Thanks to all who voted on Tuesday. Congratulations to Peggy and Tom for their good fortune on election night too. I really am excited to be returning to the Barnstable School Committee. We have a tremendous leader in Dr. Patti Grenier and the strategy of data driven site based management is accepted by the community and beginning to show results.
I would like to offer a special thanks to my friend David Lawler. Although David was not one of the top 3 vote getters and thus will not be rejoining the School Committee; I have to congratulate David on 4 good years of volunteer public service.
David and I did not know each other 4 years ago and have since become friends. We have debated some topics but worked well together over the years. One of David's leadership roles has been on the issue of consolidation and renovation of our elementary schools. It certainly is not a popular issue but extremely important.
Over the next few years the Town Council and the School Committee need to make a few tough decisions and real financial commitments to assure that future generations of students will have safe, modern school buildings. Simply, we have to continue the generational compact for students most of us may never know.
Thanks for the votes. I am honored.
Wednesday, November 7, 2007
Sunday, October 7, 2007
Data driven, site based decision making works!
From my perspective the most dramatic change in educational policy making over the last 5 or so years is the ability for all of us to review and compare student achievement and school performance. This is a fundamental change. We can use real data to understand whether or not our schools are ok, good, or great.
There are differences in opinion about the value of standardized testing. I especially like to talk with experienced teachers about this topic. They consistently tell me the content on the MCAS tests is solid. It provides an accurate indicator of student performance not unlike a doctor checking our health using blood pressure readings and taking blood tests.
I've been asking all members of our school communities to keep themselves informed. Dive in to the data at sites like schoolmatters.com, just4kids.org, or the Boston Globe's educational section.
Go ahead and become a more informed part of our school communities, educate yourself. Go ahead and compare your school to schools across the Commonwealth.
Once you dive in to this information, you will join me in being absolutely convinced that data driven site based decision making is moving Barnstable towards our goal of becoming a truly exemplary district.
There are differences in opinion about the value of standardized testing. I especially like to talk with experienced teachers about this topic. They consistently tell me the content on the MCAS tests is solid. It provides an accurate indicator of student performance not unlike a doctor checking our health using blood pressure readings and taking blood tests.
I've been asking all members of our school communities to keep themselves informed. Dive in to the data at sites like schoolmatters.com, just4kids.org, or the Boston Globe's educational section.
Go ahead and become a more informed part of our school communities, educate yourself. Go ahead and compare your school to schools across the Commonwealth.
Once you dive in to this information, you will join me in being absolutely convinced that data driven site based decision making is moving Barnstable towards our goal of becoming a truly exemplary district.
Thursday, October 4, 2007
Governance Workshop
On October 2nd, we held the first of 4 School Committee sponsored workshops to be focused on significant topics of educational policy. The four topics (with meetings scheduled through out the year) include governance, professional learning communities/high performance teams, technology integration, and safety/security.
For the governance workshop, we invited approximately two dozen members of the school community. Specifically, principals, board members, school council members made up the bulk of the attendees.
Although using microphones and being videotaped certainly did not create an environment that was the most conducive to give and take conversation I do believe some worthwhile feedback was provided.
From my perspective I learned or was reminded of several points.
1. In many industries risk taking and innovation have not been encouraged. Educational management is one of those industries. To improve schools we need to seriously encourage innovation and risk taking in a sustained and honest manner.
2. There is a perception that School Councils have significant limits placed upon their governance role. This is not correct. Under State Law, the only limit directly placed upon School Councils relates to collective bargaining topics. Other than that limitation, School Councils can take their governance role a long way.
3. Although budget constraints and equitable funding formulas remain as a primary concern, the month to month work done by our schools' Boards and Councils is not focused entirely on budgets. Innovation does not need to be viewed just as a big bang revolutionary effort but should be viewed by the incremental evolutionary efforts being made by so many school communities.
We appreciate everyone's efforts and involvement in this workshop.
For the governance workshop, we invited approximately two dozen members of the school community. Specifically, principals, board members, school council members made up the bulk of the attendees.
Although using microphones and being videotaped certainly did not create an environment that was the most conducive to give and take conversation I do believe some worthwhile feedback was provided.
From my perspective I learned or was reminded of several points.
1. In many industries risk taking and innovation have not been encouraged. Educational management is one of those industries. To improve schools we need to seriously encourage innovation and risk taking in a sustained and honest manner.
2. There is a perception that School Councils have significant limits placed upon their governance role. This is not correct. Under State Law, the only limit directly placed upon School Councils relates to collective bargaining topics. Other than that limitation, School Councils can take their governance role a long way.
3. Although budget constraints and equitable funding formulas remain as a primary concern, the month to month work done by our schools' Boards and Councils is not focused entirely on budgets. Innovation does not need to be viewed just as a big bang revolutionary effort but should be viewed by the incremental evolutionary efforts being made by so many school communities.
We appreciate everyone's efforts and involvement in this workshop.
Friday, September 28, 2007
Candidate Night- advocacy and accuracy
Thanks to the folks of the Greater Hyannis Civic Association for organizing the candidates night.
The questions from the audience and moderator were excellent. I especially appreciated the fact that two young people attended and asked questions relating to bus fees,the PM school, and graduation rates. I made two suggestions on how folks interested in these topics could continue their advocacy.
1. If interested in graduation rates and the PM school topic please attend the Nov. 7th summit at CCCC presented by the Cape and Islands WorkForce Investment Board.
2.Transportation issues come down to money. It has been mentioned the State is discussing providing more aide to districts to ameliorate these costs. Please talk with your State Rep. on this topic.
One of the challenges of being an elected official is finding ways to make sure that accurate information gets out to the public. People can have opinions but facts are facts.
There are rumors being started that the School Department faces a 3 million dollar shortfall going into FY 2008/2009. This is simply not true.
1.Revenue estimates for 2006/2007 were conservative. The Municipal/School Savings accounts are expected to be replenished to some extent when this FY closes...Oct 1st.
2. Revenue estimates going forward can be expected to be in the range of 2.5-3% increase.
3. We are closing a school to save money.
4. Enrollment declines means that we will need to replace fewer teachers.
The budget process work.
The questions from the audience and moderator were excellent. I especially appreciated the fact that two young people attended and asked questions relating to bus fees,the PM school, and graduation rates. I made two suggestions on how folks interested in these topics could continue their advocacy.
1. If interested in graduation rates and the PM school topic please attend the Nov. 7th summit at CCCC presented by the Cape and Islands WorkForce Investment Board.
2.Transportation issues come down to money. It has been mentioned the State is discussing providing more aide to districts to ameliorate these costs. Please talk with your State Rep. on this topic.
One of the challenges of being an elected official is finding ways to make sure that accurate information gets out to the public. People can have opinions but facts are facts.
There are rumors being started that the School Department faces a 3 million dollar shortfall going into FY 2008/2009. This is simply not true.
1.Revenue estimates for 2006/2007 were conservative. The Municipal/School Savings accounts are expected to be replenished to some extent when this FY closes...Oct 1st.
2. Revenue estimates going forward can be expected to be in the range of 2.5-3% increase.
3. We are closing a school to save money.
4. Enrollment declines means that we will need to replace fewer teachers.
The budget process work.
Saturday, September 15, 2007
Endorsement and Debate appreciation
Thanks to the folks from Citizens for Barnstable for their endorsement. I don't know much about the organization but like their mission statement.I appreciate the fact they care enough to come out and make a statement.
Also, I would like to thank everyone from the Greater Hyannis Civic Association for hosting a Candidates Night on Thursday September 27th at the Hyannis West Elementary School. I've accepted the invitation and look forward to a healthy discussion.
Also, I would like to thank everyone from the Greater Hyannis Civic Association for hosting a Candidates Night on Thursday September 27th at the Hyannis West Elementary School. I've accepted the invitation and look forward to a healthy discussion.
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
Why am I running again?
Over the next two months this site will serve as the go to spot for my local campaign efforts. I was encouraged to set up the site as a campaign site after a close friend referred to me as The School Committee Guy. It was meant to be a flattering comment but the point was made that folks across the community may not really know me.
So, the side column of the site has my picture, background biographical information, and links to organizations on which I serve as a Board member and the technology firm that I've cofounded. The bottom footer lists a few books that I like. It's not a perfect way to learn about someone but reading lists do provide a glimpse into an individual's way of thinking about the world.
Given my personal, professional experiences and four years of of service on the School Committee I know that I am qualified to serve another term on the School Commitee. However, when it comes to most things in life nowadays resumes aren't enough.
Why am I running again? What do I want to work on accomplishing over the next four years?
I have several major areas of focus and listed them in the candidate survey provided by the Barnstable Patriot.
Over the next few weeks I will describe them in more detail.
So, the side column of the site has my picture, background biographical information, and links to organizations on which I serve as a Board member and the technology firm that I've cofounded. The bottom footer lists a few books that I like. It's not a perfect way to learn about someone but reading lists do provide a glimpse into an individual's way of thinking about the world.
Given my personal, professional experiences and four years of of service on the School Committee I know that I am qualified to serve another term on the School Commitee. However, when it comes to most things in life nowadays resumes aren't enough.
Why am I running again? What do I want to work on accomplishing over the next four years?
I have several major areas of focus and listed them in the candidate survey provided by the Barnstable Patriot.
Over the next few weeks I will describe them in more detail.
Monday, September 10, 2007
Candidate surveys and accurate budget information
Thanks to the Barnstable Patriot for starting thedotcommons.com. This is a web forum attempting to bring together all the candidate and election information for the upcoming local elections. Within the forum is a section that asks candidates to fill out a survey. The survey for school committee asks the standard questions for the most part.
However, there is one question that leads candidates to propose cuts in school services based upon an assumption of a shortfall for the Fiscal Year 2008-2009. What is remarkable about this question is the fact that the professional budget experts from our consolidated municipal/school finance department have never come out with any statements predicting or warning of a shortfall for FY 2008/2009.
My response to the question is it made a false assumption about local, state, federal revenue growth. We also all understand that decreasing student populations allow for a reduction in staff numbers. Over the past few years, we have done a good job of reducing staff by not hiring too many new folks even though there have been significant retirements.We are always conservative with our revenue estimates and have asked each site based program to take responsibility for living within their spending plan.
Municipal/School budgets and fiscal years are very complex and take a long time to officially close out. My sense is the close of FY 2006/2007 fiscal year by October 1st,2007 will provide us positive news. Let the data come out before making assumptions.
Although, we will not be able to do everything that everybody wants with our operating budgets over the next few years..like reducing or eliminating all fees, adding all desired positions, adding all the desired technology, etc.. we are on pace to support excellent schools and live within our budgets.
From an operating budget perspective we do have a good handle on things. I would suggest a better question is to begin a discussion of how the entire Town is going to pay for needed Capital improvements. What are we going to leave for the next generation of Barnstable citizens and school children? That is a question requiring lots of conversation.
However, there is one question that leads candidates to propose cuts in school services based upon an assumption of a shortfall for the Fiscal Year 2008-2009. What is remarkable about this question is the fact that the professional budget experts from our consolidated municipal/school finance department have never come out with any statements predicting or warning of a shortfall for FY 2008/2009.
My response to the question is it made a false assumption about local, state, federal revenue growth. We also all understand that decreasing student populations allow for a reduction in staff numbers. Over the past few years, we have done a good job of reducing staff by not hiring too many new folks even though there have been significant retirements.We are always conservative with our revenue estimates and have asked each site based program to take responsibility for living within their spending plan.
Municipal/School budgets and fiscal years are very complex and take a long time to officially close out. My sense is the close of FY 2006/2007 fiscal year by October 1st,2007 will provide us positive news. Let the data come out before making assumptions.
Although, we will not be able to do everything that everybody wants with our operating budgets over the next few years..like reducing or eliminating all fees, adding all desired positions, adding all the desired technology, etc.. we are on pace to support excellent schools and live within our budgets.
From an operating budget perspective we do have a good handle on things. I would suggest a better question is to begin a discussion of how the entire Town is going to pay for needed Capital improvements. What are we going to leave for the next generation of Barnstable citizens and school children? That is a question requiring lots of conversation.
Saturday, August 18, 2007
Building community versus a Don Imus moment
Our community paper, the Barnstable Patriot, was delivered Friday morning. While scanning it over breakfast I noted an Opinion article( not a news article) about this Fall's School Committee election in our community.
In the article the writer makes a veiled comment questioning my character. It is veiled because he doesn't use my name and we have never met. I don't know him. He certainly doesn't know me.
The reason this guy gives for questioning my character is based upon a quote that I provided to a Cape Cod Times' reporter who called me a few weeks ago. The reporter asked me about the fact that Tom McDonald, our community's recently retired Superintendent,Horace Mann principal, school teacher, and life long resident of the community decided to run for school committee. I said that Tom was the most qualified candidate for school committee our community has ever seen.
Our Cape Cod Times' reporter asked how I would feel if Tom unseated me from the Board.I responded that's OK, Tom is a talented guy.
The Barnstable Patriot columnist uses that simple exchange to question my character!
I've used the word community in this post multiple times. Having been an active member of the Cape Cod community I have seen first hand the hard work required to create,build,improve,and maintain community. It requires dedicated, talented people to work together, think collaboratively, and envision ways to overcome challenges.
So, I guess this local columnist had a Don Imus moment. It's always disappointing to see and hear these types of hurtful character questioning comments especially when they appear on the pages of our community newspaper. I always feel for the professional journalists who are asked to share the pages and airways with these amateur ranters.
The old saying is it takes a team of carpenters to build a barn but one particular farm animal to try to knock it down. I will always work with the people who want to build up our community.
Thanks for the many supportive calls and emails. Lets keep working together.
In the article the writer makes a veiled comment questioning my character. It is veiled because he doesn't use my name and we have never met. I don't know him. He certainly doesn't know me.
The reason this guy gives for questioning my character is based upon a quote that I provided to a Cape Cod Times' reporter who called me a few weeks ago. The reporter asked me about the fact that Tom McDonald, our community's recently retired Superintendent,Horace Mann principal, school teacher, and life long resident of the community decided to run for school committee. I said that Tom was the most qualified candidate for school committee our community has ever seen.
Our Cape Cod Times' reporter asked how I would feel if Tom unseated me from the Board.I responded that's OK, Tom is a talented guy.
The Barnstable Patriot columnist uses that simple exchange to question my character!
I've used the word community in this post multiple times. Having been an active member of the Cape Cod community I have seen first hand the hard work required to create,build,improve,and maintain community. It requires dedicated, talented people to work together, think collaboratively, and envision ways to overcome challenges.
So, I guess this local columnist had a Don Imus moment. It's always disappointing to see and hear these types of hurtful character questioning comments especially when they appear on the pages of our community newspaper. I always feel for the professional journalists who are asked to share the pages and airways with these amateur ranters.
The old saying is it takes a team of carpenters to build a barn but one particular farm animal to try to knock it down. I will always work with the people who want to build up our community.
Thanks for the many supportive calls and emails. Lets keep working together.
Monday, June 18, 2007
My Phillipino/Indian/Canadian Nurse
My Phillipino/Indian/Canadian Nurse.
We have been doing a lot of work in the healthcare industry recently. So, we have been thinking about what needs to be improved in the US healthcare system.
The statistics attached to the US healthcare system are stunning. We spend 30% more than any other country. Yet. approximately, 25% of the US population has no insurance. Plus, patient outcomes and satisfaction are well below acceptable standards across the industrialized world. A whopping 70% of health care costs stem from preventable chronic diseases. For example, 91% of diabetes cases could be avoided by better eating. Diabetes cost the healthcare system $92 billion dollars each year. Imagine finding a way to save $80 billion dollars a year.
Obviously, the system has lots of problems. Here is one solution that provides a huge bang for the buck.
I want my family to have our own nurse for 5-10 minutes a day, average 2 days a week, 12 months per year. My estimate is that we will need our nurse's time for no more than 12-20 hours per year.
For a little background, one of the fastest growing job descriptions in healthcare is the telephonic triage nurse. Thousands of nurses are sitting behind phones right now talking to patients recovering from serious illnesses or dealing with chronic conditions. They are trying to keep these sick folks from getting sicker.
We should all have access to a telephonic wellness nurse. In Massachusetts, our family's health insurance costs more than $15,000 per year. The annual rate increase is 10%. So, does spending approximately $500 per year to provide my family access to a nurse who gets to know us make any sense.
There are 4 people in my family.We are blessed to be healthy with no serious, chronic, or complex issues. We are not heavy users of the health care system. Does this personalized wellness service make financial sense for our HMO?
Lets say our family makes a couple of unnecessary trips to our primary care physician each year. Could we saves $300 on preventable visits? Do we always get the most cost effective prescriptions? Could we try off the shelf medications instead? I know that Doc's don't pay attention to the unit cost of prescriptions that they write. Lets just say the savings are $200 per year on drugs?
By my estimates for a healthy family, this telephonic wellness nurse is a break even proposition for the first year. For a family with serious illness or chronic conditions there is certainly a very strong use case for this system.
My point is that this system would work wonders for most families over time. The truth is that most of us don't drop dead, we rust away, or eat ourselves to death having developed poor lifestyle habits.
If I lose 25 pounds thanks to my wellness nurse's regular questions and information can I eliminate the need for cholesterol or blood pressure medication? Can this service prevent 20 years of dependency on medications? Does it prevent one visit to the ER or a stay in the hospital. These would be huge successes. The savings start to add up when lifestyles are changed for the better. I haven't even mentioned the most important emotional benefits of improved wellness for my family. Who knows maybe I would pay a premium for this service?
There are some challenges with this idea.
First, there are not enough nurses in most big cities across the US. However, there are plenty of nurses outside the US and willing young people wanting to be educated. As you can tell, the level of service that I am asking from my family's wellness nurse is not extraordinary. It may be an LPN or health nutritionist on the phone. My assumption is my nurse will have access to lots of current healthcare information and additional experience when a tougher issue comes up.I am also assuming that my wellness nurse has access to my family's relevant medical history and is able to communicate with our physicians when needed. I'm also assuming that the labor costs are fair but not at the same rate of big city US nurses. Yes, this service could be outsourced to the very countries that are currently sending us nurses on immigrant visas.
What is extraordinary about this concept of a wellness nurse for every family is the technological requirements to support this service are non factors when it comes to the overall business model. Modern telephony and web based tools allow this type of service infrastructure to begin with a model and scale incredibly well with costs that are 90%lower than just a few years ago. The industry specific and business efficiency limitations that we face going forward are no longer technical but entirely creative or organizational.
Start doing the math, my guesstimates of potential costs and savings could be way off; yet any HMO that implemented this concept for all its rate payers would still be considered brilliantly innovative,highly profitable, and loved by all.
We must start changing our assumptions about what is possible.
We have been doing a lot of work in the healthcare industry recently. So, we have been thinking about what needs to be improved in the US healthcare system.
The statistics attached to the US healthcare system are stunning. We spend 30% more than any other country. Yet. approximately, 25% of the US population has no insurance. Plus, patient outcomes and satisfaction are well below acceptable standards across the industrialized world. A whopping 70% of health care costs stem from preventable chronic diseases. For example, 91% of diabetes cases could be avoided by better eating. Diabetes cost the healthcare system $92 billion dollars each year. Imagine finding a way to save $80 billion dollars a year.
