The Future of Information Work

BusinessWeek: IBM and Managing by the Numbers - Why Counting Everything May Well Stifle Innovation and Learning

Thu, 04 Sep 2008 14:27:04 GMT

The September 8, 2008 BusinessWeek is covering IBM through a book extract from Stephen Baker's The Numerati (read it here).

I have to say that this article worries me if it is a trend in consulting. As I sit in the academic advisor offsite for the Institute for Innovation & Information Productivity (IIIP) this type of measurement for productivity is reflective of the over application of industrial age measurement techniques to knowledge economy work. I find it disconcerting that just because something can be measured, that it is seen as important. With all of the information available we tend to count before understanding the relationships between the data.

My biggest issue with the article the emphasis on productivity, not on adaptation and learning. If IBM is focusing on "automating management" then they may do well in the short term, but as the world changes, how will they adapt as they are straight-jacketed to a model of people based on what was important when the model was built?

I think an understanding of the world requires numbers, context and relationships (human and data), social context and processes - ignoring any of these aspects or attributes creates incomplete models and the more the concentration on pure data wins, the more constrained the view becomes. Now of course, some argue that anything can be reduced to a numerical model, but that implies the development of relationships - not just with data, but with time.

Organizations that want to remain adaptive need to go beyond the pure numbers, the counting of things, to the understanding of the relationships between numbers, between strategies and goals and perhaps more importantly, about the gaps between what is known and not known, and what can't be known. In a world focused just on productivity, we will see more-and-more efficiencies around things that may be less-and-less important, especially when the time dimension and the need for continuous learning are factored into the equations.

(By contrast see the 3M story, 3M: Struggle Between Efficiency and Creativity, also a famous cover story from BusinessWeek, about managing the balance between the constraints of Six Sigma and the drive for turning creativity into innovations).

A Question of the Right Measures - Is Real Neanderthal Intelligence Really Reflected in Tools?

Tue, 02 Sep 2008 02:30:08 GMT

ScienceDaily reports that Neanderthal's were just as efficient at creating stone tools as early Homo Sapiens (New Evidence Debunks 'Stupid' Neanderthal Myth). The problem is that using stone tool production as a proxy for intelligence isn't intelligent: it is misleading. Evolutionary survival is a complex interplay of factors, and obviously Neanderthal's were missing something, either physically or culturally, that caused their demise. As a hypothesis I will posit that it was a cultural issue rather than a physical one (there are arguments on both sides). If I am right, however, the ability to create stone tools was not the determining factor in survival and may not be the best indicator of overall intelligence. Some other innovation, cultural or mechanical, may have been the factor, or set of factors that allowed our ancestors to survive and eventually thrive.

We have the same issue today, often looking for proxies that equate to some directional indicator. The world is a messy place and proxies are hard to find. With computers we may eventually be able to model enough factors to made sense of many things, but we already know that modeling everything would require a computer the size of the universe - makes one really wonder what questions we were intended to answer, or, as David Gerrold's GOD (Graphic Omniscient Device) from When Harlie was One is designed to do, answer those questions, perhaps, that only humans can ask.

(If efficient production was all that mattered, all of our automobile manufacturers would be on near even footing, but we know efficient production isn't enough - brands, financial management, perception of value, etc. are more of a determination of success today than efficiency).

Why We Shouldn't Worry About America's Brain Drain - And What We Should Worry About

Sat, 30 Aug 2008 20:13:34 GMT

I know it's hard to talk about a move away from nationalism during an election season, but we need to do that in order to create a reasonable dialog. I remain worried that the Obama campaign keeps talking about bringing back industrial age jobs to the America. Let's get series Barack. Most people don't want low wage jobs back in America, and many aren't willing to embrace the need for lifelong learning that will kick them into high earning brackets. It's a hard conversation to have with America, but its an honest one.

America cannot afford to become protectionist. It can only afford to become more competitive. We need to concentrate on community colleges not for two year degrees, but as the very model of lifelong learning, allowing people to entry and reenter as often as necessary. That behavior is already happening, but the perception remains that 2 year institutions are transitions to vocations or places to shore up skills before attending a four year institution. The Obama campaign needs to retreat from the promises of bringing jobs home, and protecting American industries to helping American industries become competitive by renewing pre-competitive research and fostering more associations to form that can do that work so individual companies don't reap all of the benefits.

