leadership

Will higher ed learn from the world of retail, before the “Next Amazon.com of Higher Education” hits the scene?

On 04/07/2017, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, Amazon, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, bots, business, business side of he, change, changing business models, corporate / business world, dangers of the status quo, Daniel S. Christian, digital learning, disruption, distance education, education, education reform, education technology, future of higher education, game-changing environment, global / globalization, heutagogy, higher education, ideas, intelligent systems, leadership, learning, learning agents, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, lifelong learning, more voice more choice more control, new business models, online learning, personalized/customized learning, platforms, reinvent, society, staying relevant, surviving, trends, United States, universities, vendors, vision/possibilities, web-based collaboration, workplace, by Daniel Christian

Retailers cut tens of thousands of jobs. Again. — from money.cnn.com by Paul R. La Monica
The dramatic reshaping of the American retail industry has, unfortunately, led to massive job losses in the sector.

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

The federal government said Friday that retailers shed nearly 30,000 jobs in March. That follows a more than 30,000 decline in the number of retail jobs in the previous month.

So-called general merchandise stores are hurting the most.

That part of the sector, which includes struggling companies like Macy’s, Sears, and J.C. Penney, lost 35,000 jobs last month. Nearly 90,000 jobs have been eliminated since last October.
…
“There is no question that the Amazon effect is overwhelming,” said Scott Clemons, chief investment strategist of private banking for BBH. “There has been a shift in the way we buy things as opposed to a shift in the amount of money spent.”

To that end, Amazon just announced plans to hire 30,000 part-time workers.

From DSC:
One of the reasons that I’m posting this item is for those who say disruption isn’t real…it’s only a buzz word…

A second reason that I’m posting this item is because those of us working within higher education should take note of the changes in the world of retail and learn the lesson now before the “Next Amazon.com of Higher Education*” comes on the scene. Though this organization has yet to materialize, the pieces of its foundation are beginning to come together — such as the ingredients, trends, and developments that I’ve been tracking in my “Learning from the Living [Class] Room” vision.

This new organization will be highly disruptive to institutions of traditional higher education.

If you were in an influential position at Macy’s, Sears, and/or at J.C. Penney today, and you could travel back in time…what would you do?

We in higher education have the luxury of learning from what’s been happening in the retail business. Let’s be sure to learn our lesson.

* Effective today, what I used to call the “Forthcoming Walmart of Education“ — which has already been occurring to some degree with things such as MOOCs and collaborations/partnerships such as Georgia Institute of Technology, Udacity, and AT&T — I now call the “Next Amazon.com of Higher Education.”

Cost. Convenience. Selection. Offering a service on-demand (i.e., being quick, responsive, and available 24×7). <– These all are powerful forces.

P.S. Some will say you can’t possibly compare the worlds of retail and higher education — and that may be true as of 2017. However, if:

the costs of higher education keep going up and we continue to turn a deaf ear to the struggling families/students/adult learners/etc. out there
alternatives to traditional higher education continue to come on the landscape
the Federal Government continues to be more open to financially supporting such alternatives
technologies such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, deep learning continue to get better and more powerful — to the point that they can effectively deliver a personalized education (one that is likely to be fully online and that utilizes a team of specialists to create and deliver the learning experiences)
people lose their jobs to artificial intelligence, robotics, and automation and need to quickly reinvent themselves

…I can assure you that people will find other ways to make ends meet. The Next Amazon.com of Education will be just what they are looking for.

Ideo studied innovation in 100+ companies – here’s what it found [Schwab]

On 04/03/2017, in business, corporate / business world, dangers of the status quo, higher education, ideas, innovation, leadership, workplace, by Daniel Christian

Ideo studied innovation in 100+ companies – here’s what it found — from fastcodesign.com by Katharine Schwab
Innovation is hard to pin down, but with these six insights Ideo says it’s cracking the code.

Excerpt:

Don’t Get Stuck On One Idea (Or Even Three)
Everyone Should Feel Comfortable Challenging The Status Quo
A Clear, Consistent Purpose Fuels Innovation
Remote Team Members Are Actually Good For Collaboration
Touch Base Daily–It Leads To More Successful Launches
Leaders, Your Job Is To Help Your Team–Not The Other Way Around

“The Enterprise Gets Smart” + AI principles from the 2017 Asilomar Conference

On 03/24/2017, in 21st century, Amazon, analytics, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, Asia, bots, business, Canada, career development, change, changing business models, communications, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, data related items, emerging technologies, ethics, Europe, Facebook / Meta Platforms, future, game-changing environment, global / globalization, Google, human-computer interaction (HCI), IBM, ideas, India, innovation, intelligent systems, leadership, legislatures / government / legal, liberal arts, morals/values, reinvent, research, robotics, science, society, surviving, UK, United States, vendors, vision/possibilities, by Daniel Christian

The Enterprise Gets Smart
Companies are starting to leverage artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies to bolster customer experience, improve security and optimize operations.

