Anthea Stratigos's blog post was featuredA Missing Link in Innovation?I was thinking the other day about the difference between innovation and entrepreneurialism and was reminded of some important differences when I looked them up online. Innovation is the process of innovating. Hmmm. Ok, well that didn’t get me too far, but a look further pointed to the process of innovating as change, alteration, revolution, upheaval, transformation, metamorphosis, or breakthrough. That sounds more like what’s going on in Crimea, or the Arab Spring, but not innovation. So I persevered in my search.I looked further and my trusty online dictionary said innovation is the introduction of something new, a new idea, method, or device. It is the act or process of introducing new ideas, devices or methods. Ok, I buy it but why are so many companies bad at innovation or chasing it like a dream? Books are written on the topic and leaders, clients I work with every day, want more innovation in their businesses and cultures. Why is it so hard? Maybe there is a clue in the second word, entrepreneur.Definitions of entrepreneur come in many different "flavors." For instance, an entrepreneur is a person who organizes and operates a business or businesses, taking on greater than normal financial risk in order to do so. He/she is also a person who starts a business and is willing to incur loss in order to make money. Forbes describes it as anyone who can identify any need and fill it. It's a ‘seeking and solving breed who can define, invest, build, and repeat.It struck me that the reason many companies are not good at innovating is because they are unwilling to be entrepreneurial. They either can’t invest, or won’t invest because of the need to deliver short-term profit and please Wall Street, or they don’t have the financial bandwidth to invest unless there is no risk. Or they are hiring people who can execute well but don’t have a stable full of those who are risk takers, or both.There are large companies who can innovate and take risks, but it seems they are getting fewer and farther between: Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Google, or maybe IBM--but even their R&D feels decidedly more yesterday than what’s going on here in the western US. Is Salesforce continuing to innovate or are they more so executing? Uber? Definitely an innovator. But I wonder, can innovation occur outside of an entrepreneurial environment?Maybe so but only if another word kicks in - enterprising-- which is having or showing initiative and resourcefulness and being energetic in carrying out an undertaking characterized by great initiative. I like that.The Valley is chock full of entrepreneurs, some of whose ideas aren’t all that innovative. In fact they might not even be big risk-takers because they are using other people’s money. Many companies have a hard time innovating because they can’t entrepreneur. The individuals and enterprises that fill the gap are the hard core who can do more with less, can identify a market need and fill it on a shoestring budget, don’t blink at risk and can truly turn out something - a new idea, device, or method that is breakthrough.What do you think? I’d love to hear other ideas and experiences on this topic.Anthea C. Stratigos is co-founder and CEO of Outsell.See More

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2013 annual report for this blog. Here’s an excerpt: The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 10,000 times in 2013. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 4 sold-out performances for that many people to see it. Click here to see the complete report.Filed under: Uncategorized

For decades, management science has concerned itself with researching and developing sophisticated systems for understanding and unleashing employee motivation. In organizations, we’ve experimented with countless combinations of possible solutions to arrive at that magical motivational mix. We’ve tried: Compensation, bonuses, and different takes on doling out the almighty dollar to inspire employees Recognition in a variety of flavors, including verbal reinforcement, physical tokens and reminders, and exotic trips Team structures that support relationships and greater autonomy Enticing work spaces (because what says ‘motivation’ more than a pool table and hanging out with Fido from 9 to 5?) Flexible schedules and remote working opportunities Is it possible that we’ve over-engineered a complex solution to a simple problem? Is it possible that it’s a lot more organic and more altruistic than all of this? Is it possible that motivation can be enhanced and even optimized simply by helping others connect their work with the value it brings to others? Recent research suggests an emphatic "yes," "yes," and "yes." The altruistic angle Adam Grant, the Wharton professor and author of "Give and Take," offers considerable evidence that making the connection between work and the value it brings to others activates motivation. In his scholarship call-center experiment, time on the phone increased by 142% and revenues grew by 171% to 400% after the callers met those benefiting from the scholarships for which they were raising funds. In another study, Grant determined that positioning healthcare provider hand-washing in terms of benefits to the patient (versus benefits to the providers) triggered a 33% increase in the volume of product used and 10% increase in compliance. Mine the motive These studies suggest that as humans we may be intrinsically motivated to serve and bring value to others. If that’s the case (or if you want to believe that it’s the case and conduct your own field studies to confirm it), then it behooves leaders to explore four strategies that may tap into this altruism and activate a service/value/motivation loop. Make it personal. Let employees see, hear, and experience the customer directly. If the work cannot be structured for routine customer contact, then engineer regular human touch points. Invite a customer to attend meetings. Arrange for field trips to customer sites. Schedule a ride-along with key customer contacts. Survey data and feedback forms are interesting; but they don’t replace human contact for tapping deep human emotions and connections. Offer a value menu. Develop and regularly share targeted messaging that connects work with the value it delivers. In the busyness of day-to-day work, it’s easy for employees to forget the deeper meaning and contributions associated with the tasks performed. Leaders must remind them and keep it front-of-mind in a variety of ways including living mission statements, decision-criteria that are customer-focused, and performance feedback and recognition that relate directly to customer value. Connect the dots. Policies, processes, and changes (all of which frequently meet with employee resistance) are more palatable when employees understand how the customer and others benefit. Vet rules, guidelines, ideas and approaches by rigorously considering the value they deliver. This provides a structural means for systemically tapping into employees’ internal motivation. Encourage back-patting. To raise awareness (and the motivation it triggers) routinely ask employees how they are helping the customer and each other. Who did you help today? What’s the best thing you’ve done for our customers today? What’s the biggest difference you’ve made to a colleague or his/her work? Before long, employees will have internalized the discipline of connecting their performance to its value to others… and they’ll be volunteering this information. Altruism and service to others might be the most powerful (and under-leveraged) source of internal motivation within employees. Leaders who are willing to consider and explore this possibility will bring greater humanity to the workplace, unleash potential and performance, and in the process experience a more profound and satisfying connection to their own work. In this way, they’ll help themselves and those around them find the motive behind their motivation. This post originally appeared at SmartBlog on Leadership. Image: © Marsia16 | Dreamstime.com - Helping Hands Photo The post Finding the "motive" in motivation appeared first on Julie Winkle Giulioni.

Jonathan Barsade's blog post was featuredWhy the Marketplace Fairness Act Beats the AlternativesToday in the U.S., ecommerce businesses are "more equal" than their brick-and-mortar peers. The Internet remains a tax-free zone, and the Marketplace Fairness Act (MFA) remains shelved in the House of Representatives. The MFA, which was passed by the Senate in May 2013, would grant states the power to collect sales taxes from online sellers. Of course, the bill is viciously contested. Meanwhile, brick-and-mortar business continue to shoulder the burden of state taxes, and opponents of the MFA continue to spin new reasons why this inequity should continue.MFA detractors argue that it would create ‘new’ taxes; that it would subject businesses to tax policies of other states, where they have no ability to influence policy; and that it would force businesses to pay for infrastructure they don’t use. In reality, the Marketplace Fairness Act has been operating successfully in 24 states for over seven years under its predecessor, Streamline Sales Tax, without any of these ramifications. Rather than debate these flimsy arguments, I suggest we ask a better question: What’s the alternative? Do opponents of the MFA have another solution, or is "no" the extent of their vision?Very few people argue that the Internet should remain a tax-free zone. Even Speaker Boehner and Chairman Goodlatte, staunch opponents of the MFA, agree that some kind of Internet sales tax bill must pass. The question is what the bill will contain.Legislators disagree about the location of an online transaction (a.k.a. "sourcing") because that determines where a business will report and file the taxes. The MFA says that the transaction should be sourced to the buyer’s location. Opponents of the MFA argue that the seller is not located where the buyer is located and should therefore not have to file taxes in that state. Never mind that seller uses state infrastructure to deliver goods to the buyer.Many MFA opponents, aware that a pure seller sourcing rule is untenable, are promoting what is known as the "mixed" sourcing rule. This concept is the centerpiece of the draft bill released by Chairman Goodlatte for discussion, titled "Online Sales Simplification Act of 2015." The draft bill provides that transactions will be sourced to the state where the seller is located, and then the seller state would remit the taxes to the buyer’s state (through a clearing house, to be created). This way sellers would only be subject to the tax policies of their home states. MFA opponents claim that this is the least burdensome approach because sellers already collect sales taxes under their home rules.This hybrid solution would be a disaster for state governments and sellers.First of all, implementing the hybrid solution would be virtually impossible. With each state tax return, the seller would have to submit a comprehensive report detailing each transaction. The state would then have to reconcile which transaction gets reported to which state, determine how much is owed and transmit the payments. State taxing agencies already have enough difficulties collecting their own taxes. They have no incentive and no capacity to develop systems that would remit tax payments to other states.Second, the hybrid solution wouldn't relieve sellers of the compliance burden. Under the hybrid solution, they would still need complex systems to track and report sales by taxing jurisdiction. The reporting would need to be accurate and detailed enough for the state to divide the tax payment among other tax agencies. Under the MFA, a large portion of this