Obviously, the system has lots of problems. Here is one solution that provides a huge bang for the buck.
I want my family to have our own nurse for 5-10 minutes a day, average 2 days a week, 12 months per year. My estimate is that we will need our nurse's time for no more than 12-20 hours per year.
For a little background, one of the fastest growing job descriptions in healthcare is the telephonic triage nurse. Thousands of nurses are sitting behind phones right now talking to patients recovering from serious illnesses or dealing with chronic conditions. They are trying to keep these sick folks from getting sicker.
We should all have access to a telephonic wellness nurse. In Massachusetts, our family's health insurance costs more than $15,000 per year. The annual rate increase is 10%. So, does spending approximately $500 per year to provide my family access to a nurse who gets to know us make any sense.
There are 4 people in my family.We are blessed to be healthy with no serious, chronic, or complex issues. We are not heavy users of the health care system. Does this personalized wellness service make financial sense for our HMO?
Lets say our family makes a couple of unnecessary trips to our primary care physician each year. Could we saves $300 on preventable visits? Do we always get the most cost effective prescriptions? Could we try off the shelf medications instead? I know that Doc's don't pay attention to the unit cost of prescriptions that they write. Lets just say the savings are $200 per year on drugs?
By my estimates for a healthy family, this telephonic wellness nurse is a break even proposition for the first year. For a family with serious illness or chronic conditions there is certainly a very strong use case for this system.
My point is that this system would work wonders for most families over time. The truth is that most of us don't drop dead, we rust away, or eat ourselves to death having developed poor lifestyle habits.
If I lose 25 pounds thanks to my wellness nurse's regular questions and information can I eliminate the need for cholesterol or blood pressure medication? Can this service prevent 20 years of dependency on medications? Does it prevent one visit to the ER or a stay in the hospital. These would be huge successes. The savings start to add up when lifestyles are changed for the better. I haven't even mentioned the most important emotional benefits of improved wellness for my family. Who knows maybe I would pay a premium for this service?
There are some challenges with this idea.
First, there are not enough nurses in most big cities across the US. However, there are plenty of nurses outside the US and willing young people wanting to be educated. As you can tell, the level of service that I am asking from my family's wellness nurse is not extraordinary. It may be an LPN or health nutritionist on the phone. My assumption is my nurse will have access to lots of current healthcare information and additional experience when a tougher issue comes up.I am also assuming that my wellness nurse has access to my family's relevant medical history and is able to communicate with our physicians when needed. I'm also assuming that the labor costs are fair but not at the same rate of big city US nurses. Yes, this service could be outsourced to the very countries that are currently sending us nurses on immigrant visas.
What is extraordinary about this concept of a wellness nurse for every family is the technological requirements to support this service are non factors when it comes to the overall business model. Modern telephony and web based tools allow this type of service infrastructure to begin with a model and scale incredibly well with costs that are 90%lower than just a few years ago. The industry specific and business efficiency limitations that we face going forward are no longer technical but entirely creative or organizational.
Start doing the math, my guesstimates of potential costs and savings could be way off; yet any HMO that implemented this concept for all its rate payers would still be considered brilliantly innovative,highly profitable, and loved by all.
We must start changing our assumptions about what is possible.
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Web 2.0 to Enterprise 2.0- Suiting up
Although there are probably a few naysayers left, anyone surfing around ProgrammableWeb, ThomasHowe.com or VOIPMASHUPS.com expect that mashup technologies will get integrated into the Enterprise business process in a huge way before this decade ends.
Why will this happen?
Mashups make businesses faster
Mashups make businesses more efficient
Mashups make customers happier.
Now, of course, we feel that our little horizontal slice of the mashup world -real time communications- will help to leverage the broad range of Web 2.0 technologies across multiple APIs. Simply, this is because all businesses are using telephony now. They are comfortable with it and so "customizing" their communications infrastructure doesn't stretch the corporate culture in a huge way.
The obstacles that need to be overcome so the Mashup evolution can become a true revolution have little to do with the technologies. The revolution will be won when more business and organizational leaders start to have conversations about the ideas generated by Andrew McAfee of Harvard Business School and Erik Brynjolfsson of the MIT Sloan School. They are a couple of the thinkers behind the Enterprise 2.0 discussion.
Here is a working definition from Professor McAfee's blog.
Enterprise 2.0 is the use of emergent social software platforms within companies, or between companies and their partners or customers.
Social software enables people to rendezvous, connect or collaborate through computer-mediated communication and to form online communities. (Wikipedia's definition).
Platforms are digital environments in which contributions and interactions are globally visible and persistent over time. Emergent means that the software is freeform, and that it contans mechanisms to let the patterns and structure inherent in people's interactions become visible over time.
Freeform means that the software is most or all of the following:
Optional
Free of up-front workflow
Egalitarian, or indifferent to formal organizational identities
Accepting of many types of data
To all the mashup makers and technologists, the rapid pace of change shows that we know how to walk the walk. However, we all need to spend some time getting better at talking the talk.
Why will this happen?
Mashups make businesses faster
Mashups make businesses more efficient
Mashups make customers happier.
Now, of course, we feel that our little horizontal slice of the mashup world -real time communications- will help to leverage the broad range of Web 2.0 technologies across multiple APIs. Simply, this is because all businesses are using telephony now. They are comfortable with it and so "customizing" their communications infrastructure doesn't stretch the corporate culture in a huge way.
The obstacles that need to be overcome so the Mashup evolution can become a true revolution have little to do with the technologies. The revolution will be won when more business and organizational leaders start to have conversations about the ideas generated by Andrew McAfee of Harvard Business School and Erik Brynjolfsson of the MIT Sloan School. They are a couple of the thinkers behind the Enterprise 2.0 discussion.
Here is a working definition from Professor McAfee's blog.
Enterprise 2.0 is the use of emergent social software platforms within companies, or between companies and their partners or customers.
Social software enables people to rendezvous, connect or collaborate through computer-mediated communication and to form online communities. (Wikipedia's definition).
Platforms are digital environments in which contributions and interactions are globally visible and persistent over time. Emergent means that the software is freeform, and that it contans mechanisms to let the patterns and structure inherent in people's interactions become visible over time.
Freeform means that the software is most or all of the following:
Optional
Free of up-front workflow
Egalitarian, or indifferent to formal organizational identities
Accepting of many types of data
To all the mashup makers and technologists, the rapid pace of change shows that we know how to walk the walk. However, we all need to spend some time getting better at talking the talk.
Wednesday, June 6, 2007
Demographics aren't sexy.
Demographics will drive new business processes (not technology)!
As a founding partner in a cutting edge technology consultancy, I should NOT start out an editorial with a title that questions the primacy of all things technical. However, it is easy to see that technology is sexy and demographics are not.
But, truthiness according to Stephen Colbert suggests most of us will quietly admit that demographics are becoming more important now. The lucky thing about my opening statement is that amazing numbers and very bright commentators can back me up.
My favorite author Malcolm Gladwell wrote a long piece for the New Yorker that described a term, dependency ratios, which I believe defines the primary driver of business process innovation for the rest of my life.
This relation between the number of people who aren't of working age and the number of people who are is captured in the dependency ratio.
The following seems to be the most relevant excerpt.
" In Ireland during the sixties, when contraception was illegal, there were ten people who were too old or too young to work for every fourteen people in a position to earn a paycheck. That meant that the country was spending a large percentage of its resources on caring for the young and the old. Last year, Ireland's dependency ratio hit an all-time low: for every ten dependents, it had twenty-two people of working age. That change coincides precisely with the country's extraordinary economic surge.
Demographers estimate that declines in dependency ratios are responsible for about a third of the East Asian economic miracle of the postwar era; this is a part of the world that, in the course of twenty-five years, saw its dependency ratio decline thirty-five per cent. Dependency ratios may also help answer the much-debated question of whether India or China has a brighter economic future. Right now, China is in the midst of what Joseph Chamie, the former director of the United Nations' population division, calls the "sweet spot." In the nineteen-sixties, China brought down its birth rate dramatically; those children are now grown up and in the workforce, and there is no similarly sized class of dependents behind them. India, on the other hand, reduced its birth rate much more slowly and has yet to hit the sweet spot. Its best years are ahead.
The logic of dependency ratios, of course, works equally powerfully in reverse. If your economy benefits by having a big bulge of working-age people, then your economy will have a harder time of it when that bulge generation retires, and there are relatively few workers to take their place. For China, the next few decades will be more difficult. "China will peak with a 1-to-2.6 dependency ratio between 2010 and 2015," Bloom says.
"But then it's back to a little over 1-to-1.5 by 2050. That's a pretty dramatic change. Thirty per cent of the Chinese population will be over sixty by 2050. That's four hundred and thirty-two million people." Demographers sometimes say that China is in a race to get rich before it gets old.
Economists have long paid attention to population growth, making the argument that the number of people in a country is either a good thing (spurring innovation) or a bad thing (depleting scarce resources). But an analysis of dependency ratios tells us that what's critical is not just the growth of a population but its structure. "The introduction of demographics has reduced the need for the argument that there was something exceptional about East Asia or idiosyncratic to Africa," Bloom and Canning write, in their study of the Irish economic miracle. "Once age-structure dynamics are introduced into an economic growth model, these regions are much closer to obeying common principles of economic growth."
That's enough with the academic economic speak. Bottomline, as I looked around my Boston College 20th reunion party last weekend, it is obvious that we are getting old and there are plenty of older folks in the workforce ahead of us. This fact is true in all of the "rich" countries in the world. Thanks to advances in healthcare few of us actually drop dead anymore but we all tend to slowly rust away over many years.