Excerpt:

Assembling the right talent is another critical component of an AI initiative. While existing enterprise software platforms that add AI capabilities will make the technology accessible to mainstream business users, there will be a need to ramp up expertise in areas like data science, analytics and even nontraditional IT competencies, says Guarini.

“As we start to see the land grab for talent, there are some real gaps in emerging roles, and those that haven’t been as critical in the past,” Guarini says, citing the need for people with expertise in disciplines like philosophy and linguistics, for example. “CIOs need to get in front of what they need in terms of capabilities and, in some cases, identify potential partners.”

Asilomar AI Principles

These principles were developed in conjunction with the 2017 Asilomar conference (videos here), through the process described here.

Artificial intelligence has already provided beneficial tools that are used every day by people around the world. Its continued development, guided by the following principles, will offer amazing opportunities to help and empower people in the decades and centuries ahead.

Research Issues

1) Research Goal: The goal of AI research should be to create not undirected intelligence, but beneficial intelligence.

2) Research Funding: Investments in AI should be accompanied by funding for research on ensuring its beneficial use, including thorny questions in computer science, economics, law, ethics, and social studies, such as:

How can we make future AI systems highly robust, so that they do what we want without malfunctioning or getting hacked?
How can we grow our prosperity through automation while maintaining people’s resources and purpose?
How can we update our legal systems to be more fair and efficient, to keep pace with AI, and to manage the risks associated with AI?
What set of values should AI be aligned with, and what legal and ethical status should it have?

3) Science-Policy Link: There should be constructive and healthy exchange between AI researchers and policy-makers.

4) Research Culture: A culture of cooperation, trust, and transparency should be fostered among researchers and developers of AI.

5) Race Avoidance: Teams developing AI systems should actively cooperate to avoid corner-cutting on safety standards.

Ethics and Values

6) Safety: AI systems should be safe and secure throughout their operational lifetime, and verifiably so where applicable and feasible.

7) Failure Transparency: If an AI system causes harm, it should be possible to ascertain why.

8) Judicial Transparency: Any involvement by an autonomous system in judicial decision-making should provide a satisfactory explanation auditable by a competent human authority.

9) Responsibility: Designers and builders of advanced AI systems are stakeholders in the moral implications of their use, misuse, and actions, with a responsibility and opportunity to shape those implications.

10) Value Alignment: Highly autonomous AI systems should be designed so that their goals and behaviors can be assured to align with human values throughout their operation.

11) Human Values: AI systems should be designed and operated so as to be compatible with ideals of human dignity, rights, freedoms, and cultural diversity.

12) Personal Privacy: People should have the right to access, manage and control the data they generate, given AI systems’ power to analyze and utilize that data.

13) Liberty and Privacy: The application of AI to personal data must not unreasonably curtail people’s real or perceived liberty.

14) Shared Benefit: AI technologies should benefit and empower as many people as possible.

15) Shared Prosperity: The economic prosperity created by AI should be shared broadly, to benefit all of humanity.

16) Human Control: Humans should choose how and whether to delegate decisions to AI systems, to accomplish human-chosen objectives.

17) Non-subversion: The power conferred by control of highly advanced AI systems should respect and improve, rather than subvert, the social and civic processes on which the health of society depends.

18) AI Arms Race: An arms race in lethal autonomous weapons should be avoided.

Longer-term Issues

19) Capability Caution: There being no consensus, we should avoid strong assumptions regarding upper limits on future AI capabilities.

20) Importance: Advanced AI could represent a profound change in the history of life on Earth, and should be planned for and managed with commensurate care and resources.

21) Risks: Risks posed by AI systems, especially catastrophic or existential risks, must be subject to planning and mitigation efforts commensurate with their expected impact.

22) Recursive Self-Improvement: AI systems designed to recursively self-improve or self-replicate in a manner that could lead to rapidly increasing quality or quantity must be subject to strict safety and control measures.

23) Common Good: Superintelligence should only be developed in the service of widely shared ethical ideals, and for the benefit of all humanity rather than one state or organization.

Excerpts:
Creating human-level AI: Will it happen, and if so, when and how? What key remaining obstacles can be identified? How can we make future AI systems more robust than today’s, so that they do what we want without crashing, malfunctioning or getting hacked?