reporting capacity would be provided by commercial companies, which in turn would be compensated by the recipient states. Under the hybrid solution, the entire cost of reporting systems would fall on the commercial retailer. Compliance would be significantly more expensive.Third, the hybrid system would result in higher taxes because it would incentivize sellers to relocate to low tax states. The recipient state (where the buyer is located) would receive taxes collected according to lower state tax rates. Because the buyer’s state would collect less revenue, it would have to raise taxes to make up any shortfall. For example, if a seller were located in a low-tax state, and the buyer were located in California, the seller state would remit reduced taxes to California. Unable to collect enough taxes from the seller or buyer, California would realize a shortfall in taxes collected from online sales and would have to compensate by increasing other state taxes.Fourth, the hybrid solution would encourage arbitrage between states. Just imagine an enterprising middleman located in a low rate state such as Colorado. He could purchase goods on behalf of the buyer, and because he made the purchase for purpose of resale, the purchase would be tax free. When the middleman turns around and resells the item to the buyer, he would only collect the Colorado rate of 2.9%, saving California buyers nearly 7% in sales tax. Now, imagine if the name of that enterprising middleman was "Amazon".Many readers will object to these arguments on the grounds that I, the author, am associated with Exactor, a company that stands to benefit from MFA. The truth is that Exactor would benefit regardless of which bill passes - MFA, source-based or hybrid rules. We’re a technology company that helps businesses navigate the complexity of state and local sales taxes. Because we've been in the trenches, we know what sellers need and how states operate. The above arguments are informed from experience and my hope for a functional sales tax system.Proponents and opponents of the MFA both acknowledge that the Internet cannot remain a tax-free zone. While I contend that sellers and states will be far better off with the Marketplace Fairness Act than a hybrid solution, the debate will continue until the President signs a bill. For opponents of the MFA, either it’s time to propose a realistic alternative, or it’s time to let Congress adapt our tax system to the digital age. Until then, some business will remain less equal than others.Jonathan Barsade is founder and CEO of Exactor.See More

Guest Post by Henna Inam I’m thrilled to host this guest post from Henna Inam whose book, Wired for Authenticity, launched this week.  Henna makes a powerful business case for authenticity… but she makes and equally powerful human case for it as well. Looking to reduce stress, enhance trust, and be able to pivot more nimbly in today’s chaotic workplace? Authenticity is the answer! Who we become as leaders comes not from books or training but from paying attention to the small and big choices we make every day. Just last week my 16-year old called me in a panic around 11:30am. She asked if I could come and pick her up from school. Her voice had a sense of urgency in it. She had a major Chemistry test that she hadn’t studied adequately for and was afraid she would get an "F" on it, severely impacting her overall grade. This (she went on to say in one breath) would destroy her G.P.A., her chances of getting into a good college, and her career plans. Basically, she could write off her life. In that moment, I think she actually believed this and wanted to have the weekend to study for the test. Having had plenty of panic attacks about tests, I felt her fear. A part of me felt compassion for her, another part wanted to have her learn to be more responsible, another part wanted to help her get a good grade. Who was I going to be as a mom and a leader in that situation? Think back now to a decision where you felt stuck. This often happens when we have competing parts of ourselves wanting expression. As leaders, many times we don’t slow down enough to pay attention to these competing voices. These big and small decisions shape us as leaders, yet, are often unconscious because we make these decisions often from habit, particularly when we are moving fast. In my book, Wired for Authenticity, one of the seven practices of authentic leadership I talk about is "Choose Be Before Do". In a fast-moving 24/7 work environment, we need leaders today who are both trustworthy as well as agile to the changing needs of a diverse global marketplace. Our habitual patterns don’t serve us. Unlike traditional notions of authenticity ("this is me, take it or leave it"), we need to carefully examine each situation.  We need to evaluate the different voices inside of us, and those outside, to make decisions for the benefit of those we lead. The decision I made in the case of my daughter was to try to calm her down, and to let her know that I would not pick her up so she could avoid a bad grade. I wanted her to face up to the consequences of the choices she had made. Importantly, I wanted her to become present to the fact that we are always making choices, regardless of whether we consciously stop to think about them or not. Consciously or unconsciously, these choices become patterns, and then habits, and then a core part of who we are becoming every day as leaders. Here’s wishing we all stop to choose who we are being before we choose a course of action. Henna Inam is the CEO of Transformational Leadership Inc., and author of Wired for Authenticity - now available on Amazon.  Learn more about her work at www.transformleaders.tv or connect with her on Twitter @hennainam. Originally published on May 10, 2015 at http://www.transformleaders.tv/who-are-you-being-as-a-leader/ The post Who Are You BEING as a Leader? appeared first on Julie Winkle Giulioni.