Lawrence Krauss is worried about the brain drain taking place in America and other industrialized countries (See: Science is losing out to the allure of Wall Street in NewScientist). I'm not worried, about Wall Street or industry, because I'm a globalist. Big companies will do just fine because they can afford to tap the global talent pool. What America needs to worry about is being a talent pool worthy of being tapped. This isn't about being nationalistic it is about being perceived as a environment conducive to creativity and innovation - to execution focused individuals and productivity. It is about the character of the workforce and creating an environment in which they will invent and excel. The American work ethic, our creativity, is or was the envy of the world, which means we have exported our own challenges, and that is a good thing. We have raised the level of wealth around the world, and now we need to kick it up a notch. And that doesn't just mean American being home to all of the smart people. It also, and I think this is often overlooked, means being home to the smartest consumers on the market. Our willingness to buy and our easy boredom forces invention. Even if not all of that invention happens here, we continue to drive much of the consumer economy (though China is working on that too).

Sure, it would be great to have the best scientists in the world, but the best science is already not about nations. The International Space Station (did you catch the name) and the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) are international by nature. We need to not only teach science, but cooperation, collaboration and negotiation. America will prosper much better as part of the great networked economy. If Obama is truly a man for this moment in history as Bill Clinton said last week, then he needs to be a man of the networked economy, not just the text message communication era. And the economy, if it is the economy stupid, is a much more complex thing that most of the American electorate wants to realize. I get politics. I've run campaigns and I know you need to get elected before you can do anything, but I just don't see this very of reality in either campaign, and any level, and that worries me that the next four years, at least as far as our leadership in the global economy goes, may well be more of the same, or something different, but no less useful or effective than current policy.

A Free is Part of the Answer to National Security

Fri, 29 Aug 2008 03:24:07 GMT

The August 18-25, 2008 U.S. News & World Report ran a debate on freedom of the press between Lucy Dalglish and assistant attorney general Elisebeth C. Cook. You can read their thoughts here:

Dalglish's argument can be augmented with the view of freedom as a deterrent to terrorism. In a country where the press works in partnership with government on the issues that matter: corruption, poverty and terror, a free press can be a powerful weapon and proof point. The partnership is often seen in disarray when the press concentrates on celebrity loves and habits more than it does on key issues. But from Watergate to revelations about corporate corruption, the press has played a vital role in the discovery of threats to Americans in their pocket books, in schools and in the streets.

In an environment where freedom of the press is protected, terrorists should be worried about their exposure, about the information given to people about actions they can take, or signs they should watch for. When I say partnership with government, I don't mean that the press acts on behalf of the government, but it complements and supplements the government through its own investigations. A free press, one unimpeded to question both those in power and those asserting chaos, is part of the shield against ignorance that leads to the triumph of ideology.

We may question our press, its motives, even its facts, certainly its choices of what to cover, but that too is part of the freedom we enjoy. People who attentively and critically read are well aware of the bias in what they read, and that too is a choice. If we give people the choice to be ignorant, or informed, conservative or liberal. We should also ensure that our press has the freedom, unimpeded and protected by the constitution, to investigate and report. A terrorist organization with its operations meticulously detailed on the cover of the New York Times is a better deterrent to terrorism that an obscure reference to a cell disbanded because of wiretap information. Chaos theory suggests that anything too tightly held will find a way to unravel. With a free press we have a distributed system that can cast a wide net. The institution of a free press can be not only a representative of our freedom, an icon, but also an active part, as it was always intended, in helping protect everyone's freedom.

Catch Observations as they Are Made

Thu, 28 Aug 2008 03:28:46 GMT

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http://twitter.com/dwrasmus1

The Work of Insects: The Wired Commentary on What Bosses Can Learn From Bugs

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 06:55:39 GMT

Leave it to Wired to catch the latest buzz: author Ken Thompson says we should learn from nature (bugs) how to manage. (read the Wired article What Your Boss Can Learn From Birds and Bees - Titled "What Bugs Can Teach Bosses in the print edition here).

I have to agree with Ken. I believe much of our work life is overly deconstructed to the point that when we put it back together we leave instinct lying on the floor with other recyclables.

