Tag Archives: education

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For Our Children: Humans Are Underrated By Geoff Colvin

My book review of Humans Are Underrated: What High Achievers Know That Brilliant Machines Never Will

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Geoff Colvin Humans Are UnderratedHumans Are Underrated: What High Achievers Know That Brilliant Machines Never Will by Geoff Colvin is an inspiring book about how and what we can individually do to prepare ourselves and our children for the 21st century workplace revolution happening before our eyes.

White Collar Middle Management Ranks Will Continue Disappearing At An Accelerated Rate. Geoff’s detailed, fact-based research is sobering. Continuous advances in software design, machine learning, and artificial intelligence results in the need for fewer, white collar workers.

Remember, white collar workforces? MBA-types, MD-types, JD-types, aka the left-brain masters of the universe?

Cognitive, analytical work is on an accelerated chopping block. Increasing automation and computing power means replacing humans isn’t isolated to blue collar Americans.

A Phenomenon Extending Beyond Decades-Old Outsourcing. Why? Because machines do old-school, cognitive, and analytical work better than humans. That prowess IS EXACTLY what machines do better.

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Part 2: Seth Godin’s Professional Freelancer Course

What Do You Provide?

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Teacher with Students

Photo Credit: usembassykyiv

 

I’m publicly taking and publishing the required exercises in Seth Godin’s Professional Freelancer Course on Udemy. The required exercises force you to ask: “Am I Taking This Path for The Right Reasons.”

I completed the Lectures Six through Thirteen this morning. It’s great stuff taught by The Godfather Himself: Mr. Seth Godin.

Seth asked his course participants to go all-in and publish their assignments. As I perform the course exercises, I will continue publishing the results. It’s Seth teaching his students to write down, commit to, and deliver on our personal manifestos.

Here’s my continuing public contribution and commitment to Seth’s class:
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How Relevant is University Tenure Status in the Internet Age?

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Dinosaur

Does The Internet Make University Tenure Status Obsolete?

I finished reading this thought provoking Bloomberg-BusinessWeek article: Google’s Boss and a Princeton Professor Agree: College Is a Dinosaur.

Eric Schmidt (Google Executive Chairman & Former CEO) and Ann Marie Slaughter (CEO of New America Foundation, a former State Department Official, and former tenured Princeton Professor) contend the Internet's reach means top university teaching talent no longer has to be formally dependent / tethered to one particular academic institution.

Why?  The Internet's global reach and connectivity enable top teaching talent to be freelancers / free agents for any global institution (academic or corporate).

Is this a Tipping Point for the Relevance or Status of University Tenure?  

If top teaching talent can "connect" with any institution (and that can be corporate as well as academic), why would a talented university professor worry about earning tenure?  

The Internet provides a talented professor:

  • "Virtual Tenure"  
  • Access to a Global Portfolio of Students (academic and/or corporate)
  • Career Security Versus Job Security
  • The Freedom From Being Beholden to One Organization (academic or corporate)
  • Higher Earning Potential in an Open, Global Market

Does Publish or Perish Still Apply to the Best University Talent?

As long as corporate and/or institutions value the work of the talented professor (and he/she stays relevant in his/her  field of expertise), why tether himself/herself to one institution?

More importantly, why would a talented university professor even concern himself/herself with achieving the "associated prestige" university-tenured status confers?

How important is the "associated prestige" of university-tenured status in an Internet Age?

Your Turn: What do you think of the relevance of university tenure status in digital economy?  If you are a professor at an institution on the tenure track, does tenure status still hold the same value?  Let me know in the comments.

 

Tony Faustino is a marketing and corporate strategist.  He writes about how The Internet reinvents marketing strategy for organizations and individuals in his marketing strategy blog, Social Media ReInvention.  Follow his tweets @tonyfaustino or circle him on Google+.  

 

 

Photo Credit by epSos.de via flickr 

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Content Curation #6: Three Articles I Bookmarked in Evernote This Week

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Number 3

 

The Premise / Goal / Timing of This Weekly Feature

Premise.  If you like the content in this blog, maybe you'll also like the content I regularly read, study, and curate from the Web.

Goal.  On a weekly basis, I'm going to publish links to three (3) articles I find interesting.  I'll include a brief explanation why I decided to curate them.  

Timing.  I'll publish this content every Saturday.

 

The Three Articles I Bookmarked in Evernote 


1. Personal Cloud to Replace PC by 2014, Says Gartner (Wired).  In contrast to last week's curated content describing my skepticism that the concept of the PC is dead,  I do agree with Gartner's proposed personal computing model.  The article describes the personal cloud as "the hub" and the connected devices as "the spokes" (i.e., laptop, tablet, smartphone, etc.).

The article describes the trend to move manage, share, and secure more applications / conten within the cloud.

Five (5) Megatrends are driving this phenomenon:

  1. Consumerization — You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet
  2. Visualization — Changing How the Game is Played
  3. "App-ification" — Changing from Appications to Apps
  4. The Ever-Available Self-Service Cloud
  5. The Mobility Shift — Wherever and Whenever You Want


2. For Young Workers, the Future is Here Already (Fortune).  Today's young workers, "the digital natives," are driving the aforementioned consumerization megatrend.  This younger demographic communicates with multiple devices.  They're entering the workforce in droves so enterprises must deal with this demographic's communication needs to maximize their productivity.  

This development is driving the phenemomenon of "unified communications" (direct quote from the article):

"One area which enterprises have begun exploring in recent years is the concept of unified communications – the process of turning multiple channels of communication into a single, seamless conversation. Unified communications uses the concept of presence to help assess which way is best for one user to reach another. It then translates messages and directs them to whichever device the end user is most likely to be using at that time."

3. How Higher Education Helps the Economy (OnlineUniversities.com).  It's that time of year when high school seniors receive the results of the university application process (e.g., acceptance / rejection / wait listed).  Here's a cool infographic from the Staff Writers at OnlineUniversities.com on the ROI value proposition of a college education:

How Higher Education Helps the Economy
Via: Online Universities Resource 


Your Feedback Please!

I'd like to experiment with this type of post for the next two to three months.  Let me know what you think (especially if this idea sucks):

  • How can I improve the value of these weekly posts?
  • Is my initial timing choice for publication okay with you (e.g., middle of the week versus the end of it)?  If not, please tell me.
  • What content are you reading?  Please share your links with our community in the comments section!

 

Link to Photo Credit by Andreas Cappell via flickr