Gary Angel's blog post was featuredDeriving Value From Data DemocratizationAs organizations mature, the demand for data has, in many cases, outstripped analytics teams’ ability to provide the information required. For centralized teams, it’s impossible to answer every question they are asked. In response to this plethora of requests, data democratization has emerged as a possible solution. Democratizing data - whereby executives and other senior managers can gain direct access to data to inform their business decisions - would appear to be an easy way to relieve an analytics team that is stretched beyond capacity. However, if not managed properly, data democratization can also introduce hazards into an organization.Data democratization can work in organizations that are already highly accustomed to data-driven decision-making (think Netflix or Uber). But if stakeholders aren't sophisticated consumers of data, the journey to informational maturity via democratization can seem, and be, never-ending. Why? Because in most organizations, data democratization misses the point. The goal of the analytics team shouldn't be to democratize data for an organization that doesn't know how to use it effectively. The goal should be to democratize knowledge. When you realize that knowledge democratization is your goal, it reshapes best-practice strategies around data democratization.The misperception of data democratization was a common observation of the attendees at the 2014 EY X Change conference, a gathering of digital analysts from some of the largest brands in the world. Most of the attendees agreed that although there may be a lot of buzz about data democratization, it is generally a bad idea. Without the expertise of a trained analyst, there are too many opportunities for business leaders to draw inaccurate conclusions from data and, as a result, make the wrong decisions.These concerns are valid even for clean, accurate and trusted data. But when digital feeds are poorly documented, the data can be positively loaded with quirks and peculiarities, and interpreting it is far from intuitive. No matter how skilled the customers are, if they haven’t dealt with data previously, raw and messy information will only exacerbate the inaccurate conclusions they may draw.A better approach might be to build a self-serve sandbox where users can access curated data relevant to their work streams. Three complementary strategies for doing so include:Cross-disciplinary efforts - It is very important to be a big believer in embedding team members in cross-disciplinary efforts. Enterprise data in any domain tends to be too complex to use without deep internal knowledge. Moreover, dumping the data into one location doesn’t translate into real-world sharing of knowledge. So if your Customer Insights team, for example, wants digital data, the best approach is to pair a digital team member with the data. When centralizing data, pull in team members with different expertise to effectively analyze it.Education - Data democratization requires education for senior employees, but written instruction is insufficient. Personal instruction is necessary. It is important to suggest that analysts first conduct a detailed walk-through of the data feed, with a discussion of every field, explaining how it’s used and how it is often misinterpreted. Following this introduction, they should check in regularly to track the actual usage of the data. This will help your data users and, because it protects the usage of the digital data, it will help you, too.Less is more - Data democratization doesn’t mean that every detail needs to be shared. Customer teams don’t want and can’t use reporting-level aggregates. But hit-level data isn’t the only kind of detail data. Mid-level aggregations, such as journey records, session aggregations and even page usage aggregations contain valuable insights. Keeping to this level of data eliminates many of the confusing fields that exist in a raw data feed and gives the business information that is both easier to digest and more powerful.At its core, the data democratization debate is about building a mature information enterprise - one in which leaders understand and can effectively use data to make business decisions. The EY X Change conference made it clear that while data democratization continues to be a hot subject of debate among experienced data analysts, the need for knowledge democratization will only grow. Bridging the gap between the two will be crucial to alleviating the demands placed on analytics teams and increasing organizations’ ability to leverage data for critical business decisions.Gary Angel is a Principal at Ernst & Young LLP. The views expressed herein are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Ernst & Young LLP.See More

