Back in June 2010, I wrote a post to this blog in which I summarized a new book on K-12 mathematics teaching by a former Stanford colleague of mine, Prof Jo Boaler. At the time, though I had met Jo a few times, I did not really know her; rather I was just one of many mathematical educators who simply admired her work, some of which she described in the book What's Math Got To Do With It?, parts of which were the primary focus of my post.Not long after my post appeared, Jo returned to Stanford from the UK, and over time we got to know each other better. When I formed my mathematics educational technology company BrainQuake in 2012, I asked her to be a founding member of its Board of Academic Advisors, all of whom are listed here. When she was putting the final touches to the new edition of her book, just published, she asked me to write a cover-quote, which I was pleased to do.I say all of this by way of disclosure.* For my primary aim in writing this month’s column is to persuade you to read (or re-read) my earlier post, and ideally Jo’s book. The research findings she describes in the book highlight the lasting damage done to generations of K-12 students (and possibly consequent damage to the US economy when that generation of students enters the workforce) by continuing adherence to a classroom mathematics pedagogy that portrays math as a rule-based process of answer-getting, rather than a creative enterprise of understanding and problem solving.The woefully ill-informed "debate" about the benefits of the US Common Core State Mathematics Standards that has been fostered in between the appearances of the two editions of Boaler’s book, make her message even more important than it was when the first edition came out in 2009. While CCSS opponents espouse opinions, Boaler presents evidence - lots of it - that supports the approach to K-12 mathematics learning the CCSS promotes.If you want to see more of Prof Boaler’s efforts to improve K-12 mathematics education, see her teachers’ resource site YouCubed, or sign up for her online course How to Learn Math: for Teachers and Parents, which starts on June 16.Also, check out her latest post in The Hechinger Report where she presents some recent data about the problems caused by a lot of old-style rule-memorization math instruction.* NOTE: Prof Boaler’s Stanford research team also recently completed a small pilot study of BrainQuake’s mathematics learning (free-) app Wuzzit Trouble, first reported by education technology journalist Jordan Shapiro in an April 27, 2015 article in Forbes Magazine. (Prof Boaler is an academic advisor to BrainQuake but does so as a volunteer, and has no financial stake in the company.) Original author: Mathematical Association of America

Uta and I are staying in the oldest building in Lubeck, a powerhouse in the days of the Hanseatic League. The hotel Anno 1216 was named for the year of its construction. White asparagus Original linkOriginal author: Jay Cross

Original linkOriginal author: Jay Cross

For satisfaction, experiences trump possessions. Savoring past experiences is a matter of remembering them, and it so happens that I’ve been studying memory as part of the research for my book. Benedict Carey’s How We Learn says that our brains record everything. Not that you can recall them, but all your experiences are in there. You just can’t reach them. At lunch today, Uta recalled having asparagus Bismarck at a delightful lunch in Como forty years ago. What was the name of that long-closed restaurant? I don’t recall. But I do remember that I ate the guinea fowl, bresaola in Italian. We were the only party in the little restaurant except for the chef’s wine merchant, who kindly gave us a bottle of wine to imbibe with lunch. The wine was a Dolcetto d’Alba; it was a delight, not at all sweet. I’m still blanking on the name of the restaurant but I remember its stiff white table cloths. I’ve reclaimed a memory that had gone underground for decades — and added to the bank of experiences that make for a happy life. What if you could always remember more of your experiences so you could enjoy them after the fact? You can. You don’t have to forget so many experiences if you revisit them — because reflection keeps memories alive. A good routine for reinforcing memory is to review and reflect half an hour after learning something, reflect again the next day, again in a week, and again at month-end. Return visits require less and less time; a brief recall charges up the neuron connections memories are made of. In my case, the reinforcement comes from posting photos on Flickr. I just cropped and tweaked today’s photographs. Then I checked to make sure I’d uploaded them properly to Flickr. I may add a description or two. In a few weeks, I’ll look back at the photos to savor the high points of the vacation. I expect I retain more memories than someone who doesn’t stop to reflect. I wouldn’t be likely to forget staying in an 11th century castle overlooking the Rhine without the photos, but with them, I’ll remember the colors and the nuances of the experience. Oversimplifying the way memory works in the extreme, the hippocampus stores a map to the interconnected neurons that make a particular memory. If the map is destroyed, the memory vanishes. Neurologists had trauma victims recall their bad memories. Then they injected them with drugs that block protein synthesis, i.e. the ability to form memories. Their brains couldn’t create revised maps to where the memories were stored. They couldn’t replace the maps with updated versions. Astoundingly, the memories vanished entirely! Wouldn’t it be wonderful if science could find a way for us to restore the neuron maps to memories of good experiences that we’ve forgotten? I’ve forgotten thousands of wonderful experiences and it would be a delight to get them back.   Original linkOriginal author: Jay Cross

After being laid off from my full-time job two weeks ago and reluctantly enrolled in what I term The White Box Club, I found myself wading through waves of phone calls, text messages, and emails from friends and family expressing their words of wisdom, love, and support. People I didn't even know were sending messages of hope and encouragement through social media. The outpouring of support was amazing.Then this past Friday—exactly two weeks after that shocking and unexpected event—my inbox was empty. Hardly an email, phone call, or text message. It suddenly felt like the whole event had never occurred. Until I remembered that it had.So what just happened? The moment I told my Mom about this unexpected condition, she recalled the time when our home was lost to a fire back in 2002. "There was such an outpouring of support for quite a while. But then there was a day when it all came to a screeching halt. Another note for the time frame, but also another twinge of the heart."I was reminded that every life event has a process—a beginning and an end—and so do the people touched by it. When others near to us are swept into the emotional waves of a personal life event, they, too, become a part of it... for a short time. But then they return to their own lives. They come, they love, they leave.So if other people can move on so quickly, why can’t I? How come I can’t just process the sadness and disappointment and get over it? Because it happened to me.Other people process faster because empathy can only take you so far. Even when we extend support to others, we will naturally have an inherent need to nurture ourselves. And when the event happens to us, our own process will always be different from anyone else—especially since we're the ones who are most affected. And that’s okay.As a life coach, I encourage my clients to receive—and not be afraid to ask for—support from their friends and family when facing tough times. I also teach them to rely on themselves for encouragement. Learning to becoming your own coach can serve you for the rest of your life.Starting to reflect upon the lessons I'm learning during this layoff process is, yet again, another opportunity to me to learn how to coach myself—another chance to "drink another cup of my own coffee." Whereas the encouragement came from others during the past two weeks, it now needs to come from me. My friends and family reminded me how important my gifts are to the world, and now I need to remind myself.If I believe that every life event has a process, then this, too, shall pass. Sometimes in the most difficult times, the glimmer of hope becomes the light at the end of the tunnel.My challenges this week?To allow myself to keep processing, and be very kind to myself as I do Keep bringing clarity to these moments Acknowledge all of my thoughts, feelings, and intuitive "nudges" Continue to practice patience and trust the process Keep focusing on internal and external alignment Throughout this process of grieving: anger, confusion, sadness, and acceptance, I will stay true to myself and my integrity. And while my hands are staying busy doing logical things (arranging finances, networking, searching for new opportunities), my heart will continue healing and my next opportunity will, indeed, come into alignment with me.To Our Better Balance,Michael Thomas SunnarborgMichael Thomas Sunnarborg is an educator, best-selling author, and certified life coach. His passion is to help people reclaim their power of choice and find better balance in their work, relationships, and life. You can follow Michael on Facebook and Twitter, or find out more at michaelsunnarborg.comNeed some inspiration? Pick up a copy of 21 Days, Steps & Keys, or one of the other books in the balance series, and start off 2015 by finding better balance in your career, relationships, and life. Liked this post? Then please comment or share it with others!Photo courtesy of me :o) Original linkOriginal author: Michael

By Ray Jimenez, PhD Chief Learning Architect Vignettes Learning www.vignetteslearning.com   Small bites content is small, standalone, useful and accessible. More importantly, it is learning content needed instantly for a micro task or activity at work. The size of small bites content is defined by the way learners consume content. Most likely, this takes place while they're on the job and trying to complete a task. "My Tasks Now" mode is a diagnostic process. Learners and workers are trying to analyze the requirements, problems and opportunities surrounding their tasks. When the learners are faced with the tasks, they ask diagnostic questions (Schank, 2011). 1. What's the outcome? 2. What do I know about this? 3. How should I proceed? 4. How would I know it is done right? By asking these, learners are calculating in their minds what the content is, how much there is and when and where to get it. Finally, how should they apply the content? Depending on the learners' experience and the complexity of the tasks, they may already have the skills and knowledge needed to apply to the tasks at hand. On the other hand, if you have some less confident learners who want to learn more, they proceed to think through their experiences and/or try to recall prior experiences and knowledge. In this instance small bites content becomes invaluable. To be of maximum use, small bites content must contain diagnostic headers and footers. What are diagnostic headers and footers? They are elements of the small bites content that address the four diagnostic questions. They trigger the automatic, instant and unconscious mental skills that aid people to survive, cope and succeed in everyday life. Essentially, these are self-efficacy requirements of learning (Bandura, 1986). Diagnostic headers (before the content) 1. What's the outcome? 2. What do I know about this? 3. How should I proceed? Diagnostic footers (after the content) 4. How will I know if it's done right?  

The last two days, the GPS in our rental car has taken us on to obscure farm roads and "the long way around" time after time. We don’t know whether we should take advice from the GPS’s calm English voice or say to hell with it and follow the signs. We’ve traveled farm roads so narrow that we had to stop to let cars come the other way. The GPS will tell us it’s planning another route because of traffic conditions and then take us directly into roadblocks and construction projects. I fear it’s possessed. Distances are so short in Europe compared to the United States. We left Lindau, the German island on Lake Constance, at 11:30 this morning. Fifteen minutes later, we were whizzing through Austria. And fifteen minutes after that we were in Switzerland, headed to Appenzell, our destination for a 1:00 lunch. Asparagus is still on the menu even though we’re at the southern tip of Germany. Everyplace seems to have a Spargelkarte, a special asparagus menu. A Spargelkarte typically offers asparagus soup, a pound of asparagus with hollendaise or butter, asparagus with a schnitzel or perhaps a fish filet or ham. Uta never tires of the stuff. A few stalks is about all I can handle at one sitting. Tomorrow we’re headed to Schwangau, home of crazy Kind Ludwig II’s castles. It’s schmaltzy and I’ve visited three or four times before, but I can’t resist something that looks so damned cool. Ludwig may have been nuts, but he left behind beautiful, iconic symbols. Original linkOriginal author: Jay Cross

Your Workscape is everything in your organization except the training department. It’s where work is done and where people hone the skills they need to add value. It’s the biggest frame of the big picture. It’s relationships and culture and secret sauce. It’s the organization as organism. To prosper, you need to nurture it, plant seeds, pamper the ground. It’s your job to help the system thrive. Learning Ecosystem, Learning Ecology, and Learnscape mean the same thing as Workscape. I don’t use the word learn with executives, who inevitably think back to the awfulness of school and close their ears. "Let’s talk about performance."  The Workscape is a systems-eye view of the workplace. Everything is connected. Rather than try to control nature, we do what it takes to keep the environment thriving. In the same vein, I talk about Working Smarter instead of informal learning, social learning, and so forth. Some people denigrate informal learning but nobody’s against Working Smarter. Your organization already has a workscape where people are learning to work smarter. That’s where all the informal and social learning we hear about is taking place. The problem is that the learning processes are haphazard, often a paving of the cow paths. Many employees and stakeholders miss out—and stumble. Most companies’ systems fail to get the job done. Our Workscape ecologies are entering a do-or-die phase like global warming. Management is demanding that the workforce be more effective. "What got us here will not get us there." We must nurture the Workscape or face corporate meltdown. Global warming signals in Workscapes We hear that if "it ain’t broke, don’t fix it," yet most corporate learning and development is broken. 77% of the senior managers surveyed by the Corporate Leadership Council reported they were dissatisfied with L&D. 76% said L&D was not critical to business outcomes. Only 14% would recommend working with L&D. Clark Quinn’s recent book, Revolutionizing Learning and Development, slams L&D, which should be named Performance and Development, for seriously underperforming.     Time is speeding up. More happens in a day than your grandmother experienced in a week. Keeping sharp and up to date is now a continuing part of everyone’s job. Corporate learning must expand from focusing on the classroom, which provides at best 10% of learning, to the entire organization  where learning while doing is the rule. Training a novice may lead to  productivity gains in the future. Helping an experienced person impacts the bottom line immediately. Little wonder that the training department is underperforming: they only touch a minority of employees, most of them newcomers. As many as four out of five large multinationals report they are undergoing a digital transformation. It goes by many names, from Enterprise 2.0 to Radical Management or simply Going Paperless. Altimeter Group defines digital transformation as: "the realignment of, or new investment in, technology and business models to more effectively engage digital customers at every touchpoint in the customer experience lifecycle."* The digital transformation of workplace learning involves moving from the limited training department to the holistic Workscape framework view of the world. The input may be establishing social learning networks; the output is improvement in the business overall. Scope of the habitat Put on your ecologist hat. Let’s examine the diversity of species among those people in your Workscape drawing paychecks: Novices and newbies have been the main focus of training. This includes new hire on-boarding and provision of basic and technical skills (we’re all novices at something). This minority uses a disproportionate share of the training department’s resources and mindshare. Experienced producers bring home the bacon yet training departments overlook them. Training departments have single-shot solutions: courses. Courses are rarely appropriate for experienced workers. Many old hands will not tolerate them nor learn from them if they do. They know that experience is a better teacher. Tuning the learning environment to make systemic changes for this underserved population has fantastic upside potential, perhaps enough to get CLOs a real seat at table in the C-Suite. Top performers are the 20% of the team that generate 80% of the results. A 1% improvement at this level makes waves. This species needs special handling, sometimes including personal service. Compliance is a red herring that people point to when discussing how deep "training" goes into the organization. However, compliance is not learning. Sure, it’s required, but no body’s expecting much performance improvement in the area, particularly in its present primitive form. Alumni are an overlooked opportunity in many organizations. IBM invested in keeping former IBMers abreast of what was going on back at Big Blue. The alumni connected over social media and saw demos in Second Life. The result? An on-going flow of leads from true-believers and those who contract with IBM. Subspecies. L&D has traditionally focused on the needs of employees on the payroll exclusively, disregarding the fact that partners, customers, subcontractors, temps, service agencies, outsourcers, suppliers, and others are equally part of the value chain. Take the Workscape view. Let’s go up to a balcony overlooking a model of your business. Look at the flow of business. You can see that the product is only as good as the weakest link in the chain. Think carefully about who you want to be co-learning with. The Workscape should address the needs of learners throughout the extended enterprise. Theoretically, your Workscape — the realm where you’ll be wielding your influence on performance and learning — could stretch way beyond your firewall to include nearly everyone the organization interacts with. Imagine how much cooperation will improve if they all read from the same page. Reading the temperature The climate for Workscapes is changing, forcing a re-think of how things are connected. Decision-making is migrating from institution to individual, from training to pull learning, and shifts "power to the people." This is how digital transformation works: digital democracy first. Digital citizens exploit connections and take power. Making the shift is an enormous change management task. Informal, experiential work is three times more effective than formal, top-down training. Experiential earning is migrating into the workflow at a very fast rate. Spread the footprint of the Workscape to the optimal size. Workscapes are complex and unpredictable, in perpetual beta. Experiments are cheap. Plant lots (hundreds, thousands) of Workscape experiments and nurture those that catch on. Watch out for monoculture (using only one solution) and the echo effect (making judgments from a narrow spectrum of reality). Nurturing the Workscape requires competencies such as business problem analysis, collaboration experts, community managers, and moxie. I foresee learning process SWAT teams attacking connection gaps. You don’t have these people on board now. Forget about the traditional way you’ve trained people. Unlearn your assumptions about courses and top-down learning. Break with the present by looking ahead five years. Start with a blank piece of paper. Take a Workscape perspective. Assess the organizational benefits of: embedding learning in work, covering a much larger audience setting up learning as a continuous activity, not an event leveraging self-sustaining processes instead of one-time courses pinpointing high-return activities such as manager coaching embracing social and experiential learning changing the learning philosophy from push to pull employing business metrics to gauge success canvasing the organization for opportunities instead of waiting for requests focusing on overall business outcomes building self-sufficient teams extending the Workscape to cover partners, customers, and outsourced services making learning a driver with business impact The learning conservationist toolkit L&D’s collaboration experts and SWAT teams are digital MacGyvers who weave techniques like these into Workscapes: Make Management responsible for development Issue stretch assignments to grow staff Mentors, coaching Action learning Personal Learning Network Collaboration and cooperation Friends and colleagues provide answers Peer learning Performance support Job aids, bookmarks, FAQs, aggregation, curation Access to information Wiki, inhouse YouTube, internet Self-study catalog, portals Enterprise social network Activity stream keeps one up to date Platform for conversation Opportunity to share knowledge Communities of Practice Professional growth Knowledge repository Create knowledge Blogs Individual publishing (Learn out loud!) Follow thinking of others Social learning Make conversation easy Collaboration Mobile DIY Performance feedback Is it working? How can we do better? Microlearning Learning in tiny bites Instead of taking requests, the traditional role of training departments, learning conservationists actively seek out opportunities where learning will have the most impact. One group of L&D special agents posted this set of beliefs to explain how it worked to its internal clients: We are open and transparent. We narrate our work. Need to share. We support continuous learning, not events. We value conversation as a learning vehicle. We drink our own champagne (or mimosas). Business success is our bottom line. We are not a training organization. We value time for self-development and reflection. We establish business metrics for every engagement and report back publicly on outcomes. Changing the physical environment can improve learning. The staff will use any tool available to improve learning, right down to moving the furniture. A computer manufacturer discovered that its chip designers learned from overhearing conversations among their peers. They replaced a cube farm with comfortable sofas, rolling white boards, and espresso machines — and watched the production of innovative ideas skyrocket. Environmental impact report In a 2011 book, A New Culture of Learning, Douglas Thomas and John Seely Brown described the kind of learning necessary in this new environment as "whitewater learning"—the ability to acquire useful knowledge and skills while at the same time practicing them in an environment that is constantly evolving and presenting new challenges. They argue that our learning environments need to match the speed and degree of change happening in the world around us.** The emancipation of both nature and the human imagination depends first on the capacity to ‘unsay’ the world and, second, on the ability to image it differently so that wonder might be brought into appearance.*** Over a hundred CLOs told us what they were currently doing was insufficient to prepare them to deal with the future needs of the business. Obviously it’s time to do something different. One way to accelerate people’s development is to optimize learning by looking at the organization as an organic, unpredictable, complex system. It’s time to fix the big picture by working on the level of the Workscape. ________________ *Digital transformation by any other name, Jason Bloomberg in Forbes **Aspen Institute, The Learning Ecosystem *** James Corner, "Ecology and Landscape as Agents of Creativity," in Ecological design and planning, George F. Thompson and Frederick R. Steiner, editors, (New York: John Wiley, 1997), p.99. quoted in Design Education and Innovation Ecotones by Ann Pendleton-Julian ________________ Research funded by Litmos Original linkOriginal author: Jay Cross

At a Stanford education conference this morning, speakers made presentation after presentation without once involving the audience, not even asking for questions. For the first couple of hours there was zero audience participation. Finally, following a panel session, we were invited to stand at a microphone if we had questions. Naturally, I was first in line. I explained that I came to this event as an outsider. I am not an academic. In fact, my corporate title is "Chief Unlearning Officer." A speaker had mentioned silos, referring to departments at schools. I said I felt like I was in a college silo. It’s as if the world outside didn’t exist. Take STEM (Science, tech, engineering, math). All of these folks are vitally interested in STEM. After all, that’s what the Gates Foundation, the NSF, and the other benefactors are paying them hundreds of millions to produce. I said I don’t get it. The shelf life of STEM knowledge is about the same as for French mustard, several years. After that, the mustard begins to smell funny and the STEM knowledge is obsolete. I didn’t mention my suspicion that STEM dumbs down education. It’s explicit knowledge. Life’s grand lessons are largely tacit. Besides, isn’t STEM often the algorithmic knowledge that robots are going to being doing in a few years? When that happens, lots of STEM grads may find themselves in the position of John Henry, the steel-drivin’ man. Nobody here was talking about liberal arts and continuing the culture. Consider the role of STEM education in someone’s career arc. A career is a marathon. College teaches people to run the first 100 yards. Running the rest of the race is the individual’s problem. "But we are working with industry," replied the panel. Oh yeah? People have been touting big data as the ultimate quality control and planning tool in education. Are any of you looking at big data on people outside your walls? Correlating education with what happens after graduation? No; it’s a closed system. Big data can help Arizona State University refine their algebra course to near perfection, but unless they go off campus to look at the world of work, no data will tell them whether algebra is worth studying at all. (I love Roger Schank’s putdown of the quadratic equation. When’s the last time you had to solve for AX2 + BX +C = 0?) How’s the water? It was troubling to hear one person after another lecture about learning more about how people learn whlle violating most of the principles we already know. Aside from the Push format, problems included no hashtag, no Tweeting, no backchannel, no power outlets, inoperable wi-fi (for me, at least), slow wi-fi at the podium cut several presentations short, weak visuals overall, and no encouragement to network online (although many probably already know one another). I don’t know how someone as astute at Peter Norvig could sit through an entire day of this stuff. A few highlights. The president of Capella talked of converting their curriculum to competencies. Competencies can be counted up after the fact to give credit for courses. I suggested he wasn’t going for enough. Who needs courses? He wisely pointed out that accrediting bodies have a fixed mindset on this one. Arizona State has put an entire first year curriculum on line. For free. Pass a course, no matter how many tries it takes, and you can pay a fee for credits. He sees no reason the entire four years shouldn’t go online this way. (And the guy from Capella suggested that as in the UK, we could probably have three-year bachelor degrees without losing that much.) True to form, the LMS vendor supporting the show twisted the definition of "informal learning" so it could claim to have some: What’s informal about purpose-built content? Most people probably missed this because next up was a hip-hop singer who claimed to be a customer of the LMS (he lists his tracks there). Naturally, he had put together a song for us. As he began his incomprehensible lyric, the batteries on my hearing aids ran out and I bailed out from the event. The other attendees seemed quite satisfied, even impressed. "Brilliant presentations." I guess events like this are de rigueur. The Stanford campus is beautiful, the weather cooperated perfectly, and nobody was keeping score. Original linkOriginal author: Jay Cross

The Enterprise Learning! Conference 2015 Online will offers new free and premium access registration, plus advanced online features, fames and interaction. Corona, CA June 2, 2015 - Elearning! Media Group will hold its second Virtual event of 2015 at the Enterprise Learning! Conference Online on July 16-17th from 7 am PT to 5 pm PT. The Virtual event will host live sessions only on July 16th. The event’s new platform will offer two registration types: free access and premium. Attendees selecting free registration can access all live sessions on July 16th. Premium access attendees can view not only the sessions on July 16th, but also new sessions on July 17th and gain On-Demand access to all sessions and content for 90 days after the event through October 15th, 2015. Learn more... 

Greetings from 37,000 feet. As I write these words, I am on my way from San Francisco, California, to Boston, Massachusetts, to participate in a two-day workshop at Harvard, sponsored by the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co- operation and Development), to look at what should go into the math tests that will be administered to children around the world for PISA 2021.PISA, the Programme for International Student Assessment, gets such extensive press coverage each time one of its reports is published, that it really needs no introduction. Americans have grown used to the depressing fact that US school children invariably perform dismally, ranked near the bottom of the international league tables, with countries like Japan and Finland jostling around at the top.But chances are you have not heard of PIACC - the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies. The OECD introduced this new program a few years ago to investigate the nation-based adult skillsets that are most significant to national prosperity in a modern society: literacy, numeracy, and problem solving in a technology-rich environment (PS-TRE).Whereas the PISA surveys focus on specific age-groups of school students, PIAAC studied adults across the entire age range 16 to 65.The first report based on the PIAAC study was published in fall 2013: OECD Skills Outlook 2013: First Results from the Survey of Adult Skills.A subsequent OECD report focused on PIACC data for US adults. The report’s title, Time for the U.S. to Reskill, gives the depressing-for-Americans headline that warns you of its contents. The skill levels of American adults compared to those of 21 other participating OECD countries were found to be dismal right across the board. The authors summarized US performance as "weak on literacy, very poor on numeracy," and slightly below average on PS-TRE."Broadly speaking, the weakness affects the entire skills distribution, so that the US has proportionately more people with weak skills than some other countries and fewer people with strong skills," the report concluded.I have not read either OECD report. As happened when I never was able to watch the movie Schindler’s List, it is one of those things I feel I ought to read but cannot face the depression it would inevitably lead to. Rather, for airplane reading on my flight from Stanford to Harvard, I took with me a recently released (January 2015) report from the Princeton, NJ-based Educational Testing Service (ETS), titled AMERICA’S SKILLS CHALLENGE: Millennials and the Future.The ETS report disaggregates the PIAAC US data for millennials—the generation born after 1980, who were 16-34 years of age at the time of the assessment.The millennial generation has attained more years of schooling than any previous cohort in American history. Moreover, America spends more per student on primary through tertiary education than any other OECD nation. Surely then, this report would not depress me? I would find things to celebrate. Did I? Read on.This month’s column is distilled from the notes I made as I read through the ETS report. (These are summarizing notes. I did not bother to quote exactly, or even to use quotation marks when lifting a passage straight from the report. The originals of all the reports cited here are all freely available on the Web, so please go to the source documents to see what was originally written.)A central message emerging from the ETS report is that, despite all the costly and extensive education, US millennials on average demonstrate relatively weak skills in literacy, numeracy, and problem solving in technology-rich environments, compared to their international peers. Sigh.And this is not just true for millennials overall, it also holds for our best performing and most educated young adults, for those who are native born, and for those from the highest socioeconomic background. Moreover, the report’s findings indicate a decrease in literacy and numeracy skills for US adults when compared with results from previous adult surveys.Some of the data highlights: In literacy, US millennials scored lower than 15 of the 22 participating countries. In numeracy, US millennials ranked last. In PS-TRE, US millennials also ranked last. The youngest segment of the US millennial cohort (16- to 24-year-olds), who will be in the labor force for the next 50 years, ranked last in numeracy and among the bottom countries in PS-TRE. Even worse for those of us in higher education, this dismal picture holds for those with higher education:US millennials with a four-year bachelor’s degree scored third from bottom in numeracy. US millennials with a master’s or research degree were fourth from bottom. All very depressing. I fear that this state of affairs will continue all the time US education continues to be treated as a political football, with our nation’s children and their teachers treated as pawns while various groups fight political battles, and make decisions, based not on learning research (of which there is now a copious amount, much of it generated in US universities) but on uninformed beliefs and political ideology. [You were surely waiting for me to throw in my two cents worth of opinion. There it is.]To finish on a high note, we Americans famously like winners. So let’s raise a glass to the nations that came out on top in the rankings (in order, top first):Literacy: Japan, Finland, NetherlandsNumeracy: Japan, Finland, BelgiumPS-TRE: Japan, Finland, AustraliaIn their own way, each of these countries seems to be doing education better than we are.Yet here’s the fascinating thing. I’ve spent time in all of those countries. They each have a lot to offer, and I like them all. I also was born and grew up in the UK, moving to the US as an adult in 1987. I am a lifelong educator. But for all its faults (and its education system is just one of a legion of things America does poorly) I’d rather live where I do now, in the USA, with Italy in second place. But that’s another story. A complicated story. (If you think California is a separate nation, and in many ways it is, then my preference statement needs further parsing.) Doing well on global tests of educational attainment is just one factor that we can use to measure quality of life. Original author: Mathematical Association of America

Two-Day Virtual Event Opens With All New Live Sessions on July 16th Corona, CA June 3, 2015 - Elearning! Media Group announced the Enterprise Learning! Conference Online 2015 (ELC15 Online) will host all new live sessions on July 16th and new on-demand sessions on July 17th. The live virtual event will open from 6:30 am - 5:00 pm PT and learning professionals and executives can choose from two registration types at: https://presentations.inxpo.com/Shows/ELearning/Microsite/home.htm Learn more...  

A dozen days from now, Uta and I will pack the dogs into the car and drive the 1800 miles from Berkeley to Kansas City, Missouri. After ten days at our son’s new house, we’ll drive the long way back via Mount Rushmore, Yellowstone, and Grand Tetons. Like most coastal Americans, we hardly know the interior of our country. I haven’t been in a car on this route since I was four years old. We’ll be whizzing right along, my daredevil co-pilot at the wheel while I ride shotgun. I’d hate to miss a cool trading post or natural site or place to eat because I didn’t ask about it. Help us find the best stuff to do. What are your favorite things along our easterly route from Berkeley, across Nevada, Utah, Wyoming, Nebraska to Kansas City?    Similarly, what should we not miss among the National Parks and natural wonders on the trip back? Food tips, off road suggestions, lodging, anything that put a smile on your face?          Dogs. Flirt (left) and Azure (squirms too much to get picture) are geriatric miniature longhaired dachshunds. Ten pounds apiece. They will ride in a car cage on the back seat. This will force us to pace ourselves as well; breaks every two-three hours. Any pet friendly suggestions for us?   Diet. When we moved to San Francisco in the mid 70s, I was impressed by the Californians’ dedication to preserving historic buildings. The next time I visited New York, Philly, and Washington, I found that historic preservation was a national phenomenon. I have my fingers crossed on finding healthy food I want to eat. Hello, triple-D. (I have not eaten at a McDonalds, Wendy’s, KFC, PizzaHut, Burger Chef, or ChickFilla in over twenty years.) I usually find some local specialty to sustain myself; Uta is vegetarian.   Please comment on Facebook.     Original linkOriginal author: Jay Cross

  As of June 1, 2015, my blog has moved to: http://michaelsunnarborg.com/blog/ Please join me there and continue following the stories, insights, and coaching tips for finding better balance and happiness in your work, relationships, and life. To Our Better Balance!Michael Thomas Sunnarborg Original linkOriginal author: Michael

Monday morning. Flirt, the happiest miniature longhaired dachshund in the world, shakes all over with tail-flapping enthusiasm to wake me up. On auto-pilot, I arise, brush my teeth, and take the garbage and recycling out to the curb. I brew a cup of tea. Undoubtedly email has arrived overnight. Phone messages await my pick-up. The day’s New York Times has interesting stories to read. I sip my tea. I write these words. I contemplate what I want to accomplish today. The interruptions can wait. Each of us has a choice of what we think about, what we learn, and what we do. Our minds are an inner sanctuary to which we alone possess the key. No one else will ever see what’s inside. It’s ours alone. Private. "each of us is at the center of the universe so is everyone else" e.e. cummings Less than 99% of the light, sound, taste, and touch that bombard our senses ever make it into our consciousness. Behind the curtain of awareness, our minds take a snippet of this and a smidgen of that, connect the dots, and play the internal movie we experience as reality. Your mind’s eye and mine see different worlds. Reality is all in our heads. "Reality is an illusion, albeit a persistent one." Albert Einstein Listen to what’s going on in your head at this moment. There’s a conversation in there. It’s about that inner movie. You can listen in or you can join the conversation. You can let the inner voice prattle on, making comments sparked by your inner movie. Or, if you like, you can actively participate in the conversation. We’re working with neurons here, not film. You can influence the script writer, make suggestions to the director, and edit out things you don’t want to see. Young thoughts need shelter from the elements to grow. I nurture my thoughts in the morning, before the cacophany of ringing phones, flashing lights, and FedEx trucks tries to make me a passive listener in my inner conversation. Asked whether he didn’t hate the Chinese, the Dalai Lama responded, "They have taken my country. Why should I let them take my mind?" There are few absolutes in life. Success requires balancing your inner self and new sensations. You don’t want to shut out all the interrupters knocking on the door. The hot stove may not be what you think, but don’t put your hand on the burner. You must revere your inner mind and believe that you are more than a mere pebble in the stream. If you don’t know where you’re going, you’re unlikely to reach an enjoyable destination. That’s what the Aha! book will be about, help for people to get better, faster.   Original link Original author: Jay Cross

All I wanted to do was use Frequent Flier miles to buy tickets from San Francisco to Mallorca to Athens and home from Istanbul. Business class. I spent 45 minutes on the phone with United Mileage Plus and ended up with oddball flights I would never have purchased for myself, e.g. depart SFO at 7:24 in the morning, twiddle thumbs for 3 hours in Houston, spend five hours in Munich awaiting for flight to Palma. Later, fly Palma to Athens via Copenhagen, along with a six hour wait at the Copenhagen airport. Depart Istanbul at 6:20 in the morning, spend more than three hours at Munich Airport and then another three hours at O’Hare.  A monkey could pick more convenient flights. I requested all Lufthansa flights but ended up on United (which I hate) and SAS (which routes through Copenhagen no matter what) except for two short legs. Route after route had no seats available even though I was booking three months in advance. Business class. We will have to fly coach within Europe. Premium Economy was the best we could do for the return flight; seat upgrades and taxes cost an additional $786. The clerk at Mileage Plus was saddled with an ineffective system. We spent a bit of time waiting for the screen to refresh.  Rather than select from a menu, she had to check everything manually. "Could you go a day earlier? Two days earlier?" For 360,000 miles and $786, I ended up with tickets that would cost $18,000 out of pocket, so I’ll keep accumulating miles. (Virtually everything we spend goes through a credit card that rewards miles.) What I fail to understand is how United managed to set up a system that is so aggravating. People in other industries have gone to jail for bait-and-switch tactics that are everyday practice at United. I dread speaking with Mileage Plus because I know they’ll let me down. It’s bad enough when United pisses off regular customers (charging for luggage, serving pricey junk food, and an attitude of no can do.) That they cull out frequent fliers, the profit-making travelers, and hassle them with what are supposed to be rewards in unconscionable. It’s plain stupid. Week before last, our flight from Germany to SFO arrived a few minutes early, but it took the better part of an hour for our luggage to show up on the baggage carousel. I suggest the FAA and others change the definition of what makes a flight on time. It should include time to pick up your baggage. Alaska Air gets the suitcases off in minutes; why can’t the other airlines follow suit? Original link Original author: Jay Cross

Exclusive Users Choice Awards Celebrates 11th Year Elearning! and Government Elearning! magazines, today announced that the Best of Elearning! balloting is now open. Celebrating 11 years of success, The Best of Elearning! Awards recognizes best-in-class solutions for e-learning products and services across 27 product and services categories. Executives leveraging learning and workplace technologies, including readers, practitioners, and community members from both the private and public sectors, are invited to cast their vote for best-in-class solutions starting June 24, 2015. The Voting Process Readers, practitioners and community members are invited to nominate and vote for products and solutions via Elearning! Media Group’s online ballot. The nomination period is June 23, 2015 through October 15, 2015 and ballots can be cast at the 2015 Best of Elearning! Ballot.   Learn more....

Philanthropists are giving Human Resources a good name.According to reporter Stephanie Strom, some major philanthropists are requiring that the leaders of organizations they fund participate in management training as a condition of the funding. Although many nonprofit executives rightfully resist such intrusion of donors on everyday operations, many of those interviewed by Strom appreciated this type of advice. The donors recognized that, although the organizations they fund are passionate about their goals, some minimize the role of management practices and principles in achieving those goals.  As Strom writes:"People in this sector, just like scientists and doctors, get promoted because of their issue expertise and then no one really ever teaches them how to manage," said Jerry Hauser, the center’s chief executive and a former consultant at McKinsey & Company. "Then it becomes a vicious cycle, where the next generation coming up in an organization comes up under someone who doesn’t know how to manage."Following training, the nonprofit executives gained new insights into their operations and devised new ways to more effectively achieve goals and prepare for the future.  To read the entire article--and learn about some specialized sources of management training for nonprofit executives--visit http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/30/business/philanthropists-start-requiring-management-courses-to-keep-nonprofits-productive.html?ref=business&pagewanted=all. 

Linda Burtch posted a blog postThe Market Is Hot, But How Many Quants Are Changing Jobs?As I stated a few weeks ago in my 2015 Predictions blog post: there has never been a better time to be a Quant looking for a job. With all the media attention, companies are scrambling to board the data analytics bandwagon. It is increasingly apparent that analytics is becoming the standard, and any firm slow to get on board will be left in the dust. Outstanding and inventive uses for data are what will set an organization apart from the pack.Being a quantitative recruiter, I have had a unique perspective on the current climate and how it has changed over the years. From the talent shortage and relocation challenges of 2007 to the incredible employee turnover in 2011 to the building of the data science hype in 2014, the Big Data hiring market is starting to move even faster and is quickly picking up steam.How Often Are Quants Changing Jobs?I took a sample of our LinkedIn network of over 10,000 analytics professionals and data scientists to see how many actually changed jobs last year, and found that 18.6% changed jobs in 2014. The rest of the market, by comparison, had an average 10.4% voluntary turnover in 2013, according to data provided by CompData Surveys, and while figures for 2014 haven’t been released yet, it’s unlikely that number shifted significantly.We also looked at whether or not those that changed jobs relocated for their new position, and found that 26% of those who made a change relocated for their new role, which was a higher number than we had anticipated. Mobility can be a great benefit to your job search, as it opens up a lot of opportunities, and this percentage would suggest that quantitative professionals are taking advantage of the hot market. Quants are also receiving substantial increases when they change jobs. In our Burtch Works Study: Salaries of Predictive Analytics Professionals (released in September 2014), we reported that analytics professionals who received a base salary increase when changing jobs received a median 13% increase, compared to the widely-reported average merit increase of 2-4%.What Does This Mean If You're a Quant?It’s a candidate’s market! Despite all the new academic programs, bootcamps, and MOOCs that are popping up to serve the increasing demand, there is still a quantitative talent shortage. This means there are abundant opportunities in every industry, but in order to take advantage of them you must strategically evaluate how each position will affect your career going forward. Not sure where to start? Here is a list of the biggest strategic mistakes I see Quants making when planning their careers, from limiting themselves only to name-brand companies, to choosing an offer based solely on salary.What Does This Mean If You're Trying to Hire a Quant?It means, unfortunately, that not only may your firm be suffering from increased attrition in your quantitative positions, but also that hiring for your vacant positions may be a challenge. The good news (if you can call it that) is that you are not alone - companies across the board are struggling to hold onto their top analytics talent. However, there are several ways you can help stem the tide a bit, such as ensuring that analytics has top-level buy-in, and making sure tools are up-to-date. No data scientist wants to be hired just to take care of reporting and Excel spreadsheets, just like no analytics professional wants their hard work to have little or no affect on company strategy.On the recruiting side of things, I’ve already written about how companies will need to shape up their hiring processes if they hope to compete. This includes everything from fixing salary bands (which is one of my predictions this year), to considering other forms of compensation and keeping the hiring process itself seamless.There has been a lot of movement in the market already this year, so it will be interesting to see how things will shape up. I’d love to hear your ideas in the comments below!Linda Burtch is an expert in quantitative recruiting and Managing Director of Burtch Works Executive Recruiting. See More

Following the lead of Bilboa in transforming a European city considered to be a remote outpost of civilization, the New York Times recently showcased two other cities following the same formula. The city of Santiago de Compostela in the northern Galicia region is home of a new City of Culture, which includes a library, archives, museum (which sounds like it is primarily going to exhibit temporary exhibitions), and performance spaces, in an uber-modern building located in a centuries-old historic district. Details at http://travel.nytimes.com/2011/08/21/travel/santiago-de-compostela-spain-aims-to-attract-new-cultural-pilgrims.html Reporter Finn-Olaf Jones reports that the city of Perm, on the western edge of Siberia (and, apparently, considered the last stop in civilization as one enters Siberia on the TransSiberian Railway), is transforming itself from a closed city of the Soviet era into an avante-garde visual and performing arts centre, and is attracting notice worldwide. The city is doing this by dedicating some of its economic development resources for the arts. The transformation involves strengthening and expanding cultural institutions like remodeling the museums. But more importantly, the transformation involves developing and promoting local talent. In the process, Perm is also attracting emerging international talent to its burgeoning arts scene. Check out the whole story—as well as travel suggestions—at http://travel.nytimes.com/2011/07/24/travel/perm-russias-emerging-cultural-hotspot.html?hpw=&pagewanted=all.

Chris Wake's blog post was featuredWhy It's More Important Than Ever to Make 'Off the Grid' a Thing of the PastWe live in a world where there are nearly as many cell phone subscriptions as people on earth, where we can instantly see a real time view of streets or buildings halfway across the planet, and where our TVs, homes, and cars get smarter by the day. The level of connectivity that we enjoy today could barely have been imagined even a decade ago, and yet the reality is that even today we are connected to less than one-quarter of the entire planet.The satellites that we rely on today for data impact everything from weather prediction to supply chain logistics to manufacturing, and generally only collect information from major landmasses. This leaves three-fourths of the planet, covered primarily by oceans and remote areas as uncharted territory. What sort of unknown unknowns exist off the grid, just out of reach?Off-the-Grid"How inappropriate to call this planet Earth when it is quite clearly Ocean." - Arthur C. ClarkeMost people would be shocked to know that when you travel further than 50-miles from any coastline, you lose your connection to the modern world. Outside of this 50-mile range, no land-based signals can reach your devices due to the physical curvature of the Earth. Our current satellite systems cannot deliver reliable data on what’s happening to the thousands of ships, planes, and other objects traveling on or above the Earth’s oceans. The implications for this lack of data are immense.Sadly it took the tragedy of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 and Air Asia 8501 to awaken the world to the reality of just how disconnected our planet is. These tragedies prove that even current airline tracking technology, including radar and land-based receivers, are unreliable and outdated. In this case, financial ramifications were immediate and visible as travelers, unwilling to risk their lives for a cheaper plane ticket, canceled or switched travel plans to avoid these particular airlines.Large and erratic gaps in data caused by our current satellite systems not only make it difficult to track airplanes filled with valuable lives and cargo, but actually make it easy for nefarious traffickers to move illegal shipments such as drugs or weapons past borders without any regulation. The maritime industry deals with this reality every day. The first thing that a modern pirate does upon boarding a ship is turn off all navigational systems and the Automatic Identification System (AIS) transmitter. Traditional satellite systems will then take hours or days to register a problem, if they register any problem at all. By the time authorities receive news about an attack, the pirates could have already fled with captives and stolen cargo.In the last decade, piracy alone has cost the global economy almost $18 billion per year. According to the International Maritime Bureau (IMB), pirate attacks along the waters off Malaysia, Indonesia, and Singapore have nearly doubled this year compared to two years ago. Armed gangs hijack small tankers; steal cargo; kidnap victims; and sometimes murder ships’ crews. Without near real time data, enforcing maritime security is incredibly difficult, and attacks will continue unabated.More than 80% of global trade transits via shipping containers on oceangoing vessels. The uncertainty caused by being "off the grid," and the associated risks send ripples all the way through the supply chain and directly to you (the consumer). In December 2014, congestion at the Port of Los Angeles caused ships to be re-routed to the Port of Oakland, which then resulted in unexpected congestion in the San Francisco Bay that eventually impacted the entire West Coast. The pain of waiting for those goods and supplies was passed on directly to the businesses that were reliant on shipping and eventually transferred to consumers who felt a similar pinch at the register. That is the cost of not having the right data.Cubesats: A Better SolutionAIS has become ubiquitous and is mandated by the maritime industry. While companies like ExactEarth, ORBCOMM, and Spacequest are implementing AIS receivers on satellites to attempt to close data gaps in ship tracking and extend the range of AIS across the oceans, their satellite-based AIS solutions rely on small networks of large satellites to cover the whole Earth, which results in data gaps that cause severe problems for everyone from farmers to Wall Street bankers. Their offering is similar to slowly updated snapshots over the ocean as opposed to the immediate data flow we are accustomed to from services like Google Maps and Waze. There is better data behind your $5 drive across town than there is behind the trip that a $100 million crude oil tanker makes from factory to store front across an entire ocean.The good news is that a change has begun. A number of advancements in hardware development and Big Data have inspired a small cadre of companies like Planet Labs and Skybox to re-imagine the satellite and its uses. Arguably the largest and most important shift in reimagining the satellite is the move toward standard form-factor, shoebox-sized satellites called Cubesats. Unlike conventional satellites, Cubesats are created at a fraction of the manufacturing cost and can be sent into orbit in constellations of 20-50 (or more) satellites at a time. Taking a cue from consumer hardware, Cubesats can also receive software updates at the rate of our iPhones, dramatically speeding up the innovation cycle. With more satellites working in tandem, data is gathered from every point on Earth more frequently with gaps measured in minutes rather than hours and removing the erratic gaps we see from traditional satellites.Making decisions today that are reliant on shipping data requires the ability to cope with more questions than answers, even when there are billions of dollars on the line. Where is my shipment? Do I have enough excess stock on hand to avoid losing sales or shutting down production? Will customers cancel their order if production is halted and timelines slip? Will these factors make or break revenue?The new approach to satellite development and data collection offer a means to answer many of these questions, and create measurable impact, providing both a financial and social safety net for the shipping and airline industries. Consider that port authorities and companies will not only know where their cargo is located, but increased access to data will lead to less congestion in ports and higher probability that cargo arrives on time. Whether responding to suspicious activity or saving cargo and human lives during rescue operations, this level of data access also decreases illegal shipping activity and provides coast guard personnel with valuable time and intelligence. In the same vein, airline transport and travel will become safer and more reliable.The Ripple EffectAs constellations of Cubesat take shape, they will open up our previously narrow understanding of what is occurring across the entire planet. While the direct positive benefit for industries like shipping, logistics, and supply chain are easy to see, there are a number of industries that are impacted indirectly through their reliance on these primary players.Insurance companies and the financial markets are among the most vulnerable. Maritime insurance providers have very limited insight into accidents at sea — collisions, oil spills, lost cargo due to weather, spoilage, and more are all outside of the realm of current data collection. With increased access to real-time data, the likelihood of overpaying on claims dwindles tremendously. Similarly, financial markets will no longer be forced to make decisions with limited access to hard data, a critical point of failure when you consider that there are literally billions of dollars of investment and trades made in companies that rely very heavily on maritime and aircraft shipping of goods and supplies.Everyone from small Silicon Valley startups to McDonalds, and to all of the bankers, Wall Street professionals, and impact makers in between need better information about what is happening in global systems like shipping and air transit if they hope to be certain in the decisions that impact their balance sheets. For the first time in history, breakthroughs in satellite technology will provide us with global coverage of the Earth, and will do so in a surprisingly cost-effective manner. Ultimately, 2015 will be the year that we look back on and remember what it meant to be truly "off the grid." And we remember just how uncertain that feels.How has your industry been impacted by uncertainty "off the grid," and what else have you seen that could bring about change here? Give your comments in section below.Chris Wake is Head of Business Operations at Spire.See More

Over the course of your life, how much career advice have you given? Received? Acted on?  How much of it was right on the mark?  How much of it well, full of it? Too frequently well-meaning individuals, in an effort to share their experience and inspire others, offer platitudes rather than meaningful counsel. These phrases sound reasonable on the surface but the deeply-flawed nature of this ‘sound-bite’ advice actually undermines career success and satisfaction. Do any of these sound familiar? "Follow your passion." How can one argue with this? Work is where we spend the bulk of our waking hours. If we aren’t deeply and emotionally involved with it, life will certainly be less full and less satisfying. But this piece of advice generally sends people off on a myopic journey in search of their bliss.  Rather than ‘following’ one’s passion, what about leading it, mining the marketplace for useful applications, and helping to find it a home within the context of work that provides value to others (and remuneration to the individual)? "Make yourself indispensable."  What better way to ensure job security as well as the respect and admiration of others. Right? Wrong! Becoming indispensable requires the hoarding of information, talents, contacts and more. Others quickly recognize this pattern… and resent it. They work around the ‘indispensable’ ones, quickly making them irrelevant. In today’s environment, the way to distinguish one’s self is to share, mentor, and bring others along. Offer information and insights freely. Teach others to do what you do well. Extend your network to those around you. Being generous with your talents and transferring capacity grows those around you. This sort of ‘dispensability’ makes you genuinely indispensable. "Give it a year." How many of us have acted on this erroneous advice? I have; and it was the most miserable year of my professional life. Worried that it would look like I’d made a mistake on my resume, I lived a mistake, wasting twelve months that could have been put to much better use. Everyone makes mistakes. The hallmark of intelligent and successful people is that they recognize and take swift action to correct them. People can generally tell within a couple of months (maybe less) if they’ve made an appropriate move, if they’re in the right role. And additional time rarely improves the situation. In today’s job market, short stints are becoming the norm. Trusting one’s experience, recognizing a poor fit, and taking prompt action all demonstrate the kinds of skills and abilities that most organizations want to see in their employees anyway. "Good work speaks for itself."  Contributing well is the price of admission in today’s competitive job market. But given the pace of business, the complexity of work processes, and the volume of outputs, good work can be silenced and overlooked. The solution for this is not brash self-promotion. That can be even more damaging to one’s career. But finding constructive ways to highlight your successes is helpful to the organization and to your busy boss. It can be as easy as: Passing along positive customer comments. Sharing client success stories. Offering to show others how you do something you do well. Career advice can help point you in the right direction, enabling shortcuts to your career success. But, it can also take you down completely unintended and unproductive paths. Consider carefully the advice you receive from (and give to) others. Successful, happy work lives really do depend upon it! What about you? What off-base career advice have you heard/taken? What’s the best career advice you’ve received or given? Image: www.dreamstime.com The post Common Career Advice That’s Well-Intended, Well-Worn, and Well - Full of It! appeared first on Julie Winkle Giulioni.

About a year into the current economic slump, I read an article saying that dollar stores like Dollarama and Yankee Dollar were carrying more food items as cash-strapped consumers sought to stretch their grocery budgets. In one of the funniest news pieces I’ve read in years, Toronto Star, business columnist Tony Wong discovers that "Dining at the dollar store might be cheap, but you can feel the effects on more than just your pocketbook."Hillarious, but with a touch of melancholy underneath it all. Read it for yourself at http://www.thestar.com/living/article/1043319--dining-at-the-dollar-store-might-be-cheap-but-you-can-feel-the-effects-on-more-than-just-your-pocketbook.

Amy Shah's blog post was featuredWill Bankruptcy Be the Catalyst Needed to Listen to Customers?The news that RadioShack is filing for bankruptcy saddened me. It is a case study in how a company missed trends that they should have seen coming, and could have led. Trends that they seeded with the likes of Wozniak and Jobs.Growing up, RadioShack represented all things cool to me. I loved their kits, and vividly remember creating an electronic bell that would countdown and ring like a buzzer at the end of a basketball game precisely at midnight on New Year’s Eve. The store met the needs of music lovers and audiophiles; early mobile phone, PC and gaming adopters and countless other applications requiring electronics. A trip with my Dad to Radio Shack would make AC/DC sound even crazier and life more interesting with their latest gadgets.RadioShack had just about everything going for it. They created and sold products at the center of one of the fastest growing markets in the world - technology and consumer electronics. They tapped a passion, and created a loyal customer base with avid and early adopters. Their vast retail network gave them many advantages including a recognized brand, customer intimacy and relevance to manufacturers.The sad irony is that the company lost their advantage not once, but a few times, when they were in the best position to see the changes, and lead the market.So what have they missed? Simply, they haven’t changed with their customers fast enough. Like many technology companies, it’s not only about the technology. Knowing your customer is just as important, a competitive advantage and arguably a mandatory survival tool.RadioShack tried several times to turn around their results through new ads, marketing blitzes and leadership. But ads without a strong business and marketing strategy that focuses on the customer and competitive landscape aren’t enough. Companies have to stay relevant with their customers, be willing to adapt their business models and change quickly, or ads just won’t work.Imagine instead if RadioShack cultivated their customer relationships, knew their behaviors and connected with their passion. The company might have seen the importance of the Internet in the 1990’s, cultivated the maker movement, become the destination for innovation, and been an authority in STEM. So many models come out of the early RadioShack - DigiKey, Amazon, Apple’s Genius Bar, Quirky, online science kits and even girls in STEM. These were all ideas that RadioShack spawned. Their own customers went on to create better technologies, business models and businesses that eventually competed head on with the company.I wonder how things would have turned out had RadioShack thought about things differently - a destination (virtual or physical) that brought together and enabled the inventor and creator in all of us versus a store selling electronics.I hope RadioShack’s leaders, consultants and agencies listen closely to customers and challenge the status quo. If they do, then maybe this crisis will be the catalyst to change and bring back the company that ignited the creator and inventor in all of us.Amy Shah is SVP and Chief Marketing Officer at TE Connectivity.See More