#DesignInTech Report 2016 — from kpcb.com
Some excerpted slides:
On 02/12/2016,
in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, Asia, business, Canada, change, changing business models, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, digital learning, Europe, global / globalization, India, leadership, new business models, new media literacies, organizational change, pace of change, social learning / networks, social media, society, strategy, technology (general), trends, UK, United States, vision/possibilities, workplace,
by 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:
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.
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:
On 01/13/2016,
in 21st century, adjunct faculty, colleges, community colleges, Daniel S. Christian, faculty, higher education, K-12 related, leadership, learning ecosystem, online learning, strategy, universities, vision/possibilities, workplace,
by Daniel Christian
Excerpt:
U.S. News assessed schools based on four general categories. Here is a look at each category and its weight in the current rankings formula. All weights are unchanged from 2015.
- Student engagement (40 percent): Quality bachelor’s degree programs promote participation in courses, allowing students opportunities to readily interact with their instructors and classmates, as is possible in a campus-based setting. In turn, instructors not only are accessible and responsive, but they also are tasked with helping to create an experience rewarding enough that students stay enrolled and complete their degrees in a reasonable amount of time.
- Faculty credentials and training (20 percent): Strong online programs employ instructors with academic credentials that mirror those of instructors for campus-based programs, and they have the resources to train these instructors on how to teach distance learners.
- Student services and technology (20 percent): Programs that incorporate diverse online learning technologies allow greater flexibility for students to take classes from a distance. Outside of classes, strong support structures provide learning assistance, career guidance and financial aid resources commensurate with quality campus-based programs.
- Peer reputation (20 percent): A survey of high-ranking academic officials helps account for intangible factors affecting program quality that are not captured by statistics. Also, degrees from programs that are well respected by academics may be held in higher regard among employers.
From DSC:
I’m not a huge fan of college/university ranking systems and programs. However, I post this in order to say “Congratulations!” to these programs on the work they have been doing — the faculty, staff, administration, and students. Nice work to you all!
These programs most certainly are helping students prepare for the future that these students will be inheriting. Students will need to be able to learn online — that will be a key ingredient/component in their learning ecosystems. In fact, it should be a requirement for every single college graduate in this country to take at least 1 course online. Many states are already doing this type of thing with high school graduation requirements — requiring students to take at least 1 online course in order to graduate from high school. If we truly cared about our students and their futures, this would be a requirement within higher education as well.
On 01/11/2016,
in 21st century, business, career development, change, changing business models, communications, corporate / business world, creativity, design, strategy, trends, usability, user experience (UX), user interface design,
by Daniel Christian
The next phase of UX: Designing chatbot personalities — from fastcodesign.com by
When the conversation is the interface, experience design is all about crafting the right words.
Excerpt:
You may have heard that “conversational interfaces” are the new hotness in digital product design. Why open and close a bunch of apps on your phone to get stuff done when you can invoke a text-message-like window and just say what you want done to a chatbot? Well, here’s one reason: what if the bot is annoying or tedious to talk to? In conversational UIs, personality is the new UX.
Five ways businesses need to rethink UX in 2016 — from information-age.com by Chloe Green
How can businesses keep pace with customer expectations of their online experiences? Digital technologies are evolving fast, and with them user experience expectations.
Excerpt:
In today’s technology-driven world, the task of keeping customers happy is a constantly moving target. Not least because customer expectations of their digital interactions with a business are continually evolving.
Therefore, keeping pace with the changing expectations that customers have of their online user experience (UX), has never been more important.
Yet even digitally savvy organisations may not yet be prepared to make the necessary UX improvements to ensure they are meeting changing customer expectations in 2016. So, what are the five considerations that must be made to enable businesses to keep pace with customer expectations of their online experiences?
…
“Once the things in the IoT are connected and given a voice, they become more than just ‘things.’ They become part of a living experience shaped by interactions among people, places, and objects, among product, nature, and life,” said Olivier Ribet, VP of High Tech for Dassault Systemes. “They become contributors to what beckons just beyond the IoT: the Internet of Experiences. Earning a piece of the Internet of Experiences requires a higher level of strategic thinking-or Experience Thinking-but the returns promise to be higher as well.”
…
“Once the things in the IoT are connected and given a voice, they become more than just ‘things.’ They become part of a living experience shaped by interactions among people, places, and objects, among product, nature, and life,” said Olivier Ribet, VP of High Tech for Dassault Systemes. “They become contributors to what beckons just beyond the IoT: the Internet of Experiences. Earning a piece of the Internet of Experiences requires a higher level of strategic thinking-or Experience Thinking-but the returns promise to be higher as well.”