Mike Cordano's blog post was featuredHow Data Can Be Made to Pay OffFueled by the growing number of applications, devices and data types - not to mention the Internet of Things (IoT) - the amount of data being created and replicated is doubling every two years. Additionally, in a survey commissioned by HGST earlier this year, 86% of CIOs and IT decision makers surveyed believe that all data generated has value if the organization is able to store, access and analyze it optimally.The value of data is shifting the competitive landscape, forcing businesses to re-architect and reimagine their data centers to keep pace with new market dynamics. Businesses that use data-driven decision making methods are 5% more productive and 6% more profitable than those that don’t. Players that understand the power of data, see it as an opportunity and those that decide to act on it, are positioned to win in the coming years.This volume, velocity, longevity and value of data is putting storage at the heart of the data center. Having the right storage strategy is key to optimizing infrastructures and realizing the full power of data. Here are five trends that I see coming for the storage solutions industry in 2015:1. Air is Dead; Helium HDDs Will Rule the Data Center in 2015Helium-filled hard drives provide the highest capacity per drive with more stable and reliable recording technologies than what is possible with air-filled drives. The lower power consumption of Helium-filled drives also result in the highest enclosure and rack densities in the industry. Overall, these combined benefits deliver the lowest TCO per terabyte possible. Recognizing these clear advantages, I see the adoption and deployment of Helium-filled drives will become the leading technology for scale-out applications such as active archive and cloud storage.2. Data Access Infrastructure Will be Measured by the "Six-Second Rule"Six seconds will become the new standard for data access amongst infrastructure architects. As articulated in Brian Shackel’s Acceptability Paradigm, six seconds will become the upper limits of what is acceptable for data access. Because of this Six-Second Rule, data center architects will no longer be able to classify aging "cold" data as "store once, hopefully read never," and place this data on tape storage. Instead, businesses need to recognize that they can only harness the power of data if they have near instant access to it to extract the value. This means data center architects will need to understand an emerging category of disk-based active archive systems, which will enable data to be accessed in under the six seconds it will take before users lose interest in that data.3. All-Flash is Not a Universal Fix; Storage Architects Will Build for Speed AND Capacity This YearGoing forward, data center storage solutions will be optimized beyond just device characteristics and all architects will need to understand two unique paths on how they design an entire data center deployment. Performance-centric applications will employ "high performance" architectures, leveraging new NVMe-over-fabric standards with the efficiencies of a shared SAN. On the other hand, capacity-centric applications will employ a completely different approach that focuses on "high capacity," leveraging active archive and object storage solutions to achieve new levels of scalability, efficiency and cost effectiveness. This is particularly exciting, as this shift in architecture design will launch a virtuous cycle where vertical innovation drives success for customers across the board.4. The Cloud Will Become a Mandatory "Third Leg" for Data CentersCloud strategies are creating a third platform that cooperates with and complements these high-performance and high-capacity architectures in the data center. It is well established that cloud architecture is here to stay, and many are already using public, private or a hybrid system architectures. However, an important distinction moving forward will be to understand how the cloud will add to the value of data, data longevity, data activity and overall architectural optimization. Data centers that understand the economy of data within their business will be the ones that best utilize scalable cloud architectures and can fully extract the value of their operational data.5. Infrastructure Budgets Will Remain Flat, but Expectations for Data Will Double Over the Next Couple of YearsCisco’s Dawn of the Zettabyte era Infographic shows that the amount of data being created and replicated on the Internet is doubling every two years. However, the number of IT professionals is not projected to double in our foreseeable lifetime. In fact, a recent labor report shows that hiring trends for IT have been stagnant over the last five years. This means the amount of data that needs to be managed by each IT professional working today will increase eight times over by 2020, and data growth will grow dramatically this year. This points to the fact that data center infrastructure not only needs to be scalable, but also new levels of simplicity and ease of management will be essential for success.2015 will be an important time for data centers and data center managers, but what does that mean for you? Companies are going to compete based on the insights they pull from their data, so it’s important that they’re equipped with the latest in terms of storage, and new data center technologies and architectures. This means the standard for efficiency, performance and scalability will be under close scrutiny in 2015 and businesses that want to succeed will need to extract greater value from the data they own.Mike Cordano is President of HGST, a Western Digital Company.See More