I do have to disagree with the report a little, in that it says broadcast e-mail is good. As an information device, sure: managers like little bees twitching to send their signals. The problem though is that within corporations we have also disconnected the value proposition of the message from the need to transmit it, so we have everybody sending messages, most of them with one of three values: read me as soon as you can, don't read me if you don't want to and read me now or the world will come to an end. The ants and bees know what they want to communicate and it is critical to their survival. All of the e-mail we receive, and need to delete is not keyed to our survival, real or political. So lesson hear for managers: get in touch with your inner bee and only send out those one way tomes when they really matter.

Geese: divide and distribute knowledge. OK, duh. I tell people when I remember back to knowing almost everything about computers from TRS-80s to CPM to early MS-DOS, even Sinclair/Timex. Then the world got crazy. "Computer People" are now as specialized as doctors (yes, in ancient times, like the US Civil War, "surgeons" knew about as much as could be known). Many disciplines suffer or benefit from that fate. Here's a thought: let's save the expense of the November election and let Obama and McCain run the country together. We seem pretty divided down the middle still. Many countries have a dual leader role. Perhaps we can learn from the Geese.

And finally, worms. Hub people, networkers - derived from the way C. elegans uses its 302 and neurons. Good in theory, unless you also read NewScientist and read that hierarchies may actually be more resilient in the face of change, precisely because of their duplication - the network's downfall is the hub people, who, if taken out, collapse the network, whereas a hierarchy taken down is just replaced with a duplicate (read more in NewScientist: Why the demise of civilisation may be inevitable). The hierarchy may not be innovative, but it takes a licking and keeps on ticking.

Good thoughts Ken, even if the analysis, reported in Wired, may be a bit buggy.

Making Community Work Inside Organizations

Mon, 18 Aug 2008 19:26:46 GMT

The broad success of communities on the Internet can be a bit baffling to those charged with helping facilitate knowledge sharing and transfer inside of organizations. In reality, although the technology may be the same, the cultural atmosphere holds almost nothing in common. The Internet consists of millions of users who self-select for a community. Out of those millions, a thousand, sometimes less (and certainly more), can make for a thriving community. If you create the right forum, people will come. As the community grows, it creates it own attraction and momentum.

That can happen inside of a company, but only in broad areas though, like HR policy. Most organizations want specific things from their knowledge management investments, like lessons learned around a particular topic or collaborative content development.

The problem is inside of a company, on project work, the groups don't self-select - they are often assigned and they have competing priorities. They often don't have a passion for the assignment, feeling more a pressure based on obligation than any kind of pleasure in participation. In these situations, a completely different approach must be taken that one sees on the Internet.

Here are some actions to take to ensure that an internal organization community meets its goals, perhaps at the expense of true community, at least on the front end.

The executive sponsor can't just be a sponsor, they must be an active user of the community site. That means:
- Not accepting e-mail or other channels as a means to gaining knowledge about the community's topic
- Driving meetings and conversations off the community site rather than some other channel
- Actively participating in feedback and contribution
Incentives, tied to internal management objectives (MBOs) must be used in order to link the community's goals (e.g., capturing best practices) to the definitions of personal performance
The site should provide clear value to the participants independent of incentives
Hold a meeting, in person, in a web meeting or on the phone to kick off the community. Let people discuss their issues before starting the software aspect of the site. Make sure the meeting facilitator drives toward commitment and consensus about the objectives. Be clear about learning and expectations. If it isn't baked, don't sell it as baked. In communities, disappointment can come swiftly, so make sure you manage expectations, management them some more, and that you are able to define progress and success.

Further recommendations

Start with a small project. Don't attempt solve all of your collaboration issues at once. Work with the participants until you have a formula that works for your organization, then expand - incrementally.
Define the platform. Don't let the participants get distracted debating tools and technologies.
The platform should be as integrated into current workstyles as possible
Create a learning back channel. If the community isn't established, you can't assume people will go there to tell you why they aren't going there. The community manager should have a e-mail back channel for understanding issues. Eventually this can go away, but you need to be practical at the start.

Inside an organization, the goal should be to create a platform for teamwork, not an emergent community with its own rules and goals. Organizations have goals and objectives and people fulfill those objectives with the work they do. If the community is disconnected from the value equation, it won't work. Make sure you align your community with your strategy, and that those involved understand clearly how it will be used and how participating will aggregate to their personal reviews. If the management community is consistent in how it interacts with a nascent community, you have a chance at success. Any distraction, or waver in commitment from leadership will create false starts and faltering adoption.

A successful community needs to be nurtured, it needs structure and it needs attention.