How the Internet of Things changes traditional design and user experience — from huffingtonpost by Phil Simon
Excerpt:
Make no mistake: Design is no longer an afterthought at progressive organizations. Companies are hiring highly paid user-experience experts en masse–a trend that will only intensify as the Internet of Things (IoT) arrives.
Web design trends: 6 designs to end 2015 — from webimp.com.sg
Be careful about these 6 web design trends in 2016 — from awwwards.com
Are Hamburger Menus, Parallax Scrolling and Complex Typography a help or a hindrance?
Excerpt:
Trends in web design, like fashion trends, come and go. Sometimes trends are dictated by necessity (like responsive design). Other trends are industry shifts, such as the change from skeuomorphism to flat design.
The decision to follow a trend must depend on the needs of your users and your business. The decision should never be based solely on “it’s what the cool sites are doing”. Fads fade. A site built only on trends quickly becomes out of date.
With that in mind, let’s look at the design trends that you might want to think twice about using.
Top web design trends for 2016 — from creativebloq.com
We round up the hottest web design trends set to dominate 2016.
Excerpt:
Just like any other field of design, web design trends come and go with the passing of time. Unlike many other fields, however, web design has a relentless driver to change: technology. Because the basis of the platform is ever changing, some of the trends in design for the web are as a result of improvements to what’s possible as much as a reflection on changing taste.
2015 has been an interesting year in terms of web design. The visual landscape for web designers has remained largely as it was in 2014, with only a refinement of the minimalist approach that has become popular over the past few years. Underneath the aesthetic treatment of pages, however, the web has been quietly progressing.
Addendums:
- The Most Important Design Jobs Of The Future — from fastcodesign.com
Designers at Google, Microsoft, Autodesk, Ideo, Artefact, Teague, Lunar, Huge, New Deal, and fuseproject predict 18 new design jobs.
Excerpt:
Here are 18 of the most important design jobs of the future, as identified by the men and women who will no doubt do much of the hiring. Most looked three to five years out, but some peered farther into the future (see: organ designer). - 10 reasons to get excited about design in 2016 — from thenextweb.com
Excerpt:
It’s become more and more apparent that the number of screens with which designs must interact as well as the number of users is only going to grow. What’s more, the growth seems to be exponential. Equally compelling is the number of intersecting technologies for which a designer must prepare.Simply put, the challenges have never been greater, nor the solutions more complex.With such adversity comes inevitable excitement. To further enumerate the trends and techniques that are just starting to inspire widespread awe, we present to you this decennial diatribe: the top 10 reasons it’s going to be exciting to be a designer in 2016.
On 11/19/2015,
in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, analytics, Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning / Deep Learning / Algorithms, Asia, Augmented Reality (AR), Australia, business, Canada, change, communities of practice, computer science, Daniel S. Christian, ethics, Europe, future, game-changing environment, global / globalization, hearts -- matters of the heart, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, India, leadership, legislatures / government / legal, machine-to-machine communications, morals/values, Near Field Communication (NFC), pace of change, policy, political science, programming, psychology, real-world assignments, relationships, robotics, society, sociology, strategy, surviving, technology (general), the downsides of how people use tech, trends, UK, United States, Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, workplace,
by Daniel Christian
From DSC:
This posting is meant to surface the need for debates/discussions, new policy decisions, and for taking the time to seriously reflect upon what type of future that we want. Given the pace of technological change, we need to be constantly asking ourselves what kind of future we want and then to be actively creating that future — instead of just letting things happen because they can happen. (i.e., just because something can be done doesn’t mean it should be done.)
Gerd Leonhard’s work is relevant here. In the resource immediately below, Gerd asserts:
I believe we urgently need to start debating and crafting a global Digital Ethics Treaty. This would delineate what is and is not acceptable under different circumstances and conditions, and specify who would be in charge of monitoring digressions and aberrations.
I am also including some other relevant items here that bear witness to the increasingly rapid speed at which we’re moving now.
Redefining the relationship of man and machine: here is my narrated chapter from the ‘The Future of Business’ book (video, audio and pdf) — from futuristgerd.com by Gerd Leonhard
.
