is the hundredth anniversary of the school, and they’ve graciously agreed to do a book-signing. The twenty copies that are available disappear in a matter of moments and what is particularly touching is to see parents buying the book for their children “to give them a sense of the world they are moving into,” and teachers buying it for themselves and their colleagues.

I’m beginning to think that education and concerned parents community are ripe for the message of Innovation Nation. Dominic and I talk about the idea of having the book support as a capstone course for the senior high school.

Today I had a peak experience – seeing Innovation Nation in a bookstore for the first time. Right next to Vijay Vaitheeswaran’s new book Zoom and Alan Greenspan’s memoirs. Wow. I’m in Boston attending my 25^th MBA reunion at HBS. My classmates look well, prosperous, confident. I’m touched to see that many of them are working in the non-profit sector or as educators, not just making money for the sake of making money.

Gave an interview to the NPR show On Point this morning and shared the stage with three young “tech innovators” featured in Technology Review. Also took the first phone-in questions. It’s heartening to see how both the young innovators and the listening audience resonated with the themes of the book.

Spent the rest of the morning meeting with my PR strategists from Stern and Associates. I can’t imagine how authors deal with the challenges of marketing their books, absent the kind of quality input that I’m getting from Nicole and Richard and Danny. It seems like the game is exchanging the author’s hat for the vp of marketing hat.

We’ll be writing from time to time on the Innovation Nation blog about news and ideas that emerge relevant to the themes of the book. Ideally, readers will find this section of the website a good place in which to raise questions and debate some of the issues.