Charting technology’s new directions: A conversation with MIT’s Erik Brynjolfsson — from mckinsey.com
A leading expert explores the new relationship between man and machine and the challenges that emerge when innovation is decoupled from growth in jobs and incomes.
On 04/04/2013,
in 21st century, business, change, economics, emerging technologies, global / globalization, innovation, internet, machine-to-machine communications, trends,
by Daniel Christian
The Internet of Things: When GE sees a $ trillion opportunity, you might want to take it seriously. — from thebln.com by Mark Littlewood
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— The link/posting above is from March 12, 2013
— The item below is from November 26, 2012
Some sample images:
On 03/22/2013,
in 21st century, Australia, business, Canada, corporate / business world, economics, Europe, future, global / globalization, graphics, sociology, United States, visualizing information,
by Daniel Christian
Visualizing the future urban world — from fastcoexist.com by Ariel Schwartz
A new app called Urban World beautifully projects how cities around the world are going to explode in growth and economic power by 2025.
Also see:
On 02/20/2013,
in business side of he, changing business models, cost of getting a degree, dangers of the status quo, Daniel S. Christian, economics, experimentation, future of higher education, game-changing environment, higher education, innovation, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, MOOCs -- Massive Open Online Courses, staying relevant, surviving,
by Daniel Christian
From DSC:
While I think MOOCs have a ways to go, I continue to support them because they are forcing higher ed to innovate and experiment more. But the conversation continues to move away from traditional higher ed, as the changes — especially the prices — aren’t changing fast enough.
Besides President Obama’s repeated promptings for higher to respond and to become more cost effective — as well as his mentioning that the U.S. Government will be pursuing new methods of accreditation if the current institutions of higher ed don’t respond more significantly — here is yet another example of the conversation moving away from traditional higher ed.
I wonder…
How small/large is the window of time before traditional higher ed is moved into the “Have you driven a Ford lately?” mode…? It seems that it’s much harder to get customers to come back once they’ve lost their trust/patience/belief/support/etc. in an organization or institution. As Ford has shown, it can be done, but my point is that there is danger in the status quo and broken business relationships can take a long time to heal — while opening up opportunities for others to step in (such as Toyota, Honda, and others in the case of the automotive industry).
Again, we see whether in higher ed, K-12, or in the corporate world, the key thing is to learn how to build one’s own learning ecosystem.
With thanks to Stephen Downes for mentioning the item below in his presentation here.
Other examples of the conversation moving away from traditional higher ed:
- Educating the Future: The End of Mediocrity –by Rob Bencini
Students facing uncertain future opportunities (but very certain debt loads) may increasingly turn away from private colleges and universities that offer little more than a diploma. Instead, they’ll seek more-affordable alternatives for higher education, both real and virtual.
- The Half-Life of a College Education — from futuristspeaker.com by Thomas Frey
Excerpt:
6.) Expanding number of long tails courses – In much the same way “hit” television shows attract millions of viewers while niche TV shows are proliferating, far more niche courses will be developed as traditional college gatekeepers get circumvented.
On 02/06/2013,
in 21st century, career development, change, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, dangers of the status quo, Daniel S. Christian, economics, emerging technologies, future, global / globalization, higher education, K-12 related, reinvent, robotics, social learning / networks, social media, society, streams of content, surviving, workplace,
by Daniel Christian
From DSC:
First, what prompted the questions and reflections that are listed below? For that, I turn to some recent items that I ran across involving the use of robotics and whether that may or may not be affecting employment:
The work of Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee; for example their book Race Against the Machine
Excerpt of description:
But digital innovation has also changed how the economic pie is distributed, and here the news is not good for the median worker. As technology races ahead, it can leave many people behind. Workers whose skills have been mastered by computers have less to offer the job market, and see their wages and prospects shrink. Entrepreneurial business models, new organizational structures and different institutions are needed to ensure that the average worker is not left behind by cutting-edge machines.
How to freak out responsibly about the rise of the robots — from theatlantic.com by Derek Thompson
It’s fun to imagine an economy where machines are smarter than humans. But we don’t need an artificial crisis over artificial intelligence.
Excerpt:
Let’s say it upfront: Technology can replace jobs and (at least temporarily) increase income inequality. From the spinning jenny to those massive mechanical arms flying wildly around car assembly lines, technology raises productivity by helping workers accomplish more in less time (i.e.: put a power drill in a human hand) and by replacing workers altogether (i.e.: build a power-drilling bot).
