I recently read Robertson and Breen’s Brick by Brick: How Lego Rewrote the Rules of Innovation and Conquered the Global Toy Industry (Crown Business, 2013). As my children, grandchildren, and I have been long-time Lego fans, this book was fascinating. It led me to think about innovation more broadly. But first, let’s consider the Lego […]
What needs to change to transform our society in the ways needed to achieve new levels of equality, performance, and value creation? I have nine suggestions in two broad areas. In general, we need to move from status quo practices to best practices as shown in the table below. Function Best Practices Status Quo […]
There are several forces currently driving change in our society: Pandemic impacts that have completely upset the status quo Economic impacts of the pandemic that have left many in dire straights Disproportionate effects of economic, educational and social inequities These forces have led to an overwhelmed healthcare system, enormous unemployment, and intense frustration on the […]
Wicked problems defy formulation and resolution. They involve conflicting values, concerns, and perceptions that lead to conflicts, strong positions, and perhaps even hatred of the “others” who have opposing views. We are faced with roughly 50% of the country being in fundamental conflict with the other 50% of the country. Actually, Biden-Harris won 51.3% of […]
This book provides a great tour of philosophy, primarily German, in the early decades of the 20th century. Eilenberger, W. (2018). Time of the Magicians. Wittgenstein, Benjamin, Cassirer, Heidegger and the Decade that Reinvented Philosophy. New York: Penguin. Darwin’s Origin of the Species (1859), Einstein’s Theory of Relativity (1905), and Freud’s Psychoanalysis (1917) had upset […]
It is interesting to live in Washington, DC and observe how sponsors and colleagues are reacting to the changing of the palace guard. Most of these people are at least one level below the political appointees of the palace guard and will not be leaving. They seem relieved, not existentially but practically. Their new superiors […]
It is important to distinguish between understanding complex problems and solving them. Solving problems in complex adaptive systems can be quite difficult and often intractable. Climate change, global warming and their consequences provide a compelling example. The science seems clear in terms of carbon emissions and greenhouse gases that lead to global warming. The relationship […]
How can we deal with all the negative things swirling around us? A natural tendency is to hunker down and avoid the bad vibrations. Just wait out the negative things until positive things are possible. Of course, if everyone does this, anything positive could be a long time coming. Michael Curry has a proposal. Curry […]
Here is my recent reading/watching list: Evil Geniuses: The Unmaking of America by Kurt Anderson (Random House, 2020) The Secret Life of Groceries: The Dark Miracle of the American Supermarket by Benjamin Lorr (Avery, 2020) Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know About People We Don’t Know by Malcolm Gladwell (Little Brown, 2019) The Social […]
“Everything will work out in the end and, if it doesn’t, it is not the end.” This was a theme in the movie The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2012) but attributed to Paul Coelho and John Lennon much earlier. I am an inveterate optimist, but I am reconsidering my inclinations. Look how we have handled […]
How can we address alternative facts? I think we should differentiate realities that can be empirically verified versus assertions about why these realities have occurred. Succinctly, we need to differentiate data and evidence from various pundits’ interpretations. I am constantly amazed at the wealth of pundits available who will comment on anything. There are thousands […]
A university chief executive has come to realize that competitive forces are closing in. Fortunately, the president has an AI based cognitive assistant to help formulate plans for addressing this new reality. This assistant is named George. “How can these projections be correct, George? We keep on raising enrollment and tuition to generate surplus revenue […]
Engineering and science account for roughly three quarters of all PhD graduates, with half of these degrees awarded to US students and the other half to international students. Many of these graduates aspire to tenure-track faculty positions at universities. However, the percentage of faculty openings that are tenure track has been steadily decreasing for quite […]
The steadily escalating costs of a college education coupled with spiraling mountains of student debts cannot be sustained. Universities are unwilling and unable to control costs, in large part due to the bloating of administrative and support functions (Rouse, 2016). A great example is the University of California System where, excluding the number of faculty […]
Just watched this movie this week, after having read many of the books published on the Great Recession, as well as having served on a National Academy study committee of what happened. During this study, I had a chance to chat with the second most senior executive at one of the major banks involved, one […]
In 1973, Horst Rittel and Melvin Webber published “Dilemmas in a General Theory of Planning” in the journal Policy Science (volume 4, pp. 155-169). In this article, they characterized “wicked problems” as follows: There is no definitive formulation of a wicked problem Wicked problems have no stopping rule – there is always a […]
You are leading a very successful enterprise in airplanes, automobiles, mobile devices, healthcare — or perhaps higher education. The business model that got you to where you are — successful, profitable — seems to be faltering. The growth of revenue is diminishing while costs are escalating. The costs of infrastructure — physical, financial and human […]
What will the academic world be like in 25 years – 2035? Thinking 25 years into the future is quite difficult, as is evidenced by thinking back to 1985 and imagining our current iPhones, Kindles, and pervasive social technology such as Facebook. Nevertheless, it is interesting – and potentially useful – to consider future scenarios. […]
The November 12th issue of The Economist and November 22nd issue of the New York Times provide interesting analyses of forces against change. The Lexington column in The Economist, “Farmers vs. Greens,” outlines rural America’s opposition to anything that will increase the price of fossil fuel. It notes that senators representing 11% of the U.S. […]