The Work of Markets - Keeping Oil Prices at Bay

Sat, 09 Aug 2008 05:39:52 GMT

As the dollar rises and oil price weaken, we are seeing market forces at work (see Oil resumes plunge as dollar strengthens on MSNBC). Not the complaining of consumers, but their behavior changes. The prices at the pump were driving down demand, which eventually drives down prices. If we have, as some have speculated, reached peak oil, then this is a very temporary respite from the market for an every scarcer commodity.

Five things people need to do to keep oil prices down:

Continue or start using alternative forms of energy and products with low energy profiles
Keep acting as though you are worried about energy prices even if they ease
Stay local, stay low and buy small (enjoy your region, drive a fuel efficient car - no SUVs)
Keep using public transportation
Vote for candidates who will create rational monetary policy in the US

We need to stop acting like we can consume what we want when we want it. The future of energy will be a story of innovation.We are not out of energy and we aren't out of ideas - we've just become complacent about a few forms of energy. If you ask sunburned kids at a pool about energy issues, they won't complain, except about how the sun melted their ice cream - and hey, it takes energy to do that.

Salmonella "smoking gun" needs to lead to voluntary regulation

Fri, 01 Aug 2008 17:13:53 GMT

How long can a public stay outraged by the inept handling of data. No long it seems, but the latest in the salmonella investigations should cause the public to demand that growers and distributors start voluntarily tracking where their produce originates. It should be easy to scan a bar code on a package of salad and have a map light up with all of its components clearly highlighted - cabbage, lettuce, carrots and other components can be traced back from the cleaning and assembly processes to the grower. With single items, this should even be easier (read Salmonella 'smoking gun' found on Mexican farm in the LA Times).

Source: LA Times

We need voluntary transparency, and from television interviews I saw, it looks like the industry is starting to get it. The toy industry, however, waited for legislation (See Congress sends Bush bill banning lead in toys on MSNBC). Industries complain about regulation but they don't try to actively avoid it by creating and enforcing their own standards. Some create them, but don't regulate them. Others plead ignorance. In the Internet era, neither is acceptable, because the government isn't the ultimate place that for profit businesses need to look for risk. In the age of the Internet, it will increasingly be consumers that drive behavior - because consumers make choices every day about who they associate with and not associating with a company that can't control its processes will become a major lever for change.

In a world where trust and loyalty will be redefined by reputation, businesses need to start putting reputation management on the front burner. And by this, I don't mean hire image consultants to resparkle the brand, but that they take meaningful action to demonstrate responsibility, both social and economic, and that they follow through with those actions - and yes, talk about it when they do - but talk isn't enough when poor management causes injury and death to consumers.

Digital Autism on the Rise

Thu, 31 Jul 2008 20:38:06 GMT

Several years ago, when working with researchers at MIT on wearable computing, I coined the term Digital Autism to describe the effect wearable computers had on people's focus on attention. They tended to pay more attention to the information in front of them than the world around them, even if the technology allowed them to see through the data (a little bit on an issue in Dark Knight with Batman's sonar eye pieces caused similar issues). The same was true of relationships. When people were wearing devices they tended to focus more on the relationships in the data, or those they were interacting with in cyberspace, than those in the room around them.

Well, today I woke up to a North West Cable News story (read it here) about a new warning from the American College of Emergency Physicians (http://www.acep.org/) that warns of the danger from serious accidents involving oblivious texters (read the warning here). Digital autism without the immersive experience. The issue was, and is, that people get into their information and start forgetting about the world. This doesn't happen as much with audio, because people talk and walk all of the time. There visual perception centers can continue to scan, even if they are processing auditory information.

This is not the case with visual information. If visual information is in front of your eyes, or if you are concentrating on the visual aspects of something, like a phone, you can't see what you aren't looking at. Even when looking through information, with a strong field of view, the proximity of the information to the eye overwhelmed the background information (much like you not reacting to a speeding car in the distance going away from you).

Although it is not dangerous to text from a couch, I have also observed digital autism behaviors with young people in safe social settings, where they tend to have more of a relationship with people through their phone than through the physical environment -- and sometimes that means texting people who are in the same room.

As with many pieces of technology, we need to understand the limits of our human bodies and our human minds. Just because we can do something, doesn't mean we should. And deaths from distractions is a good warning sign that even though we think we can multitask, we may be playing mind games with ourselves on multiple levels. And for those of you on a couch texting your friend in the kitchen: get up and dance!