…
What ails us today isn’t a surplus of robots, but a deficit of demand. Yes, we have a manufacturing industry undergoing a sensational, but job-killing, productivity revolution — very much like the one that took farm employment from 40 percent in 1900 to less than 5 percent today. But the other nine-tenths of the economy are basically going through an old-fashioned weak-but-steady recovery, the kind that hundreds of years of financial crises would predict.
America has hit “peak jobs” — from techcrunch.com by Jon Evans
Excerpt:
“The middle class is being hollowed out,” says James Altucher. “Economists are shifting their attention toward a […] crisis in the United States: the significant increase in income inequality,” reports the New York Times.
Think all those job losses over the last five years were just caused by the recession? No: “Most of the jobs will never return, and millions more are likely to vanish as well, say experts who study the labor market,” according to an AP report on how technology is killing middle-class jobs.
Technology and the employment challenge — from project-syndicate.org by Michael Spence
Excerpt:
MILAN – New technologies of various kinds, together with globalization, are powerfully affecting the range of employment options for individuals in advanced and developing countries alike – and at various levels of education. Technological innovations are not only reducing the number of routine jobs, but also causing changes in global supply chains and networks that result in the relocation of routine jobs – and, increasingly, non-routine jobs at multiple skill levels – in the tradable sector of many economies.
Man vs. robot — from macleans.ca by Peter Nowak
.
.
Secondly, some reflections (from DSC)
I wonder…
- What types of jobs are opening up now? (example here)
- What types of jobs will be opening up soon? How about in 3-5 years from now?
- Should these trends affect the way we educate and prepare our kids today?
- Should these trends affect the way we help employees grow/reinvent themselves?
Again, for me, the answer lies at least partly in helping people consistently obtain the knowledge that they need — i.e. to help them build, grow, and maintain their own learning ecosystems — throughout their lifetimes. We need to help people dip their feet into the appropriate streams of content that are constantly flowing by.
Perhaps that’s one of the key new purposes that K-12, higher ed, and the corporate training departments out there will play in the future as they sift through the massive amounts of information coming at us to help individuals identify:
.
- What are the most effective tools — and methods — that people can use to connect with others?
(Then allow folks to pick what works best for them. Current examples: blogging/RSS feeds, Twitter, social bookmarking.)
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- Who are some of the folks within each particular discipline/line of work that others (who want to learn about those disciplines) should know about?
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- What trends are coming down the pike and how should we be preparing ourselves — and/or our organizations — for those changes?
.
On 02/05/2013,
in Apple, business, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, computer science, economics, Google, Microsoft, mobile learning, mobile technologies, platforms, programming, workplace,
by Daniel Christian
The new basis of competition and the superiority of ecosystem economics — from visionmobile.com by Michael Vakulenko
Also see:
The changing landscape of app discovery — from visionmobile.com by Andreas Pappas
.
Also see:
Also see the following infographic from
OnlinePhDPrograms.com
On 01/16/2013,
in economics, ethics, future, global / globalization, legislatures / government / legal, society, United States,
by Daniel Christian
From DSC:
My dad sent me a link to this piece by Bill Moyers called The ‘Crony Capitalist Blowout’. If you aren’t angry, sad, and/or depressed after watching it, you either don’t have a pulse or you run and live in the circles that Bill Moyers is talking about.
But before we become too discouraged with our situation here in the United States, take solace in one of the most dreaded verses in all of scripture — to be dreaded, at least, by those who:
- are arrogant, proud, and/or wicked
- think that the LORD doesn’t see or care what happens on the Earth
- think that they will never be held accountable for their actions
It’s from Psalm 73 (specifically verse 17) and it says:
…till I entered the sanctuary of God;
then I understood their final destiny.
In other words, there will be justice.
On 01/04/2013,
in corporate / business world, cost of getting a degree, dangers of the status quo, Daniel S. Christian, economics, higher education, society,
by Daniel Christian
Federal report highlights the economic case for higher education — from educause.edu by Jaret Cummings
Excerpt:
The U.S. Departments of The Treasury and Education recently announced the release of a joint report highlighting the economic value of higher education achievement for individuals and the country as a whole. Entitled The Economics of Higher Education, the report confirms the continuing importance of postsecondary success to economic progress, including key findings such as the following…
From DSC:
Much of this is great — no doubt about it! Now, the question is, how do we make higher education more accessible/affordable yet still maintain the quality? Along these lines, see:
After housing and the stock market, is higher education the next bubble to burst? — from forbes.com by Avi Dan
Excerpt:
Few industries today have a worse business model than higher learning institutions.