Robot revolution: rise of ‘thinking’ machines could exacerbate inequality — from theguardian.com by Heather Stewart
Global economy will be transformed over next 20 years at risk of growing inequality, say analysts
Excerpt (emphasis DSC):
A “robot revolution” will transform the global economy over the next 20 years, cutting the costs of doing business but exacerbating social inequality, as machines take over everything from caring for the elderly to flipping burgers, according to a new study.
As well as robots performing manual jobs, such as hoovering the living room or assembling machine parts, the development of artificial intelligence means computers are increasingly able to “think”, performing analytical tasks once seen as requiring human judgment.
In a 300-page report, revealed exclusively to the Guardian, analysts from investment bank Bank of America Merrill Lynch draw on the latest research to outline the impact of what they regard as a fourth industrial revolution, after steam, mass production and electronics.
“We are facing a paradigm shift which will change the way we live and work,” the authors say. “The pace of disruptive technological innovation has gone from linear to parabolic in recent years. Penetration of robots and artificial intelligence has hit every industry sector, and has become an integral part of our daily lives.”
First genetically modified humans could exist within two years — from telegraph.co.uk by Sarah Knapton
Biotech company Editas Medicine is planning to start human trials to genetically edit genes and reverse blindness
Excerpt:
Humans who have had their DNA genetically modified could exist within two years after a private biotech company announced plans to start the first trials into a ground-breaking new technique.
Editas Medicine, which is based in the US, said it plans to become the first lab in the world to ‘genetically edit’ the DNA of patients suffering from a genetic condition – in this case the blinding disorder ‘leber congenital amaurosis’.
Gartner predicts our digital future — from gartner.com by Heather Levy
Gartner’s Top 10 Predictions herald what it means to be human in a digital world.
Excerpt:
Here’s a scene from our digital future: You sit down to dinner at a restaurant where your server was selected by a “robo-boss” based on an optimized match of personality and interaction profile, and the angle at which he presents your plate, or how quickly he smiles can be evaluated for further review. Or, perhaps you walk into a store to try on clothes and ask the digital customer assistant embedded in the mirror to recommend an outfit in your size, in stock and on sale. Afterwards, you simply tell it to bill you from your mobile and skip the checkout line.
These scenarios describe two predictions in what will be an algorithmic and smart machine driven world where people and machines must define harmonious relationships. In his session at Gartner Symposium/ITxpo 2016 in Orlando, Daryl Plummer, vice president, distinguished analyst and Gartner Fellow, discussed how Gartner’s Top Predictions begin to separate us from the mere notion of technology adoption and draw us more deeply into issues surrounding what it means to be human in a digital world.
Univ. of Washington faculty study legal, social complexities of augmented reality — from phys.org
Excerpt:
But augmented reality will also bring challenges for law, public policy and privacy, especially pertaining to how information is collected and displayed. Issues regarding surveillance and privacy, free speech, safety, intellectual property and distraction—as well as potential discrimination—are bound to follow.
The Tech Policy Lab brings together faculty and students from the School of Law, Information School and Computer Science & Engineering Department and other campus units to think through issues of technology policy. “Augmented Reality: A Technology and Policy Primer” is the lab’s first official white paper aimed at a policy audience. The paper is based in part on research presented at the 2015 International Joint Conference on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing, or UbiComp conference.
Along these same lines, also see:
- Augmented Reality: Figuring Out Where the Law Fits — from rdmag.com by Greg Watry
Excerpt:
With AR comes potential issues the authors divide into two categories. “The first is collection, referring to the capacity of AR to record, or at least register, the people and places around the user. Collection raises obvious issues of privacy but also less obvious issues of free speech and accountability,” the researchers write. The second issue is display, which “raises a variety of complex issues ranging from possible tort liability should the introduction or withdrawal of information lead to injury, to issues surrounding employment discrimination or racial profiling.”Current privacy law in the U.S. allows video and audio recording in areas that “do not attract an objectively reasonable expectation of privacy,” says Newell. Further, many uses of AR would be covered under the First Amendment right to record audio and video, especially in public spaces. However, as AR increasingly becomes more mobile, “it has the potential to record inconspicuously in a variety of private or more intimate settings, and I think these possibilities are already straining current privacy law in the U.S.,” says Newell.
Stuart Russell on Why Moral Philosophy Will Be Big Business in Tech — from kqed.org by
Excerpt (emphasis DSC):
Our first Big Think comes from Stuart Russell. He’s a computer science professor at UC Berkeley and a world-renowned expert in artificial intelligence. His Big Think?
“In the future, moral philosophy will be a key industry sector,” says Russell.
Translation? In the future, the nature of human values and the process by which we make moral decisions will be big business in tech.
Life, enhanced: UW professors study legal, social complexities of an augmented reality future — from washington.edu by Peter Kelley
Excerpt:
But augmented reality will also bring challenges for law, public policy and privacy, especially pertaining to how information is collected and displayed. Issues regarding surveillance and privacy, free speech, safety, intellectual property and distraction — as well as potential discrimination — are bound to follow.
An excerpt from:
THREE: CHALLENGES FOR LAW AND POLICY
AR systems change human experience and, consequently, stand to challenge certain assumptions of law and policy. The issues AR systems raise may be divided into roughly two categories. The first is collection, referring to the capacity of AR devices to record, or at least register, the people and places around the user. Collection raises obvious issues of privacy but also less obvious issues of free speech and accountability. The second rough category is display, referring to the capacity of AR to overlay information over people and places in something like real-time. Display raises a variety of complex issues ranging from
possible tort liability should the introduction or withdrawal of information lead to injury, to issues surrounding employment discrimination or racial profiling. Policymakers and stakeholders interested in AR should consider what these issues mean for them. Issues related to the collection of information include…
HR tech is getting weird, and here’s why — from hrmorning.com by guest poster Julia Scavicchio
Excerpt (emphasis DSC):
Technology has progressed to the point where it’s possible for HR to learn almost everything there is to know about employees — from what they’re doing moment-to-moment at work to what they’re doing on their off hours. Guest poster Julia Scavicchio takes a long hard look at the legal and ethical implications of these new investigative tools.
Why on Earth does HR need all this data? The answer is simple — HR is not on Earth, it’s in the cloud.
The department transcends traditional roles when data enters the picture.
Many ethical questions posed through technology easily come and go because they seem out of this world.
18 AI researchers reveal the most impressive thing they’ve ever seen — from businessinsider.com by Guia Marie Del Prado,
Excerpt:
Where will these technologies take us next? Well to know that we should determine what’s the best of the best now. Tech Insider talked to 18 AI researchers, roboticists, and computer scientists to see what real-life AI impresses them the most.
…
“The DeepMind system starts completely from scratch, so it is essentially just waking up, seeing the screen of a video game and then it works out how to play the video game to a superhuman level, and it does that for about 30 different video games. That’s both impressive and scary in the sense that if a human baby was born and by the evening of its first day was already beating human beings at video games, you’d be terrified.”
Algorithmic Economy: Powering the Machine-to-Machine Age Economic Revolution — from formtek.com by Dick Weisinger
Excerpts:
As technology advances, we are becoming increasingly dependent on algorithms for everything in our lives. Algorithms that can solve our daily problems and tasks will do things like drive vehicles, control drone flight, and order supplies when they run low. Algorithms are defining the future of business and even our everyday lives.
…
Sondergaard said that “in 2020, consumers won’t be using apps on their devices; in fact, they will have forgotten about apps. They will rely on virtual assistants in the cloud, things they trust. The post-app era is coming. The algorithmic economy will power the next economic revolution in the machine-to-machine age. Organizations will be valued, not just on their big data, but on the algorithms that turn that data into actions that ultimately impact customers.”
Related items:
- Toyota, Tesla or Google: who’s spending the most on artificial intelligence in the car industry? — from techworld.com by Margi Murphy
Which businesses are investing in artificial intelligence? Read how artificial intelligence will change the car industry, and other sectors, as we know it. - Toyota Invests $1 Billion In Artificial Intelligence In US — from wtvox.com / Associated Press
- Top 10 Emerging Technologies That Could Transform Our Future — from wtvox.com by E Aston
- What Technology Will Look Like In Five Years — from techcrunch.com by Diomedes Kastanis
- Welcome To Brain Science’s Next Frontier: Virtual Reality — from fastcompany.com by Tina Amirtha
Amy Robinson, executive director at the startup EyeWire, is making neuroscience into a playground for the hot tech du jour.
Addendums:
- ABI Research Shows Augmented Reality on the Rise with Total Market Worth to Reach $100 Billion by 2020 — from abiresearch.com
- ‘Self-Driving Cars Will Dominate the Roads by 2030,’ Says Internet of Things Visionary — from coinspeaker.com by
- Robots are learning to say “no” to human orders — from quartz.com by Kit Eaton
Excerpt:
It may seem an obvious idea that a robot should do precisely what a human orders it to do at all times. But researchers in Massachusetts are trying something that many a science fiction movie has already anticipated: They’re teaching robots to say “no” to some instructions. For robots wielding potentially dangerous-to-humans tools on a car production line, it’s pretty clear that the robot should always precisely follow its programming. But we’re building more-clever robots every day and we’re giving them the power to decide what to do all by themselves. This leads to a tricky issue: How exactly do you program a robot to think through its orders and overrule them if it decides they’re wrong or dangerous to either a human or itself? This is what researchers at Tufts University’s Human-Robot Interaction Lab are tackling, and they’ve come up with at least one strategy for intelligently rejecting human orders.
Addendum on 12/14/15:
- Algorithms rule our lives, so who should rule them? — from qz.com by Dries Buytaert
As technology advances and more everyday objects are driven almost entirely by software, it’s become clear that we need a better way to catch cheating software and keep people safe.
On 10/07/2015,
in 21st century, analytics, Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning / Deep Learning / Algorithms, business, corporate / business world, data related items, future, human-computer interaction (HCI), internet, strategy, trends, workplace,
by Daniel Christian
Gartner: Top 10 strategic technology trends for 2016 — from forbes.com by Peter High
Excerpts:
1. The Device Mesh
2. Ambient User Experience
3. 3D-printing Materials
4. Information of Everything
5. Advanced Machine Learning
6. Autonomous Agents and Things
7. Adaptive Security Architecture
8. Advanced Customer Architecture
9. Mesh App and Service Architecture
10. Internet of Things Architecture and Platforms
Also see:
On 10/02/2015,
in Bring your own device (BYOD), career development, collaboration, communications, corporate / business world, creativity, curriculum, digital learning, education technology, engagement / engaging students, expectations, higher education, innovation, leadership, new media literacies, strategy, student-related, UK, vision/possibilities, web-based collaboration, workplace,
by Daniel Christian
Enhancing the student digital experience: a strategic approach — from jisc.ac.uk
Supporting institutions to develop digital environments which meet students’ expectations and help them to progress to higher study and employment
Excerpts:
- How are you responding to the changing digital needs and expectations of your students and staff?
- Do the experiences and the digital environment you offer to your students adequately prepare them to flourish in a society that relies heavily on digital technologies?
- What are you doing to engage students in dialogue about digital issues and to work collaboratively with them to enhance their digital learning experience?
- How well is the digital vision for your establishment embedded in institutional policies and strategies?
Contents
Context
Deliver a relevant digital curriculum
Deliver a relevant digital curriculum: make a difference in your organisation
Further resources for delivering a relevant digital curriculum
Deliver an inclusive digital student experience
Inclusive digital experience: make a difference in your organisation
Further resources for inclusive digital experience delivery
Deliver a robust, flexible, digital environment
Robust digital environment: make a difference in your organisation
Further resources for delivering a robust digital environment
Engage in dialogue with students about their digital experience and empower them to develop their digital environment
Students’ digital environment development: make a difference in your organisation
Further resources for students’ digital environment development
Develop coherent ‘bring your own’ policies
‘Bring your own’ policies: make a difference in your organisation
Further resources for ‘bring your own’ policies development
Support students and staff to work successfully with digital technologies
Digital technologies support: make a difference in your organisation
Further resources for supporting staff and students with digital technologies
Take a strategic approach to developing the student digital experience
A strategic approach to student digital experience: make a difference in your organisation
Further resources for taking a strategic approach to student digital experience development
Summary
With so many competing pressures educational leaders do not always recognise the strategic and operational importance of digital technology or realise the potential transformative effect this could have on their institutions, the wider sector, employers and society.
On 08/07/2015,
in 21st century, change, changing business models, colleges, community colleges, competency-based learning/education, cost of getting a degree, dangers of the status quo, Daniel S. Christian, disruption, future of higher education, game-changing environment, higher education, ideas, innovation, leadership, learning, learning ecosystem, lifelong learning, New "Amazon.com" of Higher Education, new business models, organizational change, reinvent, staying relevant, strategy, surviving, trends, United States, universities,
by Daniel Christian
White House: Innovation in Higher Education — from elearnspace.org by George Siemens
Excerpt from George’s posting (emphasis DSC):
A few weeks ago, I received an invitation to the White House. The invitation was somewhat cryptic, but basically stated that the focus on the meeting was on quality and innovation.