Talks:
- Demis Hassabis (DeepMind)
- Ray Kurzweil (Google) (video)
- Yann LeCun (Facebook/NYU) (pdf) (video)
Panel with Anca Dragan (Berkeley), Demis Hassabis (DeepMind), Guru Banavar (IBM), Oren Etzioni (Allen Institute), Tom Gruber (Apple), Jürgen Schmidhuber (Swiss AI Lab), Yann LeCun (Facebook/NYU), Yoshua Bengio (Montreal) (video)
Superintelligence: Science or fiction? If human level general AI is developed, then what are likely outcomes? What can we do now to maximize the probability of a positive outcome? (video)
- Talks:
  - Shane Legg (DeepMind)
  - Nick Bostrom (Oxford) (pdf) (video)
  - Jaan Tallinn (CSER/FLI) (pdf) (video)
- Panel with Bart Selman (Cornell), David Chalmers (NYU), Elon Musk (Tesla, SpaceX), Jaan Tallinn (CSER/FLI), Nick Bostrom (FHI), Ray Kurzweil (Google), Stuart Russell (Berkeley), Sam Harris, Demis Hassabis (DeepMind): If we succeed in building human-level AGI, then what are likely outcomes? What would we like to happen?
- Panel with Dario Amodei (OpenAI), Nate Soares (MIRI), Shane Legg (DeepMind), Richard Mallah (FLI), Stefano Ermon (Stanford), Viktoriya Krakovna (DeepMind/FLI): Technical research agenda: What can we do now to maximize the chances of a good outcome? (video)
Law, policy & ethics: How can we update legal systems, international treaties and algorithms to be more fair, ethical and efficient and to keep pace with AI?
- Talks:
  - Matt Scherer (pdf) (video)
  - Heather Roff-Perkins (Oxford)
- Panel with Martin Rees (CSER/Cambridge), Heather Roff-Perkins, Jason Matheny (IARPA), Steve Goose (HRW), Irakli Beridze (UNICRI), Rao Kambhampati (AAAI, ASU), Anthony Romero (ACLU): Policy & Governance (video)
- Panel with Kate Crawford (Microsoft/MIT), Matt Scherer, Ryan Calo (U. Washington), Kent Walker (Google), Sam Altman (OpenAI): AI & Law (video)
- Panel with Kay Firth-Butterfield (IEEE, Austin-AI), Wendell Wallach (Yale), Francesca Rossi (IBM/Padova), Huw Price (Cambridge, CFI), Margaret Boden (Sussex): AI & Ethics (video)

From DSC:
The following questions came to my mind today:

What are the future ramifications — for higher education — of an exponential population growth curve, especially in regards to providing access?
Are our current ways of providing an education going to hold up?
What about if the cost of obtaining a degree maintains its current trajectory?
What changes do we need to start planning for and/or begin making now?

Links to sources:

The 2017 Top 10 IT Issues [Educause]

On 01/18/2017, in 21st century, colleges, community colleges, cost of getting a degree, data related items, education technology, higher education, IT in HE, leadership, strategy, student-related, universities, by Daniel Christian

The 2017 Top 10 IT Issues — a new report from Educause
It’s all about student success.

Excerpt:

Colleges and universities are concentrating on student success to address concerns about the costs, value, and outcomes of higher education. Student success initiatives are making use of every available resource and opportunity and involving every relevant stakeholder. Institutional technology is all three: resource, opportunity, and stakeholder.

The 2017 issues list identifies the four focus areas for higher education information technology:

Develop the IT foundations
Develop the data foundations
Ensure effective leadership
Enable successful students

These issues and focus areas are not just about today. Higher education information technology is very clearly building foundations for student success to last into the future.

Also see:

Educause Announces Top IT Issues, Trends and Tech Report for 2017 — from campustechnology.com by Dian Schaffhauser

Excerpt:

Expanding on the preview of its annual ranking of IT issues for higher education released last fall, Educause today announced its full report on the key issues, trends and technologies poised to impact higher ed in 2017. The prevailing themes across the board, according to the higher education technology association with a membership of 2,100 colleges, universities and other education organizations: information security, student success and data-informed decision-making.

The top 10 IT issues for 2017, reiterated in today’s report:

Information security;
Student success and completion;
Data-informed decision-making;
Strategic leadership;
Sustainable funding;
Data management and governance;
Higher education affordability;
Sustainable staffing;
Next-generation enterprise IT; and
Digital transformation of learning.

