Category: Reading

Categories
Education Globalization Network Reading Technology

Latest read: An Army of Davids

Matt Spaamen recommended Glenn Reynolds’ An Army of Davids: How Markets and Technology Empower Ordinary People to Beat Big Media, Big Government, and Other Goliaths. Glenn, professor of law at the University of Tennessee is the former MSNBC blogger known by his very popular blog instapundit.

I was looking forward to this book as soon as Matt commented on my blog and suggested this reading. I was expecting a lot from Glenn and feel let down by only finding a few chapters worthwhile. The beginning of Glen’s book is almost a rewrite of Tom Friedman’s The World Is Flat. Another view of the technological advances throughout history that changed the way society and business operate bringing the world closer together for trade, education, culture and art.

He did provide good opportunities on chapters regarding nanotechnology and space research, yet those are pretty narrowly defined markets that require advanced degrees to fully exploit…while the marketing arm of an organization can indeed leverage An Army of Davids to change access to space and nanotechnology from a few to the masses.

Continue reading “Latest read: An Army of Davids”
Categories
Education Globalization Reading

Globalization: Lessons learned?

China has been taking quite a justified beating in the global press for their product safety crisis. From toys to medicine China is stumbling over its global reputation. Today’s article in the New York Times proves Europe has learned from the mistakes of American toy companies.

Mattel is probably the biggest American company to also take such a beating in the press. They probably deserve it in making the choice to shift production outside the US where they easily have manpower to inspect factories. In China it has proved to be a huge disaster. Where was Mattel’s Quality Assurance on this one?

Mattel is really guilty of not working hard enough to grow their business relationship in China. After all, at some point Mattel executives felt comfortable enough to shift business overseas yet clearly failed to ensure their new relationship was running smoothly. Mattel’s public statement.

Continue reading “Globalization: Lessons learned?”
Categories
Education Globalization Innovation Reading Technology

Latest read: Made to Stick

What book would be a perfect follow up to The Tipping Point and Blink by Malcolm Gladwell? To prove timing is everything I read Dan and Chip Heath’s new release: Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die. The book’s authors acknowledge that their book complements Gladwell’s The Tipping Point by identifying “traits” necessary to make your ideas ‘sticky’ with your intended audience.
Made to StickWritten by brothers Chip and Dan Heath they share experiences and research in finding ideas that stick. Chip is professor of Stanford’s Graduate School of Business. Dan is a consultant to Duke University’s Corporate Education program.

Made to Stick provides wonderful insight to learn how powerful ideas succeed in the face of big obstacles (and people) especially in a stale environment. Take Subway’s series of commercials featuring Jared for example.

Originally passed by PR firms, Jared’s story was brought to life by the Subway store manager where Jared ate while attending Indiana University. The ad campaign was eventually created pro-bono by a firm thinking they would fail. Even Subway’s PR firm did not support this idea. Chip and Dan prove not only how wrong they were, but how powerful the idea has turned out to be for Subway.

Continue reading “Latest read: Made to Stick”
Categories
Education Globalization Milwaukee Reading Technology

Latest read: Blink

Following the successful read of Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference and learning of discussions underway on the internet regarding his follow up book Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking it was clear Blink had to be the next book I picked up the night I finished The Tipping Point. And its another success for Gladwell.
blinkSo what is the truth about instantly making a decision in the blink of an eye? We have the ability for rapid cognition…but do we use it in our daily lives? It should tell you a lot about the situation at hand regardless of the outcome:

For instance Gladwell shares these situations: Can you tell the forgery of an ancient piece of art or can you tell the difference between two musicians playing behind a curtain during an audition with the Berlin Symphony Orchestra?

And can you instantly recognize when a professional tennis player will fault on serve even before the ball is struck by the player’s racket? Gladwell shares how rapid cognition can work to your advantage and how we have unfortunately conditioned ourselves to look beyond the ‘gut’ feeling because our eyes can play visual tricks … often for the worse.

I was impressed to learn of police organizations who study facial recognition patterns to develop rapid cognition between a frighten citizen and a hardened criminal … all in the blink of any eye, when life or death can hang in the balance.

Continue reading “Latest read: Blink”
Categories
Education Globalization Internet2 Milwaukee Reading Rich media Technology Virtual Reality

Latest read: The Tipping Point

A long and exciting summer with Maxwell has taken me away from my daily reading. But I have just finished Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference and learned its just as great as reviews have suggested.
Chapter 3 (The Stickiness Factor: Sesame Street, Blue’s Clues and the Educational Virus) is a really great read and made a real impact in approaching a thread that is currently underway on Internet2‘s Teaching and Learning listserv.

The discussion is about the impact of SecondLife in K12 education. There are real questions about the validity of SecondLife.

After the initial hype of SecondLife (for higher education) peaked, colleges now find themselves in the same rut about really embracing SecondLife when virtual visits never really materialized. A lost leader? Probably.

Many including Wired‘s Chris Anderson are openly debating the ‘stickiness’ of SecondLife. Does it provide solid learning outside the classroom or studio?

Continue reading “Latest read: The Tipping Point”