How to Form an Innovation Strategy - Scott Anthony by Scott Anthony | 9:06 AM August 19, 2008 Companies just starting innovation efforts often begin by getting a group of people together and telling them “It’s innovation time!” I’ve never seen efforts like this succeed in meaningful ways. Instead, we suggest that companies begin innovation efforts by creating an innovation strategy that details clear targets and tactics. Clear targets help internal innovators know what they’re shooting for. Then think about the sources of growth. Next, look at what’s already in your development pipeline. Now, calculate the gap (it will almost always be a gap) between where your projections suggest you will be and where you want to be. Then think of the tactics that are on and off the table. One way to make the tactical options tangible is to use this “Goals and Boundaries” visual (from Chapter 1 of The Innovator’s Guide to Growth). The figure (download it ) represents the “goals and boundaries” of innovation.
No Significant Difference - Presented by WCET Millenials, Lego, and the Perimeter of Ignorance Every time I read an article about Gen Y or Millenials I run it through this litmus test: throughout the text, can you replace "Millenial" with "employee" with no loss of meaning? “[Employees] want meaningful work, they want to do things that are making an impact and if they’re not in a good environment where they can do that, they’re always going to be looking for something else" From this piece, which was - sadly - actually about Millenials. Of course, there are legitimate and meaningful trends and changes occurring, even about Millenials (I'd give more credence to this idea about changing prioritization between work and family life). Baby boomers are retiring, or about to. Over the next decade, we're going to see a demographic shift in key positions throughout the public service. And why? The Perimeter of Ignorance Here's my frontrunner idea for why it might. Admittedly, this isn't a really new. "It's Like Lego." "We never have all the knowledge in place. Strategy in a Gigantic Universe
The Trouble with College, Online or Off There is an editorial in the New York Times entitled "The Trouble with Online College" this morning about online education. It argues that online education has high attrition rates and that students who are unprepared for college will not do very well. The "therefore" is that we should think twice before seeking to attempt the MOOC model (Massive Open Online Courses). The article makes no distinction between "traditional" online classes or MOOCs. It makes no distinction between the different kinds of learning platforms and designs that are going under the name of MOOC. To begin with, I generally agree with this article but disagree with the take-away. There is a large body of research in online learning that shows that there is no significant difference between face-to-face and online learning that has been going on for decades and is routinely ignored by many educators and columnists.
Heart and mind | Yass Tribune “I saw a problem and really wanted to find a solution” … computer whiz Matt Darling has developed a system to help medical staff in hospital wards. Photo: Nick Cubbin Matt Darling remembers being in a buoyant mood when he got home from work on that warm Canberra evening. He scooped up his 15-month-old daughter, Jem, then noticed something slightly different about her appearance: "Her smile wasn't as symmetrical as normal." Puzzled, he consulted his wife, Beth, who mentioned that the toddler had thrown up some of her lunch. Darling's concern grew when the family sat down to dinner. “I said, ‘Please, you have to come clean. The information he found made him nervous. All together … (from left) Jem, Beth, Matt and daughter Peri in 2008. In the emergency department, the paediatrician who examined Jem saw no reason for immediate action. Advertisement Jem was admitted to a hospital in Sydney, where the first step was an operation to find out what type of growth it was. It wasn't easy.
How EdX Plans to Earn, and Share, Revenue From Free Online Courses - Technology By Steve Kolowich How can a nonprofit organization that gives away courses bring in enough revenue to at least cover its costs? That's the dilemma facing edX, a project led by Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology that is bringing in a growing number of high-profile university partners to offer massive open online courses, or MOOCs. Two other major providers of MOOCs, Coursera and Udacity, are for-profit companies. "Even though we are a nonprofit, we have to become self-sustaining," said Anant Agarwal, president of edX. Legal documents, obtained by The Chronicle from edX, shed some light on how edX plans to make money and compensate its university partners. According to Mr. The first, called the "university self-service model," essentially allows a participating university to use edX's platform as a free learning-management system for a course on the condition that part of any revenue generated by the course flow to edX. Revenue Still a Puzzle
Einstein’s skepticism about quantum mechanics may lead to ultra-secure Internet Albert Einstein portrait taken in 1935 in Princeton Einstein’s skepticism* about quantum mechanics may lead to an ultra-secure Internet, suggests a new paper by researchers from Swinburne University of Technology and Peking University. Associate Professor Margaret Reid from Swinburne’s Center for Quantum and Optical Science said Einstein’s reservations about quantum mechanics were highlighted in a phenomenon known as “spooky action at a distance,” which is the strange way entangled particles stay connected even when separated by large distances. “Until now the real application of this has been for messages being shared between two people securely without interception, regardless of the spatial separation between them,” Reid said. “In this paper, we give theoretical proof that such messages can be shared between more than two people and may provide unprecedented security for a future quantum internet.” * Einstein, A.; Podolsky, B.; Rosen, N. (1935). Abstract of Physical Review Letters paper
To MOOC or Not to MOOC - WorldWise MOOCs have become a media obsession. Why? In part because they are the continuation of a story that has been around since at least the 1990s and the first days of magazines like Wired and Fast Company. At that time, information technology was depicted as part of a revolution: Marxist rhetoric had been appropriated by capitalism. I’d like to think that since then we’ve learned something. After all, universities have produced a substantial body of research that argues that information technology is not an epochal economy-changing technology. These sources must induce at least some suspicion about the wider claims concerning MOOCs, or massive open online courses. Why this obsession with MOOCs? Second, because it taps into a vein of middle-class anger over tuition costs. Third, because in a time of austerity, nations are searching for ways of reducing higher-education spending, and MOOCs can look like a silver bullet, making it all so much easier to cut and still feel good about it.
Was Windows 8 a Mistake? Microsoft Seems to Think So Microsoft showed off the future of Windows this week at its 2014 Build developer conference, and it looks pretty retro. In fact, it looks a lot like Windows 7. During a tease of some possible new features in a future update, Microsoft's executive vice-president of operating systems Terry Myerson revealed a tool that users will recognize from previous versions of Windows: a Start menu. He also showed that users would soon be able to run Modern — aka "Metro" — apps (those apps you buy in the Windows Store with touch-oriented full-screen interfaces) within individual windows on the desktop. In other words, it's exactly how Windows used to work. "Honestly I'm not really surprised," said one Build attendee, a developer from a major software company who didn't want to be named. Microsoft was going in this direction already. A new Start menu, along with windows for Modern apps, takes the Windows 8 retrograde to another level. "It was just too different," he said. Image: Mashable, Pete Pachal
MOOCs: The cutting announcement of the wrong revolution | betrokken wetenschap A litany of recent complaints shows that something is wrong with higher education: Cost are rising with 10% every year (US), content has lost track with the explosive development of new knowledge, alumni’s competences do not match with the requirements of the labour market, teachers deliver lectures in the same way as their predecessors did for centuries, revenues for society are unclear. 40% of all students are leaving without a grade. Universities are inside looking, fixed at ratings, complacent and self-confident and consequently do not consider any reason for change. According to Christensen[1], universities are on the eve of disruptive innovation. Less than one year ago, the first MOOCs (massive online open course) were launched. However, this is the wrong revolution. The future of the lecture theatre The exchange of lectures for MOOCs does not question the dominance of the acquisition of knowledge in higher education. Learning processes [1] Clayton M.
Nielsen Norman Group: UX Research, Training, and Consulting Donald A. Norman © 1998 Donald A. Norman, All rights reserved. As I wrote " The Invisible Computer ," I was struck by a paradox. On the one hand, there is very substantial agreement that ease of use and understandability are important. Similarly, good industrial design, simple, short documentation, and convenient, pleasing products are superior. wondered why, if ease of use and understandability seems to important, On the other hand, much of the computer technology today violates all these things, yet the companies prosper. So why is it that good products can fail and inferior products can succeed? The story is complex: it takes a book to explain. One: A successful product must be balanced: marketing, technology, and user experience all play critical roles, but one cannot dominate the others. Two: There is a big difference between infrastructure products, which I call non-substitutable goods, and traditional products, substitutable goods. The computer industry is now mature.
AUDIO | Exploring MOOCs from the Corporate Perspective AUDIO | Exploring MOOCs from the Corporate Perspective While individual companies might look at the MOOC model as an approach to delivering training to its employees, there is still a way to go before they are—in their current form—considered to be acceptable training options during company time. The following interview was conducted with Dan Pontefract, TELUS’ senior director of learning and collaboration. Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are gaining a lot of attention across the higher, continuing and professional education spaces for their capacity to deliver learning opportunities to large numbers of students for a relatively low cost. To listen to The EvoLLLution’s interview with Dan Pontefract, please click here. 1. Well, first of all, paying homage to my Canadian brethren who came up with the term MOOCs, I’m still not a big fan of the term. So, our Lead and Grow Series is a topic where we pick a topic for about a six-week period and it’s open to the entire organization. 2. 3.
Empowered by Josh Bernoff Two and a half years ago, Charlene Li and I introduced Social Technographics, a way to analyze your market's social technology behavior. Social Technographics was carefully constructed, not as a segmentation, but as a profile (that is, the groups overlap). That's because the actual data told me that people participate in multiple behaviors, and not everyone at a higher level on the ladder actually does everything in the lower rungs. Well, it worked. In all that time, only one thing has been bugging me: there was no place for Twitter. We fixed that today. As you can see from the graphic, we added a new rung, "Conversationalists". Conversationalists intrigue me. The data from this survey continues the trends from the last two years -- Spectators are maxing out at around 70%, Joiners are still growing rapidly, and Creators are still growing slowly. As in any social environment, people have found lots of uses for this data, some of which make sense to me, and some which don't.