This paper describes the need for the implementation of an education for innovativeness. Innovativeness as the ability to participate in innovation processes is a competence closely linked to participation processes in a complex, dynamic and ever-changing world that needs mature citizens to shape present and future societies in accordance with their ideas, interests, and social responsibility. This involves questioning current circumstances (reflexivity), developing new ideas (creativity) and bringing those ideas into action (implementivity), which are the three core dimensions of innovativeness. Participation options in innovation processes are multifaceted as they occur in an active, idea-creating manner, and/or in a reactive, innovationevaluating and implementing orientation as well. An education for innovativeness addresses all these extents. This paper outlines, that current educational-political documents in the case of Germany are nominally supportive towards an education for innovativeness at least by promoting the ability to participate. However, these calls do not comprehensively meet the standards of innovativeness: Firstly, because the term innovation is fuzzy and dominated by catch-word usage. Secondly, innovation and participation are mostly obligated to a neoliberalist ideal that rather supports consolidation of a given framework than mature societal changes. Widely deepening rudimentary educational-political calls for participation, this paper, in contrast, argues for a humanistic perspective on innovation processes in accordance with the humanistic ideal of education, allowing real participation as well as future-and development-oriented structuring of society. The case of the German subject Sachunterricht (Primary Social and Science Education) illustrates that innovativeness can be taught in school -even in the early years-as this interdisciplinary subject meets the open character of innovativeness and provides linkages to lifeworld related scenarios. Nevertheless, a schoolbook task analysis regarding the subject Sachunterricht reveals that there is almost no fostering of innovativeness in this given material. Space and obligation are left to develop concepts and instruments that foster innovativeness in school.

In this paper, we adapt a broad understanding of the term media (after McLuhan) and discuss the term geomedia, which we define in a wider sense, focusing not only on localized forms of geomedia, such as digital maps, but also on representations that are loosely linked to the lifeworld, without geometrically and geographically measurable addresses. Furthermore, geomedia, like all media, refer to a communication space which creates spaces of the in-between. In the case of geomedia, these spaces of the in-between are somehow de-linked from geographical spaces and the limitations of the lifeworld. At the same time, geomedia are closely linked to spaces, due both to the lifeworld content to which geomedia refer and to the influence of geomedia on human action. These spaces of the in-between can open up in digital and analogue media, which we regard as inseparably intertwined. This opening up of the in-between presents opportunities for people, including marginalized groups, to get connected and stimulate social actions by sharing interests, exchanging ideas or criticizing social injustices, as well as discussing options for implementing social change. Given the strong connection between communication, participation and being innovative, we argue that geomedia are useful instruments that enable people to acquire innovativeness, which in turn fosters their ability to participate in society.

Research on network theory and innovativeness often addresses innovations. However, network theory lacks theory on innovativeness (the ability to participate in innovation processes), whereas the latter lacks descriptions of network theory. This paper seeks to describe these desiderata, to combine these theoretical research approaches, and to enrich Weis et al.'s (2017) Innovativeness model with network theory in order to describe collaborative innovating. To do this, we use the example of street art, which we view as a form of geomedia that can be created collaboratively as innovations. We will use predominantly the example of the street artist Blek le Rat, whose presumptive embeddedness in social networks we see as an important part of his innovativeness. The final enriched Innovativeness model can contribute to explaining other innovation processes in geography and beyond, to promoting people's abilities to participate in innovation-related communication processes, to changing spatial meanings and to shaping societies.