leadership

Reflections on “No surprise: Accrediting agency opts to stunt innovation” [Christensen]

On 08/12/2013, in 21st century, accreditation, disruption, experimentation, future of higher education, game-changing environment, higher education, innovation, leadership, new business models, by Daniel Christian

No surprise: Accrediting agency opts to stunt innovation — from disruptingclass.mhprofessional.com by Clayton Christensen

Excerpts:

Several years ago I offered words of praise when Tiffin College partnered with Altius Education to create Ivy Bridge College, a two-year online institution dedicated to providing an affordable higher education option that boosted the transfer rate of two-year students to four-year institutions.

The Higher Learning Commission (HLC), the accrediting body for the North Central region and thus this partnership because Tiffin College is located in an Ohio city that was once populated with industry, agreed strongly, as in 2010 it approved continuing accreditation for Tiffin University and Ivy Bridge College through 2020. At the time, the HLC lauded the partnership.

In the last few weeks, everything changed.

From DSC:
What needs to be done to force accreditation bodies to change who can be on these accreditation teams? Why is it that the people that institutions of higher education claim to serve can’t be on such boards? i.e. one must be an “insider” to the higher education industry, but not an “outsider?”

Pursuing the current status quo may have a serious backfiring effect when alternatives present themselves. In fact, taking steps to insure the status quo only serves to put more energy behind MOOCs and puts yet more heat in higher ed’s kitchen. I would hope that folks inside higher ed would take the steps to allow for more experimentation and innovation and to take some heat out of the kitchen.

The key, he added, was to try to avoid mistakes like those made by the music industry on its road to iTunes. “This is a Napster moment for education,” he said. “It’s a big opportunity and an existential threat.”

— from A “Napster Moment” in Education

The Lesson of Commoditization: From The Washington Post to Higher Education [Selingo]

On 08/07/2013, in business side of he, change, changing business models, experimentation, future of higher education, game-changing environment, higher education, innovation, leadership, strategy, by Daniel Christian

The Lesson of Commoditization: From The Washington Post to Higher Education — from LinkedIn.com by Jeff Selingo

Excerpts (emphasis DSC):

You have to ask yourself whether you’re inherently a commodity business or inherently an innovation business.

— A.G. Lafley, CEO Procter & Gamble

Many colleges face the same problem The Washington Post does, and of course, they charge thousands of dollars more for their product. The owners of The Post realized that they needed to get out of the commodity business and into the innovation business, and there was no better person to lead the newspaper through that transformation than Jeff Bezos.

…figure out what is truly innovative and different about the campus experience, double down on that and let other players with less expensive models serve the commodity market. In the end, don’t be afraid of putting a piece of what you do now out of business.

From DSC:
That last sentence speaks directly to what Steve Jobs believed and lived by:

If you don’t cannibalize yourself, someone else will.

We’ve lost our footing — there needs to be a higher calling/purpose for our businesses.

On 08/01/2013, in business, creativity, Daniel S. Christian, ethics, hearts -- matters of the heart, leadership, marketing/social marketing, MBA, United States, workplace, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
The two items mentioned below — which I recently ran across — took me back to a nagging thought:

In the United States, we need for our businesses to pursue a higher calling and purpose. We need businesses to ask how they might best be serving society/others; and I, as an individual, need to be asking the same thing.

It’s tough to do. It’s easy to loose our footing here. But if culture eats strategy for breakfast — and if strategies are so key in navigating/surviving in a quickly-changing world — then why don’t we work more on our cultures? Our hearts? Our reasons for existing and working?

My guess is that employees would also find their work more meaningful if they saw how their companies were making significant contributions and differences in the world. For example, when I worked at Kraft (Foods) in the 90’s, we did some things like sending food to areas in crisis; but it wasn’t highlighted that much and it certainly wasn’t our reason for being. Can you imagine how we would have felt if it was one of our top goals to provide food to every single person in the world? I wonder how much more energy, commitment, creativity, innovation, etc. would have been generated with that sort of aim in mind? How would such a perspective/drive have affected the company’s culture? (Instead, Philip Morris purchased Kraft and had a negative affect on the company’s culture.)

