Does “Creative Destruction” Destroy More Than Create? | Chris Zook | Harvard Business Review

Really interesting piece on the high rate of churn in our economy and how great companies survive long term. Most don’t however.

We have been studying companies that seem to be able to endure and adapt for longer periods of time, and have come to the conclusion that the extinction of once-great innovators is less often caused by technological or market evolution, and more often by self-inflicted wounds and slow cycles of decision and adaptation.

Unlike dinosaurs, which had no conscious way to adapt to rapid changes around them, companies and CEOs have a choice. They can focus and simplify their organizations. Or, as happens all too often, they can pursue complex strategies that beget complex organizations and complex processes until they grind to a halt like a Rube Goldberg machine.

It is this complexity, my colleague James Allen and I report in our new book Repeatability, that is the “silent killer of profitable growth,” and the greatest inhibitor of adaptability.

Repeatability was based on a three-year Bain & Company study of enduring profit and relative competitive ability to adapt in a world of increasing velocity and uncertainty.

via When “Creative Destruction” Destroys More than It Creates – Chris Zook – Harvard Business Review.

Startup Weekend Leaders Join our Lean MOOC Experiment | AshokaU | GMU | #socent

Over the past 6 weeks I have been fortunate to work on developing and teaching a  MOOC (massive open online course) titled Entrepreneurship and Globalization: Making the Most of 21st Century Opportunity. This effort did not take years of planning or a $60 million dollar partnership or the removal of a university president.

Led by GMU’s Phil Auerswald, Erin Krampetz of Ashoka U, Michael Youngblood (Innovations Journal) and me, we have quickly stood up this course as a joint effort of Ashoka U and GMU’s Center for Social Entrepreneurship.

Tonight our experiment rolls on and Mark Nager and Franck Nouyrigat of Startup Weekend join us via our live audio feed. Our session this week is on Lean Startup ideas and methods. You can listen to the class live here.

In standing up class this class we have adapted the syllabus from the class of the same title being taught by Prof Auerswald to graduate students in GMU’s School of Public Policy this summer.

We are using low cost and free resources such as Bookneto, Google +, BlogTalkRadio, and Twitter. Our hashtag, btw, is #AshokUOnline. We are going to award certificates and are talking to various third parties around badges related to skills and tools covered in the course and the assignments.

We have made some mistakes along the way and will make a few more, but in the true spirit of lean methods and customer development we have continually engaged our customers.

Moreover, we have tried to embrace the spirit of MOOCS, watching and learning as participants take the lead (for example a number of students have met in NYC and other locations to discuss readings and projects for the class).

Feel free to join us live tonight and get in on the conversation on twitter during and after the live stream with Mark and Franck of Startup Weekend. Listen here.

Will Grim Job Prospects Scar Today’s Grads? USATODAY.com Wonders

Chuck Raasch at USA Today reports on the grim job outlook for many of today’s college graduates. Is it really this bad?

And one by one, generational attitudes are being formed about work, security and even family, particularly among people younger than 25 who have entered the job market since 2008.

The national unemployment rate rose to 8.2% in May as Silsby was graduating as one of 2.6 million who got bachelor’s, master’s or doctoral degrees in the school year now ending. The non-partisan Economic Policy Institute called their labor market “grim” and said that over the previous year, unemployment among college graduates younger than 25 had averaged 9.4%, with an additional 19.1% in jobs for which they were overqualified.

Beneath this cascade of sobering statistics, a new pragmatism might be forming.”A lot of us are silly optimistic, sometimes,” says Amanda Frattarola, 22, who graduated from the University of Vermont in 2011 and found a job as a health and wellness coordinator in Arlington, Texas. Her job search lasted eight months. She says it does not pay what she or her mother expected, and it is far from the New York City address she dreamed of having. But she likes the work, is supporting herself and has held firmly to “that mentality that everything will work out for me. Some of the hardest days of my life have been in this past year. I also feel like I have learned so much about myself.”

Will we see more of these young grads choosing self-employment out of necessity? Will many of them be able to actually grow high growth firms or will they become freelancers, guns for hire, and permanent temps? Basically professional day laborers.

The difficult job market confirms the need for people to learn various entrepreneurial skills. From competitive analysis and business model creation to basic sales and marketing, knowing how to handle entrepreneurial uncertainty and create value is a crucial skill. More from Raasch in the USA Today:

A Harvard University Institute of Politics survey in March and April found that more than three out of four college students expect to have a somewhat or very difficult time finding a job. And 45% expect student loans to affect their financial circumstances “a lot” after they graduate.

Their pessimism is based on the experience of the 20-somethings just ahead of them. A Rutgers University study this spring of 444 graduates who received bachelor’s degrees from 2006 to 2011 found that 51% were working full time. The rest were in graduate school, unemployed, working part time or no longer in the job market.

One in four were living with parents. Those who got jobs beginning in 2008, the height of the Great Recession, earned a starting salary, on average, 10% less than those graduates who entered the job market in 2006 and 2007, according to the Rutgers survey. All this has happened as the total amount of student loan debt in the USA surpassed $900 billion.

via Grim job prospects could scar today’s college graduates – USATODAY.com.

The Democratization of Innovation | Yes That is What is Occurring

Earlier this month I was fortunate to participate in a panel on the Democratization of Innovation. Participants included, Mark Walsh CEO of Genius Rocket, Mike Lincoln of Cooley LP, Ashish Jaiman of Microsoft, and Edmund Pendleton from MTECH at the University of Maryland. Jonathan Aberman of Amplifier Ventures and co-chair of Startup VA was the moderator of our panel.

We convened at the Artisphere in Arlington, VA and really had a fascinating discussion surrounding the JOBS Act, 3D printing, low cost software development and other factors supporting the democratization of innovation.

Marcia Moran of Modern DC Business covered the event in a post titled Tectonic Economic Shifts Coming and she discusses specific issues such as crowds ourcing, but also structural shifts and what they mean going forward for entrepreneurs and young, recent college grads. From Moran:

There’s no denying that administrative headaches blossom when hundreds of uninformed, unsophisticated investors take interest in your company. The entrepreneur also loses the voice of experience and talent that comes with funding from seasoned angels or venture capitalists. Perhaps the personal touch from a mentor that comes with institutional funding will be the entrepreneurs’ greatest loss. Successful businesses gain support from a larger community, particularly when chemistry and complementary business philosophies come into play.

I wonder what will happen when the ties to these networks weaken? Yet, when you think about it, only a select few get funded. Maybe it’s time for change after all. The Millennials use technology to build and maximize the power of social networks, and perhaps we’ll need to develop a new mentoring paradigm to match.

Will iPad Revolutionize Textbooks? Infographic

Just received this infographic in an email. I’ll share it because there are some good numbers in there. Lets think broader than textbooks though. All kinds of learning. The iPad will likely play a role in the impending disruption of higher education and all kinds of opportunities will be create via the iPad for entrepreneurs in and around the campus. #hackedu #uncollege

 

Courtesy of: WorldWideLearn.com
INFOGRAPHIC: Can Apple revolutionize the textbook industry? | WorldWideLearn.

Sht Entrepreneurs Say – YouTube

@Bindlebags just posted this on the StartUp Mason Facebook page.

Sht Entrepreneurs Say – YouTube.

Higher Ed Canary in the Coal Mine? Stanford Prof Bails to Teach 500,000 Online

With all the news of MITx Certificates and according to a tweet I saw, 67,000 people registered for Steven G Blank’s online Lean Launchpad class, its pretty clear that on campus degree programs are going to lose education market share.

From Thiel and DIY Edu to online badges, things are changing. Incredible news out of Palo Alto that a leading artificial intelligence academic is leaving campus. From Nick DeSantis at Wired Campus:

The Stanford University professor who taught an online artificial intelligence course to more than 160,000 students has abandoned his position to aim for an even bigger audience.

Sebastian Thrun, a research professor of computer science at Stanford, revealed today that he has departed the institution to found Udacity, a start-up offering low-cost online classes. He made the surprising announcement during a presentation at the Digital – Life – Design conference in Munich, Germany. The development was first reported earlier today by Reuters.

During his talk, Mr. Thrun explored the origins of his popular online course at Stanford, which initially featured videos produced with nothing more than “a camera, a pen and a napkin.” Despite the low production quality, many of the 200 Stanford students taking the course in the classroom flocked to the videos because they could absorb the lectures at their own pace. Eventually, the 200 students taking the course in person dwindled to a group of 30. Meanwhile, the course’s popularity exploded online, drawing students from around the world. The experience taught the professor that he could craft a course with the interactive tools of the Web that recreated the intimacy of one-on-one tutoring, he said.

The article is worth reading and my favorite part is at the end,

“I feel like there’s a red pill and a blue pill,” he said. “And you can take the blue pill and go back to your classroom and lecture your 20 students. But I’ve taken the red pill, and I’ve seen Wonderland.”

I wish more in academics wanted to see Wonderland (or were even aware that it existed). I am continuing to experiment with various new methods of delivery and reaching out to those beyond the confines of my courses (StartUp Mason is one such initiative).

All that said, Thrun is not the first to leave a university for an online startup (some of my University of Chicago Professors did it during the first internet bubble — though I can’t remember the name of their firm — it failed).

via Professor Departs Stanford U., Hoping to Teach 500,000 Students at Online Start-Up – Wired Campus – The Chronicle of Higher Education.

MLA Considers Radical Changes to Dissertation | Inside Higher Ed | Disrupt Higher Ed

I am currently in the process of publishing my first two papers and preparing my dissertation — I have been against this academic publication model since entering my PhD program (why I chose a PhD program is another discussion).

Faculty and administrators  always ask why I blog, tweet, participate in online chats, and video record my interviews and ethnographic observations. Its all because I believe other media output and methods of distribution (beyond academic publications and books) are the present and future of knowledge and content. Higher ed is woefully behind in the production and distribution of content (knowledge) when compared to other sectors of society.

Looks like the uber powerful Modern Language Association is coming around to my point of view. From Scott Jaschik of Inside Higher Education:

So much has changed, he said, but dissertation norms haven’t, to the detriment of English and other language programs. “Are we writing books for the 19th century or preparing people to work in the 21st?” he asked.

Leaders of the MLA — in several sessions and discussions here — indicated that they are afraid that too many dissertations are indeed governed by out-of-date conventions, leading to the production of “proto-books” that may do little to promote scholarship and may not even be advancing the careers of graduate students. During the process, the graduate students accumulate debt and frustrations. Russell A. Berman, a professor of comparative literature and German studies at Stanford University, used his presidential address at the MLA to call for departments to find ways to cut “time to degree” for doctorates in half.

And at a standing-room-only session, leaders of a task force studying possible changes in dissertation requirements discussed some of the ideas under consideration. There was a strong sense that the traditional model of producing a several-hundred-page literary analysis dominates English and other language doctoral programs — even though many people feel that the genre is overused and frequently ineffective. People also talked about the value of digital projects, of a series of essays, or public scholarship. Others talked about ways to change the student-committee dynamic in ways that might expedite dissertation completion.

“We are at a defining moment in higher education,” said Kathleen Woodward, director of the Simpson Center for the Humanities at the University of Washington. “We absolutely have to think outside the box that the dissertation is a book or a book-in-progress.”

I will continue to hop through the hoops of the PhD (its too late for me), but will come out armed with multiple output, assets, and skill sets beyond the minimum outdated methods and content required of a 19th century business model. (#bmgen)

via MLA considers radical changes in the dissertation | Inside Higher Ed.

Apple’s E-Textbook Platform Enters Crowded Field – The Chronicle of Higher Education

More change coming for higher education as Apple begins to focus on education content. (this is a very good thing for all proactive players in education — students, parents, teachers/professors, administrators, techs, etc). From Jeffrey R. Young in the Chronicle of Higher Education:

The company is “reinventing the textbook,” said Philip Schiller, a senior vice president, and “as students are introduced to iPad, remarkable things are happening.” Apple’s leaders identified high schools as the biggest initial market for its new books, though they mentioned potential in higher education as well.