Guest Post by Victor Prince Today’s guest post is by Victor Prince, co-author of Lead Inside the Box: How Smart Leaders Guide Their Teams to Exceptional Results (you can order your copy by clicking here).  I’m really excited about this book that he wrote with Mike Figliuolo. I’ve come to expect practical/actionable leadership wisdom from these two… and this new book doesn’t disappoint! We hear the phrase "think outside the box" a lot. If "the box" is something that is stifling creativity, it sounds like something to avoid. But when "the box" is a framework that smart leaders use to get better results from their teams, it is something to embrace. In our new book Lead Inside the Box - How Smart Leaders Guide Their Teams to Exceptional Results, my co-author Mike Figliuolo and I present the Leadership Matrix, or "the box" for short. The premise is you need to evaluate the amount of output you get from a team member and compare that to the amount of time and energy you have to invest in them to get it. We call that second piece "leadership capital." The result of those comparisons is the Leadership Matrix. Within that matrix, we define behavioral-performance patterns that team members demonstrate from Slackers to Rising Stars and everything in between. The real insight lies in practical advice on how to lead those folks to improve their performance. By understanding the behaviors your team members will demonstrate and how you invest (or don’t invest) your time and effort into them, you’ll get a clearer picture of the 8 archetypical behaviors that can show up in the box. With that understanding, you can begin leading differently, which will improve your performance. Those archetypes are as follows: Exemplars can be categorized based upon their career aspirations. Some Exemplars want their great performance to provide them a stepping stone to larger roles and responsibilities. These are the "Rising Stars." Other Exemplars are content remaining in their current roles. They’re experts and they’re satisfied with delivering outstanding results without much interference from their boss. These individuals are the "Domain Masters." High Cost Producers break into subtypes based on the kinds of costs they incur. Some get results but at the high cost of damaging team morale and destroying the goodwill you and your team have accrued with others. These individuals are the "Steamrollers." High-Cost Producers who get results but require an inordinate amount of hand-holding from their leader to get them done are the "Squeaky Wheels." Detractors are defined by the root cause of their performance issues. Some don’t have the skills they need to do their job. These individuals are the "Square Pegs." We call Detractors who have the skills to do the job but they lack the will to do it the "Slackers." Passenger subtypes are determined by the kind of output they produce. Some only work to get their paycheck. They expend the bare minimum amount of effort required to keep getting paid. These are the behaviors of your "Stowaways." Other Passengers exert a great deal of energy but they focus on tasks they want to do, not tasks you need them to do. We refer to Passengers behaving this way as "Joyriders." Once you have identified the behavioral-performance patterns present on your team, you will see your team in a new light. (You can use our simple online tool to assess your team using this framework.) Armed with these new insights, you can figure out the specific type of leadership each team member needs from you to improve their performance. By seeing your team as a portfolio, you can also figure out where you should invest less of your time in some parts so you can shift it to invest more in other parts. In short, you will learn to get better results out of your team by working smarter, not harder, as a leader. Victor Prince: As the Chief Operating Officer (COO) of the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), Victor Prince helped build a new federal agency and led a division of hundreds of people. As a consultant with Bain & Company, he helped clients across the United States and Europe develop successful business strategies. Today, Victor is a consultant and speaker who teaches strategy and leadership skills to clients around the world. The post The 8 Kinds of Leadership Your Team Needs from You appeared first on Julie Winkle Giulioni.