…
2. Higher education generally has no clue about what’s brewing in the marketplace as a whole. The change pressures that exist now are not ones that the existing higher education model can ignore. The trends – competency-based learning, unbundling, startups & capital inflow, new pedagogical models, technology, etc – will change higher education dramatically.
3. No one knows what HE is becoming. Forget the think tanks and the consultants and the keynote speakers. No one knows how these trends will track or what the university will look like in the future. This unknowability stems from HE being a complex systems with many interacting elements. We can’t yet see how these will connect and inter-relate going forward. The best strategy in a time of uncertainty is not to seek or force the way forward, but to enter a cycle of experimentation. The Cynefin Framework provides the best guidance that I’ve seen on how to function in our current context.
…
7. Expect a future of far greater corporate involvement in HE. VC funds are flowing aggressively and these funders are also targeting policy change at local, state, and national levels. We aren’t used to this level of lobbying and faculty is unprepared to respond to this. Expect it. Your next faculty meeting will involve a new student success system, a personalized learning system, an analytics system, a new integrated bootcamp model, new competency software, new cloud-based computing systems, and so on. Expect it. It’s coming.
8. Expect M & A activities in higher education. I fully anticipate some combination of partnering with companies like General Assembly, creation of in-house bootcamps, or outright acquisitions by innovative universities.
Higher Education is moving from a 4 year relationship to students to a 40 year relationship.
From DSC:
[First of all, if you read this George, thanks for sharing your experiences, reflections, and recommendations from your recent trip to the White House. I/we appreciate it.]
I can’t agree with — and emphasize — George’s second point (above) strongly enough. Too often, I think we have our heads and eyes pointed downward, busy in our work; we fail to look up and see what’s happening all around us. We neglect to see the trends that are occurring and that will likely have an impact on us. If we were doing this, as we should be doing, several of our priorities would instantly change and there would be a much stronger sense of urgency in identifying some new directions/strategic initiatives/experiments within institutions of traditional higher education.
I don’t see our institutions competing with our typical/normal peer groups of the past. More and more, I think that we are competing with the new models, startups, and alternatives to traditional higher education. Yes, traditional institutions of higher education can respond and change — some have been doing so already. But how many of our institutions within the overall learning ecosystems are not experimenting? How many of our institutions have their heads buried in the sand, waiting for the good old days to return? Those days are not going to return. They’re gone. That ride is over. We need to wake up and adapt before the alternatives gain momentum (perhaps even borrowing some strategies from the alternatives, hmm?).
This is why I’m big on experimentation and the implementation of TrimTab Groups within higher education.
Finally, you may not like the word “disruption” and you may think it’s overused. But I don’t think we’ve seen anything yet.
As George warns in his posting, there are dramatic changes to higher education coming down the pike. George is not one to hype things up — he is a level-headed deep thinker. I’d suggest that we listen to what he’s saying to us via his experiences and reflections from participating in his recent meetings/conversations held at the White House.
On 07/15/2015,
in business, corporate / business world, disruption, innovation, IT in HE, leadership, strategy, vision/possibilities, workplace,
by Daniel Christian
Don’t get Ubered: Be an instigator of digital disruption — from by Minda Zetlin
Excerpts (emphasis DSC):
It’s a common complaint from business leaders: IT takes too long to give us what we need. Not only is creating impatience in business leaders bad for a CIO’s reputation, it also leads to growth in “shadow” or “rogue” IT, as frustrated business leaders seek a more immediate solution. The answer is for IT to speed up its work, but that’s a tall order for many, who already feel they’re moving as fast as they can and then some.
In an interview with The Enterprisers Project, Emmet B. Keeffe, CEO of the software visualization company iRise, explains how technology leaders can and must speed up their projects.
…
Keeffe: Don’t settle for a seat at the table. Every CIO faces his or her own challenges, but one thing we’ve been hearing for something like a decade is business and IT alignment and getting a seat at the table. But at this stage of the game, when software and the Internet define most businesses to their users, being at the table isn’t enough. CIOs need to be calling the business to the table, and presenting innovative ways to thrive.
Rise recently held a CIO event in New York, and though it wasn’t explicitly on the agenda, the one thing every participant talked about was disruption and the potential for startups to Uber them with a new digital business model, or for established competitors to beat them to a new digitally driven punch. They were focused on what was going on in the competitive landscape, figuring out how to act immediately on opportunity, and how to make sure their business leaders were listening.