The most unusual offering was iBooks Author, a free book-making program that lets anyone build a rich-media textbook that can be displayed easily on an iPad. Professors can drag in images from their iPhoto libraries, video clips from iTunes, and lecture slides from Apple’s Keynote program (a competitor to Microsoft’s PowerPoint).

A key drawback, however, is how much the new program relies on professors and students adopting Apple products. The book-building program runs only on Macs, not on PC’s, and the resulting textbooks work only on iPads, not on competing Android tablets.

When Apple first released its iTunes software and music store in 2001, it set new standards for digital music that led to the demise of CD’s in favor of 99-cent-per-song downloads. There was nothing else like the iTunes music store at the time, and the company was able to cajole music publishers into accepting lower prices than they wanted to ride the digital-music wave.

When it comes to e-textbooks, though, Apple is hardly the first mover, and it does not seem to have the muscle with book publishers that it flexed with music executives.

I don’t think it matters that they are not the first mover (I owned a Diamond Rio — the first MP3 player; my wife and I now own 9 apple hardware products, not to mention the content we buy via iTunes etc.)

My favorite part about this is that teachers can build their own content. I believe this is where we are heading — like old school coursepacks. The key difference is that much of the content (articles, videos, audio, etc.) will be freely available and this drive down the cost. Additionally, buying snippets of content (sections of chapters vs entire textbooks) should also lower the costs (think of Kindle Singles and .99 cent music downloads and $1.99 tv shows). This does mean more work for teachers, administrators etc., but may also lead to the rise of specialty curators and also print on demand and download on demand types of services.

Young seems concerned that Apple is entering with its own, closed standards and is adding to an already fragmented market, thus delaying our realization of moving to digital textbooks.

As a lifelong student and faculty member member for the past 3 years,  I don’t think e textbooks offer the functionality that traditional textbooks offer (portability, note taking, page marking and searching, etc.) Yes textbooks are expensive, but they serve many needs and offer attributes that e textbooks do not yet offer.

I have spent a lot of time with ebooks (see my amazon and iBook bills) and they still leave much to be desired for educational users. That is why the market has not been realized yet, not because there are too many players with products in a just emerging marketplace.

via Apple’s New E-Textbook Platform Enters an Already Crowded Field – Technology – The Chronicle of Higher Education.

City As Startup: Rise of Mayor-Entrepreneur | TechCrunch

I’ve been lucky enough to spend time working with the Creative Class Group and cities throughout the world. The headline above from Tech Crunch caught my eye and I had to share. What did Madonna sing? “Living in an Entrepreneurial World!” From Jon Bischke:

On stage at last month’s Le Web conference Shervin Pishevar, a Managing Director at Menlo Ventures, stated “The World is a Startup.” It’s an interesting perspective, and I think what’s true for the world is also true for countries, states and municipalities. With developments like last month’s announcement that Cornell was selected to build a new tech campus in New York City, it seems to follow that if “a city is a startup,” then the best mayors are the ones who are looking at their cities in much the same way as entrepreneurs look at the companies they have founded.

The ingredients for a successful startup and a successful city are remarkably similar. You need to build stuff that people want. You need to attract quality talent. You have to have enough capital to get your fledgling ideas to a point of sustainability. And you need to create a world-class culture that not only attracts the best possible people, but encourages them to stick around even when things aren’t going so great.

Paul Graham has written extensively on this topic in essays like How to Be Silicon Valley and Why Startups Condense in America. Much of his thinking no doubt played into the decision to base Y Combinator entirely in Silicon Valley. Boston’s loss was the Bay Area’s gain and a striking example of why it’s important for mayors to view their cities through an entrepreneurial lens.

via A City Is A Startup: The Rise Of The Mayor-Entrepreneur | TechCrunch.