Baby Boomers and Women in the Workforce

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 00:45:34 GMT

The Millennials want to spend time with friends and family, and more of them are choosing to stay out of the workforce. The Boomers didn't come back after the last downturn.

Good for society or bad? Good for children, bad for taxes.

KUOW's The Conversation discussed the topic today at length. I encourage you to listen to the subtleties of the discussion.

The Work of Teachers - Pay for Performance

Sat, 19 Jul 2008 03:10:40 GMT

The discussion about merit pay or pay for performance for educators is circulating again, as it should. I am on both sides. Here's why.

First, I am on the side of the teachers because to have a completely subjective merits system is worse than meaningless.

I'm for merit pay, because it makes sense that better teacher's are paid more, and that others have the chance to learn by example within a system that recognizes superior performance.

What's the problem. The problem is we don't have a system that defines performance to the point it is meaningful. We measure student performance on narrow topics within narrow time frames. A teacher's performance may not even be able to be determined until the students move on to the next grade and the preparation for the future can be determined. We need to think more holistically about measurement, and we need knowledge economy level scale to bring this ancient art into the 21st century.

Hear more here on The Conversation from KUOW.org

Popcorn - The Price of Success - and the Challenges of Protectionism

Tue, 15 Jul 2008 17:08:42 GMT

Anybody who knows me knows that I love popcorn. It can be a snack, it can be a meal. If you go to a movie, it can be an investment. And it seems that with fuel costs rising, along with fertilizer costs, the price of popcorn is going up - not to mention it is too small a crop to own its own future, so its price is tied to corn in general, which is rising because of Ethanol diversion from the food supply (listen to more from NPR here).

Let me just take this moment to reinforce my anti-protectionist stance. I do love popcorn, but we need to have a free market - as free as possible. The subsidies for Ethanol and other farm crops, and our dumping of crops in developing nations has created a crisis that a free market would avert. Ethanol's golden corn syrup luster is nearly burn to a dull golden brown, and we continue to divert funds to the military rather than active development (teaching people to farm rather than how to open burlap sacks full of US grain). Because of the imbalances created by policy, poverty is getting worse as governments can't afford to provide food to those starving - a consequence of policy of giving away food in the first place. (hear more at the To the Point discussion on "The World's Biggest Challenge: Feeding Humanity" from KCRW).

If we had free markets, we would see more of the developed world developing, based on local needs with local crops - with agrarian cultures turning to technology to drive knowledge economy leap frogging because of their need to be efficient and productive. I want to see a rational policy from our presidential candidates on this topic. Because in the end, it will be our facilitation of economic growth in the developing world that will be our biggest protection from our enemies - because the best way to eliminate an enemy is to make them a friend (ok, a little sappy, but I mean a political friend, and not in the coerced way - we need to find our altruism again as a nation, and start helping nations build themselves before we see the necessity to reboot them).

And finally, in the true sense of a free market, I will pay $6.00 for popcorn at a movie theater. If I didn't - if no one did, they wouldn't cost $6.00, in fact, the theater might not even have popcorn. We pay that because it is part of the experience. We may complain, but we pay it, we reinforce the system with our spending, not with legislation and price supports. Movie theaters exist because of popcorn, not because of movies - and I'm willing to keep paying for that experience.

The Work of Satire - Obama and the New Yorker Cover

Tue, 15 Jul 2008 16:21:16 GMT

The New Yorker is not known to always face the direction of political correctness when creating a cover. The Obama cover that pokes fun at America's preoccupation with Obama's preoccupations, is a good case in point, and one that has New Yorker's editor, David Remnick, on the air discussing the magazines choice (hear it here on NPR).

We have to take ourselves a lot more seriously, and a lot less seriously.

First, conservatives, those of the very far right activist ilk, need to understand that despite graduation issues in our high schools, and that some children are left behind - American is not stupid, nor dumb, at a basic level. Yes, we can be manipulated to buy a certain soap, but when it comes to the Presidency, there is so much coverage along so many channels that questioning Obama at this point on loyalty is near ludicrous. Yes, we can keep those with fear in their heart fearful, but the spread, if at all, will be slow - too slow to do anything to affect the election.

