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Design Education Globalization Reading Technology

Latest read: The Ten Faces of Innovation

This book by IDEO‘s found Tom Kelley is a good, interesting and fairly quick read. In his book The Ten Faces of Innovation Kelley has outlined the opportunity to identify, empower and reward the ten types of employees you may have in your company.
10 Faces of InnovationWho can make your organization think differently and succeed in today’s marketplace or school?

This is a refreshing look at the demands of today’s aggressive business climate — regardless if your in a Fortune 100 company, small non-profit or educational institution.

While some elements are a bit over-hyped (examples are IDEO’s clients — surprise!) the basic message is to look and empower new thinking.

I was surprised to learn his brother knew about .mp3s before Napster….but so did millions already on the internet finding them in newsgroups.

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Education Reading Vietnam War

Latest read: The Best and The Brightest

Writers are Heroes. David Halberstam wrote his groundbreaking The Best and the Brightest in 1972 but won a Pulitzer Prize in 1964 for reporting on Vietnam.  Did Halberstam reveal the deep mistakes (in Vietnam) that are visible today in Iraq? There are probably just a few books regarding Vietnam that can actually upset you, the reader after 40 years. David’s writing does just that.
Clearly conveyed by very bright men in President Kennedy‘s Administration, they looked past the expected failures; lack of leadership of the South Vietnamese government, an empty South Vietnamese military, a war against colonialism not communism and even falsified reports by the US military on the progress of the war. That almost documentation-like writing proved US interests in Vietnam would fail in Kennedy’s Administration.

Was our continued commitment a combination of China falling to the communists, the effects of the Korean War, McCarthyism and a view that Democrats were actually soft on communism? Clearly Kennedy surrounded himself with the best, smartest and successful cabinet members. Halberstam’s detailed writing provides the type of deep background on all who served in both Kennedy and Johnson’s Administration exploring how talented they all were, including Adlai Stevenson.

It was a bit of a surprised to learn outgoing President Eisenhower suggested in his first meeting with then President-elect Kennedy that the country would indeed fight communism in Southeast Asia…but in Cambodia.

It was also very interesting to see Daniel Ellsburg mentioned — prior to his Pentagon Papers leak. Very bright men thinking they could win a war by freeing people who viewed America not as liberators but as colonial invaders.

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Design Education Globalization Milwaukee Reading Technology

Latest read: Death to PowerPoint

At WiscNet’s 2007 Future Technology Conference I presented an Internet2 end-of-year review as Co-Chair of their Internet2 K20 Workgroup. My presentation was modeled after Edward Tufte’s approach to PowerPoint called The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint. The New York Times calls Tufte “The Leonardo da Vinci of data” and even NASA has asked for his assistance with visual analysis of space shuttle data from both Columbia and Challenger.
cognitive style of powerpointHis research is really amazing. While re-reading his excellent 2005 brief The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint I wanted to make sure my presentation was right on the mark and tuned for the best possible visual reception.

As we are all aware, PowerPoint emerged (okay it was bundled with Word and Excel in the Office suite back in the day) as the most used slideware program regardless of location: conference room, classroom, gallery or boardroom. We all use this tool yet many presenters do not realize how PowerPoint actually kills your messages.

Can you imagine The Gettysburg Address as a PowerPoint presentation? Click here for an example of how a powerful message gets lost in a bad slideware program. So how is PowerPoint killing your messages?

If you care how you communicate, this is simply a must read. Tufte’s lessons are so important to learn and implement. He challenges you to communicate as effectively as possible while living in a dull, boring slideware world. For the most part our messages miss the mark and our audiences are bored … could there be anything worse?

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Education Globalization Network OpenSource Reading Technology

Latest read: Wikinomics

Want to learn where a faster, wireless internet and robust web technology is moving all of us? Read Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything to get a real-world understanding of the impact of YouTube, Wikipedia, Flickr, MySpace, Linux, SecondLife and InnoCentive.
wikinomicsThis is a true paradigm shift. Changes have occurred in business and society regarding mass collaboration and the internet. I know many people do not like change but we live in exciting new times.

How has technology transformed our world? Consider ABC Television has been around for almost 60 years. The first television broadcast was in 1948. If you total all the video (24/7) shown on ABC since 1948 — just over 500,000 hours. YouTube has produced more hours of content in just the past 6 months.

The colonial era approach to education will never should not be continued. When will our educational systems catch up with the world? The longer we stand on the sidelines and watch countries including India and China establish educational models around the internet-enabled world, the longer our students will not be able to compete when they enter the global marketplace.

Some states are making that change. Michigan’s virtual schools permit students to study the Chinese language via the internet. Their instructor lives in China. It started when choices for foreign language were no longer acceptable. What economic impact does French or German have in contrast to Chinese and Hindi for a student’s future? Its safe to say French economic power has been on the decline since World War I. Lets give our students the best opportunities to succeed in our country’s future.

In higher education there are examples of how ideas fall short. Teacher are often unaware of how to get their students to connect their idea/project with a engineer, on-demand book publisher or patent attorney in today’s global marketplace. Yes patent attorney. But it may be due to the colonial era approach to educational reform. Too often educators look inward (or to peer groups) and believe if they change internal measurements, students will benefit. Wikinomics proves this to be another colonial era step in the wrong direction.

Categories
Education Globalization Reading

Books to read

My latest shipment from Amazon arrived today…

nextup

I’m looking forward to Joseph Stiglitz’s new really new Making Globalization Work. His first book on the subject Globalization and Its Discontents…seemed maybe a bit hostile?

Also received feedback from MIAD grad Matt Spannem that Glenn Reynolds’ An Army of Davids: How Markets and Technology Empower Ordinary People to Beat Big Media, Big Government, and Other Goliaths would be right up my alley…sorry for the delay Matt, but I finally have it. Looking forward to the journey.