Meet the 2015 CNBC Disruptor 50 companies — from cnbc.com
Excerpt:
In the third annual Disruptor 50 list, CNBC features private companies in 16 industries—from aerospace to financial services to cybersecurity to retail—whose innovations are revolutionizing the business landscape. These forward-thinking upstarts have identified unexploited niches in the marketplace that have the potential to become billion-dollar businesses, and they rushed to fill them.
Here are the first 10:
From DSC:
This posting is not meant to pick on Freightliner or any other particular company. But the articles listed below (not to mention many other articles re: Google’s self-driving car or re: other technologies) caused me to reflect upon the ramifications of our decisions. The articles made me reflect upon the heart of capitalism and how/why we make the decisions we do within our corporations. That is, what happens when our corporations answer to Wall Street but not to Main Street? What are the ramifications to us, to our neighbors, to our neighborhoods, and to our nation? For that matter, to our very future?
And the topic is far bigger than self-driving trucks. The replacement of people with technology has been going on for quite some time. Modern day examples include ATM machines, self-service scanners/checkouts at the store, telephone switches and automatic voice response units, and more.
Readers of this blog will know that I’m generally pro-technology and that I see technologies as tools. However, replacing people with technologies at the pace that we’re seeing these days causes me to seriously pause…especially when jobs/humans seem to be being replaced far faster than new jobs are being created.
Freightliner unveils first autonomous semi-truck licensed to drive itself on highways — from spectrum.ieee.org by Evan Ackerman
Excerpt:
[On May 5, 2015], Freightliner introduced the world to its Inspiration truck, a prototype for the first semi-truck capable of fully autonomous highway driving that’s been officially licensed to operate on public highways in Nevada.
Mercedes shows off self-driving “Future Truck 2025” — from spectrum.ieee.org by Philip E. Ross
From DSC:
Hmm…though this truck looks like some incredible engineering, I’m more interested in addressing the overall trend here…and it’s a very troubling trend indeed. I say troubling because I see our corporations much more inclined towards answering to Wall Street, but not so much to Main Street. If the incentive is to maximize value for investors — regardless of the costs to society at large — then we as a nation could end up with far larger societal issues than we’ve ever encountered before.
If we answer to Wall Street, we will chose the less expensive algorithm or robot every time.
For example, if more lower and middle class jobs disappear, and people are out of work…downward spirals could start happening all over the place (and as you’ll see below and in many other articles out there, the trend of automation, robotics, algorithms, and other technologies replacing people isn’t limited to blue collar positions). People could get discouraged after not being able to find jobs. The rising cost of college and getting re-trained may be out of reach for many. Despair could set in along with increased use of drugs — addictions, crime, and violence could become more prevalent. Such things could lead to more broken families, increased incarceration, etc. These types of situations, in turn, would bring more costs in a variety of ways to our nation. Issues that could quickly have inter-generational, long-lasting impact.
The replacement of jobs is at all levels and covers white collar positions as well. For example, also see:
So the above articles made me reflect on the heart of capitalism and what is driving it for us. If we answer to Wall Street, we will chose the less expensive algorithm or robot every time. But if we stop and think about the costs of getting rid of too many jobs too quickly, we may want to temper things a bit and either provide more resources for helping people get re-tooled for a new job and/or we could decide not to go with that algorithm or that robot after all.
This posting won’t go into other possible solutions. But if you are interested in obtaining further information on this trend and for further thoughts/potential solutions re: it, see the work of Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee.
It’s important to note that this isn’t just a problem for someone else to deal with; we’re all in this boat together. “No man is an island” — a saying that still rings true.
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Additional questions:
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Addendums:
Addendum on 7/15/15:
World’s first open online MBA to be launched by MOOC platform Coursera — from by Seb Murray
The world’s first open digital MBA degree will be launched in a tie-up between Mooc maker Coursera and US b-school the University of Illinois.
Excerpt:
The world’s first open online MBA will launch in 2015 after a landmark decision from a top business school which is expected to pave the way for further digitization of the business degree and disrupt an already shaken education market.