So, my point, there is a huge business requirement to deal with this dependency ratio at so many levels. Never before in the history of the world has demographic change at such a massive level been seen. Given the hugely discussed wave of baby boom retirements this requirement to improve business processes is hitting the US over the next decade. It is estimated there will be a net loss of 30 million workers in the US alone.
To bring the challenge down to a granular level,by the time every 6 year old in the US gets to be a vital member of the work force they will need to become 100% more productive than every 40 year old currently in the workforce.
How we go about changing business processes to deal with this challenge becomes a very interesting question. The cool thing is that technically most of the pieces of the solutions including light weight programming methods,customizable communications tools, and Web 2.0 perspectives, are already available to us. We just need to be creative in how we put those pieces together. Innovation that solves the challenges presented by our rapidly evolving dependency ratios will be in high demand and maybe even considered sexy.
As a founding partner in a cutting edge technology consultancy, I should NOT start out an editorial with a title that questions the primacy of all things technical. However, it is easy to see that technology is sexy and demographics are not.
But, truthiness according to Stephen Colbert suggests most of us will quietly admit that demographics are becoming more important now. The lucky thing about my opening statement is that amazing numbers and very bright commentators can back me up.
My favorite author Malcolm Gladwell wrote a long piece for the New Yorker that described a term, dependency ratios, which I believe defines the primary driver of business process innovation for the rest of my life.
This relation between the number of people who aren't of working age and the number of people who are is captured in the dependency ratio.
The following seems to be the most relevant excerpt.
" In Ireland during the sixties, when contraception was illegal, there were ten people who were too old or too young to work for every fourteen people in a position to earn a paycheck. That meant that the country was spending a large percentage of its resources on caring for the young and the old. Last year, Ireland's dependency ratio hit an all-time low: for every ten dependents, it had twenty-two people of working age. That change coincides precisely with the country's extraordinary economic surge.
Demographers estimate that declines in dependency ratios are responsible for about a third of the East Asian economic miracle of the postwar era; this is a part of the world that, in the course of twenty-five years, saw its dependency ratio decline thirty-five per cent. Dependency ratios may also help answer the much-debated question of whether India or China has a brighter economic future. Right now, China is in the midst of what Joseph Chamie, the former director of the United Nations' population division, calls the "sweet spot." In the nineteen-sixties, China brought down its birth rate dramatically; those children are now grown up and in the workforce, and there is no similarly sized class of dependents behind them. India, on the other hand, reduced its birth rate much more slowly and has yet to hit the sweet spot. Its best years are ahead.
The logic of dependency ratios, of course, works equally powerfully in reverse. If your economy benefits by having a big bulge of working-age people, then your economy will have a harder time of it when that bulge generation retires, and there are relatively few workers to take their place. For China, the next few decades will be more difficult. "China will peak with a 1-to-2.6 dependency ratio between 2010 and 2015," Bloom says.
"But then it's back to a little over 1-to-1.5 by 2050. That's a pretty dramatic change. Thirty per cent of the Chinese population will be over sixty by 2050. That's four hundred and thirty-two million people." Demographers sometimes say that China is in a race to get rich before it gets old.
Economists have long paid attention to population growth, making the argument that the number of people in a country is either a good thing (spurring innovation) or a bad thing (depleting scarce resources). But an analysis of dependency ratios tells us that what's critical is not just the growth of a population but its structure. "The introduction of demographics has reduced the need for the argument that there was something exceptional about East Asia or idiosyncratic to Africa," Bloom and Canning write, in their study of the Irish economic miracle. "Once age-structure dynamics are introduced into an economic growth model, these regions are much closer to obeying common principles of economic growth."
That's enough with the academic economic speak. Bottomline, as I looked around my Boston College 20th reunion party last weekend, it is obvious that we are getting old and there are plenty of older folks in the workforce ahead of us. This fact is true in all of the "rich" countries in the world. Thanks to advances in healthcare few of us actually drop dead anymore but we all tend to slowly rust away over many years.
So, my point, there is a huge business requirement to deal with this dependency ratio at so many levels. Never before in the history of the world has demographic change at such a massive level been seen. Given the hugely discussed wave of baby boom retirements this requirement to improve business processes is hitting the US over the next decade. It is estimated there will be a net loss of 30 million workers in the US alone.
To bring the challenge down to a granular level,by the time every 6 year old in the US gets to be a vital member of the work force they will need to become 100% more productive than every 40 year old currently in the workforce.
How we go about changing business processes to deal with this challenge becomes a very interesting question. The cool thing is that technically most of the pieces of the solutions including light weight programming methods,customizable communications tools, and Web 2.0 perspectives, are already available to us. We just need to be creative in how we put those pieces together. Innovation that solves the challenges presented by our rapidly evolving dependency ratios will be in high demand and maybe even considered sexy.
Monday, May 21, 2007
Laptops for kids discussion
Some of this post I took straight from a blog post written by the guys at 37signals.
A hundred dollar laptop must be a piece of garbage, right? Actually, there’s some impressive technology in the One Laptop per Child machine being hawked by MIT professor Nicholas Negroponte. He discussed it on 60 Minutes.
I also saw a version of it demonstrated by Frank Moss at the Cape Cod Technology Council annual dinner.
For one thing, it’s the first laptop with a screen you can use outdoors in full sunlight. It’s also built to withstand harsh weather (“You can pour water on the keyboard…You can dip the base into a bathtub. You can carry it the rain. It’s more robust than your normal laptop. It doesn’t even have holes in the side of it. If you look at it: dirt, sand, I mean, there’s no place for it to go into the machine.”)
Other features: A built-in camera that takes stills and video, a stylus area, ear-like radio antennas that give the computer 2-3 times better Wi-Fi range than a regular laptop, the battery lasts 10-12 hours with heavy use, and you can charge it up with a crank or a salad spinner (a minute or two of spinning gets you get 10-20 minutes of reading).
The OLPC site discusses the machine’s benefits and how it avoids bloat:
You learn through doing. This suggests that if you want more learning, you want more doing. Thus OLPC puts an emphasis on software tools for exploring and expressing, rather than instruction. Love is a better master than duty…
As a matter of practicality and given the necessity to enhance performance and reliability while containing costs, OLPC is not burdened by the bloat of excess code, the “featureitis” that is responsible for much of the clumsiness, unreliability, and expense of many modern laptops. OLPC will start up in an instant and move briskly through its operations. We accomplish this by focusing on only those features that children need for learning.
The user interface is also specially designed to put collaboration at the core of the user experience.
Although the OLPC hardware is impressive, I don't think it is the correct solution for most students in the US. I am focused on trying to come up with a sustainable plan to bring laptops into the Barnstable school district.
Over the next 24 months there will be an explosion of robust laptops or student notebook computers for price points at around $500. The requirement is that the machine lasts for four years and internet access is robust enough so that web applications take over most of the work requirements.
With a lease program, I do believe $500 per child can be sustained in an ongoing manner.
A hundred dollar laptop must be a piece of garbage, right? Actually, there’s some impressive technology in the One Laptop per Child machine being hawked by MIT professor Nicholas Negroponte. He discussed it on 60 Minutes.
I also saw a version of it demonstrated by Frank Moss at the Cape Cod Technology Council annual dinner.
For one thing, it’s the first laptop with a screen you can use outdoors in full sunlight. It’s also built to withstand harsh weather (“You can pour water on the keyboard…You can dip the base into a bathtub. You can carry it the rain. It’s more robust than your normal laptop. It doesn’t even have holes in the side of it. If you look at it: dirt, sand, I mean, there’s no place for it to go into the machine.”)
Other features: A built-in camera that takes stills and video, a stylus area, ear-like radio antennas that give the computer 2-3 times better Wi-Fi range than a regular laptop, the battery lasts 10-12 hours with heavy use, and you can charge it up with a crank or a salad spinner (a minute or two of spinning gets you get 10-20 minutes of reading).
The OLPC site discusses the machine’s benefits and how it avoids bloat:
You learn through doing. This suggests that if you want more learning, you want more doing. Thus OLPC puts an emphasis on software tools for exploring and expressing, rather than instruction. Love is a better master than duty…
As a matter of practicality and given the necessity to enhance performance and reliability while containing costs, OLPC is not burdened by the bloat of excess code, the “featureitis” that is responsible for much of the clumsiness, unreliability, and expense of many modern laptops. OLPC will start up in an instant and move briskly through its operations. We accomplish this by focusing on only those features that children need for learning.
The user interface is also specially designed to put collaboration at the core of the user experience.
Although the OLPC hardware is impressive, I don't think it is the correct solution for most students in the US. I am focused on trying to come up with a sustainable plan to bring laptops into the Barnstable school district.
Over the next 24 months there will be an explosion of robust laptops or student notebook computers for price points at around $500. The requirement is that the machine lasts for four years and internet access is robust enough so that web applications take over most of the work requirements.
With a lease program, I do believe $500 per child can be sustained in an ongoing manner.
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
Did you know? - version read at School Committee meeting
Did you know . . .
Sometimes size does matter.
If you’re one in a million in China . . .
There are 1,300 people just like you.
In India, there are 1,100 people just like you.
The 25% of the population in China with the highest IQ’s . . .
Is greater than the total population of North America.
In India, it’s the top 28%.
Translation for teachers: They have more honors kids than we have kids.
Did you know . . .
China will soon become the number one English speaking country in the world.
India is currently the largest English speaking country and the largest democracy in the world.
The U.S. Department of Labor estimates that today’s learner will have 10-14 jobs
By the age of 38.
According to the U.S. Department of Labor . . .
1 out of 4 workers today is working for a company they have been employed by
for less than one year.
The top 10 in-demand jobs in 2010 didn’t exist in 2004.
We are currently preparing students for jobs that don’t yet exist . . .
Using technologies that haven’t been invented . . .
In order to solve problems we don’t even know are problems yet.
Name this country . . .
Richest in the World
Largest Military
Center of world business and finance
Strongest education system
World center of innovation and invention
Currency the world standard of value
Highest standard of living
England.
In 1900.
Did you know . . .
We are living in exponential times.
There are over 2.7 billion searches performed on Google each month.
To whom were these questions addressed B.G.?
(Before Google)
The number of text messages sent and received every day exceeds the population
of the planet.
There are about 540,000 words in the English language . . .
About 5 times as many as during Shakespeare’s time.
More than 3,000 new books are published . . .
Daily.
It’s estimated that a week’s worth of New York Times . . .
Contains more information than a person was likely to come across in a lifetime in
the 18th century.
It’s estimated that 40 exabytes (that’s 4.0 x 1019) of unique new information will
be generated worldwide this year.
That’s estimated to be more than in the previous 5,000 years.
The amount of new technical information is doubling every 2 years.
It’s predicted to double every 72 hours by 2010.
47 million laptops were shipped worldwide last year.
The $100 laptop project is expecting to ship between 50 and 100 million laptops a
year to children in underdeveloped countries.
Predictions are that by 2013 a supercomputer will be built that exceeds the
computation capability of the Human Brain . . .
By 2023, a $1,000 computer will exceed the computation capability of the Human
Brain . . .
And while technical predictions further out than about 15 years are hard to do . . .
Predictions are that by 2049 a $1,000 computer will exceed the computational
capabilities of the human race.
What does it all mean?
Shift Happens.
Now you know . . .
Mashup of work done by these folks and then seen at NSBA EXPO
The Fischbowl: http://thefischbowl.blogspot.com
Fischbowl Presentations:
http://www.lps.k12.co.us/schools/arapahoe/fisch/fischbowlpresentations.htm
Sometimes size does matter.
If you’re one in a million in China . . .
There are 1,300 people just like you.
In India, there are 1,100 people just like you.
The 25% of the population in China with the highest IQ’s . . .
Is greater than the total population of North America.
In India, it’s the top 28%.
Translation for teachers: They have more honors kids than we have kids.
Did you know . . .
China will soon become the number one English speaking country in the world.
India is currently the largest English speaking country and the largest democracy in the world.
The U.S. Department of Labor estimates that today’s learner will have 10-14 jobs
By the age of 38.
According to the U.S. Department of Labor . . .
1 out of 4 workers today is working for a company they have been employed by
for less than one year.
The top 10 in-demand jobs in 2010 didn’t exist in 2004.
We are currently preparing students for jobs that don’t yet exist . . .
Using technologies that haven’t been invented . . .
In order to solve problems we don’t even know are problems yet.
Name this country . . .
Richest in the World
Largest Military
Center of world business and finance
Strongest education system
World center of innovation and invention
Currency the world standard of value
Highest standard of living
England.
In 1900.
Did you know . . .
We are living in exponential times.
There are over 2.7 billion searches performed on Google each month.
To whom were these questions addressed B.G.?
(Before Google)
The number of text messages sent and received every day exceeds the population
of the planet.
There are about 540,000 words in the English language . . .
About 5 times as many as during Shakespeare’s time.
More than 3,000 new books are published . . .
Daily.
It’s estimated that a week’s worth of New York Times . . .
Contains more information than a person was likely to come across in a lifetime in
the 18th century.
It’s estimated that 40 exabytes (that’s 4.0 x 1019) of unique new information will
be generated worldwide this year.
That’s estimated to be more than in the previous 5,000 years.
The amount of new technical information is doubling every 2 years.
It’s predicted to double every 72 hours by 2010.
47 million laptops were shipped worldwide last year.
The $100 laptop project is expecting to ship between 50 and 100 million laptops a
year to children in underdeveloped countries.
Predictions are that by 2013 a supercomputer will be built that exceeds the
computation capability of the Human Brain . . .
By 2023, a $1,000 computer will exceed the computation capability of the Human
Brain . . .
And while technical predictions further out than about 15 years are hard to do . . .
Predictions are that by 2049 a $1,000 computer will exceed the computational
capabilities of the human race.
What does it all mean?
Shift Happens.
Now you know . . .
Mashup of work done by these folks and then seen at NSBA EXPO
The Fischbowl: http://thefischbowl.blogspot.com
Fischbowl Presentations:
http://www.lps.k12.co.us/schools/arapahoe/fisch/fischbowlpresentations.htm
Sunday, April 22, 2007
Did you know ?
Did you know . . .
Sometimes size does matter.
If you’re one in a million in China . . .
There are 1,300 people just like you.
In India, there are 1,100 people just like you.
The 25% of the population in China with the highest IQ’s . . .
Is greater than the total population of North America.
In India, it’s the top 28%.
Translation for teachers: They have more honors kids than we have kids.
Did you know . . .
China will soon become the number one English speaking country in the world.
If you took every single job in the U.S. today and shipped it to China . . .
China would still have a labor surplus.
During the course of this 8 minute presentation . . .
60 babies will be born in the U.S.
244 babies will be born in China.
351 babies will be born in India.
The U.S. Department of Labor estimates that today’s learner will have 10-14 jobs
By the age of 38.
According to the U.S. Department of Labor . . .
1 out of 4 workers today is working for a company they have been employed by
for less than one year.
More than 1 out of 2 are working for a company they have worked for for less
than five years.
According to former Secretary of Education Richard Riley . . .
The top 10 in-demand jobs in 2010 didn’t exist in 2004.
We are currently preparing students for jobs that don’t yet exist . . .
Using technologies that haven’t been invented . . .
In order to solve problems we don’t even know are problems yet.
Name this country . . .
Richest in the World
Largest Military
Center of world business and finance
Strongest education system
World center of innovation and invention
Currency the world standard of value
Highest standard of living
England.
In 1900.
Did you know . . .
The U.S. is 20th in the world in broadband Internet penetration.
(Luxembourg just passed us.)
In 2002 alone Nintendo invested more than $140 million in research and
development.
The U.S. Federal Government spent less than half as much on Research and
Innovation in Education.
1 out of every 8 couples married in the U.S. last year met online.
There are over 100 million registered users of MySpace.(August 2006)
*Scott updated to 106 million for September 2006 and added this slide:
If MySpace were a country, it would be the 11th-largest in the world (between
Japan and Mexico)*
The average MySpace page is visited 30 times a day.
Did you know . . .
We are living in exponential times.
There are over 2.7 billion searches performed on Google each month.
To whom were these questions addressed B.G.?
(Before Google)
The number of text messages sent and received every day exceeds the population
of the planet.
There are about 540,000 words in the English language . . .
About 5 times as many as during Shakespeare’s time.
More than 3,000 new books are published . . .
Daily.
It’s estimated that a week’s worth of New York Times . . .
Contains more information than a person was likely to come across in a lifetime in
the 18th century.
It’s estimated that 40 exabytes (that’s 4.0 x 1019) of unique new information will
be generated worldwide this year.
That’s estimated to be more than in the previous 5,000 years.
The amount of new technical information is doubling every 2 years.
It’s predicted to double every 72 hours by 2010.
Third generation fiber optics has recently been separately tested by NEC and
Alcatel . . .
That pushes 10 trillion bits per second down one strand of fiber.
That’s 1,900 CDs or 150 million simultaneous phone calls every second.
It’s currently tripling about every 6 months and is expected to do so for at least
the next 20 years.
The fiber is already there, they’re just improving the switches on the ends. Which
means the marginal cost of these improvements is effectively $0.
Predictions are that e-paper will be cheaper than real paper.
47 million laptops were shipped worldwide last year.
The $100 laptop project is expecting to ship between 50 and 100 million laptops a
year to children in underdeveloped countries.
Predictions are that by 2013 a supercomputer will be built that exceeds the
computation capability of the Human Brain . . .
By 2023, a $1,000 computer will exceed the computation capability of the Human
Brain . . .
First grader Abby will be just 23 years old and beginning her (first) career . . .
And while technical predictions further out than about 15 years are hard to do . . .
Predictions are that by 2049 a $1,000 computer will exceed the computational
capabilities of the human race.
What does it all mean?
Shift Happens.
Now you know . . .
The Fischbowl: http://thefischbowl.blogspot.com
Fischbowl Presentations:
http://www.lps.k12.co.us/schools/arapahoe/fisch/fischbowlpresentations.htm
Sometimes size does matter.
If you’re one in a million in China . . .
There are 1,300 people just like you.
In India, there are 1,100 people just like you.
The 25% of the population in China with the highest IQ’s . . .
Is greater than the total population of North America.
In India, it’s the top 28%.
Translation for teachers: They have more honors kids than we have kids.
Did you know . . .
China will soon become the number one English speaking country in the world.
If you took every single job in the U.S. today and shipped it to China . . .
China would still have a labor surplus.
During the course of this 8 minute presentation . . .
60 babies will be born in the U.S.
244 babies will be born in China.
351 babies will be born in India.
The U.S. Department of Labor estimates that today’s learner will have 10-14 jobs
By the age of 38.
According to the U.S. Department of Labor . . .
1 out of 4 workers today is working for a company they have been employed by
for less than one year.
More than 1 out of 2 are working for a company they have worked for for less
than five years.
According to former Secretary of Education Richard Riley . . .
The top 10 in-demand jobs in 2010 didn’t exist in 2004.
We are currently preparing students for jobs that don’t yet exist . . .
Using technologies that haven’t been invented . . .
In order to solve problems we don’t even know are problems yet.
Name this country . . .
Richest in the World
Largest Military
Center of world business and finance
Strongest education system
World center of innovation and invention
Currency the world standard of value
Highest standard of living
England.