How will leadership change in the cognitive era? [Cancialosi]

On 01/17/2017, in Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, career development, change, changing business models, future, game-changing environment, leadership, pace of change, strategy, by Daniel Christian

How will leadership change in the cognitive era? — from forbes.com by Chris Cancialosi

Excerpt:

Technological innovation is continuing to accelerate on a hockey stick growth curve. Companies like IBM, Microsoft, Facebook, and Amazon are bringing cognitive computing capability to the masses. And it’s only a matter of time until nearly every aspect of our work and personal lives are impacted.

These advances are still relatively new. Time will tell when and how they change things, but it will happen, and it will happen quickly. In a recent article, Steve Denning reminds us that a repeating pattern of massive transformation has occurred regularly over the last 250 years.

With massive change at our doorstep, now is the time to begin a collective discussion to help leaders navigate this new age.

Leadership behaviors that yielded success in the past may no longer be effective as the way we work changes over time.

From DSC:
First, some items regarding the enormous emphasis being put towards the use of robotics and automation:

$18.867 billion paid to acquire 50 robotics companies in 2016 — from robohub.org by Frank Tobe
Excerpt:
2016 was a banner year for acquisitions of companies involved in robotics and automation: 50 sold; 11 for amounts over $500 million; five were over a billion. 30 of the 50 companies disclosed transaction amounts which totaled up to a colossal $18.867 billion!
.
2017: The year people are forced to learn new skills… or join the Lost Generation — from enterpriseirregulars.com by Phil Fersht
Excerpt (emphasis DSC):
Let’s cut to the chase – there have never been times as uncertain as these in the world of business. There is no written rule-book to follow when it comes to career survival. The “Future of Work” is about making ourselves employable in a workforce where the priority of business leaders is to invest in automation and digital technology, more than training and developing their own workforces. As our soon-to-be-released State of Operations and Outsourcing 2017 study, conducted in conjunction with KPMG across 454 major enterprise buyers globally, shows a dramatic shift in priorities from senior managers (SVPs and above), where 43% are earmarking significant investment in robotic automation of processes, compared with only 28% placing a similar emphasis on training and change management. In fact, the same number of senior managers are as focused on cognitive computing as their own people… yes, folks, this is the singularity of enterprise operations, where cognitive computing now equals employees’ brains when it comes to investment!
…
My deep-seated fear for today’s workforce is that we’re in danger of becoming this “Lost Generation” of workers if we persist in relying on what we already know, versus avoiding learning new skills that business leaders now need. We have to become students again, put our egos aside, and broaden our capabilities to avoid the quicksand of legacy executives no longer worth employing.

Below are some other resources along these lines:

Our Automated Future — from newyorker.com by Elizabeth Kolbert
How long will it be before you lose your job to a robot?
Artificial Intelligence: Silicon Valley’s Next Frontier – from toptechnews.com by Ethan Baron
The Great A.I. Awakening – from the nytimes.com by Gideon Lewis-Kraus
2017 will be big year for AI thanks to tech giants — from cio.com by Matt Kapko
The Robotic Grocery Store of the Future Is Here — from technologyreview.com by Jamie Condliffe
IBM & Rice University Partner to Build a Robot for the Elderly — from finance.yahoo.com
If a Robot is Going to Take My Job, Should it Pay My Taxes? – from datafloq.com
The White House is prepping for an AI-powered future — from wired.com by April Glaser
Artificial intelligence could cost millions of jobs. The White House says we need more of it. — from gazette.com by The Washington Post
Retail inventory robots could replace the need for store employees — from interestingengineering.com by Trevor English
Apple supplier Foxconn replaces 60,000 humans with robots in China — from marketwatch.com
There are now 260,000 robots working in U.S. factories — from marketwatch.com by Jennifer Booton
Robots expected to run half of Japan by 2035 — from engadget.com by Andrew Tarantola
and many, many more…

From DSC:
Given that these trends continue (i.e., to outsource work to software and to robots), what will the ramifications be for:

Society at large? Will enough people have enough income to purchase the products/services made by the robots and the software?
Will there be major civil unrest / instability? Will crime rates shoot through the roof as peoples’ desperation and frustration escalate?
How we should change our curricula within K-12?
How should we change our curricular within higher education?
How should corporate training & development departments/groups respond to these trends?
Is there some new criteria that we need to use (or increase the usage of) in selecting C-level executives?

People don’t want to hear about it. But if the only thing that the C-level suites out there care about is maximizing profits and minimizing costs — REGARDLESS of what happens to humankind — then we are likely going to be creating a very dangerous future. Capitalism will have gone awry. (By the way, the C-level suite is probably making their decisions based upon how their performance is judged by Wall Street and by shareholders. So I can’t really put all the blame on them. Perhaps the enemy is ourselves…?)