The new marketing strategy: Company culture — from kristakotrla.com on March 17, 2013

Excerpt:

Dear Corporate Leadership
Please get back to being a business of people… serving people. Sounds a tad cheesy but seriously. Stop trying to be a big “corporatey,” over-processed, over-mechanized, over-bureaucratic, over-org-charted machine. Smoke and mirrors and perfection is out. Authentic, human, collaboration and innovation from real-time engagement is in.

If you treat your business like a machine then don’t be surprised when your employees act like passionless robots. Ever find yourself scratching your head wondering why on earth your machine-like, killer strategy isn’t thriving? Check your culture (and check your heart).

This one tweet reveals what’s wrong with American business — from LinkedIn.com by Henry Blodget

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

The real problem is that American corporations, which are richer and more profitable than they have ever been in history (see chart below), have become so obsessed with “maximizing short-term profits” that they are no longer investing in their future, their people, and the country.

This short-term greed can be seen in many aspects of corporate behavior, from scrimping on investment to obsessing about quarterly earnings to fretting about daily fluctuations in stock prices. But it is most visible in the general cultural attitude toward average employees.

Employees are human beings. They devote their lives to creating value for customers, shareholders, and colleagues. And, in return, at least in theory, they share in the rewards of the value created by their team.

In theory.

In practice, American business culture has become so obsessed with maximizing short-term profits that employees aren’t regarded as people who are members of a team.

Rather, they are regarded as “costs.”

Corporate profits and profit margins are at the highest level in history…

‘Shake Up’ for Higher Ed — from insidehighered.com by Scott Jaschik

Excerpt:

President Obama vowed Wednesday that he would soon unveil a plan to promote significant reform in higher education — with an emphasis on controlling what colleges charge students and families.

“[I]n the coming months, I will lay out an aggressive strategy to shake up the system, tackle rising costs, and improve value for middle-class students and their families. It is critical that we make sure that college is affordable for every single American who’s willing to work for it,” said Obama, in a speech at Knox College.

…

“Families and taxpayers can’t just keep paying more and more and more into an undisciplined system where costs just keep on going up and up and up. We’ll never have enough loan money, we’ll never have enough grant money, to keep up with costs that are going up 5, 6, 7 percent a year. We’ve got to get more out of what we pay for,” Obama said.

From DSC:
At a $175 billion per year support for postsecondary education, if the Federal Government starts redirecting this flow of $$$…I’ll bet we’ll see some change…and rather quickly I might add.

The Walmart of Education (as predicted back in December 2008) is now here, but I don’t think we’ve seen anything yet. To what will we change? At least one major piece of the answer to that question is that we will see the continued — but increasing — use of teams of specialists that will be commissioned to create low-cost, highly-engaging content. Though expensive to create originally, such teams will more than make their money back because of the massive number of students such “courses” will serve.

From the Walmart of Education page on 4/11/09:

…I wanted to offer another idea that might help fund engaging, multimedia-based, online-based learning materials:
(NOTE: The figures I use are not accurate, but rather, they are used for illustration purposes only.)

Let’s reallocate funds towards course development, and then let’s leverage those learning materials throughout the world!

Reallocate funds to course development, and bring costs WAAAAYYYY down and ACCESS WAAAYYY UP!

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For students: Bring costs waaaayyyyy down and access waaayyy up!

Plus, no more defaulted loans, students could experience richer content, students wouldn’t have to wait as much on financial aid decisions. There would be fewer financial aid headaches; and the resources devoted to figuring out & processing financial aid could be reduced. The issue will be how an institution can differentiate itself in such a new world…but that issue will have to be dealt with in the future anyway.

Alive in the Swamp — from nesta.org.uk by Michael Fullan and Katelyn Donnelly

Excerpt (emphasis and link below from DSC):

The authors argue that we should seek digital innovations that produce at least twice the learning outcome for half the cost of our current tools. To achieve this, three forces need to come together. One is technology, the other pedagogy, and the third is change knowledge, or how to secure transformation across an entire school system.

…

The breakthrough in Alive in the Swamp is the development of an Index that will be of practical assistance to those charged with making these kinds of decisions at school, local and system level. Building on Fullan’s previous work, Stratosphere, the Index sets out the questions policymakers need to ask themselves not just about the technology at any given moment but crucially also about how it can be combined with pedagogy and knowledge about system change. Similarly, the Index should help entrepreneurs and education technology developers to consider particular features to build into their products to drive increased learning and achieve systemic impact.

The future will belong not to those who focus on the technology alone but to those who place it in this wider context and see it as one element of a wider system transformation. Fullan and Donnelly show how this can be done in a practical way.

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Also see:
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The Coming Crossroads in Higher Education [U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan]

On 07/16/2013, in 21st century, budgets, business side of he, change, changing business models, education technology, future of higher education, game-changing environment, higher education, innovation, leadership, legislatures / government / legal, MOOCs -- Massive Open Online Courses, online learning, strategy, vision/possibilities, by Daniel Christian

The Coming Crossroads in Higher Education: Remarks of U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan to the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association Annual Meeting, July 9, 2013 — from distance-educator.com with thanks going out to Mr. John Shank for Scooping this item.

Excerpts (emphasis DSC):

But I would also make the case to you today that higher education is approaching a crossroads, where leaders will be asked to choose between incremental and transformational change.

…

Polls show that three out of four Americans believe—and I quote—”to get ahead in life these days, it is necessary to get a college education.” At the same time, three in four Americans also believe that college today is too expensive for most people to afford. That fundamental gap—between aspirations and opportunity—is one we must close.

…

I believe that higher education is at a crossroads because our current model of student and institutional aid is ultimately unsustainable. It is incapable of meeting the bipartisan goal that President Obama articulated four years ago—that America will again lead the world in college attainment by 2020.

…

Speaking in broad-brush terms, I believe we will see two ideas take hold in response to these threats to higher education.

The first response is that the system of state and federal institutional grants and loans will start to shift more toward a performance-based and outcomes-based system than is the case today—and one that does more to reward innovation.

…

The federal government currently provides more than $175 billion a year to postsecondary institutions and students through grants, loans, and direct school support. But together we must do a better job of defining and linking aid to satisfactory academic progress, meaningful institutional performance, and student learning outcomes.

We absolutely must continue to invest in higher education. But we must also use taxpayer dollars more wisely.

This shift in the direction of performance-based funding is already underway.

…

Further evidence of the policy shift underway is that many states—including Indiana, Tennessee, Oregon, and Missouri—are moving in bipartisan fashion to incorporate elements of performance-based funding in higher education.

…

Now, if the first response to the challenges of cost, completion, and accountability is likely to be more performance-based funding and new incentives for innovation, a second response is likely to be a leveraging of educational technology to increase student learning as well as institutional performance and productivity.

We still have a lot to learn and perfect about online learning, MOOCs, simulations and gaming, and other uses of educational technology. But there is no question that a digital revolution is already underway in higher education. And its vast potential has only begun to be tapped.

From DSC:
I hear a lot about resistance to change; in fact, as I come from the tech side of the academic house, I experience it on an ongoing basis.

But I do wonder if the pace of change within higher education might accelerate when more of that $175 billion a year starts flowing elsewhere…?

Reflections on “CFO survey reveals doubts about financial sustainability” [Lederman]

On 07/12/2013, in 21st century, business side of he, dangers of the status quo, Daniel S. Christian, future of higher education, game-changing environment, higher education, leadership, strategy, vision/possibilities, by Daniel Christian

CFO survey reveals doubts about financial sustainability — from by Doug Lederman

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

But what do those with the closest eyes on their own institutions’ bottom lines — chief college and university business officers — think? Turns out they’re not particularly upbeat, either — about their own colleges’ futures or the higher education landscape more generally.

In a new survey by Inside Higher Ed and Gallup, barely a quarter of campus chief financial officers (27 percent) express strong confidence in the viability of their institution’s financial model over five years, and that number drops in half (to 13 percent) when they are asked to look out over a 10-year horizon.

…

And more than 6 in 10 CFOs disagree or strongly disagree with the statement that “reports that a significant number of higher education institutions are facing existential financial crisis are overblown.”

“This is a ‘Houston, we have a problem’ report,” says Jane Wellman, a higher education finance expert. “People who know what they’re talking about think we have a problem down the road if some things don’t get fixed.”

From DSC:
There is danger in the status quo. What further proof do folks need!?! The monkey needs to move onto the back of those who cling to the status quo — they should defend why things shouldn’t change; and after that explanation is done, they can move on to explaining to people how students and their families will pay for college 5-10 years from now. Good luck with that.

Also related/see:

Struggling Thunderbird Business School Finds a For-Profit Lifeline — from wsj.org by Melissa Korn
School takes drastic step to stay afloat

Excerpt:

The Thunderbird School of Global Management, one of the world’s top-ranked business schools, is selling its campus to a for-profit college operator as part of a last-ditch effort to bolster its finances as more people question the value of an M.B.A.

The partnership with Laureate Education Inc. pushed at least two board members to resign in protest last week and angered pockets of its 40,000-person alumni community. Administrators and other insiders said Thunderbird needed to take a drastic step in order to stay afloat.

Shortfall in educated U.S. workers to worsen: study — — from reuters.com by Paige Gance

Excerpt:

WASHINGTON | Wed Jun 26, 2013 5:55pm EDT (Reuters) – U.S. workers with advanced skills in areas such as math, science and healthcare are growing more scarce, with a shortfall of 20 million adequately educated workers expected by 2020, a study released on Wednesday found.

“The United States has been under-producing workers with postsecondary education since the 1980s,” researchers at Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce said in the study. “Jobs will return, but not everyone will be ready for them.”

They predicted that 65 percent of the projected 165 million jobs in 2020 will require more than a high school diploma, up from 59 percent in 2010.

From DSC:
IF the status quo is maintained, the outlook for the U.S. is not good.

That is, if the prices of obtaining a degree in higher ed keep going up and the middle class continues to be hollowed out, a smaller pool of people will even be able to afford getting a postsecondary education (regardless of whether it’s in healthcare, math, or science).

How much longer do the status quo’ers think that the U.S. Federal Government will wait around, watching this situation develop? How much longer before the Federal Government looks elsewhere for its workforce development (let alone the students out there who need to make a living)?

There is not an infinite period of time for institutions of traditional higher education to respond. MOOCs are a start, but they are but one option and they need to be improved. Along those lines:

The organization who can collaborate with those perfecting IBM’s Watson, Apple’s Siri, or Google Now — and integrate those technologies into a low-cost solution for postsecondary education — will be a potent force in the future.

No deal on loans [Nelson]; interest rate hike for federally subsidized student loans doubles on July 1

On 06/28/2013, in budgets, business side of he, game-changing environment, higher education, leadership, legislatures / government / legal, student-related, United States, vision/possibilities, by Daniel Christian

No deal on loans — from insidehighered.com by Libby Nelson

Excerpt:

On Thursday, though, the clock ran out: the Senate’s failure to reach a deal to avert an interest rate hike for federally subsidized student loans means the rate will double Monday.

…

The failure to vote on a plan before the Senate adjourned for its July 4 recess Thursday night means that interest rates on new, federally subsidized loans will double to 6.8 percent Monday.

Change is optional, survival is not guaranteed [Christian]

On 06/20/2013, in colleges, community colleges, cost of getting a degree, dangers of the status quo, Daniel S. Christian, future of higher education, game-changing environment, higher education, leadership, reinvent, staying relevant, student-related, surviving, universities, by Daniel Christian

Then globalization and the Internet changed everything. Customers suddenly had real choices, access to instant reliable information and the ability to communicate with each other. Power in the marketplace shifted from seller to buyer. Customers started insisting on ‘better, cheaper, quicker and smaller,’ along with ‘more convenient, reliable and personalized.’ Continuous, even transformational, innovation have become requirements for survival.”

Steve Denning, “The Management Revolution That’s Already Happening,”
Forbes Magazine, May 30, 2013.

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PDF of article here

Top-Ten IT Issues, 2013: Welcome to the Connected Age [Grajek]; and other items from the Educause Review Online

On 06/05/2013, in higher education, innovation, IT in HE, leadership, strategy, vision/possibilities, by Daniel Christian

Top-Ten IT Issues, 2013: Welcome to the Connected Age — from educause review online by Susan Grajek

Also see:

A Transformative Period: Is Higher Education IT Having an Identity Crisis? — educause review online by Joanna Lyn Grama
Geeks and Non-Geeks: From Contraxioms to Collaboration in Higher Education — from educause review online by Paul Glen and Maria McManus

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From DSC:
If we want organizations to survive/thrive in the future, we really need to drop the word “geek” from our vocabularies and get rid of the mental tapes and images that the word “geek” suggests. It’s just not helpful.

Oceans of innovation: The Atlantic, the Pacific, global leadership and the future of education [Barber, Donnelly, & Rizvi]

On 06/04/2013, in Asia, business, Canada, creativity, economics, education reform, entrepreneurship, global / globalization, innovation, K-12 related, leadership, motivation, passions, by Daniel Christian

Oceans of innovation: The Atlantic, the Pacific, global leadership and the future of education — from the Institute for Public Policy Research by Sir Michael Barber, Katelyn Donnelly and Saad Rizvi; with thanks to Stephen Harris (@Stephen_H) for posting this on Twitter

Description (emphasis DSC):

‘The economic and educational achievements of the Pacific region in the past 50 years are spectacular – unprecedented in fact. They lay a foundation for the next 50 years – a much better foundation than exists in many Atlantic systems – but the mix of factors that brought those achievements will not be capable of meeting the challenge ahead.’

This long essay by Sir Michael Barber, Katelyn Donnelly and Saad Rizvi assumes the near certainty that the Pacific region will take primary leadership of the global economy in the near future and explores the implications for their education systems, calling for a ‘whole-system revolution’ in the structure and priorities of teaching and learning in the region.

‘What is clear, though, is that education – deeper, broader and more universal – has a significant part to play in enabling humanity to succeed in the next half century. We need to ensure that students everywhere leave school ready to continue to learn and adapt, ready to take responsibility for their own future learning and careers, ready to innovate with and for others, and to live in turbulent, diverse cities. We need perhaps the first truly global generation; a generation of individuals rooted in their own cultures but open to the world and confident of their ability to shape it.

‘The growing pace of change and increasing complexity mean that global leadership will no longer be merely about summits behind closed doors. In an era of transparency, leaders will find themselves constantly in dialogue with those they purport to lead. Meanwhile, innovations which transform societies can and will happen anywhere. Leadership, in short, will be widely dispersed and will require increasing sophistication.’

From DSC:
Let’s help students identify, design, and develop their own businesses while they are still in K-20. We could provide them with mentoring, guidance, and teams of specialists from their “classmates” — wherever those classmates may be.

This business of studying for the standardized tests seems to fall far short of what the next generation will need to survive and thrive in the new global economy. With the dropout rates being what they are, it doesn’t appear that our current educational systems (at least in the U.S.) will get us to the place where our students are innovative, inventive, and are able to freelance with confidence — where they own their own learning, are engaged and motivated to learn, where they learn how to learn and know where to go to access the relevant streams of content that are flowing (constantly) by them. unleashed to be far more creative and entrepreneurial.

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The Next Generation University [Selingo, Carey, Pennington, Fishman, & Palmer]

On 05/21/2013, in colleges, community colleges, cost of getting a degree, dangers of the status quo, Daniel S. Christian, future, future of higher education, game-changing environment, higher education, leadership, reinvent, staying relevant, strategy, surviving, universities, vision/possibilities, by Daniel Christian

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Excerpt:

As the nation struggles to find new ways to increase college access and completion rates while lowering costs, a handful of “Next Generation Universities” are embracing key strategies that make them models for national reform. The report The Next Generation University comes at a time when too many public universities are failing to respond to the nation’s higher education crisis. Rather than expanding enrollment and focusing limited dollars on the neediest of students, many institutions are instead restricting enrollments and encouraging the use of student-aid dollars on merit awards. But, according to the report, some schools are breaking the mold by boldly restructuring operating costs and creating clear, accelerated pathways for students.

