Creativity is the most essential skill for navigating an increasingly complex world — or so said 1,500 CEOs across 60 countries in a recent survey by IBM. And yet federally funded research and development — creativity, institutionalized — is down 20% as a share of America's GDP since the late 1980s. Private R&D spending has also tailed off since then, when it brought us breakthrough innovations like laser printing, Ethernet, the graphical user interface, and the mouse. And that was just from one company's private R&D engine, Xerox's PARC. At the same time, experts fret that our public school system doesn't foster enough creativity in our future workforce. All of which makes it easy to worry that we'll run out of creative leaders producing creative goods. But I think the declinism is overwrought. And that's because some of the best paths to encourage innovation are surprisingly simple.

Yes, as a society, we do need to remake our educational systems to deliver more young people to what Steve Jobs called "the intersection of technology and the humanities" — to bring American students' globally below-average math and science fluency up to snuff and keep them immersed in the arts. But each of us as individuals can also work to optimize our innovative capacities. If innovation is stimulated by identifying under-served markets and then figuring out a service or product to fill the void, then here are a few low-to-no-cost suggestions for reinvigoration.

From traditional sales-related services to intangibles such as banking, tourism, and education, services represent the fastest growing sector of the global economy. They are also by far the largest component of GDP.

The March 2012 issue of ISO Focus+ – the magazine of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) – looks at the current developments in the international standardization of services and highlights the positive impact they will have, not only for specific services, but for the global market as a whole.

With the growth in this sector, emerging requirements have given rise to new approaches to satisfy market players and economic partners. A growing demand for standards to support quality, communication and good practices is needed to sustain the services sector.

La retracción económica evidenciada en los primeros meses del año, como consecuencia de la crisis global, disminuye el flujo de contenedores de importación al país, conforme a los datos del Sistema Sofia de la Dirección Nacional de Aduanas (DNA).

En este sentido, en el periodo correspondiente al 1 de Enero hasta el 28 de Marzo del corriente año, se despacharon un total de 10.052 contenedores, que representó un 24 por ciento menos que similar lapso de 2011, en el que se oficializaron 13.202 contenedores.

En el desglose de las importaciones por mes se evidencia que en Enero del presente año se oficializaron un total de 3.551 contenedores, que implica un 23 por ciento menos que igual mes de 2011, en el que se despachó un total de 4.592 unidades del mismo tenor.