In 1900.
Did you know . . .
The U.S. is 20th in the world in broadband Internet penetration.
(Luxembourg just passed us.)
In 2002 alone Nintendo invested more than $140 million in research and
development.
The U.S. Federal Government spent less than half as much on Research and
Innovation in Education.
1 out of every 8 couples married in the U.S. last year met online.
There are over 100 million registered users of MySpace.(August 2006)
*Scott updated to 106 million for September 2006 and added this slide:
If MySpace were a country, it would be the 11th-largest in the world (between
Japan and Mexico)*
The average MySpace page is visited 30 times a day.
Did you know . . .
We are living in exponential times.
There are over 2.7 billion searches performed on Google each month.
To whom were these questions addressed B.G.?
(Before Google)
The number of text messages sent and received every day exceeds the population
of the planet.
There are about 540,000 words in the English language . . .
About 5 times as many as during Shakespeare’s time.
More than 3,000 new books are published . . .
Daily.
It’s estimated that a week’s worth of New York Times . . .
Contains more information than a person was likely to come across in a lifetime in
the 18th century.
It’s estimated that 40 exabytes (that’s 4.0 x 1019) of unique new information will
be generated worldwide this year.
That’s estimated to be more than in the previous 5,000 years.
The amount of new technical information is doubling every 2 years.
It’s predicted to double every 72 hours by 2010.
Third generation fiber optics has recently been separately tested by NEC and
Alcatel . . .
That pushes 10 trillion bits per second down one strand of fiber.
That’s 1,900 CDs or 150 million simultaneous phone calls every second.
It’s currently tripling about every 6 months and is expected to do so for at least
the next 20 years.
The fiber is already there, they’re just improving the switches on the ends. Which
means the marginal cost of these improvements is effectively $0.
Predictions are that e-paper will be cheaper than real paper.
47 million laptops were shipped worldwide last year.
The $100 laptop project is expecting to ship between 50 and 100 million laptops a
year to children in underdeveloped countries.
Predictions are that by 2013 a supercomputer will be built that exceeds the
computation capability of the Human Brain . . .
By 2023, a $1,000 computer will exceed the computation capability of the Human
Brain . . .
First grader Abby will be just 23 years old and beginning her (first) career . . .
And while technical predictions further out than about 15 years are hard to do . . .
Predictions are that by 2049 a $1,000 computer will exceed the computational
capabilities of the human race.
What does it all mean?
Shift Happens.
Now you know . . .
The Fischbowl: http://thefischbowl.blogspot.com
Fischbowl Presentations:
http://www.lps.k12.co.us/schools/arapahoe/fisch/fischbowlpresentations.htm
Wrap up and homework from the NSBA Conference
Having been to many "trade" expos, my primary indicator of the value add provided by a conference is the amount of homework that comes out of the sessions. What new readings or websites do I need to review? What research and trends should I follow? Did I meet new people or hear speakers who have ideas and viewpoints needing to be heard?
The NSBA expo certainly provided me with a lot of homework!
Here are a few sites to research:
www.centerforpubliceducation.org
www.centerforpubliceducation.org
www.healthiergeneration.org
www.edfacilities.org
The first site has current research on a variety of public policy debates facing School Boards across the country including graduation rates,school calendars,etc..
The second site provides followup information on former President Bill Clinton's work on preventing childhood obesity and health problems.
The third site provides an enormous amount of information on school facilities. I am interested in the reports on indoor air quality.
It is also interesting to track the books being mentioned by speakers. Several of my favorites were mentioned frequently including Good to Great For Social Sectors, The World is Flat ,The Tipping Point, and A Whole New Mind.
A few books mentioned that I need to grab include: A World Lit only by Fire,Innovators Dilemma, Wikinomics, Leading Leaders
What caught my attention with all of these books is how educational leaders are striving to engage their boards, staff, and community in thinking about the WHY of education rather than simply the HOW.
The NSBA expo certainly provided me with a lot of homework!
Here are a few sites to research:
www.centerforpubliceducation.org
www.centerforpubliceducation.org
www.healthiergeneration.org
www.edfacilities.org
The first site has current research on a variety of public policy debates facing School Boards across the country including graduation rates,school calendars,etc..
The second site provides followup information on former President Bill Clinton's work on preventing childhood obesity and health problems.
The third site provides an enormous amount of information on school facilities. I am interested in the reports on indoor air quality.
It is also interesting to track the books being mentioned by speakers. Several of my favorites were mentioned frequently including Good to Great For Social Sectors, The World is Flat ,The Tipping Point, and A Whole New Mind.
A few books mentioned that I need to grab include: A World Lit only by Fire,Innovators Dilemma, Wikinomics, Leading Leaders
What caught my attention with all of these books is how educational leaders are striving to engage their boards, staff, and community in thinking about the WHY of education rather than simply the HOW.
Monday, April 16, 2007
Vendors at NSBA
As with any EXPO, there is a big hall filled with vendors.
I spent a lot of time talking with a couple of companies that provide alert and notification services...outbound parent call notification. This business has matured over the last couple of years and now has real competition.
I believe our contract comes up for review within the next year. I am convinced that we can save at least 30% or more per year. I believe our current contract is approximately 25K per year so getting the equivalent of one year free is good for the district.
Also, this little industry insight makes me feel good since it means I have more than paid for the District's expenses in sending me to the conference.
I spent a lot of time talking with a couple of companies that provide alert and notification services...outbound parent call notification. This business has matured over the last couple of years and now has real competition.
I believe our contract comes up for review within the next year. I am convinced that we can save at least 30% or more per year. I believe our current contract is approximately 25K per year so getting the equivalent of one year free is good for the district.
Also, this little industry insight makes me feel good since it means I have more than paid for the District's expenses in sending me to the conference.
Sunday, April 15, 2007
21st Century Strategies and Tactics
Overflow crowd listening to Ken Kay who is the Executive Director of the Partnership for 21st Century Skills. His talk focused on aligning the educational process with the economic drivers of the 21st century.
Great info at their website to be linked later.
From the strategic to the tactical, I attended a terrific presentation by a Colorado school district implementing a one to one lap top program. This was a nuts and bolts conversation. An Administrator, Board Member, and Tech Director/Teacher presented their experiences.
On stat that I heard ( needs to be verified) was something like 20% of districts across the country are working on one to one laptop programs.
Keynote speaker today is President Clinto.
Great info at their website to be linked later.
From the strategic to the tactical, I attended a terrific presentation by a Colorado school district implementing a one to one lap top program. This was a nuts and bolts conversation. An Administrator, Board Member, and Tech Director/Teacher presented their experiences.
On stat that I heard ( needs to be verified) was something like 20% of districts across the country are working on one to one laptop programs.
Keynote speaker today is President Clinto.
Saturday, April 14, 2007
Lessons Learned from Hurricane Katrina
Tremendous presentation from the folks in St. Tammany Parish Public School System, of Slidell Louisiana. They showed a wonderful movie (DVD provided) of their experiences and gave everyone a Lessons Learned CD. Ideally, this summer we can find some time to focus on crisis preparation during SC meeting. Showing the movie and going over the lesson learned cd would be a great way to make this topic real. We also need to find time to do a presentation of the OpenCape.org project and some of the recent Red Cross/ Unite Way challenge activities. All are vital to our community's response to a crisis.
Talking about crisis preparation and response is needed to keep us all thinking about improving our response plans as well as to show just how important schools are to the fabric of a community. Big lesson learned from Katrina and Rita, if the schools reopen quickly the community does rebuild.
Schools as economic drivers becomes very apparent during these situations.
Talking about crisis preparation and response is needed to keep us all thinking about improving our response plans as well as to show just how important schools are to the fabric of a community. Big lesson learned from Katrina and Rita, if the schools reopen quickly the community does rebuild.
Schools as economic drivers becomes very apparent during these situations.
Legal issues related to Science and Technology
Raised concerns across the country mostly about teaching Evolution vs. Creationism. Also touched on technology policies as they affect perceived student safety issues and their right/need to carry cell phones. Bottomline, School Boards get sued on these issues. Stick to a process that works, consult experts, consult data etc..tread lightly.
To be honest this session didn't hold my interest once the audience got started with their input. I'm too task and organizationally oriented.
Let the professional educators remain responsible for curriculum.
I'm off to a more practical discussion, "Lessons learned from Districts dealing with Hurricane Katrina."
To be honest this session didn't hold my interest once the audience got started with their input. I'm too task and organizationally oriented.
Let the professional educators remain responsible for curriculum.
I'm off to a more practical discussion, "Lessons learned from Districts dealing with Hurricane Katrina."
F. W. de Klerk opening
The first keynote talk was given by the former President of South Africa, F. W. de Klerck. He oversaw the dismantling of Apartheid along with Nelson Mandela. Jointly, they won the Nobel Peace Prize.
His talk was about change. After hearing and thinking about what is required to dramatically and successfully change a country like South Africa it does provide some motivation to keep pushing forward with change locally, professionally, personally.
There was also a terrific video presentation by former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. She will be giving a keynote address next year.
Upload picture later.
His talk was about change. After hearing and thinking about what is required to dramatically and successfully change a country like South Africa it does provide some motivation to keep pushing forward with change locally, professionally, personally.
There was also a terrific video presentation by former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. She will be giving a keynote address next year.
Upload picture later.
blogging from the conference
School Board blogging is no big deal. There are stations of computers set up called Blog Centrals to encourage this type of communication. Just finished a session called "Raising the Floor, Raising the Ceiling" by a State of Ohio DOE Administator. I will add some website links to this post later.
Showed that we are doing good things in MA and Barnstable. The BCAS, short cycle assesment, integrated with School Brains is very, very current. We need to do a better job communicating that specific time sensitive data with parents.