The University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign College of Business has received the seal of approval from its senate to launch the “iMBA”, in collaboration with Coursera, the $300 million-plus Silicon Valley start-up that produces MOOCs and has amassed nearly 13 million users.
Also see:
The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign plans to start a low-cost online M.B.A. program in partnership with Coursera, the Silicon Valley-based MOOC provider, hoping to meet its land-grant mission of improving access and also to create a new stream of revenue at a time of shrinking state support for higher education.
Students enrolling in the new online master’s program, dubbed the iMBA, could complete the entire degree for about $20,000 — far less than the approximately $50,000 for the on-campus version or the $100,000 for the university’s executive M.B.A.
Assignment #1:
Review the opinion/posting out at marketwatch.com entitled, “Opinion: How the stock market destroyed the middle class” by Rex Nutting and make a listing of the items you believe he is right on the mark on and another listing of items you believe he is mistaken about. Then answer the following questions:
Excerpt:
“The ‘buyback corporation’ is in large part responsible for a national economy characterized by income inequality, employment instability, and diminished innovative capacity,” wrote William Lazonick, an economics professor at the University of Massachusetts at Lowell in a new paper published by the Brookings Institution.
Lazonick argues that corporations — which once retained a sizable share of profits to reinvest (including investing in their workforce by paying them enough to get them to stay) — have adopted a “downsize-and-distribute” model.
It’s not just lefty academics and pundits who think buybacks are ruining America. Last week, the CEOs of America’s 500 biggest companies received a letter from Lawrence Fink, CEO of BlackRock BLK, +0.46% the largest asset manager in the world, saying exactly the same thing.
“The effects of the short-termist phenomenon are troubling both to those seeking to save for long-term goals such as retirement and for our broader economy,” Fink wrote, adding that favoring shareholders comes at the expense of investing in “innovation, skilled work forces or essential capital expenditures necessary to sustain long-term growth.”
Also see:
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Assignment #2:
Review the current information out at usdebtclock.org and answer the following questions:
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Extra Credit Questions:
Now let’s bring it closer to home. Do you have some student loans that are contributing to the Student Loan Debt figure of $1.3+trillion (as of 4/24/15)? Do you see such loans impacting you in the future? If so, how?
Automated, creative & dispersed: The future of work in the 21st century — from The Economist
Date Published:
May 20th 2015
Excerpt:
The key findings are as follows:
Contents
About the research
Executive summary
Introduction
Your workplace is… everywhere
The hospital of the future
Creative and social skills will dominate the automated world
The bank of the future
Well-being and employee development top the management agenda
The university of the future
The government of the future
Conclusion
Appendix: Survey results
This requires university workers to develop new skills, she says. Ms Shutt predicts that in the future lecturers will be encouraging more of their students to take work placements or even launch their own start-ups, and developing relationships that give industry a greater input
into the direction of research. “We need to develop skills in interaction with business and in preparing students for the work world.”
Published on Mar 15, 2015
Description (emphasis DSC):
Design has become a game changer in Silicon Valley. Last year, John Maeda joined KPCB as the firm’s first Design Partner, joining from his role as the President of the Rhode Island School of Design. Now, in his inaugural #DesignInTech Report, Maeda highlights the rising importance of design in the entrepreneurial ecosystem. Drawing on extensive research and his own conversations with hundreds of designers, Maeda examines the intersection of design and technology. The report covers trends ranging from the record amounts of funding flowing into design-led startups to M&A activity with major tech corporations. Beyond designers and technologists, the report will appeal to a broad audience. For all of us who use a computer or mobile device, great design is changing how we live and work. This report helps explain why.
Nine creative firms have been atypically acquired by companies known for tech like Facebook, Flextronics, Googe, and GlobalLogin; also Accenture and Capital One.
Tech companies, and investors, are increasingly seeing the value of designers who know how to work with and within the constraints of the tech industry.
Design in VC is not about pretty — it’s about relevance.