Simply put, colleges are slowly pricing themselves out of existence. Tuition has consistently increased faster than inflation and household income, to the point that it is now four times more expensive to attend college than it was a generation ago. The result is that the average college senior carries $25,000 in student loans at graduations. The debt can follow students around for years, sometimes to the end of time, literally: $36 billion in loan debt is held by people over 60-years old!
On 01/03/2013,
in business, Daniel S. Christian, economics, journalism, political science, society, United States, workplace,
by Daniel Christian
From DSC:
I’m not a political science expert and I won’t pretend to be one…but I did study economics and I don’t see what happened leading up to — and including — Tuesday night as any sort of victory or solid deal for America. Delaying the tough decisions is not helping us — the time will come when we have to pay the piper. Eventually, there will be pain. But will that pain start in 2013? I hope so. Because the longer the debt builds, the harder it will be to conquer it and the more pain we’ll need to get through (eventually). In fact, eventually 100% of our taxes will go towards just paying the interest on the debt if we follow the current trajectories. Printing more money won’t help the situation either, as inflation is likely to escalate at that point.
Backing up a bit…here are some resources on what happened on Tuesday night with the Fiscal Cliff in the United States:
- Obama signs bill warding off fiscal cliff — from CNN by Matt Smith
Cliff deal hollow victory for American people — from CNN by David Rothkopf (CEO and editor-at-large of the FP Group, publishers of Foreign Policy magazine and a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace)
Excerpt:
(CNN) — The last political drama of 2012 and the first one of 2013 suggest that if you love America, you might want to consider making your New Year’s resolution quitting whatever political party you belong to. The “fiscal cliff” debate and the last-minute deal it produced have so far resolved nothing except to show that our system is profoundly broken and that radical changes are needed to fix it.
. - Fiscal cliff was bound to collapse — from CNN by Gloria Borger
. - After the fiscal cliff: What comes next? — from macleans.ca and the AP
Excerpt:
By delaying painful decisions on spending cuts, the deal assures more confrontation and uncertainty, especially because Congress must reach agreement later this winter to raise the government’s debt limit. Many businesses are likely to remain wary of expanding or hiring in the meantime.
…
Bernard Baumohl, chief global economist for the Economic Outlook Group, thinks the lack of finality in the budget fight is slowing an otherwise fundamentally sound economy. “What a shame,” Baumohl said in a research note Wednesday. “Companies are eager to ramp up capital investments and boost hiring. Households are prepared to unleash five years of pent-up demand.”
. - 3 more fiscal cliffs loom — from CNN by Rich Barbieri
From DSC:
The media loves to divide. They hate to unite. Evidently, unity doesn’t pay the bills .
(BTW, to the remaining journalism majors out there — strive to build up and help our country, and try not to feed the flames of division just so that your organizations’ ratings go up. Watch whose agendas are truly being served and the verbiage you use. Unfortunately, as a Christian, I can’t say much for the church, as there are fractions throughout the church as well.)
Getting back to what’s on my mind…delaying the pain is just making the future pain all the worse. Let’s bite the bullet, compromise, work together, and go through the pain now rather than later. If we wait too long, our children will be paying the price for our ways.
As educators, it looks like we need to beef up those parts of the curriculum that deal with collaboration and creative compromise!
On 12/27/2012,
in budgets, business side of he, dangers of the status quo, Daniel S. Christian, economics, legislatures / government / legal, United States,
by Daniel Christian
From DSC:
One more straw is not what higher education needs in 2013…or is it?
On 12/17/2012,
in budgets, business side of he, changing business models, cost of getting a degree, dangers of the status quo, Daniel S. Christian, disruption, economics, education reform, experimentation, future of higher education, game-changing environment, leadership, legislatures / government / legal, new business models, staying relevant, strategy, student-related, surviving, United States,
by Daniel Christian
Combine the trends listed in this graphic:
.
— from The Economics of Higher Education, Dec 2012 (pg 2)
…with the next several graphics…
.
.
.
From 5/21/09
…and you can see that the Perfect Storm in Higher Ed has been amassed. Massive change is in the air. People will find a way to achieve their goals/objectives — one way or another. College is still a good call — but what “college” and “university life” will look like in 5 years will likely be very different from what they look like today.
There is no returning to the “good ol’ days” — things are not going back to the way they were 5-10 years ago. It’s time for massive — but controlled/intentional — experimentation within higher ed, to find out how best to use the Internet in order to promote learning (and, hopefully, to still make a living!).
.
Some examples that illustrate that change is in the air…and that the conversation continues to move outside traditional institutions of higher education (I mention these not to dog higher ed, but to get us to innovate, to reinvent ourselves, and to stay relevant!)
Big idea 2013: College becomes optional — from LinkedIn.com by Ben Smith
Jailbreaking the degree: The end of the 4 year diploma — from onlineuniversities.com by Justin Marquis
Excerpt:
What’s wrong with getting a college degree? According to the grassroots movement, “Jailbreaking the Degree,” being pushed by radical education startup Degreed.com, quite a bit. The organization has identified several fundamental flaws with the long standing college degree process. It aims to overcome them and dramatically change the nature of learning and credentialing in the process. In order to justify their initiative they present some dramatic numbers on their website…
Degreed wants to jailbreak the college degree — from techcrunch.com by Rip Empson
Saying no to college — NYT.com by Alex Williams
Do a Google search on uncollege.org and see what you get
The rise of college alternatives— from huffingtonpost.com by Dan Schawbel
educreations.com: Teach what you know. Learn what you don’t.
On 12/07/2012,
in 21st century, business, career development, changing business models, creativity, economics, entrepreneurship, experimentation, game-changing environment, generational differences, global / globalization, innovation, leadership, marketing/social marketing, participation, passions, real-world assignments, social learning / networks, social media, web-based collaboration, workplace,
by Daniel Christian
Also see the following items from Genius:
- The New Consumer Agenda:
From authentic collaboration to small indulgences … what consumers want in 2013 and beyond, and how brands are responding.
- Marketing Trends 2013+:
From black marketing to crowd creatives, brand gaming to urban formats, solomo and diffusion … what will be big in marketing in 2013
Additional notes from DSC:
- With thanks going out to Mr. Jim Woods (@hyperinnovation) on twitter for this resource
- The wave-related graphics above are very appropriate for our times — and I’d rather be surfing the waves then being crushed by them!
On 12/06/2012,
in disruption, economics, future, psychology, sociology, United States, workplace,
by Daniel Christian
The end of middle class growth: What it means for the future of work, family, and the economy — from theatlantic.com by Jonathan Rauch
There is no modern precedent for America’s stalled middle class — or for the double detachment from work and marriage among low-earning men. So, what do we do now?
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On 11/28/2012,
in 21st century, change, changing business models, dangers of the status quo, Daniel S. Christian, disruption, economics, experimentation, future of higher education, game-changing environment, higher education, innovation, leadership, new business models, reinvent, staying relevant, strategy, surviving, vision/possibilities,
by Daniel Christian
Excerpt:
With the public’s continued focus on value and affordability, higher education finds itself at a critical juncture. Cost pressures and increased global demand for access have given rise to innovations that have unleashed new delivery models into the education marketplace. Such innovation is required if universities are to thrive, compete, and bring new relevance and meaning to the value of college in the 21st century.
Also see:
- Americans believe higher education must innovate — from Northeastern News
- President: Witt must adapt to survive — from springfieldnewssun.com by Tom Stafford
Excerpt:
Liberal arts colleges that ignore market realities “absolutely won’t exist in the next decade,” Wittenberg University President Laurie M. Joyner told Springfield Rotarians on Monday. But the practical or applied liberal arts education that she predicts can sustain Wittenberg will encourage deeper connections with Springfield, she said while speaking at the Hollenbeck-Bayley Conference Center, because “our students learn better when dealing with real-world problems.” A shrinking pool of price-sensitive high school graduates has combined with a bad economy to produce “the equivalent of a perfect storm for some of us,” said Joyner, who succeeded Mark Erickson on July 1. - Surviving disruption — from hbr.og by Maxwell Wessel and Clayton M. Christensen
Excerpt:
…to meet disrupters with disruption of their own, but also to guide their legacy businesses toward as healthy a future as possible. - Sanjay Sarma appointed as MIT’s first director of digital learning — from MIT by Steve Bradt
Mechanical engineering professor will shepherd efforts to integrate elements of online education into traditional MIT courses.
From DSC:
Experimentation. Innovation. Experimentation. Innovation. Fail. Fail. Succeed. Fail. Succeed. Fail.