Bottom line: We need to be careful which technologies we implement — and how they are implemented. We need to create a dream in our futures, not a nightmare. We need people at the helms who care about their fellow humankind, and who use the power of these technologies responsibly.

5 Online Education Trends to Watch in 2017 — from usnews.com by Jordan Friedman
Experts predict more online programs will offer alternative credentials and degrees in specialized fields.

Excerpts:

Greater emphasis on nontraditional credentials
Increased use of big data to measure student performance
Greater incorporation of artificial intelligence into classes
Growth of nonprofit online programs
Online degrees in surprising and specialized disciplines

The Future of Online Learning Is Offline: What Strava Can Teach Digital Course Designers — from edsurge.com by Amy Ahearn

Excerpt:

I became a Strava user in 2013, around the same time I became an online course designer. Quickly I found that even as I logged runs on Strava daily, I struggled to find the time to log into platforms like Coursera, Udemy or Udacity to finish courses produced by my fellow instructional designers. What was happening? Why was the fitness app so “sticky” as opposed to the online learning platforms?

As a thought experiment, I tried to recast my Strava experience in pedagogical terms. I realized that I was recording hours of deliberate practice (my early morning runs), formative assessments (the occasional speed workout on the track) and even a few summative assessments (races) on the app. Strava was motivating my consistent use by overlaying a digital grid on my existing offline activities. It let me reconnect with college teammates who could keep me motivated. It enabled me to analyze the results of my efforts and compare them to others. I didn’t have to be trapped behind a computer to benefit from this form of digital engagement—yet it was giving me personalized feedback and results. How could we apply the same practices to learning?

I’ve come to believe that one of the biggest misunderstandings about online learning is that it has to be limited to things that can be done in front of a computer screen. Instead, we need to reimagine online courses as something that can enable the interplay between offline activities and digital augmentation.

A few companies are heading that way. Edthena enables teachers to record videos of themselves teaching and then upload these to the platform to get feedback from mentors.

DIY’s JAM online courses let kids complete hands-on activities like drawing or building with LEGOs and then has them upload pictures of their work to earn badges and share their projects.

My team at +Acumen has built online courses that let teams complete projects together offline and then upload their prototypes to the NovoEd platform to receive feedback from peers. University campuses are integrating Kaltura into their LMS platforms to enable students to capture and upload videos.

We need to focus less on building multiple choice quizzes or slick lecture videos and more on finding ways to robustly capture evidence of offline learning that can be validated and critiqued at scale by peers and experts online.

If you doubt that we are on an exponential pace of change, you need to check these articles out! [Christian]

On 09/22/2016, in 21st century, Amazon, Apple, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, Asia, Australia, business, Canada, career development, change, changing business models, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, colleges, community colleges, computer science, convergence, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, dangers of the status quo, Daniel S. Christian, data related items, disruption, emerging technologies, engineering, entrepreneurship, ethics, Europe, experimentation, faith, future, game-changing environment, generational differences, global / globalization, Google, health, hearts -- matters of the heart, heutagogy, higher education, homeschooling/homeschoolers, human-computer interaction (HCI), IBM, ideas, India, innovation, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, interaction design, internet, K-12 related, leadership, learner profiles, learning, learning agents, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, legislatures / government / legal, lifelong learning, machine-to-machine communications, marketplaces, Microsoft, mobile technologies, Near Field Communication (NFC), new business models, organizational change, pace of change, platforms, political science, professional development, psychology, reinvent, relationships, religion, research, robotics, society, sociology, staying relevant, strategy, student-related, surviving, the downsides of how people use tech, training / L&D, trends, UK, United States, universities, web-based collaboration, workplace, youth, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
The articles listed in this PDF document demonstrate the exponential pace of technological change that many nations across the globe are currently experiencing and will likely be experiencing for the foreseeable future. As we are no longer on a linear trajectory, we need to consider what this new trajectory means for how we:

Educate and prepare our youth in K-12
Educate and prepare our young men and women studying within higher education
Restructure/re-envision our corporate training/L&D departments
Equip our freelancers and others to find work
Help people in the workforce remain relevant/marketable/properly skilled
Encourage and better enable lifelong learning
Attempt to keep up w/ this pace of change — legally, ethically, morally, and psychologically

PDF file here

One thought that comes to mind…when we’re moving this fast, we need to be looking upwards and outwards into the horizons — constantly pulse-checking the landscapes. We can’t be looking down or be so buried in our current positions/tasks that we aren’t noticing the changes that are happening around us.