Excerpt:
AUSTIN, TX – Virtual reality is featured prominently at South By Southwest Sports this year, from using it to better train athletes with Oculus Rift to how it could transform the fan experience watching basketball, football and hockey at home.
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The NHL had its first successful test of a 360-degree virtual reality experience at its Stadium Series game between the San Jose Sharks and Los Angeles Kings last month, mounting cameras around the glass that filmed HD images in the round.
Excerpt:
When basketball lovers aren’t able to trek to stadiums near and far to follow their favorite teams, it’s possible that watching games on a bar’s widescreen TV from behind bowls of wings is the next best thing. This may no longer be true, however, as a wave of court-side, 3D virtual game experiences is becoming available to superfans with Oculus gear.
Earlier this month, NextVR showed off its new enhanced spectator experiences at the 2015 NBA All-Star Technology Summit with virtual reality (VR) footage of an October 2014 Miami Heat and Cleveland Cavaliers match-up in Rio de Janeiro. The NBA also already announced plans to record VR sessions of the NBA All-Star Game, the Foot Locker Three-Point Contest, and the Sprite Slam Dunk event and practice.
From DSC:
In the future, will you be able to “pull up a seat” at any lecture — throughout the globe — that you want to?
Alternatively, another experiment might relate to second screening lectures — i.e., listening to the lecture on the main/large screen — in your home or office — and employing social-based learning/networking going on via a mobile device.
Consider this article:
TV-friendly social network Twitter is testing a new Social TV service on iPhones which provides users with content and interaction about only one TV show at a time.
The aim is to give users significantly better engagement with their favourite shows than they presently experience when they follow a live broadcast via a Twitter hashtag.
This radical innovation in Social TV design effectively curates just relevant content (screening out irrelevant tweets that use a show’s hashtag) and presents it in an easy-to-use interface.
If successful, the TV Timeline feature will better position Twitter as it competes with Facebook to partner with the television industry and tap advertising revenue related to TV programming.
Excerpt:
Not all breakthroughs are created equal. Some arrive more or less as usable things; others mainly set the stage for innovations that emerge later, and we have to estimate when that will be. But we’d bet that every one of the milestones on this list will be worth following in the coming years.
From DSC:
Check out some of the functionality in these solutions. Then imagine if these solutions were in the size of an entire wall in a classroom or in a corporate L&D facility. Whew!
Ideum’s touch walls come close to what I’m talking about in this posting. If they could add some functionality for seeing/bringing in/collaborating with remote learners — as found in Mezzanine — then that would be great!
Also see:
Also see bluescape — but these excellent, innovative solutions are out of the price range for most K-12 and higher ed institutions:
The future of work
There’s an app for that — from economist.com
Freelance workers available at a moment’s notice will reshape the nature of companies and the structure of careers
Excerpt:
HANDY is creating a big business out of small jobs. The company finds its customers self-employed home-helps available in the right place and at the right time. All the householder needs is a credit card and a phone equipped with Handy’s app, and everything from spring cleaning to flat-pack-furniture assembly gets taken care of by “service pros” who earn an average of $18 an hour.
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Handy is one of a large number of startups built around systems which match jobs with independent contractors on the fly, and thus supply labour and services on demand.
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The obvious inspiration for all this is Uber, a car service which was founded in San Francisco in 2009 and which already operates in 53 countries; insiders say it will have sales of more than $1 billion in 2014.
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This boom marks a striking new stage in a deeper transformation. Using the now ubiquitous platform of the smartphone to deliver labour and services in a variety of new ways will challenge many of the fundamental assumptions of 20th-century capitalism, from the nature of the firm to the structure of careers.
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The on-demand economy will inevitably exacerbate the trend towards enforced self-reliance that has been gathering pace since the 1970s. Workers who want to progress will have to keep their formal skills up to date, rather than relying on the firm to train them (or to push them up the ladder regardless). This means accepting challenging assignments or, if they are locked in a more routine job, taking responsibility for educating themselves. They will also have to learn how to drum up new business and make decisions between spending and investment.