…

Download the full report here.

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In addition to the report, see:

Technology and the Next Generation University, New America’s Rachel Fishman explores the barriers to technology-enhanced education and presents promising practices Next Generation Universities employ to overcome them.
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In Formation of the Next Generation University: Role of State and System Policy, HCM Strategists’ Iris Palmer, Kristin Conklin, and Nate Johnson explore how transfer policy, financial aid, net price, performance funding and the K-12 pipeline affect Next Generation Universities within their state context. It makes recommendations for state and higher-education system policymakers on how to ensure public institutions are meeting the needs of the state.
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HCM Strategists, in conjunction with the release of The Next Generation University developed a new interactive tool: Next Generation Universities: Select Dimensions of Research University Output, Productivity and Efficiency 2006-2011

Also see:

What happens when 2 colleges become one — from chronicle.com by Ricardo Azziz
Excerpt:
Earlier this year, Moody’s Investors Service released its annual assessment of higher education in the United States, a report that viewed the sector’s short-term outlook as largely negative amid growing economic pressures. The analysts, however, applauded the efforts of a few states that were trying to merge or consolidate campuses because such efforts “foster operating efficiencies and reduce costs amid declining state support.”

5 ways to build a future leader [Biro]

On 05/13/2013, in business, corporate / business world, education, education reform, future, higher education, K-12 related, leadership, by Daniel Christian

5 ways to build a future leader — from forbes.com by Meghan Biro

Excerpt:

This skills shortage threatens to undermine all the positive advances in talent recruitment and management and this is alarming to me.

Companies just can’t find the people they need. And at the same time, they’re cutting their recruiting and development budgets, expecting new hires to hit the ground running.

Will be interesting to see if the pathways to the CEO position expand a bit further…

On 05/04/2013, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, career development, corporate / business world, Daniel S. Christian, innovation, internet, leadership, strategy, technology (general), by Daniel Christian

Interesting tidbit (emphasis DSC):

According to a study from IBM, for the first time CEOs have identified technology as the most important external aspect impacting their organizations. To meet these needs, IBM recently introduced new products.

From DSC:
Reading the item above got me to wondering if the pathways to the CEO position might be opening up to include those coming from more technical backgrounds. Technology must be used strategically — whether in the corporate/business world or in the world of higher education (and come to think of it, within all industries that exist today). The IT area that you think you know about isn’t just about infrastructure any more — though that’s still critical. It’s becoming the key department/group within your organization that can either make or break your organization’s future. Many don’t like this fairly recent situation, but the fact is that in this information age, those who know how to innovate with — and leverage — technology will not only survive, but thrive. Those who treat IT with disdain, contempt, indifference, or simply continue to minimize the area of IT, won’t make it. To those of you clinging to the status quo, my recommendation is to wake up and adapt before it’s too late.

Along these lines:

Why your C-suite needs a social and digital rock star — from imediaconnection.com by Noam Kostucki
Excerpt:
We have seen different waves of C-level executives be promoted to CEOs: The ’70s promoted sales, the ’80s loved accounting, the ’90s encouraged advertising-driven CMOs, the ’00s were simply turbulent, and the ’10s are looking for the new CEOs. Those who understand social and digital (SnD) will thrive in leading the companies of today and tomorrow.

Learning Ecosystems

Reflections on “No surprise: Accrediting agency opts to stunt innovation” [Christensen]

The Lesson of Commoditization: From The Washington Post to Higher Education [Selingo]

We’ve lost our footing — there needs to be a higher calling/purpose for our businesses.

Reflections on ‘Shake Up’ for Higher Ed [Jaschik]

The Coming Crossroads in Higher Education [U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan]

Reflections on “CFO survey reveals doubts about financial sustainability” [Lederman]

Shortfall in educated U.S. workers to worsen: study [Gance]

Top-Ten IT Issues, 2013: Welcome to the Connected Age [Grajek]; and other items from the Educause Review Online

The Next Generation University [Selingo, Carey, Pennington, Fishman, & Palmer]

Will be interesting to see if the pathways to the CEO position expand a bit further…

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