So if there are any CIOs left out there still calling alignment a job well-done, my advice would be to keep pushing to a higher level, instigating strategic change rather than only falling in line with it.
On 06/26/2015,
in 21st century, change, changing business models, corporate / business world, dangers of the status quo, Daniel S. Christian, disruption, emerging technologies, entrepreneurship, experimentation, higher education, ideas, innovation, leadership, mobile technologies, organizational change, pace of change, strategy, technology (general), trends, vision/possibilities,
by Daniel Christian
From DSC:
The article below relates well to this graphic from sparks & honey.
NOTE:
Higher education is included in this discussion. If we think that we’re not included — and the other forces continue that are putting the heat in higher ed’s kitchen — it’s highly likely that other forms and channels of learning will fill the voids and gaps in what people are looking for and are willing to pay for.
How the new economy is changing the workplace, part II — from workdesign.com by Bob Fox; also see part I and part III
Excerpts:
Change is a constant, but when the speed of change increases it becomes a much different animal. Incremental business improvements are much easier to manage, and are a necessary part of all businesses. We tend to think linearly, so disruptive change is the real risk. The challenge with disruptive change is that it is often unpredictable and it generally conflicts with the core competency of a business. What’s more, it can come from other industries.
…
While disruptive change and innovation are likely the cause, it’s the inability of most businesses to deal with or react to those challenges over time that’s the death knell. We think tomorrow will be just like today, and we don’t have the workspaces to effectively share, question, and iterate ideas and leverage innovation to sustain our organizations through tough challenges.
There is a widespread human tendency, with which we are all of us familiar, that can be simply expressed as the “kink” in the curve where the past meets the future. The exponential line of human technological progress, long driven by information and for the past generation by the power of the chip, is kinked. It is kinked, inevitably, at the present. — Nigel Cameron
If I had told you 15 years ago that in the future you would have a device that you could carry in your pocket where you can get your mail, make a video call, carry thousands of your favorite songs, take pictures and videos and share them, check the stock market in real time, get the latest headlines immediately, get directions instantly to wherever you wanted to go, make a dinner or hotel reservation, invite your friends and that all of it would be essentially free, you would have thought I was some kind of nut. But look at us now.
From DSC:
For institutions of higher education, we need to be able to experiment…to fail…to succeed….to iterate until we find out what’s working and what’s not working. We need more innovative cultures. We need more Trimtab Groups.
For K-12 and higher education, we need to teach our kids how to run their own businesses…as it’s highly likely they will be a part of the contingent workforce at some point(s) in their lifetimes.
Also related/see:
- The Digital Vortex, where disruption is constant and innovation rules — from blogs.cisco.com by Joseph Bradley
Excerpt (emphasis DSC):
Given the breakneck pace of technology change, business leaders can be forgiven for feeling as if they are living in a vortex. That’s because, in many ways, they are.In a real vortex, rotational forces draw everything to the center, where objects collide and combine in unpredictable ways. To me, that sounds like business as usual in the Internet of Everything (IoE) era.The Digital Vortex is the inevitable movement of industries toward a “digital center” in which business models, offerings, and value chains are digitized to the maximum extent possible. The result is “components” that can be readily combined to create new disruptions that blur the lines between industries.
The results help to clarify digital disruption and how business leaders view it. Here are some key findings:
- Disruption Looms… Four of today’s top 10 incumbents (in terms of market share) in each industry will be displaced by digital disruption in the next five years. The threat extends not only to displacement of big companies, but also to the very existence of entire industries.
- …As Executives “Wait and See.” Digital disruption has not received board-level attention in about 45 percent of companies (on average across industries). Moreover, 43 percent of companies either do not acknowledge the risk of digital disruption, or have not addressed it sufficiently. Nearly a third are taking a “wait and see” approach. Only 25 percent describe their response to digital disruption as proactive.
- In the Digital Vortex, No Safe Haven. The industry that will experience the most digital disruption between now and 2020 is technology products and services. Pharmaceuticals, meanwhile, is likely to experience the least amount of digital disruption. However, all industries will see competitive upheavals as innovations become increasingly exponential.
- Disrupt, or Be Disrupted. Based on their ranking and placement within the Digital Vortex, firms can evaluate the speed at which their industry will experience disruption. They then can choose to “disrupt themselves” or potentially be displaced by a new business model.