created for 24 hours of Innovation event
I work with independent schools. In the first half of 2009, their worldview has been disrupted dramatically due to the shift in the economic climate. While this new environment is stressful and exhausting because each leader is having to work hard to understand the New Normal, I think this environment presents many unique opportunities if you can see them, if you can sell them to your organization, and if you have the courage to implement them. Big if's because they all involve fast and furious adaptive thinking.
1) The most important conversation to have and act upon internally and externally right now: how do we create value for our users? Sounds easy enough? Who are all of your users? What are their wants and needs? What are their unarticulated wants and needs? What are their current value expectations? Are they purely transactional? How can you exceed them? Can you make your value arguments authentically - will the user experience what you say he or she will? Can you seed value thinking throughout the organization, top to bottom?
2) The second most important conversation to have right now is how can we do more with less - across the board in every department, every employee, every job function etc etc.? This calls from expansive creative thinking and most organizations are not well-practiced in thinking or creativity. Not practiced in thinking because schools are habitually bad about running on automatic pilot and their industry model has been unchanged for decades. Not practiced in creativity because besides being status quo guarders, school leaders/people are dangerously risk and change averse. Ask why not? a minimum of 50 times a day! You will benefit from it. New efficiencies are necessary and good.
3) The world has changed and no industry is immune. This is not a disputable idea anymore! Look at GM, Chrysler, the newspaper industry, book publishing, etc. What are the destructive forces nipping at your heels that you just don't want to see? Time to face the nightmare! I would be asking this every week and trying hard to adapt to the many New Normals that are emerging proactively and strategically. I would look to young and pliable companies like Google and Linux and Wikipedia and new pricing models/partnerships like Priceline to see how they think and build new organizational intellectual capacities that are more aligned to the needs of the new economic marketplace.
The first half of 2009 is a great wake-up call for the education industry. Those that work to solve the puzzle, will benefit greatly for many years to come. Those that play the victim role are creating their own future.
Act wisely.
Friday, May 15, 2009
My half time Pep Talk for 2009
Sunday, May 3, 2009
Slipstream - Facebook Opens a Door, an...
Facebook seeking to be ubiquitous connector
Quotes:
Slipstream - Facebook Opens a Door, and Start-Ups Rush In - NYTimes.com
- In a loud and proud public announcement, it said it didn’t care whether its members visited Facebook.com at all.
- I go there about once a week. Otherwise all my posting and corresponding is done through other tools. comment by Jamie Baker
“We believe we are giving people a better way to share more information in more places, and we actually expect it will allow Facebook to grow significantly,” said Ethan Beard, Facebook’s director of platform marketing. With each of these fashionable Web start-ups trying to become the essential platform for social dialogue on the Web, it has been a battle royal, and one of the most interesting and odd technology competitions since Microsoft and Netscape fell over each other to give away their browsers in the first browser wars. “We’re competing with Facebook using their data, but we are also helping them by offering their users another way to see their friend’s data and interact with it,” Mr. Le Meur said. Seesmic is hardly alone. TweetDeck, a budding business of the London engineer Iain Dodsworth, has more than a million users and also blends together Facebook and Twitter feeds “Checking your stream on your phone becomes oddly addictive,” Mr. Kumar said. Executives at Facebook say that as the premier social engine of the Web, it will ultimately find a way to make money. For example, it could choose to transmit ads along with the activity streams of its members, and perhaps split the revenue with the developers, though it says it currently has no plans to do so.
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Slipstream - Facebook Opens a Door, an...
Facebook seeking to be ubiquitous connector
Quotes:
Slipstream - Facebook Opens a Door, and Start-Ups Rush In - NYTimes.com
- In a loud and proud public announcement, it said it didn’t care whether its members visited Facebook.com at all.
- I go there about once a week. Otherwise all my posting and corresponding is done through other tools. comment by Jamie Baker
“We believe we are giving people a better way to share more information in more places, and we actually expect it will allow Facebook to grow significantly,” said Ethan Beard, Facebook’s director of platform marketing. With each of these fashionable Web start-ups trying to become the essential platform for social dialogue on the Web, it has been a battle royal, and one of the most interesting and odd technology competitions since Microsoft and Netscape fell over each other to give away their browsers in the first browser wars. “We’re competing with Facebook using their data, but we are also helping them by offering their users another way to see their friend’s data and interact with it,” Mr. Le Meur said. Seesmic is hardly alone. TweetDeck, a budding business of the London engineer Iain Dodsworth, has more than a million users and also blends together Facebook and Twitter feeds “Checking your stream on your phone becomes oddly addictive,” Mr. Kumar said. Executives at Facebook say that as the premier social engine of the Web, it will ultimately find a way to make money. For example, it could choose to transmit ads along with the activity streams of its members, and perhaps split the revenue with the developers, though it says it currently has no plans to do so.
This message was sent to you by Jamie Baker via Diigo
Getting too many email alerts? Change your email alert setting preference here.
The Lubin Files: Annotate the web with Diigo. A Technology Review
Check out this website I found at lubinlib.typepad.com
I am liking Diigo. It has helped me learn to enjoy reading on the web. In fact, I am liking it so much that I transferred all my Delicious bookmarks, so my devotion is feeling pretty permanent at the moment. (That was rather Yogi Bera-ish!)
The Lubin Files: Annotate the web with Diigo. A Technology Review
Check out this website I found at lubinlib.typepad.com
I am liking Diigo. It has helped me learn to enjoy reading on the web. In fact, I am liking it so much that I transferred all my Delicious bookmarks, so my devotion is feeling pretty permanent at the moment. (That was rather Yogi Bera-ish!)
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