And for liberals, of the far left, activist ilk, just get a sense of humor. The New Yorker is not endorsing the attack POV. If you think that, then you don't read the New Yorker. All of those people who are worried that the New Yorker's cover will influence people don't know the New Yorker reader - and if they think a New Yorker cover will change the hearts and minds of those in the corn belt and the south, or reinforce what they think of Obama, then they don't know the people who don't read the New Yorker. I would see this as a bit of reverse psychology in that case, because if those constituencies have any perspective that the New Yorker is aligning with their views, then they will probably decide that their views must be misinformed.

The work of satire is to make us think, to challenge our assumptions and to make us laugh. We need to get over ourselves and realize how ridiculous we look to those who observe us. Perhaps if Intelligent Design can be considered science, then Obama could be considered part of a Muslim plot. Well, for some small percentage of American's that might be true, but we can laugh at that perspective too, and perhaps through satire, we can better read by the light of reason illuminating a nation that questions itself openly and laughs not only for entertainment, but out of the shear absurdity of a moment.

The Work of Sports. That's Entertainment: Put in the Asterisk Now - Doping is a Feature

Fri, 11 Jul 2008 04:07:59 GMT

I heard a report on NPR about how hard it was going to be to catch doping at the Olympics (hear it here). Technology is going to make it harder to detect - not easier, so now is the time. We need to realize that sports is really entertainment, and we actually watch voyeuristically while entertainers dope, and not always for enhancement purposes. So let's give the athletes a break. They love what they do, they compete like hell and want to compete harder. So let them do what they want to do, but in the asterisk that says:

"On this date, the enhancement of the human body via drugs, gene therapy or other natural or artificial enhancements was no longer banned from professional sports."

And hey, it will be one less distraction for Congress.

The Work on Innovation - HP's Phil McKinney

Wed, 09 Jul 2008 04:07:38 GMT

Colleague Phil McKinney talks about the work of innovation in the San Jose Mercury. Read it here.

I agree with the following key take aways, as I interpret them:

Build technology designed for aging Boomers
Work the social issues in collaboration
Work when your barriers are down (I work late too Phil, but I'm most creative in the morning when I'm twilighting)

The Work of Sports - The First Outsourcing

Wed, 02 Jul 2008 03:52:36 GMT

Last night I went to a Seattle Mariners game. They lost 2-0 to the Blue Jays. As I was sitting there, not in such rapt fascination at the sport of baseball, I looked around at the rather happy, mostly out of shape fans that surrounded me. And in that pattern of blue jay and compass covered fans, it struck me that American had outsourced its exercise.

Researchers wonder why American's waste lines are getting bigger (but yet we seem fairly happy according to a recent survey (gross national happiness). One of the reasons? We outsource out exercise. We live vicariously through athletes who perform amazing feats, and suffer the consequences of their work. But we can scream and yell, we can, in short, participate in sports while eating hot dogs and drinking beer. Thus, we have a correlation between weight and sports. The ones funding it get bigger, while the ones performing get richer.

The economics are pretty simple and pretty market driven. Those who dislike sports salaries should stop patronizing sports, and those who complain about our pre-occupation with the couch should realize that we are participating in sports, albeit in a rather passive-aggressive way. We are getting what a free country deserves - the consequences of its decisions are manifest in the people making those decisions - for good and for ill, but mostly for good, because if we cared that much about the ill we would have more real athletes and far less income in sports.

And who's to say that the time spent by a smart programmer not exercising makes us less economically well off, if he or she is unhealthy, they are probably create more contribution early in life to that pursuit - so if they worked out all of the time, that great idea might never make it to the compiler. And besides, we can always exercise later. For now, a game is on, and if not, we can just whip on up on the Xbox. Its not about good and bad, its just about how things are because of the choices we make.

Aligning Education with Need - Why Business Doesn't Get What it Thinks it Needs

Wed, 25 Jun 2008 00:33:25 GMT

Yesterday I spoke at 9th Global Information Technology Management Association (GITMA) in Atlanta about the challenges of creating an economics for the knowledge economy. Education came up as the earliest entrant to the knowledge economy, and one that typifies many of the issues about knowledge and measurement when it comes to economic realization (with most higher education institutions judged by endowments, enrollment and the publishing and reputation of their professors - with little ability to judge the value of their outcome - the long term success of their students in the world).

One of the topics was pushed back at industry. We were discussing the perception that higher education does not create the kind of students needed by business, to which one professor said: "it is your problem. You write the job descriptions that we try to meet. They are all about technical skills. And then you talk about collaboration, communication, adaptability - but you never write that on the job description, you just give programmer specifications." - Paraphrased. So we are creating faulty inputs and getting what we ask for.

I don't think the answer is as easy as better job descriptions, because the balance is important. I don't think we really understand the demands of today's workplace and the way rapid shifts in focus and skills sets play into the mix. That is an important dialog to start, and important research to fund so we can better align education with need.

And beyond that, we also started discussing the need to generally reinvent education - eliminating the gated process view of the middle ages for a more continuous view, fostered from the youngest ages, that learning is something that will never end.

Learning from Douglas McGregor « Healingtheworkplace’s Weblog

Sun, 22 Jun 2008 05:19:33 GMT

Take a moment to read this blog at Healingtheworkplace.

Learning from Douglas McGregor « Healingtheworkplace’s Weblog

It is good to see this kind of dialog. I know it has been a peripheral conversation for years, but given the waves of changes we are facing, it is necessary to push this kind of conversation to the forefront of management theory. We need to start testing theory by letting more people feel empowered.

Capital Commerce - Where the Jobs Went

Sat, 21 Jun 2008 07:10:18 GMT

In Best of the Blogosphere: June 20, 2008 - Capital Commerce (usnews.com) Daniel Drezner says:

Yes, globalization is responsible for some job losses and wage compression, but its contribution is pretty damn small. Obama—or his advisors—are being disingenuous when he says that jobs have left Michigan for China. Those jobs have disappeared into the ether, period. Technological innovation has yielded so much in the way of productivity gains that even though manufacturing jobs are shrinking in the United States, manufacturing output in this country has more than doubled since 1980. The same process has caused the global number of manufacturing jobs to shrink as well.

Drezner understands what the presidential candidates do not. If we keep applying the industrial age to the information age and the knowledge economy we will continue to lose jobs around the world because we will be all about making things cheaper, and cheapening our relationships and our innovation. Productivity is fine, but it isn't everything. If we want to create jobs we need to fund things that may not be efficient. Learning and innovation are messy because they involve mistakes, and productivity is about eliminating mistakes.

The biggest mistake our politicians of this new age could make is getting us to vote for the industrial economy one more time. This isn't about being green, its about being creative. Being green will be a by-product of solving real problems again - of making mistakes and learning and moving forward rather than trying to make the past ever more efficient.

Photo Album: Blog Images

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 11:11:10 GMT

Blog Images

Photo Album: Dan's Travels

Mon, 30 Apr 2007 05:56:23 GMT

Dan's Travels

Dan at admirals club Paris

Interlaken

Copenhagen

Shakespeare and Co. Paris

Orsey

Admiral's Club: PAris

Colusseum: Rome

Inside Coluseeum

Dante's House

More Photos...

Photo Album: IIIP 20/20 Shoot at Unisys in New York

Wed, 18 Apr 2007 20:25:03 GMT

IIIP 20/20 Shoot at Unisys in New York

Photo Album: Microsoft Office IW Board of the Future

Sat, 10 Mar 2007 05:12:18 GMT

Microsoft Office IW Board of the Future

hands

Brainstorming 1

Brainstormin 2

Brainstorming 3

Brainstorming 4

Brainstorming 5

Lake Washington 1

Lake Washington 2

Photo Album: Microsoft Office IW Board of the Future 2005

Wed, 15 Nov 2006 18:17:33 GMT

Microsoft Office IW Board of the Future 2005

Untitled Photo

Custom List: Speaking Engagements

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 06:56:50 GMT

Speaking Engagements

Educause 2007
October 22, 2007 Redmond, Washington
National Educator’s Workshop
November 6, 2007 Lynnwood, Washington
IIR Virtual Distance Conference
Vision Keynote: Are You Ready for the New World of Work? November 15 , 2007 Disneyland Hotel, Anaheim, CA
Unisys Seminar: The Consumerisation of IT
November 19-20, 2007 Saint-Paul-de-Vence, Nice France.
LEAP conference
January 22, 2008. Redmond, WA
The National Science Foundation Advanced Technological Center and the Washington State Community College IT Center of Excellence
January 30, 2008. Bellevue, WA
Stevens Institute of Technology, Howe School of Management Lecture Series
New World of Work. February 21, 2008. 6:30PM
National Association of Workforce Boards
February 24, 2008. Washington, DC.
Statewide Centers of Excellence in Manufacturing Conference
February 27, 2008. Lynnwood, WA
Conference of Accountants
April 29, 2008. Tulsa, OK
IIR Business Process Management Conference
May 13, 2008. Orlando, FL. Talk Title: The End of Process.
9th Global Information Technology Management Association (GITMA)
The Challenge of Knowledge Economy Measurement - Learning to Think Beyond Industrial Age Economics
Managing Virtual Distance
November 18-20, Walt Disney World Contemporary Resort, Orlando FL
SAE 2008 Commercial Vehicle Engineering Congress & Exhibition
October 7, 2008. The SAE Commercial Vehicle Engineering Congress and Exhibition successfully brings together, in one place, a global assembly of both on- and off-road professionals.

Custom List: Dan's PR Links

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 23:56:17 GMT

Dan's PR Links

Generations At Work
Future of Work Blog Entry on the Board of the Future
Observations on Microsoft's observations
Future Tense on the IW Board of the Future
Amy Wohl on the IW Board of the Future
Read the Microsoft whitepaper on the Future of Healthcare
Dan worked with the healthcare team to take an inspirational anddaring look at the future of healthcare.
Fast Company: Scenes From the Culture Clash
Dan is quoted with his observations on workforce evolution
Hear Dan on Let's Talk Computers
Dan talks about demographics and the future of work.
COMPUTERWORLD: Boomers Bid Farewell
Read Dan in COMPUTERWORLD on how to better manage the transitionof Baby Boomers in Boomers Bid Farewell
KM World
Information sharing speeds healthcare advances. See Dan's comments on the future of Healthcare in the February 2006 issue of KMWorld.
Pink Magazine: Welcome to the Matrix
Read Dan's comments on the future of work in the August/September 2006 edition of Pink Magazine.
Prime Manufacturing Innovation
My discussion on the New World of Work and its impact on manufacturing appears in Issue 9, Summer, 2007.
The Next-Generation Workforce and Project Management
The project management advice and analysis for NASA in NASA's ASK Magazine.
Scenario Planning and the Future of Education
Describes how Microsoft used a scenario-planning process to explore education through the lens of work, examining educators, learners, anand administrators in the context of creating, synthesizing, absorbing, sharing, and managing information.

Book List: Recommended Reading

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 00:52:58 GMT

Custom List: Things I Have Already Done

Sat, 08 Mar 2008 05:57:55 GMT

Things I Have Already Done

Flew a Robinson Helicopter
Had several poems published in leading literary magazines
Walked before Michelangelo's David and questioned his proportions
Climbed to the top of St. Paul's in London
Wrote a book (3 down and at least one more to go)
Seen a glacier calve in Alaska (on a cruise)
Taken a boat tour of the canals in Amsterdam
Attended a play (Cymbeline) in the pit, in the rain, at the New Globe in London
Walked through the Colosseum in Rome just to be stabbed by a scrawny gladiator as I left
Visited the Louvre and saw the Mona Lisa, Winged Victory and dozens of well fleshed Rubens
Walked from the Keats-Shelly House near the Spanish Steps, past the fortress at Castel Sant'Angelo and on to the Vatican
Stayed at Cliveden House and the Savvoy on the same trip
and on the same trip, tripped over the top step of the Olde Cheshire Cheese pub in central London. The best seller is on the way.
Perused the largest meteorite collection in the world in Vienna, Austria
Spoke at the United Nations
Spoke at the Palo Alto Research Center (PARC Forum)
Physically disconnected Tandon's corporate network...
and attached Western Digital's network at Tandon's offices seconds after the merger was legally completed
Stood on the field at Dodger's Stadium during batting practice (and got a ball signed by Fernando Valenzuela )
Was offered a night's stay at Shakespeare and Company in Paris
Drank a Singapore Sling and munched peanuts at Raffle's Long Bar in Singapore
Set adrift a Loy Kranthong on Thailand's Chao Phya River
Tea at Claridges
Visited Stratford and Shakespeare's Birthplace

Custom List: Copyright Notice

Fri, 15 Feb 2008 06:45:01 GMT

dwrasmus@hotmail.com
© Copyright 2005-2008 by Daniel W. Rasmus
Dan Rasmus works at Microsoft. Everything here, though, is his personal opinion and is not read or approved before it is posted. No warranties or other guarantees will be offered as to the quality of the opinions or anything else.