Tech breakthroughs megatrend— from pwc.com by Vicki Huff Eckert, Sahil Bhardwaj, and Chris Curran; with thanks to Woontack Woo for this resource

Excerpt:

Given the sheer pace and acceleration of technological advances in recent years, business leaders can be forgiven for feeling dazed and perhaps a little frustrated. When we talked to CEOs as part of our annual Global CEO Survey, 61% of them told us they were concerned about the speed of technological change in their industries. Sure, more and more C-suite executives are genuinely tech-savvy – increasingly effective champions for their companies’ IT vision – and more and more of them know that digital disruption can be friend as well as enemy. But it’s fair to say that most struggle to find the time and energy necessary to keep up with the technologies driving transformation across every industry and in every part of the world.

Not one catalyst, but several
History is littered with companies that have waited out the Next New Thing in the belief that it’s a technology trend that won’t amount to much, or that won’t affect their industries for decades. Yet disruption happens. It’s safe to say that the history of humankind is a history of disruption – a stream of innovations that have tipped the balance in favour of the innovators. In that sense, technological breakthroughs are the original megatrend. What’s unique in the 21st century, though, is the ubiquity of technology, together with its accessibility, reach, depth, and impact.

Business leaders worldwide acknowledge these changes, and have a clear sense of their significance. CEOs don’t single out any particular catalyst that leads them to that conclusion. But we maintain that technological advancements are appearing, rapidly and simultaneously, in fields as disparate as healthcare and industrial manufacturing, because of the following concurrent factors…

From DSC:
For those of us working in K-20 as well as in the corporate training/L&D space, how are we doing in getting people trained and ready to deal these developments?

The need for more “Trim Tab Groups” in higher education [Christian]

On 07/25/2016, in 21st century, business side of he, change, changing business models, colleges, community colleges, Daniel S. Christian, expectations, experimentation, higher education, ideas, innovation, leadership, new business models, strategy, universities, vision/possibilities, by Daniel Christian

The need for more “Trim Tab Groups” in higher education — from evolllution.com by Daniel Christian

Excerpt:

So to apply this concept to the world of higher education: what higher education institutions need to develop these days are those smaller, nimbler groups that can innovate and experiment with a variety of things. Those smaller groups can then hand over to the larger organization—or to a brand new branch of the existing organization—what is successful and is showing promise. Then the smaller, nimbler group can move onto something else.
…
By forming Trim Tab Groups throughout higher education, we gain the capacity to experiment with relatively small projects that will ultimately have much larger impacts on the institutions and the learners that those institutions serve.

trim-tab

As such, many segments of higher education must adapt and change—or risk servicing far fewer learners over the next two to three decades, as they watch their customers head elsewhere. And then it’s a costly game of musical chairs for faculty and staff, as the larger organizations downsize.

— Daniel Christian

Example slides from their
SlideShare presentation:

and from the PDF:

accenture: Technology Vision 2016 | People First: The Remedy to Digital Culture Shock — from accenture.com

Excerpt:

Winners in the digital age do much more than complete a technology checklist. They know their success hinges on people. Understanding changing customer needs and behaviors is, of course, hugely important. But the real deciding factor in the digital era will be the ability to evolve corporate culture. That means not simply taking advantage of emerging technologies but, critically, embracing the new business strategies that those technologies drive.

You can’t solve this challenge just by consuming more and more technology. Nor, as some fear, by replacing humans with machines. Instead, enterprises must focus on enabling people – consumers, employees and ecosystem partners – to do more with technology. That demands a digital corporate culture enabling people to continuously adapt, learn, create new solutions, drive relentless change, and disrupt the status quo. In an age where tech is grabbing the limelight, true leaders will, in fact, put people first.

But the real deciding factor in the era of intelligence will be a company’s ability to evolve its corporate culture to not only take advantage of emerging technologies, but also, critically, embrace the new business strategies that those technologies drive.

From DSC:
Are we preparing our students to be ready for — and successful in — this changing workplace? Are adults ready for this changing workplace? It appears that some are, and some are left reeling by the pace of change.

What is our role as educators in K-12? In higher ed?

What are the roles of trainers and/or mentors in the marketplace?

How does one help another person to learn quickly?

——–

Addendum:

The Most Digital Companies Are Leaving All the Rest Behind — from Harvard Business Review by James Manyika, Gary Pinkus, and Sree Ramaswamy
Excerpt:
The answer is that a new digital divide has opened up in America. Just about every individual, company and sector of the economy now has access to digital technologies — there are hardly any “have nots” anymore. But a widening gap exists between the “haves” and a group we call the “have-mores”: companies and sectors that are using their digital capabilities far more than the rest to innovate and transform how they operate.

Reflections on “University of Phoenix owner, Apollo Education Group, will be taken private” [Cohen & Bray]

On 02/09/2016, in change, funding / grants, higher education, leadership, legislatures / government / legal, staying relevant, strategy, student-related, surviving, United States, universities, by Daniel Christian

University of Phoenix owner, Apollo Education Group, will be taken private — from nytimes.com by Patricia Cohen and Chad Bray

Excerpt:

The troubled for-profit education company that owns the giant University of Phoenix agreed on Monday to be bought for $1.1 billion by a group of investors that includes a private equity firm with close ties to the Obama administration.

The university and its owner, the Apollo Education Group, have been subject to a series of state and federal investigations into allegations of shady recruiting, deceptive advertising and questionable financial aid practices.

In recent years, many for-profit educational institutions that have received billions of dollars in federal aid, including the University of Phoenix, have been pummeled by criticisms that they preyed upon veterans and low-income students, saddling them with outsize student loan debt and subpar instruction.

Also see:

New education department office to crack down on colleges — from wsj.com by Josh Mitchell
Student Aid Enforcement Unit will focus on schools accused of misconduct
Excerpt:
The Obama administration plans to boost the federal government’s power to investigate and punish colleges accused of deceptive marketing tactics and other misconduct, part of a campaign to address years of student complaints about for-profit institutions.

Also see:

Student Aid Enforcement Unit Formed to protect students, borrowers, taxpayers — from ed.gov on 2/8/16

Excerpt:

As part of the Obama Administration’s aggressive action to protect students and taxpayers, the U.S. Department of Education is creating a Student Aid Enforcement Unit to respond more quickly and efficiently to allegations of illegal actions by higher education institutions.

“When Americans invest their time, money and effort to gain new skills, they have a right to expect they’ll actually get an education that leads to a better life for them and their families,” said Acting Secretary of Education John B. King Jr. “When that doesn’t happen we all pay the price. So let me be clear: schools looking to cheat students and taxpayers will be held accountable.”

From DSC:
For profits have brought some solid things to the education table…but they’ve also brought some bad practices to the table as well. To some degree, the above items relate to the efforts and influence of the federal government to affect institutions involved in higher education.

Taking this thought into a different direction then…one should think carefully, therefore, when the federal government opens up new efforts to support innovation within higher education — something I support, by the way, as it could facilitate the creation of alternative pathways for learners and it finally enforces some true competition — and therefore a greater emphasis on innovation — within the higher ed landscape. (Yes I realize that there’s some level of competition within institutions of traditional higher education…but historical and current accreditation practices have pretty much kept things looking quite similar across the landscape.)

Institutions of traditional higher education may now be forced to rethink their game plans and strategies as they move forward — something I hope that will positively impact our future students. Such forces and events should make institutions of traditional higher education more innovative, open to change (where it’s needed), relevant, and responsive to changes in the environment.

Equipped for EQUIP? Here’s a primer — from edsurge.com by Bart Epstein and Ben Wallerstein (on 11/9/15)

Excerpt:

On October 15th, the Department of Education launched a new Experimental Site called Educational Quality through Innovative Partnerships (EQUIP), which creates a pathway to federal aid for unaccredited education providers–including the fast-growing bootcamp sector. Here’s what you need to know.

The US Department of Education’s Experimental Sites Initiative (ESI) is a policymaker’s dream. The authority granted though the ESI allows the Secretary of Education to waive certain rules governing federal financial aid to experiment with new models and test their impact. The goal: improve access for low-income students, and increase the return on our $130 billion annual investment in student aid.

As a policy “lab,” Experimental Sites have allowed the Department of Education to provide Title IV access for self-paced and competency-based programs, decouple aid from the credit hour, and fund students who demonstrate prior learning through assessments.

From DSC:
As higher ed (as an industry) doesn’t seem to be able to decrease the costs of obtaining a degree, alternatives continue to crop up.

If…

The prices don’t start coming down from institutions of traditional higher education
Alternatives continue to crop up and gather steam
The U.S. Federal Government gets behind such alternatives

…then higher ed (again, as an industry) can only blame itself for not responding more significantly than we did.

We need to respond. We need to address this growing wave of unrest regarding higher ed. We need more innovation. We need lower prices. Towards that end, that’s why I’ve been saying that we need more TrimTab Groups to find ways to maintain quality, but reduce the price.

