In the mid-20th century, Linus Pauling was one of the world’s most celebrated scientists. His discovery of the structure of hemoglobin and other biological molecules created an entirely new field of science and, when he focused his ample talents on deciphering the structure of DNA, no one doubted that he would be the one to do it.
But he wasn’t. In fact, it was two relatively unknown researchers, James Watson and Francis Crick who would win that particular prize. Yet what was really astounding was the way they did it. While other scientists spent their time in the lab, Watson and Crick played with models and talked about them with each other.
What seemed like child’s play to most academics was actually the best way to imagine possibilities and see how their ideas reflected diverse—and often confusing—empirical clues. Today, a growing contingent of academics believes that games can have the same effect on how children learn and a company called Kidaptive is determined to prove them right.
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Leadership is a tough business, especially in the digital era. In earlier times, managers paid their employees to perform tasks and directed them how, where and when to do them. These days, however, professionals are paid to solve problems and think creatively about products, strategies and new technologies.
So the role of leaders has changed a great deal. It is no longer enough to merely plan and direct action, today we must inspire and empower belief. That’s how you attract the people, partners and customers you need to compete and win.
The failure to inspire and empower belief is what drove the recent debacle at The New Republic. Chris Hughes, a co-founder of Facebook, appeared to be a savior when he first purchased the troubled magazine in 2012. Yet last month he faced a full fledged mutiny. The story highlights five important lessons for what it takes to manage an enterprise today.
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As we enter the year 2015, it seems like the headlines have never been worse. A conflict in Ukraine has sparked a new Cold War between Russia and the west. Deadly terrorist groups like ISIL and Boko Haram threaten entire states. The Ebola outbreak threatened to become a global pandemic.
And economically, except for the US—which just reported 5% GDP growth for the 3rd quarter and appears to be taking off—the rest of the developed world, including Japan and the EU, still remains mired in recession. It almost seems like we might never get back on track.
Yet still, despite these data points, we’re doing pretty well. While the problems we face have never been greater, our capacity to meet challenges is outpacing them. That might not grab headlines (for example, the decline of Ebola received far less coverage than its rise), but, in the end, it’s what really matters. Here’s why we can be optimistic about the future in 2015.
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Technology revolutions tend to come in waves. Personal computers. The Internet. Search engines. When pathbreaking new ideas first arrive, they set the tech world afire, but mostly bore and confuse everybody else, who go on with their lives much as before, mostly oblivious to the change around them.
Gartner calls this the Hype Cycle. There is an initial technology trigger that leads to inflated expectations, then disillusionment as high-flying startups fail and initiatives sputter. Eventually the technology gets back on course and real productivity is unleashed.
Although we’ve been hearing about the cloud for a while now, it’s mostly been for tech geeks and big corporations. Over the next year, however, the cloud will burst into an avalanche of products and services that will be incredibly cheap and easy to use. That will make 2015 the year that some incredibly advanced technologies start making a real impact on the rest of us.
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Wow! What a difference a year makes! Twelve months ago, there was no war in Ukraine, oil was over $100 a barrel, the US economy was heading into its first quarter of negative growth since the financial crisis and Bill Cosby seemed like someone you’d leave your kids with.
Now, the US economy is growing at about 4%, oil has dropped by 40% and the ruble is crashing. The US has renewed diplomatic relations with Cuba, there’s been a historic deal with China on climate change and unemployment has dropped nearly a full point.
And it was also another great year for Digital Tonto. As this blog goes into its sixth year, I want to thank everyone for your continued support. Some of you I’ve gotten to know personally, while others simply come here to read an article now and then. Whichever is the case, I greatly appreciate it. Here’s my top posts for 2014. Have a wonderful year!
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Every year, in retrospect, takes on a theme. Usually more by serendipity than by design, events bunch up and collide, forming a trend that almost seems to have been preordained, although, in fact, nobody could have seen it coming.
This past year saw a number of such collisions. Russia’s actions in Ukraine have upended the European order set in place a generation ago. The US has moved from being ground zero of the global financial crisis to the epicenter of its recovery. Energy has gone from global shortage to global glut.
In many ways, it’s been a pivotal year, which may be why a number of very smart, innovative leaders decided to publish books. I think when we look back, we’ll consider 2014 to be a year that changed our thinking significantly in a number of areas. As in past years, this list reflects what I’ve read and written about over the last 12 months. Have a great holiday!
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For the Macintosh launch, Apple released their historic 1984 ad during the Super Bowl. The premise was that Steve Jobs’ vision of personal computing was a direct challenge to IBM’s bland corporate offering. The individual, rather than institutions, would be empowered.
Soon after, both companies had near-death experiences. IBM was almost broken up, but emerged as a global leader in corporate services. Apple became nearly irrelevant before the return of Steve Jobs and a shift from computers to personal devices.
Today, both companies have sharpened their visions. IBM has mostly abandoned the consumer market, while Apple has become almost as much of a media company as it is a technology company. So the partnership the two companies recently announced is big change, to say the least. Why is the uber-hip Apple getting in bed with Big Blue?
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Businesses used to be tied to their communities. Local store owners would know their customers and their families by name. They would go to the same social and religious events. Many firms had operations rooted in their communities and so had incentives to invest in them.
Globalization and the rise of professional managers changed all that. Production was outsourced to faraway places. Big Box retailers replaced mom and pop shops. Managers, driven by the need to create shareholder value, looked to spreadsheets, rather than their communities, for guidance.
Yet as Marshall McLuhan predicted a half century ago, we are now living in a global village. Corporations and other institutions must relearn to connect with their communities on a personal, rather than a wholesale basis. Anonymity has become a pipe-dream and a dangerous one at that. Those who do not effectively engage will pay a hefty social tax.
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It seems that not a week goes by these days that we don’t hear about another massive data breach. From large-scale retailers like Target to money center banks like JP Morgan, cybercrime runs rampant, violating our privacy and exposing our financial information.
The costs are enormous. A recent report by the Internet security company McAfee estimates that security breaches cost us over $400 billion globally, but that’s just a small part of the story. Our data, when combined with advanced algorithms, can reveal our most intimate secrets.
So it is curious, to say the least, that we don’t seem to care very much. While there was a spike of concern following the massive Edward Snowden leaks, years of warnings from industry groups and government organizations have mostly gone unheeded. Even now, despite the uproar during the Snowden affair, the fervor has mostly died down. Why is that?
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Hundreds of consumers standing in line at your local Apple store. Thousands of protesters rushing to flood the streets of Kiev, Istanbul or Hong Kong. Millions of fireflies blinking on and off in complete unison. These are all synchronized systems.
Our hearts are synchronized systems too. They rely on millions of pacemaker cells to coordinate every second of our lives. If they falter even once, we cease to exist. Yet they rarely do. They continue to carry out their mission, with little conscious effort to organize them on our part.
So why is it that the institutions we build—and put so much effort towards managing—are so rarely able to synchronize? Despite our best efforts, most organizations are highly dysfunctional. Fortunately, research into network science has begun to shed light on how synchronization happens and how we can make our enterprises function more effectively.
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