Best part of the session was that I sat next to Dr. Phil Kelly, a Boise SC member. He also happens to be an educational policy professor for Boise State University. He is the proverbial fox in the hen house.
So, here are some questions that I need to continue asking.
1. What are we doing well in the classroom?
2. What are we not doing well?
3. Causes?
4. Graduation rate versus drop rate over 4 years.
5. How many kids are taking AP courses? Are they taking the AP test? How are they doing? How many kids are taking SAT or other similar assessments?
6. Are advanced classes open to all kids? Can we encourage kids to take advanced classes even if they have underperformed in the past?
On to another session.
Showed that we are doing good things in MA and Barnstable. The BCAS, short cycle assesment, integrated with School Brains is very, very current. We need to do a better job communicating that specific time sensitive data with parents.
Best part of the session was that I sat next to Dr. Phil Kelly, a Boise SC member. He also happens to be an educational policy professor for Boise State University. He is the proverbial fox in the hen house.
So, here are some questions that I need to continue asking.
1. What are we doing well in the classroom?
2. What are we not doing well?
3. Causes?
4. Graduation rate versus drop rate over 4 years.
5. How many kids are taking AP courses? Are they taking the AP test? How are they doing? How many kids are taking SAT or other similar assessments?
6. Are advanced classes open to all kids? Can we encourage kids to take advanced classes even if they have underperformed in the past?
On to another session.
quick list of great tech uses for schools
At PALY I saw some great uses of technology in the classroom.
1. 1st grade - $90 digital microscope hooked to the classroom computer takes pictures of kids' treasures and magnifies them.
2. 3rd grade- using imovie or vidster to make and edit movies. The classroom project required two groups of kids to argue for or against the building of a new mall. The rest of the third grade would vote on which team made a better film. The kids also did interviews and podcasted them.
3. 3rd grade- computers on wheels lab. Eight year old iboook clamshells still in use. The kids do a simple research project, use the keyboard and learn to file and save.
4. My favorite integration was by a middle school Spanish teacher who uses ichat or skype to set up real time interviews with students in Spain or wherever. I loved this idea for its power, simplicity, and its almost free.
5. High school journalism teacher is using Google Docs with all her kids. All kids must submit papers to her with Google Docs. She can track alll her kids, see their revisions, see how much time they are spending on the project, view collaborations between students...etc.. Google Docs and Spreadsheets is free. Kids can access from any web browser.
6. Nice examples of multimedia effort in Art, Social Studies, Music etc. Projects are posted on the LMS to allow parents to view their kids work.
1. 1st grade - $90 digital microscope hooked to the classroom computer takes pictures of kids' treasures and magnifies them.
2. 3rd grade- using imovie or vidster to make and edit movies. The classroom project required two groups of kids to argue for or against the building of a new mall. The rest of the third grade would vote on which team made a better film. The kids also did interviews and podcasted them.
3. 3rd grade- computers on wheels lab. Eight year old iboook clamshells still in use. The kids do a simple research project, use the keyboard and learn to file and save.
4. My favorite integration was by a middle school Spanish teacher who uses ichat or skype to set up real time interviews with students in Spain or wherever. I loved this idea for its power, simplicity, and its almost free.
5. High school journalism teacher is using Google Docs with all her kids. All kids must submit papers to her with Google Docs. She can track alll her kids, see their revisions, see how much time they are spending on the project, view collaborations between students...etc.. Google Docs and Spreadsheets is free. Kids can access from any web browser.
6. Nice examples of multimedia effort in Art, Social Studies, Music etc. Projects are posted on the LMS to allow parents to view their kids work.
Friday, April 13, 2007
National School Board Association conference
Wow, lots to report from my first day at the NSBA conference. This will require frequent posts. Hopefully I can organize my thoughts.
Friday,today, I attended a full day session put on by the Technology Leadership Network which is a special interest group of the NSBA. Approximately 50 school board and educational leaders from around the US plus folks from Winnipeg, Canada and Sidney, Australia attended site visits at the Palo Alto Unified School District(PALY).
PALY is a K-12 district with 11,000 students. It is located next to Stanford University in the heart of Silicon Valley. Links can be found at PAUSD.org or paly.net
I calculated their per student spending as probably 25% more than Barnstable. Although the majority of that has to go to staff payrolls since the region has the most expensive housing market in the country.
I was expecting to see schools paved with gold and kids with ethernet cords plugged into their ears. Instead, I found a calm, innovative, integrated approach to using technology driven by creative teachers.
Their approach to technology is really very much site based. The District is responsible for infrastructure, grant writing, and equity (not much required). The individuals schools PACS and alotments of school based funds keep the technology going in each specific school.
They really do have decent hardware and software but nothing outrageous. For example they are just beginning to test out Smart Boards in a few classrooms. Also, they are talking about a capital bond to handle technology upgrades next year. They are discussing one to one laptop initiatives.
However, there does seem to be a tremendous culture of teachers experimenting with the integration of technology into their daily classes.
I am fascinated by this culture of innovation that seems to be in the air. Of course, PALY has never actually neglected technology. At the same time they are certainly using their equipment through its entire life cycle. What is obvious is that there has been consistent leadership and community support for the use of technology going back a generation.
Friday,today, I attended a full day session put on by the Technology Leadership Network which is a special interest group of the NSBA. Approximately 50 school board and educational leaders from around the US plus folks from Winnipeg, Canada and Sidney, Australia attended site visits at the Palo Alto Unified School District(PALY).
PALY is a K-12 district with 11,000 students. It is located next to Stanford University in the heart of Silicon Valley. Links can be found at PAUSD.org or paly.net
I calculated their per student spending as probably 25% more than Barnstable. Although the majority of that has to go to staff payrolls since the region has the most expensive housing market in the country.
I was expecting to see schools paved with gold and kids with ethernet cords plugged into their ears. Instead, I found a calm, innovative, integrated approach to using technology driven by creative teachers.
Their approach to technology is really very much site based. The District is responsible for infrastructure, grant writing, and equity (not much required). The individuals schools PACS and alotments of school based funds keep the technology going in each specific school.
They really do have decent hardware and software but nothing outrageous. For example they are just beginning to test out Smart Boards in a few classrooms. Also, they are talking about a capital bond to handle technology upgrades next year. They are discussing one to one laptop initiatives.
However, there does seem to be a tremendous culture of teachers experimenting with the integration of technology into their daily classes.
I am fascinated by this culture of innovation that seems to be in the air. Of course, PALY has never actually neglected technology. At the same time they are certainly using their equipment through its entire life cycle. What is obvious is that there has been consistent leadership and community support for the use of technology going back a generation.
Wednesday, April 4, 2007
Education choice
Last night I had a School Committee meeting. Although, we meet 2 dozen times a year, it is rare that the 5 members of the SC have a significant public policy debate. Most of the time policies are either mandated by Federal or State DOEs. The few policies not guided by DOEs are constrained by hard legal or financial facts.
However, the few times that we do have serious policy debates they do or should provide the school district a strategic framework. School Committees are misunderstood entities yet have very focused roles. In MA., SC tend to have one employee (the Superintendent), provide financial oversight, and set strategy through policies.
So, the debate was about something called interdistrict school choice. By adopting this policy ( by a 3 to 2 vote) non resident children can apply to attend school in our school district. There are parameters and guidelines that will govern the implementation of this policy; so it isn't quite as wide open as it sounds. The home town of the new student sends a $5000 payment to the new district. There is also another separate policy discussion about providing non resident district school employees the benefit of sending their children to school with them. In that case, the employees' hometowns do not send a check.
I believe the policy of PUBLIC school choice is extraordinarily important. In ALL educational studies, the one common characteristic of a successful student regardless of race, class, or socioeconomic background, is that they have someone in their life who promotes the value of education.
Now, promoting the value of going to a particular school due to the fate of where one sleeps at night is not particularly compelling. There is no commitment or investment.
However, the simple act of choosing to attend a school whether or not it is in your neighborhood does empower a parent or caregiver to make a mental commitment and hopefully overtime an emotional investment.
As consumers in a market economy we have been trained to evaluate and make choices. As unique individuals with a sense of ourselves, we are predisposed to defending our choices in life for better or worse.
From my perspective there is no simpler and more effective way to empower a student and his or her caregiver to value public education than to empower them to choose their own public school.
Over the next year or two, I will work on discussing policies to extend more intra district choice options to parents. With building renovations and site based management, in our district, the parameters guiding the implementation of intradistrict choice will need to be thought out.
Unlimited school choice requires an unlimited amount of money. Not until private schools make it their mission to try to educate 100% of the children who show up on their doorsteps will I be willing to enter into any "voucher" policy discussion. One just needs to look at the ethnic and religious strive tearing apart countries around the world to see the awesome power of America's public school system to make our melting pot of a society succeed.
However, the few times that we do have serious policy debates they do or should provide the school district a strategic framework. School Committees are misunderstood entities yet have very focused roles. In MA., SC tend to have one employee (the Superintendent), provide financial oversight, and set strategy through policies.
So, the debate was about something called interdistrict school choice. By adopting this policy ( by a 3 to 2 vote) non resident children can apply to attend school in our school district. There are parameters and guidelines that will govern the implementation of this policy; so it isn't quite as wide open as it sounds. The home town of the new student sends a $5000 payment to the new district. There is also another separate policy discussion about providing non resident district school employees the benefit of sending their children to school with them. In that case, the employees' hometowns do not send a check.
I believe the policy of PUBLIC school choice is extraordinarily important. In ALL educational studies, the one common characteristic of a successful student regardless of race, class, or socioeconomic background, is that they have someone in their life who promotes the value of education.
Now, promoting the value of going to a particular school due to the fate of where one sleeps at night is not particularly compelling. There is no commitment or investment.