TheTrimtabInHigherEducation-DanielChristian

Reflections on “Gen Z is about to take over higher education—here’s what to expect” [Malat]

On 01/14/2016, in 21st century, active learning, blended learning, Bring your own device (BYOD), career development, change, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, collaboration, colleges, community colleges, corporate / business world, cost of getting a degree, dangers of the status quo, Daniel S. Christian, digital learning, education technology, engagement / engaging students, expectations, experimentation, game-changing environment, generational differences, higher education, ideas, K-12 related, leadership, learning, learning ecosystem, learning preferences, learning spaces, mobile learning, more voice more choice more control, online learning, participation, pedagogy, personalized/customized learning, smart classrooms, strategy, student-related, teachers, teaching & learning, technology (general), trends, universities, vision/possibilities, web-based collaboration, workplace, youth, by Daniel Christian

Gen Z is about to take over higher education—here’s what to expect — from ecampusnews.com by Lisa Malat
Survey finds digital natives “Gen Z” set to reshape higher ed landscape with focus on careers, dependence on technology.

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

Educators take note: it’s time to make way for Generation Z (Gen Z).

In a recent study by Barnes & Noble College, 1,300 middle-school and high school students ages 13-18 from 49 different states shared their attitudes, preferences and expectations regarding their educational and learning experiences. The findings from the study are clear: Gen Z is significantly different than previous generations, and these students will bring both challenges and opportunities for the future of higher education.
…

With Gen Z being a generation of “digital natives,” it stands to reason that the future of educational technology is now. Technology is embraced almost universally by Gen Z. In fact, the students surveyed shared that they are apt to regularly use five different computer tools for their social and educational purposes: laptops, desktops, tablets, smartphones and video game consoles.

Unlike Millennials, who have broadly adopted technology, Gen Z has adopted a technology-centric lifestyle. They define themselves in online, digital terms. Gen Z doesn’t distinguish between devices or online territories. It is one continuous, multi-faceted, completely integrated experience – connecting social, academic and professional interests.
…
Gen Z also has different learning style preferences from past generations. While they are very into DIYL (do-it-yourself-learning), these students also embrace peer-to-peer learning, with 80 percent reporting that they study with their friends and classmates. Fifty percent said they enjoy the element of leadership it presents, and 60 percent reported that it gives them the perfect way to exchange ideas and consider new perspectives.

From DSC:
The article/report above prompted me to reflect…

Many throughout higher education are responding to change. But many are not. We aren’t nearly as nimble as we need to be.

I hope that the faculty, staff, boards, administrations, and the heavy-hitting donors at colleges and universities throughout the U.S. appreciate how important it is to be aware of — and respond to — changes within the K-12 world, changes in today’s students, changes within the higher ed landscape, and to changes within the corporate/business world.

We operate in a continuum.

With all of those changes, maintaining the status quo seems to be a dangerous experiment to me. We are not in control. Rather, we all need to adapt and to respond.

DanielChristian-MonitoringTrends

DanielChristian-what-should-our-learning-environments-look-and-act-like

Along these lines, maintaining the status quo shows a blatant disregard of our customers’ preferences — an unwise strategy to take. (And for those of you who don’t like the word customer here, bear with me…because in my mind, any person who pays anywhere near the price of a house to obtain their education has earned the right to be called a customer. Today’s students are paying a heck of a lot more than we did.)

Also, maintaining the status quo seems like a dangerous strategy when we’re talking about recruitment and retention. Remember, we are talking about depending upon the decisions of 18 year olds here.

So as I:

Read the above article and the report that it refers to
Consider the higher ed landscape that continues to encounter new alternatives
Observe that different pathways that are cropping up all the time
See that the federal government is moving towards funding such alternative methods

…I am forced to ask myself, “Given all of this, will maintaining the status quo suffice? Really?“

This report should encourage us to:

Seek to do a better job of pulse checking the K-12 world and the students’ learning preferences coming out of that world — and to develop our responses to those changing preferences.
Pursue more instances of blended/hybrid learning and active learning-based classrooms
Provide a variety of delivery mechanisms to meet our students’ needs — including a solid line up of online-based courses and programs. Students are often having to work in order to get through college, and they need flexible solutions.
Better address our physical learning spaces, which should offer strong/secure wireless networks and means of quickly collaborating via BYOD-based devices.
Continue to invest in selecting and investigating how best to use a variety of educationally-related technologies (something which, in my mind, invites the use of teams of specialists).
(I could, and probably should, think bigger here, but I’ll stop at these reflections.)

I’ll leave you with the following graphic, relaying that often times members of Gen Z tend to prefer active learning-based classrooms:

Learning Ecosystems

Ideo studied innovation in 100+ companies – here’s what it found [Schwab]

The need for more “Trim Tab Groups” in higher education [Christian]

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