strategy

The future of work
There’s an app for that — from economist.com
Freelance workers available at a moment’s notice will reshape the nature of companies and the structure of careers

Excerpt:

HANDY is creating a big business out of small jobs. The company finds its customers self-employed home-helps available in the right place and at the right time. All the householder needs is a credit card and a phone equipped with Handy’s app, and everything from spring cleaning to flat-pack-furniture assembly gets taken care of by “service pros” who earn an average of $18 an hour.
…
Handy is one of a large number of startups built around systems which match jobs with independent contractors on the fly, and thus supply labour and services on demand.
…
The obvious inspiration for all this is Uber, a car service which was founded in San Francisco in 2009 and which already operates in 53 countries; insiders say it will have sales of more than $1 billion in 2014.
…
This boom marks a striking new stage in a deeper transformation. Using the now ubiquitous platform of the smartphone to deliver labour and services in a variety of new ways will challenge many of the fundamental assumptions of 20th-century capitalism, from the nature of the firm to the structure of careers.
…
The on-demand economy will inevitably exacerbate the trend towards enforced self-reliance that has been gathering pace since the 1970s. Workers who want to progress will have to keep their formal skills up to date, rather than relying on the firm to train them (or to push them up the ladder regardless). This means accepting challenging assignments or, if they are locked in a more routine job, taking responsibility for educating themselves. They will also have to learn how to drum up new business and make decisions between spending and investment.

Also see:

Professional Millennials and super-powered smartphones are changing the working world — from medium.com and Liquid Talent

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

This is the year when modern technology squarely intersects with the economy and the workforce. This is the the year that marks a noted change in how we work as individuals, and as a collective. This is the year of the Millennial Generation takeover in our professional world. This is the year that marks the beginning of the Independent Workforce Revolution.

Why?

Two reasons:

1) Millennials take over
Millennials are the largest generation at 82 million strong. They do not have the same priorities as past generations and their professional incentives are quickly changing. They care less about maximizing profit, finding a secure job and taking 2.5 weeks of vacay. In fact, 54% of Millennials assert that they want to start a company one day, or already have. This generation is now 50% of the workforce, and will be 75% of the workforce by 2020. These percentages may seem staggering but with 10,000 Baby Boomers retiring everyday (every single day!) we can see this tectonic shift happening before our very eyes.
2) Mobile technology
We have our economies in our pocket. We can work anytime from anywhere, and source professional opportunities with a simple swipe. The proliferation of mobile productivity apps (ie Slack), globalized workforce platforms (ie eLance) and professional networks (ie LinkedIn) show the power and growth in professional, mobile technologies.

From DSC:
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again to those of us working in K-12 and in higher education:

We need to be sure that we’re preparing our students to know how to run their own businesses. They need to know how to survive and thrive as freelancers — because chances are they will be freelancing at various points in their career. Our curricula should already be in the process of being updated to address these critical skills. More courses on entrepreneurship for example; also some basic accounting courses as well as coursework involving programming, brainstorming, marketing, and how to use various technologies to collaborate, stay organized, and manage one’s time.

The above items also stress the need for lifelong, accessible/affordable learning; and for constant adaptation and for reinventing oneself in order to remain marketable in the workplace.

Addendum on 2/18/15:

New tech companies say freelancing is the future of work. But there’s a downside for workers. — from washingtonpost.com by Lydia DePillis
More companies are switching their workforce to freelance. Policy needs to catch up.

Excerpt:

If the nation’s way of regulating work revolves around a relationship between an employee and employer, what happens when that relationship no longer exists?

Is this the online learning model of the future? — from ecampusnews.com by Rony Zarom
Flex class options are seeing spikes in enrollment among Gen C students; here’s how to get started.

Excerpt:

“Flex-classes,” a preferred learning style among Gen Cs that offers “flex-attendance“ options to join classes “in-person” or “online” throughout the duration of a course, allowing students to more efficiently, and affordably, learn anytime, anywhere.

In fact, if the current enrollment growth rate continues, nearly half of all college students will be enrolled in a flexible online learning course by 2020.

Based on a cross-generational commonality to stay digitally connected and plugged into mobile devices, these two generations expect more accessible, technology-forward learning environments that give them the flexibility, mobility and freedom to learn when and where they want.

…

One of the biggest weather deterrents that disrupts student attendance and educators’ lesson plans is snow days, and thanks to virtual flex-class options, snow day disruptions may be coming to an end for good.

Schools around the country have been implementing flex-classes to allow students the option to join classes online on days they can’t make it to school, instead of making up the lost days at another time and often dipping deep into summer vacations. Students can tune in to their classrooms via mobile device or tablet to complete their learning initiatives for the day. The snow day approach is a realistic option for institutions looking to test the effectiveness of flex-class implementation.

From DSC:
This is an interesting approach. What I like about it is that it provides more choice and more control for the student.

What I wonder about is how would this type of learning environment impact the pedagogies that a professor would need to employ…? Or are we not that far along here yet? That is, how does one simultaneously offer a productive online learning experience as well as an effective face-to-face learning experience?

Also, on a slight tangent here from this model…
I’ve been wondering about whether remote students could effectively/simultaneously come into a face-to-face classroom setting — and I think the answer is yes. As with the corporate world, teams are scattered throughout a nation or from various places throughout the globe — and yet work gets done. Projects get done. Collaboration happens. Learning happens.

Some institutions, including the college where I work at, are experimenting with using telepresence robots to bring in those remote students. The version 2.0’s and above of these robots may be an option. However, I’m wondering if a better option might be available if a vendor could morph something like Cisco’s StadiumVision into an educational setting…? That is, provide 3-4 camera angles/perspectives per classroom and let the remote learners switch between viewing angles on their end of things…? Such as setup would be very interesting to experiment with.

Also, in regards to learning spaces, should one wall be dedicated to bringing in remote students? That is, one of the walls could display who all is coming into a classroom remotely so that they could be a part of the discussions and so that the F2F students could see and interact w/ those remote students.

Finally, might these ideas dovetail into the idea of providing learning hubs — where Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) could be synchronously or asynchronously presenting information (in a digital/virtual manner) and leading a discussion for those who are seated and learning together in a physical setting?

From DSC:
It seems like there’s been an increase in the number of “boot camps” that I’m seeing — below are some examples:

.

New MOOC Platform Provides Free IT Certification Courses — from campustechnology.com by Rhea Kelly

People offering their own bootcamps / building their own brands; such as this Two Week Web Development Bootcamp for Beginners by Adam Stanford.

Some other approaches that are occurring:

Ideo U

Yieldr Academy

Lessons Go Where

ClassDo

Udemy

C-Suite TV.com

Simon & Schuster to sell online courses taught by popular authors — from nytimes.com by Alexandra Alter; with thanks to Sidneyeve Matrix for her Tweet on this

Excerpt:

Simon & Schuster is making a push into paid online video, with a new website offering online courses from popular health, finance and self-help authors.

The cost of the first batch of online courses ranges from $25 to $85, and includes workbooks and access to live question-and-answer sessions with three authors: Dr. David B. Agus, the best-selling author of “The End of Illness”; Zhena Muzyka, who wrote the self-help book “Life by the Cup”; and Tosha Silver, the author of the spiritual advice book “Outrageous Openness.” The courses will be available on the authors’ individual websites and on the company’s new site, SimonSays.

.

The real revolution in online education isn’t MOOCs — from hbr.org by Michelle Weise

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

Something is clearly wrong when only 11% of business leaders — compared to 96% of chief academic officers — believe that graduates have the requisite skills for the workforce. It’s therefore unlikely that business leaders are following closely what’s going on in higher education. Even the latest hoopla around massive open online courses (MOOCs) amounts to more of the same: academics designing courses that correspond with their own interests rather than the needs of the workforce, but now doing it online.

But there is a new wave of online competency-based learning providers that has absolutely nothing to do with offering free, massive, or open courses. In fact, they’re not even building courses per se, but creating a whole new architecture of learning that has serious implications for businesses and organizations around the world.

It’s called online competency-based education, and it’s going to revolutionize the workforce.
…
The key distinction is the modularization of learning.
…
Here’s why business leaders should care: the resulting stackable credential reveals identifiable skillsets and dispositions that mean something to an employer. As opposed to the black box of the diploma, competencies lead to a more transparent system that highlights student-learning outcomes.

From DSC:
Though several of the items above have a slant towards IT/coding/programming, other disciplines may be impacted by these types of trends as well.

These developments are meant for consideration for those of us working within higher education. What do they mean for us? Should they inform more of our strategies? Our visions? Our responses?

Addendums on 2/17/15:

Should your institution consider a nanodegree program? — from by Rebecca Lundberg
Students seeking to build technical skills and credentials are enrolling in nanodegree programs.

Addendum on 3/27/15:

Anyone Can Be a Teacher at Skillshare, an Online School — from nytimes.com by Jonah Bromwich
Excerpt:
Skillshare is an online video platform that allows anyone to sign up and teach a class. The company has proved adept at recruiting experts to teach on its website. Aside from Ms. Orlean’s class on creative nonfiction, the website has a class on visual storytelling from the design maven Debbie Millman and a marketing course taught by the entrepreneur Seth Godin. At one point, it even offered screenwriting instruction from James Franco.

Addendum on 4/1/15 — with thanks to Mr. Cal Keen at Calvin College

Canvas.net

Addendum on 4/7/15:

Udemy alternatives for selling video courses online — from robcubbon.com
Udemy is currently the leading online learning platform. Their top 10 instructors all made over $500,000 last year and the top earner makes over $8 million. I make $4000+ each month by selling courses on Udemy.

Addendum on 5/1/15:

worldacademy.tv

Addendum on 5/18/15:

16 Startups Poised to Disrupt the Education Market — from inc.com by Ilan Mochari
Colleges and universities are facing new competition for customers–students and their parents–from startups delivering similar goods (knowledge, credentials, prestige) more affordably and efficiently. Here’s a rundown of some of those startups.

I wonder if this is true for higher ed as well? “Running your company at two speeds” [Bossert, Laartz, Ramsøy]

On 01/16/2015, in corporate / business world, higher education, innovation, leadership, strategy, surviving, vision/possibilities, workplace, by Daniel Christian

Running your company at two speeds — from mckinsey.com by Oliver Bossert, Jürgen Laartz, and Tor Jakob Ramsøy
Digital competition may dictate a new organizational architecture in which emerging digital processes coexist with traditional ones.

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

The retailer’s board responded by creating a new budgeting and approval process in which projects supporting major digital strategic thrusts are now treated separately from the rest of the IT budget. Solutions like this, in our experience, are an effective means of addressing digital timing challenges. Many companies need to create a two-speed architecture—a fast speed for functions that address evolving customer experiences and must change rapidly, and a transaction speed for the remaining functions, where the pace of adjustment can remain more measured.

…

Make the digital dialogue more strategic
Solutions like the retailer’s work only if there is clear agreement on what constitutes a digital priority worthy of a fast speed. In our experience, that rarely happens, because far too often, the digital dialogue never becomes sufficiently strategic to galvanize top management. At the retailer, by contrast, top management brought its budgeting challenges to the board, which approved the new, two-speed ground rules. Top management has also begun revising its agenda to elevate the importance of discussing strategic technology initiatives, including comparisons between them and other major thrusts, such as entering new regions.

Achieving this level of dialogue often means changing mind-sets, such as the common one that IT spending is a “tax” required to “keep the lights on.” …Once it’s clear that certain types of technology spending are an investment in new business strategies, it becomes much easier to agree that the resulting initiatives should be implemented quickly.

…

Evolve the organization
When the IT organization is asked to release new digital functions on a faster deployment cycle, it requires new levels of agility and coordination that may require substantial organizational change.

Along these lines, see:

How administrators can enhance online learning programs — from ecampusnews.com by Meris Stansbury

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

Studying the Council for Christian Colleges & Universities (CCCU), Hoey and other researchers from Crown College, Fresno Pacific University, and Trinity Christian College examined the impact of administrative structure and admins on the outcomes of online student enrollment, number of online programs, and efficiency of online operations.

What the study overwhelmingly found was that both admins and admin structure have significant influence, which could help “private colleges gain a foothold in the competitive online market.”

…

However, since around 2007, researchers have noted a move away from the fully-integrated model to one where online programs are operated and administered by an entirely separate academic division.

Top 10 IT Issues, 2015: Inflection Point [Grajek, Educause]

On 01/14/2015, in change, changing business models, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, higher education, innovation, IT in HE, leadership, mobile learning, mobile technologies, pace of change, reinvent, staying relevant, strategy, surviving, teaching & learning, by Daniel Christian

Top 10 IT Issues, 2015: Inflection Point — from educause.edu by Susan Grajek and the 2014–2015 EDUCAUSE IT Issues Panel
EDUCAUSE presents the top 10 IT issues facing higher education institutions this year. What is new about 2015? Nothing has changed. And everything has changed. Information technology has reached an inflection point. Visit the EDUCAUSE top 10 IT issues web page for additional resources.

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

Change continues to characterize the EDUCAUSE Top 10 IT Issues in 2015. The pace of change seems not to be slowing but, rather, is increasing and is happening on many fronts. There is reason to believe that higher education information technology has reached an inflection point—the point at which the trends that have dominated thought leadership and have motivated early adopters are now cascading into the mainstream. This inflection point is the biggest of three themes of change characterizing the 2015 EDUCAUSE Top 10 IT Issues.. A second dimension of change is the shifting focus of IT leaders and professionals from technical problems to business problems, along with the ensuing interdependence between the IT organization and business units. Underlying all this strategic change, the day-to-day work of the IT organization goes on. But change dominates even the day-to-day, where challenges are in some ways more complex than ever. This “new normal” is the third theme of change.

Andy Grove, Intel’s former CEO, described a strategic inflection point as “that which causes you to make a fundamental change in business strategy.”

Bias: Why Higher Education is Mired in Inaction [Dumestre]

On 01/13/2015, in 21st century, business side of he, change, changing business models, colleges, faculty, higher education, leadership, new business models, organizational change, psychology, strategy, universities, vision/possibilities, by Daniel Christian

Bias: Why Higher Education is Mired in Inaction — from insidetrack.com by Marcel Dumestre

This contribution can be accessed from insidetrack.com’s Leadership Series, but the actual PDF is here.

Excerpts:

He identifies four biases that short-circuit this process, which he terms as generalized empirical method. All of these biases are not only at play in our individual lives, they also can determine how well organizations operate, even universities.

The first bias is dramatic bias—a flight from the drama of everyday living, an inability or unwillingness to pay attention to experience.

The second bias is individual bias—egoism. Making intelligent decisions requires moving beyond the worldview created by oneself for oneself.

The third bias is group bias. This predisposition is particularly rampant in organizational life.

The fourth bias is general bias—the bias of common sense. This bias views common sense uncritically.

…
The deleterious effect of bias explains why very smart people don’t understand what seems obvious in hindsight. The disappearance of entire industries gives testimony to the destructive power of institutional blindness.
…
There is no magic formula, no uniform model to follow. Universities must do the hard work of analyzing the needs of whom they serve and recreate themselves as viable, exciting institutions suited for a new age.

The universities left standing decades from now will have gone through this enlightening, but painful, process and look in hindsight at the insight they achieved.

Addendum on 1/13/15:

Using Design Thinking in Higher Education — from educause.com by Holly E. Morris and Greg Warman

Trend: Campuses moving from online to On-Demand — from ecampusnews.com by Meris Stansbury
Management expert discusses why the future for college campuses is on-demand, not just online

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

IT experts are calling it a super storm of forces that’s changing the way a campus ecosystem operates.

First, the very foundation of student expectations is changing, with requirements for education delivery models that are more flexible and accessible than those of generations past.

Second, the higher-ed market—thanks to the economy and possibilities available via technology—is reshaping itself under new requirements for competition, delivery, funding, and outcomes.

And it’s this super storm, say experts, that’s creating the need for new business processes and strategies to better compete and retain students.

From DSC:
I don’t have data to back this up, but I also have it that student expectations are changing. (It would be great if someone out there who has some resources in this regard would post some links to such resources in the comments section.) Anecdotally, the students’ expectations of today are different from when I attended college years ago. We didn’t have the Internet back then; we didn’t have personal computing devices such as smartphones, tablets, and laptops; we didn’t work collaboratively; there were no online-based courses; we didn’t have nearly as many choices for learning at our disposal.

But taking cues from society at large and from the trends in computing, people want to connect and they want to do so on their terms — i.e., when it fits into their schedules. So I can see this sort of phenomenon picking up steam, at least for a significant subset of learners out there. In fact, it’s an underlying assumption I have in my Learning from the Living [Class] Room vision. Many of us will seek out training/education-on-demand types of resources throughout our careers — as we need them. Heutagogy, lifelong learning, and rhizomatic learning come to mind; so does the growth of Lynda.com and the growth of bootcamps/accelerated learning programs (such as flatironschool.com).

Finally, the concept of “learning hubs” is interesting in this regard, whereby a group of learners get together in a physical setting, but tap into online-based resources to help them learn about a topic/discipline. Those online-based resources could be synchronous or asynchronous. But learners come together when it works into their schedules.

Future of the Campus in a Digital World — from campusmatters.net by Michael Haggans | November 2014

Excerpts from PDF (emphasis DSC):

In the digitally driven future of higher education, three-dimensional classroom spaces still will be needed. They won’t be used in the traditional manner and they won’t be the traditional kind. They will be bigger, flatter, faster and there will need to be fewer classrooms for the same number of students.

Classes that meet on campus will need additional area per student to accommodate interactive configurations, such as those allowing group work in the flow of the traditional class period. Typically these will be flat floors allowing easy configuration changes. At the same time, these rooms must be faster, with access to robust bandwidth.

Both physical and administrative adaptations will be required. While there will be more floor area per student when in class, the number of classroom hours per degree will drop, and all the while the expectation for digital transmission capability will continue to rise. To justify the required investment, institutions will have to rethink the administration of classroom scheduling to maximize effectiveness for students and faculty, and to achieve increased utilization. These are not new or easily managed issues for higher education. The accelerating move to online instruction will expose existing weaknesses of current systems and the benefits of more strategic investments and scheduling.
…
Digital Visible
From an institutional perspective, many of the implications of digital transformation are difficult to see, lost in a thicket of business issues presenting themselves with increasing urgency. Moreover, the changes induced by digital transformation are difficult to address through traditional facilities development and capital funding processes. These transformations are not about the need for a single new – or better – building, a campus student recreation center or teaching laboratory.

This is about adjusting the performance of the whole campus to support a digitally transformed pedagogy and academic community.

…
Libraries have never been about books. They have always been about access to and use of information.
…
Make campus matter
With so much of higher education available in digital and largely asynchronous forms, the justification for a campus must derive from something more than “we have always done it this way.” Even at the most traditional institutions “on-campus time per degree” will decrease. This change in convention will make the support of increasingly limited face-to-face time of
strategic value, rather than an assumed byproduct of traditional campus life.

“The New Leadership Challenge” & “The Architects of Online Learning…” [EDUCAUSE]

On 12/10/2014, in 21st century, business side of he, collaboration, education technology, higher education, IT in HE, leadership, online learning, reinvent, staying relevant, strategy, vision/possibilities, by Daniel Christian

The New Leadership Challenge — from educause.edu by Michael Kubit

Excerpt:

These are not traditional IT leadership challenges: IT leaders must develop a new set of skills. Emotional and social intelligence, the ability to provide leadership through ambiguity, managing behavior as performance, and effective engagement of stakeholders are the critical skills for IT managers today.

…

Historically, the use of information technology focused largely on infrastructure and enterprise business applications. Today, IT organizations need to find ways to align more closely with the teaching, learning, and research missions of their respective institutions. Three of the EDUCAUSE Top Ten IT Issues for 2014 emphasize the support of technology in the teaching and learning mission. The remaining issues involve positioning information technology as a strategic asset to leverage as a vehicle for innovation.

…

The speed at which things change fundamentally, both within information technology and higher education, makes it clear that traditional approaches will not take us where we need to go. We need to develop organizations that are more networked and interconnected, that are flatter, flexible, and focused on outcomes. We need to develop learning organizations that can respond to both challenge and opportunity without managers playing the role of parent.

A great deal of evidence collected over several decades and significant research have identified the qualities and characteristics of effective leadership. As technologists, do we pay enough attention to the science of organizational development? Effective leadership is the key to solving the challenges and opportunities before us. No longer are the principles of emotional intelligence and organizational effectiveness reserved for senior leaders. These skills and competencies must become part of the core requirements for anyone in a leadership position. As an industry, we need to find ways to offer professional development for the most critical aspect of a manager’s tool kit — leading people.

The Architects of Online Learning: A Strategic Partnership for the Sustainability of Higher Education — from educause.edu by Robert Hansen

Excerpt:

The transformational impact of online education has profound implications for the sustainability of many traditional higher education institutions. As we all know, nontraditional students became the new majority well before the turn of the past century. More than 75 percent of today’s higher education students are nontraditional. As enrollments at many tuition-dependent institutions have declined, colleges and universities have turned to the adult market to stabilize their budgets. This means that having a clear vision for online education—the preferred format for so many working adults—has become a strategic imperative.

And yet, even though many college and university leaders acknowledge the value of serving adult and nontraditional students, it’s fair to say that serving these students continues, more often than not, to be marginal to the mission—a noble afterthought to the core enterprise of serving first-time, full-time residential students. In other words, today’s colleges and universities are still designed to serve yesterday’s students.
…
Whether or not higher education is the next bubble, it is clear that online education is creating winners and losers. In order to thrive—or, in some cases, to survive—many institutions (especially regional colleges and universities) must use online education as the foremost opportunity to reach new markets.
…
We propose a renewed partnership between those who are innovative with technology (IT professionals) and those who are innovative in creating new academic programs and ways of reaching new audiences (continuing and online educators). This partnership has become a strategic imperative: the technical has become entrepreneurial, and the entrepreneurial has become technical.

Changing role of the CLO — from business-standard.com by Gurprriet Singh

Excerpt:

The ownership for keeping skills and competencies sharpened will move to the employee. With the emergence of MOOCs, social media enabled knowledge and connections, which facilitate you to identify and appoint mentors across dimensions and distance, the role of L&D as the provider of knowledge and provider of resource is soon becoming extinct. Individuals need to own their own development and leverage the resources available in social media. Just recently, IBM cut salaries by 10 per cent, of employees who had not kept their skills updated.

…

As Jack Welch said, “If the rate of change inside your organisation is slower than the rate of change outside, the end is near”. In such a scenario, the thinking and orientation must shift from being able to manage change TO being able to change on a dime which means Dynamism. The role of L&D thus becomes key in influencing the above cultural pillars. And to do so, is to select for the relevant traits, focus on interventions that help hone those traits. Traits and skills are honed by Experience. And that brings me to the 70:20:10.

From DSC:
I think Gurprriet is right when he says that there’s a shift in the ownership of our learning. We as individuals need to own our own development and leverage social media, MOOCs, online and/or F2F-based courses, other informal/on-the-job resources, our personal learning networks, and our Communities of Practice. Given the pace of change, each of us needs to be constantly building/expanding our own learning ecosystems. We need to be self-directed, lifelong learners (for me, this is where learning hubs and learning from our living rooms will also play a role in the future). One approach might be for those in L&D/corporate training-related functions to help employees know what’s out there — introduce them to the streams of content that are constantly flowing by. Encourage them to participate, teach them how to contribute, outline some of the elements of a solid learning ecosystem, create smaller learning hubs within a company.

Here’s a peek at the Minerva Project’s classroom of the future — from washingtonpost.com by Matt McFarland
Check out five ideas that could impact the way we live, work and play.

Excerpt:

“Think of the fanciest version of Google Hangouts or Skype designed to be a classroom,” explains a student. “It’s very different than a traditional classroom, but in a way it’s what a traditional classroom distilled down to its purest form I feel like would look like,” says another.

Also see:

Believe the IoT Hype or Perish: Equipping Today’s Graduates for Tomorrow’s Tech [Hirst]

On 11/21/2014, in business, career development, change, engineering, future, game-changing environment, higher education, innovation, internet, leadership, strategy, student-related, United States, vendors, vision/possibilities, workplace, by Daniel Christian

Believe the IoT Hype or Perish: Equipping Today’s Graduates for Tomorrow’s Tech — from wired.com by Peter Hirst

Excerpt:

Meeting the IoT Higher Education Challenge
People who come to MIT Sloan or other MIT Schools to further their professional education tend to have strong technical and engineering backgrounds. The pace of evolution and disruption of business models in their industries is accelerating continuously. We need to equip our graduates with tools that enable them to learn, re-learn, and un-learn many times over throughout their careers to remain successful. And we need to become more efficient, affordable, relevant and timely in the delivery of our programs.

…

Closing the Talent Gap
As Jeanne Beliveau-Dunn, Vice President and General Manager of Cisco Services pointed out recently in her post-conference blog post, “there are over 11 million unemployed people in the U.S. today, yet 45 percent of employers cannot find qualified candidates for open jobs.” At the Forum, she presented startling findings from Cisco’s 2014 Annual Security Report. The report incorporates data from CareerBuilder, IBSG and Bureau of Labor and Statistics and projects a one-million shortage of qualified workers in the Internet security industry in the next five years and two million jobs needed in the information technology and communications in the next ten. What can top higher-education institutions and leading technology companies do to help fix this disparity?

Also see:

The Internet of Things World Forum Unites Industry Leaders in Chicago to Accelerate the Adoption of IoT Business Models — from newsroom.cisco.com
Internet of Things World Forum (IoTWF) leaders announce new IoT Reference Model and IoTWF Talent Consortium

Excerpt:

Cisco and other key players are creating an Industry Talent Consortium to address this major skills gap, with the objective of having all of the key players work together to identify skill gaps, find talent with the right background to up-skill or re-skill, create and implement the necessary training and certification programs, and hire that talent for the jobs that will power the Internet of Everything.

Key founding partners supporting the program include:

Academia: The New York Academy of Sciences, MIT, Stanford
Human Capital Solution Providers: Careerbuilder
Employers: Rockwell Automation, Davra Networks, GE, Cisco
Change Agents: Cisco, Xerox, Rockwell Automation, Udacity, Pearson, Knod

Reflections on “The University of Southern California, Condé Nast and WIRED launch Master of Integrated Design, Business and Technology”

On 11/18/2014, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, A/V -- audio/visual, adult learning, Amazon, analytics, Apple, art, Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning / Deep Learning / Algorithms, business side of he, career development, changing business models, collaboration, competency-based learning/education, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, creativity, Daniel S. Christian, data related items, design, future, future of higher education, game-changing environment, Google, higher education, IBM, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, MBA, Microsoft, new business models, pace of change, professional development, real-world assignments, reinvent, staying relevant, strategy, student-related, technology (general), workplace, by Daniel Christian

Following up on yesterday’s posting, History Channel bringing online courses to higher ed, I wanted to thank Mr. Rob Kingyens, President at Qubed Education, for alerting me to some related work that Qubed Education is doing. Below is an example of that work:

The University of Southern California, Condé Nast and WIRED launch Master of Integrated Design, Business and Technology — from qubededucation.com
New Learning Model Combines Network and Access of WIRED with Academic Strength and Vision of the USC Roski School of Art and Design

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

MARIN, Calif., October 1, 2014 – The University of Southern California, Condé Nast and WIRED today announced a partnership to create a new online Master’s degree in Integrated Design, Business and Technology. The partnership creates an unprecedented learning experience, combining the expertise of the editors, writers, and designers at WIRED with the academic rigor of USC, a leading research university known for its pioneering interdisciplinary programs. The aim of the 18-24 month degree is to educate creative thinkers and technologists to better equip them to transform the world of industry and enterprise. The first cohort is scheduled to begin in the 2015-2016 academic year.

…

“The pace of technology development requires higher education to continue to respond with programs that are flexible and adaptable, and that meet the needs of future cultural and business leaders,” said Dean Muhl.

“We’ve been thinking for years about what a university curriculum with WIRED would look like, and now we have a chance to build it with a terrific partner,” said Dadich. “Taking the best from USC and WIRED, we can teach discipline and disruption, business fundamentals, and the very latest innovation models from Silicon Valley. This is going to be thrilling.”

…

USC’s program development and build out will be powered by higher education partners Synergis Education and Qubed Education.

From Qubed’s website:

Qubed is the gateway for world-class, global brands to enter the education market with top tier universities.

From DSC:
I’ve long wondered if institutions of higher education will need to pool resources and/or form more partnerships and collaborations — either with other universities/colleges or with organizations outside of higher education. This reflection grows stronger for me when I:

Think that team-based content creation and delivery is pulling ahead of the pack
Hear about the financial situations of many institutions of higher education today (example1; example2)
See the momentum building up behind Competency Based Education (CBE)
Witness the growth of alternatives like Ideo Futures, Yieldr Academy, Lessons Go Where, ClassDo, Udemy, C-Suite TV.com and others
Hear about the potential advantages of learning analytics
See the pace of change accelerating — challenging higher education to keep up

For some institution(s) of higher education out there with deep pockets and a strong reputation, I could see them partnering up with an IBM (Watson), Google (Deepmind), Apple (Siri), Amazon (Echo), or Microsoft (Cortana) to create some next generation learning platforms. In fact, this is one of the areas I see occurring as lifelong learning/self-directed learning opportunities hit our living rooms. The underlying technologies these companies are working on could be powerful allies in the way people learn in the future — doing some heavy lifting to build the foundations in a variety of disciplines, and leaving the higher-order learning and the addressing of gaps to professors, teachers, trainers, and others.

Some critical skills to have and methodologies to understand

On 11/13/2014, in 21st century, career development, change, Daniel S. Christian, future, game-changing environment, global / globalization, higher education, history, ideas, leadership, lifelong learning, pace of change, reinvent, society, staying relevant, strategy, student-related, surviving, by Daniel Christian

Introduction (emphasis DSC)

Futures Studies as it has evolved since the early 1970s is both a discipline and a meta-discipline. It is a set of skills and applied methodologies that can be learned—in impressively diverse ways—and it is a dynamic way of coming to understand the world that is practical and empowering. As Alvin Toffler wrote in 1974, “A focus on the future is relevant to all learners, regardless of age.”

For this special report, we called for essays from futurists who have experienced futures education, be it in a K-12 class project, a professional certificate program, a workshop, or a full degree program. We received an overwhelming response from students, educators, and several people who have been on both sides of the learning and teaching experience.

We hope readers will continue to share their experiences with us—and with tomorrow’s futures learners.

—THE EDITORS

From DSC:
I can’t stress enough the importance of helping students learn more about how to see what might be coming down the pike — to be able to pulse check a variety of environments. This is not “fluff”, gazing into a crystal ball, or pie-in-the-sky type of thinking. There are numerous techniques being used within futurism today*, with real and practical applications.

For me, futures studies have strong ties in with developing strategy and vision as well as identifying opportunities and threats.

Students need access to many more of these *futures studies* programs! (teachthefuture.org may be helpful here). We can’t start building these programs out too soon. Enrollments should be strong once people understand how helpful and practical these skills and methodologies can be. In fact, given the exponential pace we are currently experiencing, these skills become critical not only for corporations/businesses and for higher education, but for individuals as well — especially seeing as more of us are becoming contingent workers (freelancers, independent professionals, temporary contract workers, independent contractors or consultants).

When we’re moving at 180 mph, we can’t be looking at the front of our hoods. We need to be scanning the horizons.

* As Haven Allahar stated in the item “Futures Education in the Caribbean”:

…the common techniques utilized in the practice of futuring:

Scanning.
DEGEST (demography, economics, governance, environment, society, technology).
Trend analysis.
Scenarios.
Delphi polling.
Modeling.
Simulation and games.
Brainstorming.
Visioning.
Anticipating wild cards.

Finding New Business Models in Unsettled Times — from Educause.com by Paul J. LeBlanc
If the core crisis in higher education is one of sustainability, being focused on the job to be done and having a grasp of the forces shaping higher education gives institutional leaders a new way to think about recasting their future.

Excerpts:

“What to do?” is the question that so many college and university presidents struggle with right now. We seem to be sitting at the heart of a perfect storm where a lot of things are happening faster than our ability to predict and strategize. We can respond to this stormy weather as medieval farmers did to the next day’s weather: by simply waiting to see what arrives and then taking action, often inadequately. Or we can recognize that we actually have the tools, the technology, and the know-how to reinvent U.S. higher education in ways that will address its current failings.

…

Those established entities that survive are able to harness the innovations and rethink their business models to better serve their customers. Those that eventually disappear typically adopted one of two strategies: (1) hunker down and hope to ride out the storm by doing more of the same; or (2) try a little of everything. Neither strategy works very well, and as a result, once-great and seemingly unassailable companies have disappeared or, at best, survived as mere shadows of themselves. That’s the scenario that many current critics of traditional higher education posit and even welcome, often pointing to other industries that have seen enormous disruption—music, publishing, journalism, and retailing—to presage the impending doom for traditional higher education.

…

But there is no one higher education to reinvent, and colleges and universities do no one job. Higher education encompasses the following purposes:

A coming-of-age higher education that meets the needs of recent high school graduates, usually providing a purposeful living/learning community that provides ample opportunities for self-discovery and growing up
A workforce-development higher education that focuses on working adults and that provides job and career opportunities while creating a talent pipeline for employers in a local economy
A research higher education that seeks to add to the store of human knowledge, creating breakthrough, innovative solutions to a wide range of problems
A status higher education that provides a value-added network of peers, as well as access to and maintenance of privilege and social status
A civic-good higher education that works to produce a more just and responsible society
A cultural-improvement higher education that creates and/or supports the arts and humanities and instills in its graduates the taste and refinement to support and appreciate the arts

…

The need to reinvent underlying business models is increasingly urgent.

.

Other items from Educause:

Flexible Option: A Direct-Assessment Competency-Based Education Model
The University of Wisconsin Flexible Option CBE model focuses on assessment rather than credit hours, letting students undertake academic work at their own pace and prove mastery of required knowledge and skills through rigorous assessments.

A Tuition-Free College Degree (EDUCAUSE Review) — by Shai Reshef

Excerpt:

First, brick-and-mortar institutions have expenses that virtual universities do not. So we don’t need to pass these expenses on to our students. We also don’t need to worry about capacity. There are no limits on the number of seats in a virtual university: nobody needs to stand at the back of the lecture hall. In addition, through the use of open educational resources and through the generosity of professors who are willing to make their materials accessible and available for free, our students do not need to buy textbooks. Even professors, the most expensive line in any university balance sheet, come free to our students. More than 3,000 higher education professionals—including presidents, vice chancellors, and academic advisors from top colleges and universities such as NYU, Yale, Berkeley, and Oxford—are on-board to help our students. Finally, we believe in peer-to-peer learning. We use this sound pedagogical model to encourage our students from all over the world to interact and to study together and also to reduce the time required from professors for class assignments.

…

Five years ago, University of the People was a vision. Today, it is a reality. In February 2014, we were awarded the ultimate academic endorsement of our model: University of the People is now fully accredited. With this accreditation, it is time for us to scale up. We have demonstrated that our model works. I now invite colleges and universities and, even more important, the governments of developing countries to replicate this model to ensure that the gates to higher education will open ever more widely. A new era is coming—an era that will witness the disruption of the current model of higher education, changing the model from one that is a privilege for the few to one that is a basic right, affordable and accessible for all.

See:

https://www.uopeople.edu/programs/online-bachelor-degree-programs/

Beyond the MOOC Model: Changing Educational Paradigms — by James G. Mazoue
Four trends – MOOC-based degrees, competency-based education, the formalization of learning, and regulatory reform – are shifting educational practice away from core tenets of traditional education, indicating not a transient phenomenon but rather a fundamental change to the status quo.

Excerpt:

According to Georgia Tech’s recent survey, initial reviews from the first cohort of OMS CS students are positive: 93 percent recommend the program to others and nearly two-thirds said their experience exceeds their expectations. If data from the OMS CS show that MOOC-based degrees are viable, others will follow with an array of offerings that will compete directly with on-campus programs.

Some may quibble that the $6,600 OMS CS is not modeled on real MOOCs because of its price tag. However, this misses the larger point: namely, that a quality online degree offered at scale for a nominal or greatly reduced cost is a more attractive alternative for many students than an on-campus degree. In deference to purists who might balk at calling a degree program that charges tuition a MOOC, we can call it a MOD (for Massive Online Degree). Whatever we call it, it will be bad news for on-campus degree programs. With competition, we can expect a MOD’s cost to go down; it is not unreasonable to think that it might go down to a negligible amount if cost recovery shifts from charging students for the acquisition of knowledge to a model based on learning assessment and credentialing. In the end, students — if we let them — will be the ones who decide whether a MOD’s value outweighs the additional cost of an on-campus degree.

…

Far from fading into oblivion, data show that MOOCs are in fact increasing in global popularity. The case for dismissing MOOCs as an educational alternative, therefore, has yet to be made.

Learning Ecosystems

Reflections on “Is this the online learning model of the future?” [Zarom]

Alternatives — to the way things are typically done in higher ed — continue to develop

I wonder if this is true for higher ed as well? “Running your company at two speeds” [Bossert, Laartz, Ramsøy]

Top 10 IT Issues, 2015: Inflection Point [Grajek, Educause]

Bias: Why Higher Education is Mired in Inaction [Dumestre]

Future of the Campus in a Digital World [Haggans]

“The New Leadership Challenge” & “The Architects of Online Learning…” [EDUCAUSE]

New items from Educause including “Finding New Business Models in Unsettled Times” [LeBlanc]

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