http://www.managementexchange.com/blog/seven-counterintuitive-truths-managers

Some excerpts:

Most managers assume that improving service increases cost. Wrong. Cost reduction is a by-product of focusing on value as defined by the customer.

Jack Welch called hierarchies places where “everyone has their face toward the CEO and their ass toward the customer.”

The job of managers is to make it easier for their people to respond to customers—and that only happens where those two meet.

 

“The main idea behind the ‘flipped’ classroom is for teachers to be available when students need them most. If I lecture for 30 minutes … in my chemistry classes, that would leave me about 20 minutes to assign homework and let students start on it,” he explained.

At that point, he said, students were left to their own devices to finish their homework and come back the next day for something new. What he found was that when students left his class, many either chose not to do the homework or gave up as soon as they ran into something that didn’t make sense.

“Then we would spend the next day going over questions instead of moving on. So what I was doing was using up valuable class time to lecture and then leaving them to figure things out on their own. That seemed like a very inefficient use of class time to me.”

Spencer began to create screencasts of his lectures using Camtasia the day before. Those screencasts then became the homework—and class time was for doing “homework,” or answering questions and doing labs/demos.

“I have now reached the point where, because of the screencasts, my students are all able to work through the curriculum at their own pace,” he explained. “Since I’m not lecturing in class, and students can access the information whenever they need, I can now spend that ‘extra’ time helping students one-on-one.”

The power behind the vodcasts, he said, is that students only watch when they need the information or are inspired to learn more. Class time is then dedicated to practicing and using their preferred learning style. This may be small groups, hands-on, problem sessions, or conversations with Yoos.

“One thing that I have learned is that students really resent ‘busy work’ now. If an assignment doesn’t directly lead to them understanding one of our unit objectives, it becomes obvious very quickly,” he said.

The Teacher Vodcasting Network is a site dedicated to this process.  This video does a good job of explaining:

This approach is gaining popularity in higher ed as well.  The National Center for Academic Transformation (NCAT) lists among the principles of its highly successful course redesign project:

• the replacement of passive lectures with active online learning materials
• the use of auto-graded, online assessments with immediate feedback
• Greater student-to-student interaction
• the ability to provide students with individualized support

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XD2kNopsUs

While there are a lot of wasteful meetings and distractions at the office, I think it’s a little more nuanced.  A few things I’ve found helpful:

1. If you share calendars at work, block out large chunks of your week to get stuff done.  This keeps people from imposing on your time with meetings.  I tend to do this at the beginning of the week,  so that if someone is planning ahead, they can schedule a meeting next week.   If a meeting absolutely needs to happen, I’ve found that people will call and see if you can free up time.
2. Schedule 15 minute meetings at the beginning or end of the day.  This ensures that you’re timely and that everyone has large chunks of time in between.
3. Fit the medium to the communication:
   1. Detailed plans for groups or summaries  – Email
   2. Sharing documents for review – some type of shared doc server
   3. Quick Questions – IM/Chat
   4. Anything involving conflict – Phone or Meeting
   5. Any complex topic where folks could misinterpret things – Meeting
   6. Status updates – Conf. Call

“Achievement rose when leadership teams focused thoughtfully and relentlessly on improving the quality of instruction.

Their culture is inclusive and proud, their standards are high and their staff is passionate.  I’m looking forward to working and learning from them in the future.

“Web users spend 80% of their time looking at information above the page fold. Although users do scroll, they allocate only 20% of their attention below the fold.”

http://www.useit.com/alertbox/scrolling-attention.html

http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/20/sharps-xmdf-format-looks-to-bring-e-books-into-the-next-generat/

I keep wondering whether the fidelity improvements offered by native apps and devices like the iPad and what Sharp is proposing merit the reinvention of existing browser-based production processes and standards. The iPad’s browser experience (with the exception of flash content) is pretty great. Would users rather have the whole web at pretty good quality or portions at super-high quality? Not mutually exclusive, but if you’re a content provider with a large existing audience, this is an important question.  You may not have the luxury of telling your audience: hey — check out this new cool version of my content, but only if you have the newest and greatest device.

Other examples of iPad and other innovative reading experiences.

This is a great article from the Business Insider comparing Apple v. Microsoft in the 80′s OS war to Apple v. Google in the mobile war:

http://www.businessinsider.com/this-chart-should-scare-the-bejesus-out-of-apple-2010-7

A few important distinctions in this comparison which I think strengthen the article’s point:

• Microsoft sold their OS to computer-makers, but had to compete with other software companies with similar business models.  Google, because of its advertising model, is able to give their mobile platform away.  None of the other mobile software companies have this advantage.

• Related to above, because Google is not in the device business, they will build their platform for any device that has access to the Internet – PCs, cars, TV, etc.  As more people use and develop the OS across platforms, it could be become the de-facto standard.  This quote from Andy Rubin, the founder of Android and VP of Mobile Platforms at Google:

We’re at about 4 billion cell phones. About 1.4 billion Internet connected PCs — that includes desktop and laptops and everything else. Like 1.2 billion automobiles. Some 800 million TVs.  And it’s like, “OK, let’s target the top four.” Let’s do everything we can to get the big ones. Remember, our business is volume, because it’s an advertising business and we want to delight a lot of people. And how do you delight a lot of people? You get in the products that they use every day.

Source: http://techcrunch.com/2010/06/01/android-chief-andy-rubin-updates-will-eventually-come-once-a-year/

• Unlike Microsoft, Google has a strong history in developing stable, secure and usable software.

• In the 80s and 90s, software was loaded onto hardware and only updated via disk.  Mobile operating systems can be updated via the Internet.  The result is that software can evolve exponentially faster.  Both Apple and Google seem to be settling into annual updates to their software development kits.  However, because Android serves multiple device companies, there is an incentive to release new phone options faster.  If Google can develop a faster process for evolving and distributing their OS, it could be a competitive advantage.

http://www.shirky.com/weblog/2010/04/the-collapse-of-complex-business-models/

Complex societies collapse because, when some stress comes, those societies have become too inflexible to respond. In retrospect, this can seem mystifying. Why didn’t these societies just re-tool in less complex ways? The answer Tainter gives is the simplest one: When societies fail to respond to reduced circumstances through orderly downsizing, it isn’t because they don’t want to, it’s because they can’t.

Possibly related (for the textbook publishing industry) is this awesome infographic on Open Courseware: