Design and technology should be the subject where mathematical brainboxes and science whizzkids turn their bright ideas into useful products.

The only thing Martha and I have in common is that we both used to model. Martha Stewart is extremely talented. Her designs are picture perfect. Our philosophy is life is messy and rather than being afraid of those messes we design products that work the way we live.

We came from a family where we ran our own small business. Our dad made his own products. We made our own sausages our own meatloafs our own pickles. Dad had to do everything himself. He had to figure out how to finance his business.

Well the big products in electronics in the '50s were radio and television. The first big computers were just beginning to come in and represented the most logical market for us to work in.

Imagine if the pension funds and endowments that own much of the equity in our financial services companies demanded that those companies revisit the way mortgages were marketed to those without adequate skills to understand the products they were being sold. Management would have to change the way things were done.

For an actor you're rejected eight or ten times a day. All you've got to sell is yourself. You're not selling products they're not turning down a car they're turning you down. Most people can't handle that. Most people are essentially not set up that way.

Consider what kind of car you get. Buy cars and other products that have the least impact environmentally.

The hydrogen powered car with its high fuel mileage and zero emission rate is just one example of the products under development that will help increase our energy independence.

Energy and environmental regulation transportation and broadband policy all benefit when legislators have a basic grounding in the technical concepts behind business models products and innovation.

The Internet creates as well as destroys. Social networks search advertising and cloud computing are multibillion dollar industries that didn't exist 10 years ago. They are products of the same force that has rendered the Postal Service's core business obsolete.