Ryan Craig's blog post was featuredFor Online to Really Matter in Education, We Need to Redefine CompetencyIn the early ‘90s, I could tell what someone thought about the Internet’s prospects for transforming higher education by listening to their vocabulary. If they used terms like "distance learning" or "distance education," they’d probably been working in continuing education for some time and saw the Internet as simply the latest in a line of technologies — beginning with correspondence courses, and including the latest two-way video systems - to expand the reach of colleges and universities. The Internet wasn’t going to disrupt the field. So why should it define it?In contrast, those of us who rejected "distance learning" in favor of "online learning" understood that the Internet was a game changer. The potential of the new medium to not only mirror and extend the classroom but enable entirely new approaches to education was intuitive, if not obvious. And so we gathered in corners of "distance learning" conferences and symposia, whispering furtively about how the distance learning guys simply didn’t get it.In a decade, online education may be recognized not for making higher education accessible to anyone with a smartphone—but as the midwife who delivered competency-based learning into the world. Like so many other technology-driven advances, competency-based learning is theoretically possible in a paper-pencil world. Global positioning is, after all, feasible without a handheld GPS. But it’s not nearly as appealing, and a long way from a mass-market product.Competency-based learning turns higher education on its head - starting not with the curriculum, but rather the competencies one should exhibit upon completion (according to, say, employers). From there, course developers design assessments that test for these competencies. Then - and only then - do we turn to the task of developing the curricula that prepares students to demonstrate mastery on the assessments.In a competency-based program, failure becomes an anachronism; students continue until they demonstrate competency. In addition, competency-based learning relegates concepts like credits, transferring credits, and perhaps financial aid to the dustbin of higher education history. Equally important, it significantly reduces the cost of delivery - by as much as half vs. seat-time-based online delivery.If this all sounds good to you, you’re probably not an academic. Because when higher education veterans hear the term "competencies" they hear "job-related skills" or "vocational training." Most faculty don’t see how competency-based learning relates to higher level capabilities such as critical thinking, problem solving, numerical reasoning, and locating information.But these higher level capabilities are rooted in competencies, too. Moreover, we are increasingly able to design and deliver assessments that test for these competencies. ACT, the leading assessment organization, has profiled over 16,000 jobs by sending experts to corporate work sites and found that over 95 percent of all jobs can be expressed as a combination of three to five higher order capabilities, including applied mathematics, reading for information, and locating information.Years before he conceived the iPod, iPhone and iPad, Steve Jobs was designing videogames for Atari. Jobs hated complicated manuals, saying products needed to be so simple that a stoned freshman could figure them out. The only instructions for the Star Trek game he built for Atari were: ‘1. Insert quarter. 2. Avoid Klingons.’If there’s one product or service that should be designed so that a stoned freshman can figure it out, it’s higher education. Competency based leaning holds great potential to bring a degree of transparency and simplicity to a product purportedly designed for mass consumption. I’m still not sure what language we should use. It certainly isn’t as simple as replacing "distance" with "online." And it’s probably not "capabilities." But the sooner higher education can get over its vocational prejudice against competencies, the sooner the online learning revolution will begin.Ryan Craig is Managing Director at University Ventures, a fund focused on innovation from within higher education, and the author of the upcoming "College Disrupted: The Great Unbundling of Higher Education" (Palgrave Macmillan, March 2015).See More

TweetIf you’ve visited the Panera Bread location in Clayton, MO, Portland, OR, or Dearborn, MI, you might have noticed something strange about the menu.  There are no prices.  That’s right, no set prices for menu items.  These 3 locations are actually non-profit community cafes called Panera Cares where customers choose what they would like to pay. If you have money to spare, you can pay more than the typical price for your meal, but if you have nothing to offer you can still eat.  The cafe is not a "soup kitchen," though, it is a way for members of the community to help one another when in need.  If someone cannot pay at all, they are not denied a meal, but they are urged to donate their time. They are also using the store as a way provide job/skills training to disadvantaged youth. The 3 locations were chosen strategically.  They were placed in reasonably affluent neighborhoods with access to public transportation, which has allowed for a diverse clientele. At these 3 locations, Panera Bread Foundation has found that about 20% of people pay more than the retail price for their meal while 20% pay less.  About 60% of people pay roughly the original retail value.  Within a few months of the first store opening, Panera Cares turned a profit (which they reinvest in skills training). Who would have thought that removing the price from a menu would result in people paying more than the item is worth?  This is a great example of an organization thinking differently about how to approach a problem like feeding the needy. Panera already donates between $100-150 Million in products each year by donating their "less fresh" baked goods to charitable organizations.  The Panera Cares cafe is just one more example of how this organization continues to take care of the community through healthy meals, discounted or free items, and skills training. Kudos to Panera for "thinking differently." How can you make a difference today? (image source credit to Tim A. Parker of USA Today)