However, the simple act of choosing to attend a school whether or not it is in your neighborhood does empower a parent or caregiver to make a mental commitment and hopefully overtime an emotional investment.
As consumers in a market economy we have been trained to evaluate and make choices. As unique individuals with a sense of ourselves, we are predisposed to defending our choices in life for better or worse.
From my perspective there is no simpler and more effective way to empower a student and his or her caregiver to value public education than to empower them to choose their own public school.
Over the next year or two, I will work on discussing policies to extend more intra district choice options to parents. With building renovations and site based management, in our district, the parameters guiding the implementation of intradistrict choice will need to be thought out.
Unlimited school choice requires an unlimited amount of money. Not until private schools make it their mission to try to educate 100% of the children who show up on their doorsteps will I be willing to enter into any "voucher" policy discussion. One just needs to look at the ethnic and religious strive tearing apart countries around the world to see the awesome power of America's public school system to make our melting pot of a society succeed.
Sunday, April 1, 2007
Apples of our eyes
I've been sidetracked this week with some new toys. Per my previous posts about adopting new mobile, multi-media, and web based tools my Apple Power Book came in the mail. As an embarassingly, generous thank you gift for my service as Chair of the Cape Cod Technology Council I was given a video ipod last month. So, I've been preoccupied with these two wicked cool, elegant pieces of technology.
My favorite writer on the topic of how technology impacts our lives is a local colleague, Teresa Martin. She is the fabulous, Executive Director (now CEO) of the Cape Cod Technology Council. She recently commented about people who always refer to themselves in the negative as NOT technically literate. Her point is that the basic tools of professional life are becoming such the de-facto standard that we can barely remember how we functioned without them.
Now, the throw away line we all hear from people about being technical idiots does still get an amusing laugh when tossed out casually in friendly company.
At what point in time does that laugh line stop being funny? When does that line become the equivalent confession of a "lost" drivers license or fear of speaking in public?
Making one's self technically literate is a professional and educational requirement.
Empathy is in my soul. The real reason that I am trading in my old tool box for a new set of technology tools is each new tool that I am adopting is SOOOO much easier to use. Apple and Google are changing the rules. Users no longer have to learn new behaviors to handle their technology. Technology is built to adapt to users.
As our "digitally native" kids rapidly learn to blog circles around us, create multi-media, and (by osmosis) embody game theory the pace of change in our world is going to continue to increase.
This change will be fun.
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
Testing Education
I came across a story that paints a picture of how public policy, business, and technology should intersect but don't, at least yet.
With the Federal adoption of No Child Left Behind, an enormous testing industry has grown up. An additional 56 million standardized tests are given each year across the country. "It's not entirely a monopoly, but it is an oligopoly, with very little regulation," said Walter Haney, professor at the Center for the Study of Testing Evaluation and Educational Policy at Boston College.
The big 4 test manufacturers are all under the same pressures to deliver, score, and summarize the test scores with seasonal requirements mandated by the NCLB law. As the stakes rise each year cracks are beginning to appear. Illinois was the first to miss the mandated reporting deadlines due to problems in its vendor relationship. At least five other states have reported significant problems with their testing vendors. Most of these major vendors have taken on testing as an extension of their traditional textbook publishing business
For the students , schools, and local school districts errors with these standardized tests can cause intense problems.
Can technology be used to improve the speed and efficiency of this system? Well, one of the first rules for deploying technology is to make sure that the process requiring improvement is actually the right process. Speeding up a bad process simply results in poor results faster.
Getting five 9s of error free results on a standardized document in a timely manner does seem doable. It is obvious that the testing industry needs to be taken back to school.
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
Geni in a bottle
Here is a new site that caught my attention, www.geni.com
It is a family tree creation web application that has raised a ton of money from venture capitalists.
At this date, March 2007, there is no recognizable business model to be seen on the site. Is the site named geni because it will require the favor of three magical wishes to ever make a profit?
Probably. Will the owners and investors make a real return on their 10 million dollar investment? Probably. Are we entering the Dot- Bomb era again? Probably NOT.
The application that runs the site is slick in the best sense of the word. It is amazingly easy to use, intuitive, elegant, fast, FREE, and fun. The general media would refer to it as an example of a WEB 2.0 application. That term is fast becoming over used but regardless GENI is technology done well.
Most importantly from an investor's perspective, the simple act of filling out your family tree encourages you to virally encourage others in your family to sign up for geni.
This is viral marketing at its best. Geni is building a community family by family. It is amazing how quickly and effortlessly the brand of geni will spread. I'm sure, the folks at geni even have their own predictive equation that "proves" how fast and furiously their online community will be built. Within a year, I'm guessing they will have 10% of the 50 million broadband users identified as part of their community.
Now the pesky problem of creating a business model or at least a way to achieve ROI for this innovation becomes more obvious. We have the subscription model. What new features would I pay for annually and turn myself into a a paid subscriber? Improving nations' collective families connectedness and communications seems ripe for innovations.
Of course, for the non subscribers they also have the advertising model courtesy of Google, Yahoo, MySpace etc. I really hope advertising is not the primary business model.
The EXIT strategy is to sell the innovation/company to one of the big portals within a few years for ten or 20 times the amount invested. I can see it happening but I really hope it doesn't. The Dot Bomb era created many great new technologies. It did not create quite as many new businesses. In my mind, building a sustainable company should always be the end goal.
It will be interesting to follow the life cycle of geni. I am impressed with the technology and potential, but building a company to flip within 24 to 36 months is just hoping for magic. Let's hope they focus on building a sustainable company.
Saturday, March 24, 2007
Lighter Technologies and lighter thoughts
I've noticed that my posts so far have been a bit heavy maybe not deep but kind of serious. Now,the ironic part is that my pseudo THINKER mode is being powered by some elegantly simple to use and light technology. I am in the process of migrating to using web applications and mobile devices entirely. This is a purposeful exchange of my current bag of professional tools for everything web and mobile.
To be honest, I am not and never will be mistaken for a Technologist with a capital T. I'm not even a true early adopter. At most, I am a super fan, popularizer, and critic of new technologies. I am a geek wannabe. Professionally, I am one part super networked sales guy, one part cat herder of geeks, and one part business wonk. And I will remain a small t, technologist.
Regardless of my limitations, this ongoing personal and professional evolution to the use of lighter devices, applications, and technologies has been simple, enjoyable, and for the most part free or inexpensive. Dare I say, it has been FUN.
Last month, I had the pleasure of meeting and listening to Frank Moss of the MIT Media Lab. His predictions and the projects he shared with us from the Media Lab are all about empowering users. Most importantly, the focus is not on the current one billion users of technology in this world but the last one BILLION users of technology. Light weight, web based and mobile technologies are prominent in their work.
So, the new tools that I am in the process of adopting are the same family of technologies that will empower billions of new minds across the world within a few years or one generation at most.
Lighter technologies and thinking that will enable new voices and talents around the world sounds familiar. With a little luck and hope we may have the pleasure of living through the modern equivalent of another Enlightenment with a capital E. Those are lighter thoughts that I can adopt.
Thursday, March 22, 2007
Playing with Boards
Through a quirk of the calendar this week, I attended three unique Board meetings running for a total of 6 hours within a 16 hour time span. Other than myself there were no overlapping Board members. I drank a lot of coffee.
The organizations' missions,size and scope cover a range of concerns. One is a business community focused on economic development in a region including 600 businesses and 15,000 people. Another is the largest human services focused private fund raising entity covering Cape Cod's 250,000 residents. The third is Massachusett's 20th largest school district with 900 employees and 6000 students. These are all relatively high functioning Boards.
I came away from these, back to back to back sessions with a renewed appreciation for how easily individual members and entire Boards can move from being powerfully vital to entirely passive. One moment a discussion can move from tactically useless and the next it is strategically focused.
Is this ebb and flow of strong to passive roles for Board members a primary characteristic of high functioning Boards? Yes it is. I will leave it to others to identify and define these Boards roles. My sense is these organizational dynamics are really complex and equivalent to a well rehearsed string quartet switching instruments after every song. Each person needs to listen for their role yet play as a group.
More importantly, CEOs, Executive Directors, and Superintendents require a sophisticated level of interpersonal skills in order to build and maintain a high functioning Board.
In a world being driven by globalization's intensive competition this ability to listen locally but play globally becomes a defining skill set.
Saturday, March 17, 2007
March 17th, 2007- Happy St. Patrick's Day
Here we go into the blogging world. St. Pat's Day seems like THE most appropriate day for me to post on my own blog for the first time. Lime most things. perseverance an consistency will make this happen.
Most of us know the story of the guy, Patrick, who showed up in Ireland, converted a few folks , got rid of some pests, and came up with an everlasting way to explain the unexplainable. Given he's my namesake, I've always been drawn to the idea of the shamrock and how it shows the simple interconnectedness of so much.
Obviously, there is the religious example of the Trinity in the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost (picked that up from a generation back).
Having just gone through birthday season in our family it is easy to see family links and connections going back and forward a generation.
However, what I tend to be interested in, both personally and professionally, is the requirement in today's world to view things wholistically. In order to move anything forward, a for profit business, non profit organizations, or governmental policies and instituitions we are not served by myopic or win/lose thinking.
For us to affect positive change we do need to look at the challenges and opportunities not with the current idea of two sides of a coin ( heads you win, tails I win). We really need to get more creative and use the really old idea of three parts of a shamrock, some for you,some for me, and some for generations to come.
You know, I've never actually found a four leaf clover. I'm sure they exist. The three-leaf kind is so common that I think Saint Padraig got it right and figured it was a symbol that we all could believe was possible to embrace in our daily lives.
Happy St. Patrick's Day
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