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Higher Ed Futures: Why context matters
If you follow the world of literature on higher ed, books proposing ideas for what’s next are released at an almost monthly rhythm. That’s a good sign. Publishers–and a few authors–are recognizing that the status quo won’t broadly serve higher education in the next decade. But there’s something missing with (most of) these new releases.…
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How to think about time
Amy Webb, founder of the Future Today Institute, just shared the institute’s 2019 Tech Trends report, which includes more than 300 tech and science trends and 48 scenarios for consideration. In the introductory remarks, they provide a summary of how leaders should think about time and plan for the future: The organizations the Future Today…
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Closing the loop
Donating blood to the American Red Cross can be an inherently rewarding activity. You know you’ve broadly done a good thing. You’ve helped someone. But look what happens a few weeks after you donate: What a surprising, unexpected follow up! It’s another chance for relationship and a reason to remind people to sign up to…
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You won’t believe what happened
It happened again. They did something irresponsible. Rude. Lazy. They were wrong. You are right. You can feel it. We’ve all felt it. The anger. The tension in the chest. The laser-like focus. The words you’re going to say running through your mind. The list of how they’re wrong. Now what? What feels good is…
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Belonging comes from follow through
For all of the great programs and resources we can offer, the foundation for a sense of belonging among our students starts with … a quick response to that emailed question, a conversation with an advisor that helps them know what they need to do next, and a clear understanding of what’s expected of them…
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Is vision a filter or a frame?
As I research senior leadership teams in higher education who have led successful, adaptive change, one thing that stands out is the strength of the vision the leader sets and the commitment of the team to pursue that vision together. The shared vision and mission motivate the team towards unity and excellence. But that’s not…
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As much time and effort into the small number of things that give huge rewards
Since this is related so closely to yesterday’s post, we’ll go ahead and add it here. One of the problems here is a sort of digital FOMO. “If I don’t have that thing”—Facebook, Instagram, whatever—”what benefit might I be missing out on?” You’re pretty unplugged. How do you deal with that digital FOMO?There’s a rarefied…
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Freedom from fake work
When I ask my son to clean up at night, he’ll sometimes start putting toys into the bin at a snail’s pace. Then, when I ask him to speed up, the motions turn frantic, but the toys keep hitting the bin at the same rate. Lots more movement. Nothing extra to show for it. Sometimes…
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What business are you in?
That chart above is a summary of Starbucks’ stock prices over the last few decades. Howard Schultz may be in the news for other reasons now, but a 2012 article about the Starbucks CEO/Chairman records a fascinating exchange with the head of a company that was about to embark on 7 years of growth. In…
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It’s hard, until it’s easy
I’ve been sprinting recently toward the completion of my dissertation, and there’s one thing that’s consistently true for me in writing. Writing is a practice with uneven returns. It’s a slog. It’s hard. You feel lost. You push, push, push. And then – in a moment – everything clicks, comes together, and that section is…
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When online education scales, you can hire James Cameron to produce Math 101
Marc Andreessen, creator of Netscape, talks about, among other things, online education: You could probably bring in the whole online-education movement. But for me, the question is, who does the best with online schooling? And it’s mostly autodidacts, people who are self-starters. They’ve found that people from low-income communities actually get the least out of it.…
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Failure arrives in a whimper
“Failure almost always arrives in a whimper. It is almost always the result of missed opportunities, a series of bad choices and the rust that comes from things gradually getting worse. Things don’t usually explode. They melt.” – Seth Godin
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Education hasn’t seen true disruption. Yet.
For the first 10 years of “fairly common internet usage,” newspapers were fine. There was email. There was AOL. There was instant messenger. There were even some news sites. But for news, the local newspaper still provided a better product than the others. Last weekend, my wife and I signed up for a six-week newspaper deal…
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Tangible experiences + technology = education’s sweet spot
Ben Thompson writes an insightful post on the cost of software moving toward free, and it ties in with online education. Ben says “over time the price of a product moves to its marginal cost, and if the marginal cost is zero, that means free is inevitable.” Online education will move toward free. That’s good…
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The successful …
The successful people we spoke with — in business, entertainment, sports and the arts — all had similar responses when faced with obstacles: they subjected themselves to fairly merciless self-examination that prompted reinvention of their goals and the methods by which they endeavored to achieve them. Secret Ingredient for Success, by Camille Sweeney (via Swissmiss)
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Jon Sampson 