Good ideas—for new products, new processes, or new services—are terrible things to waste. Yet time and time again, inventions and discoveries that first sprouted in the United States have taken root in the factories and economies of other nations.

Most professors and many administrators have great difficulty accepting the idea of students as customers.

Recently I watched the motion picture Underdogs. It is a formulaic, feel-good movie about a losing high-school football team that’s motivated by a new coach to win a championship.