Also see:
Professional Millennials and super-powered smartphones are changing the working world — from medium.com and Liquid Talent
Excerpt (emphasis DSC):
This is the year when modern technology squarely intersects with the economy and the workforce. This is the the year that marks a noted change in how we work as individuals, and as a collective. This is the year of the Millennial Generation takeover in our professional world. This is the year that marks the beginning of the Independent Workforce Revolution.
Why?
Two reasons:
1) Millennials take over
Millennials are the largest generation at 82 million strong. They do not have the same priorities as past generations and their professional incentives are quickly changing. They care less about maximizing profit, finding a secure job and taking 2.5 weeks of vacay. In fact, 54% of Millennials assert that they want to start a company one day, or already have. This generation is now 50% of the workforce, and will be 75% of the workforce by 2020. These percentages may seem staggering but with 10,000 Baby Boomers retiring everyday (every single day!) we can see this tectonic shift happening before our very eyes.
2) Mobile technology
We have our economies in our pocket. We can work anytime from anywhere, and source professional opportunities with a simple swipe. The proliferation of mobile productivity apps (ie Slack), globalized workforce platforms (ie eLance) and professional networks (ie LinkedIn) show the power and growth in professional, mobile technologies.
From DSC:
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again to those of us working in K-12 and in higher education:
We need to be sure that we’re preparing our students to know how to run their own businesses. They need to know how to survive and thrive as freelancers — because chances are they will be freelancing at various points in their career. Our curricula should already be in the process of being updated to address these critical skills. More courses on entrepreneurship for example; also some basic accounting courses as well as coursework involving programming, brainstorming, marketing, and how to use various technologies to collaborate, stay organized, and manage one’s time.
The above items also stress the need for lifelong, accessible/affordable learning; and for constant adaptation and for reinventing oneself in order to remain marketable in the workplace.
Addendum on 2/18/15:
New tech companies say freelancing is the future of work. But there’s a downside for workers. — from washingtonpost.com by Lydia DePillis
More companies are switching their workforce to freelance. Policy needs to catch up.
Excerpt:
If the nation’s way of regulating work revolves around a relationship between an employee and employer, what happens when that relationship no longer exists?
And speaking of innovation…
2015 Commission on Technology Conference
Call for Presentations
An epic wave is curling into a pipeline; are you about to be stuffed by it, watching it pass by, or paddling hard to catch it for a sweet ride?
Dude! Innovation can be a killer, leaving you with reef rash, or it can bring a sweet, glassy barrel ride. How’s it out there for you?
Got a story to tell – good, bad, or gnarly – about your experience with a big wave of technological or process innovation? Share your experience! Now’s the time to submit proposals for presentations at the CCCU’s Commission on Technology Conference. We’ll be surf-side in sunny Santa Barbara, CA, June 2-5, enjoying interchange of ideas and exploring innovation: how to exploit its benefits and minimize its negatives.
Share your story! Sessions are 50 minutes long, and can be on topics related to
Start by Registering for the Conference! Then, Submit a Proposal
Glossary:
Pipeline: A large wave which is curling over into itself. Also, a location in Hawaii in which pipeline waves are common.
Stuffed: To be smashed onto the beach or rocks by a large wave.
Reef Rash: Injuries sustained when stuffed.
Barrel Ride: Surfing within a wave which is curling over on top of you.
Harvard B-school opens the flood gates with online courses — from fortune.com by John A. Byrne; with thanks to EduWire for the resource
The school is opening up its online education program—based on case studies and videos—to applicants worldwide, including adult learners.
Excerpt:
(Poets&Quants) — After a pair of highly successful pilot runs, Harvard Business School is now opening its online program in business basics to students worldwide. The school is also inviting admitted MBA students to enroll in the program as a pre-MBA boot camp experience, particularly for non-traditional admits or those who need more basic quantitative work before showing up on campus.
Google enters the collaborative economy in a big way — from web-strategist.com by Jeremiah Owyang
Excerpt:
