Can you train people to innovate? Financial analyst Barry Ritholtz has shared a helpful slide set titled “Innovation can be trained” that’s worth reading. Printing and then tacking individual slides to your cube walls can be used as a daily reminder that organizations can create cultures of innovation. It’s based on the work The Innovator’s DNA by Jeff Dyer, Hal Gregersen and Clayton Christensen.
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Tomi Engdahl says:
Branson and Bitcoins to send the Winklevoss twins into space
They’re visionary explorers
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2332547/branson-and-bitcoins-to-send-the-winklevoss-twins-into-space
The brothers, who staked a claim on Facebook and are handy with oars, cannot resist the opportunity to spend Bitcoins at Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic.
Tyler Winklevoss reckons that his and his brother’s Bitcoin funding tour continues a tradition that can be traced back to Marco Polo and his adventures on the silk road, and even to Christopher Columbus.
“They demonstrate how the building blocks of human discovery are not necessarily brilliance and perfection, but rather, the courage to fail and persistence to keep on trying.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Blighty teen boffin builds nuclear reactor INSIDE CLASSROOM
Headmaster: ‘He reassured me he wouldn’t blow the school up’
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/03/06/blightys_teen_boffin_builds_nuclear_reactor_in_classroom/
A British teenager has become the youngest person to build a nuclear fusion reactor.
Jamie Edwards, a 13-year-old from Preston, persuaded his headmaster to let him build the reactor in a classroom. He was so persuasive that the head of Penwortham Priory Academy even handed over £3,000 worth of funding after Jamie reassured him there was no chance of an explosion wiping out the school.
The young student has blogged about his bid to become the world’s youngest “fusioneer”,
Jamie’s Fusion Project
http://jamiesfusionproject.blogspot.co.uk/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Google’s tech training for Australian teachers revealed
Flappy Bird and much more on the menu from March 24th
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/03/09/googles_tech_training_for_australian_teachers_revealed/
The University of Adelaide’s Computer Science Research Group, which was engaged by Google to develop a course to teach digital technologies to Primary School teachers, has released an outline of the course.
The authors also feel “foresee those in other year levels, such as high school, benefiting from the foundational concepts” that will be addressed over its eight-week span. During that time, participants will cover seven modules, namely:
Welcome and Introduction
Data (Patterns and Play)
Data (Representation and Binary)
Digital Systems
Information Systems
Algorithms and Programming
Visual Programming and Visual Programming Environments
“In each module we explore computer science and computational thinking concepts”
Tomi Engdahl says:
$200K for a computer science degree? Or these free online classes?
http://www.infoworld.com/d/application-development/200k-computer-science-degree-or-these-free-online-classes-218565
If you do the work, you can get a computer science education online rivaling that of the Ivy League. Here’s a nice little curriculum for you
Coursera offers what could be considered a basic grounding in computer science theory from some of the most prestigious universities.
Skipping the theory and learning the language will never allow you to be great, nor will a bunch of theoretical knowledge be any replacement for — drumroll, please — knowing a programming language.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Taking the No Out of Innovation
http://mds.ricoh.com/blog/taking_the_no_out_of_innovation
“The solution to mitigating the risk is not to stop sharing and collaboration, which is essential to a productive workplace. Rather it is putting solutions in place that will keep these documents secure without requiring draconian end-user security measures that will stifle productivity.”
But this does require IT to step out of its traditional role of support and to be proactive about initiating that dialog, to reach out to Line of Business innovators. It may feel counter-intuitive, but success requires IT security to encourage reorganizing processes around enabling innovation and creating business value.
Oliver says:
Good blog you have here.. It’s difficult to find excellent
writing like yours nowadays. I truly appreciate people like
you! Take care!!
Tomi Engdahl says:
How St. Louis Is Bootstrapping Hundreds of Programmers
http://news.slashdot.org/story/14/03/12/1416247/how-st-louis-is-bootstrapping-hundreds-of-programmers
“The MOOC (massive open online course) failure rate is notoriously high — only 1% of people who take the beginning computer science programming class, CS50, that Harvard offers over the EdX online platform complete it. A new effort in St. Louis called LaunchCode is changing that”
How St. Louis is solving the programmer shortage one Harvard course at a time
http://www.itworld.com/it-management/409260/how-st-louis-solving-programmer-shortage-one-harvard-course-time
Tomi Engdahl says:
Study proves that happy programmers are better programmers
New research finds that software developers’ problem solving skills improve with their mood
http://www.itworld.com/big-data/409246/study-proves-happy-programmers-are-better-programmers
It seems obvious to say that happy developers will perform better than unhappy ones. After all, if that wasn’t the case, why would tech companies like Google, Facebook and others design funky office spaces, full of all sorts of fun things to do and good things to eat?
But, is there is scientific evidence that happy programmers are better programmers?
Well, there is now, thanks to a newly published study from researchers at the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, Bolzano, Italy.
participants who scored higher on SPANE-B (meaning they were in a better mood) were significantly more likely to score higher in the problem solving assessment.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Silicon Valley’s Youth Problem
In start-up land, the young barely talk to the old (and vice versa). That makes for a lot of cool apps. But great technology? Not so much.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/16/magazine/silicon-valleys-youth-problem.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
The same dynamic is playing out throughout Silicon Valley, as companies like Intel post disappointing earnings reports and others like Snapchat turn down billion-dollar offers. The rapid consumer-ification of tech, led by Facebook and Google, has created a deep rift between old and new, hardware and software, enterprise companies that sell to other businesses and consumer companies that sell directly to the masses. On their face, these cleavages seem to be part of the natural order. As Biswas pointed out, “There has always been a constant churn of new companies coming in, old companies dying out.”
Why do these smart, quantitatively trained engineers, who could help cure cancer or fix healthcare.gov, want to work for a sexting app?
The problem is that so many ‘innovations’ are just some stuffy vice president’s approximation of cool. That is to say, they’re hardly innovative at all.
Cool exists at the ineffable confluence of smart people, big money and compelling product. You can buy it, but only up to a point.
Tomi Engdahl says:
White House urges ‘geeks’ to get healthcare coverage, launch start-ups
What the White House didn’t say: Tech workers may need Affordable Care Act option because of shift to contingent workers
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9246907/White_House_urges_geeks_to_get_healthcare_coverage_launch_start_ups
The White House urged tech workers, or “geeks,” to sign up for health insurance under the Affordable Care Act, and said having the coverage will give them the “freedom and security” to start their own businesses.
The message was delivered by Todd Park, the White House chief technology officer, in a blog post
estimated that the number of self-employed individuals will increase by about 1.5 million, or more than 11%, because of the access to health coverage provided by the Affordable Care Act.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Religion Is Good For Your Brain
http://science.slashdot.org/story/14/03/15/0542248/religion-is-good-for-your-brain
“Sheila M. Elred writes in Discovery Magazine that a recent study has found that people at risk of depression were much less vulnerable if they identified as religious.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
“Innovations can’t happen in the office,” said Yan. A lot of companies in Shenzhen are too busy keeping up with what their competitors in the rest of the world are doing, he observed.
One problem in Chinese companies is a shortage of people with the talent to define a product and design it. “They pay more to engineers who know how to build electronics, but they don’t necessarily pay well to those who actually design it and architect a project,” Yan explained. Further, Chinese engineers often lack the experience of putting together a team, initiating a project, and leading it
Source: http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1321444&
Tomi Engdahl says:
Google’s Eric Schmidt On Critics Who Say College Isn’t Worth It: “They’re Just Wrong”
http://techcrunch.com/2014/03/16/googles-eric-schmidt-on-critics-who-say-college-isnt-worth-it-theyre-just-wrong/
Google Chairman Eric Schmidt took a not-so-subtle swipe at tech critics who say that college is overrated. “There are various people who run around and make claims that higher education is not a good use of your time: they’re just wrong,” he told the audience at the SXSW conference
“The economic return to higher education over a lifetime produces significant compound greater earnings.”
Schmidt also noted that — especially for gifted students — teachers should focus on teaching “grit.”
“It looks like the thing that separates out the capable students from the really successful ones is not so much their knowledge,” says Schmidt, “but their persistence at something.” In other words, if a kid quits at the first sign of trouble, all the natural intelligence in the world won’t matter.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The poor neglected gifted child
Precocious kids do seem to become high-achieving adults. Why that makes some educators worried about America’s future
http://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2014/03/15/the-poor-neglected-gifted-child/rJpv8G4oeawWBBvXVtZyFM/story.html
That outcome sounds like exactly what you’d imagine should happen: Top young people grow into high-achieving adults. In the education world, the study has provided important new evidence that it really is possible to identify the kids who are likely to become exceptional achievers in the future, something previous research has not always found to be the case. But for that reason, perhaps surprisingly, it has also triggered a new round of worry.
“But it’s hard to separate the findings of this study from what we know about gifted kids in general. The genuine concern is, we know we’re not identifying all of this population. We’re not getting nearly enough, and we’re losing them.”
Given all the pressures our education system faces, it seems almost indecent to worry about the travails of a small minority of very smart children.
The smartest kid in class, by contrast, is not an expensive problem.
Gifted students do have their own advocacy group, the National Association for Gifted Children
While equity at the classroom level is important, Lubinski and others who study the gifted say that the issue goes beyond education to national competitiveness. “We’re living in a global economy now,” Lubinski says, “and there are only very few people of any discipline who push the frontiers of knowledge forward. This is the population who you’d do well to bet on.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Proper boffins make your company succeed, even if you’re not very technical
Engineering, not biotech or web upstarts – that’s what powers biznovation
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/03/17/boffins_are_good_for_your_business_heres_why/
Good news for British techies. A wide-ranging innovation study recommends that firms should hire more staff who can solve complex technical problems, even if they’re not tech companies or the techies aren’t employed in a narrowly technical function.
“Our findings show that suppliers, customers and even rivals are generally much more likely to be sources of supply-side inputs for innovation than universities,”
Employing a technically educated graduate or postgraduate appears to correlate with better processes in the supply chain. They educate the firm’s customers and partners, and make them more productive.
A firm is considered innovative if it networks more.
Tomi Engdahl says:
littlebits
http://littlebits.cc/
littleBits makes an opensource library of electronic modules that snap together with tiny magnets for prototyping, learning, and fun.
No soldering, no wiring, no programming, just snap together for prototyping, learning and fun
Tomi Engdahl says:
Code Combat: Free, Open Source, Multiplayer Programming Lessons
http://games.slashdot.org/story/14/03/19/0047212/code-combat-free-open-source-multiplayer-programming-lessons
“Looking for something to do this weekend? Code Combat recently released the first of their multi-player levels for the general public. Their goal is to enable users to learn JavaScript it a fun, game-structured way.”
Introducing Competitive Multiplayer Programming
http://blog.codecombat.com/introducing-competitive-multiplayer-programming
If you know what you’re doing, writing code to take down a specific individual or approach is not too hard. The tricky thing is coming up with code that is generally effective, one that will handle just about any strategy thrown at it. And so the key to CodeCombat multiplayer is writing and testing such code by playing against progressively more and more difficult players
Tomi Engdahl says:
Larry Page Lays Out His Plan for Your Future
http://www.wired.com/business/2014/03/larry-page-using-google-build-future-well-living/
Google is a company finely tuned to make money — lots and lots of money. But CEO Larry Page doesn’t talk a lot about that side of the web search giant he co-founded 15 years ago, at least not in public. Instead, Page likes to imagine how the resources of the world’s third-largest company can help realize his techno-optimistic vision of the future.
At the core of fixing search is Google’s aggressive pursuit of artificial intelligence.
Then Page moved beyond search, into physical world, describing Google’s ambition to create a “worldwide mesh” of internet connectivity by using huge balloons as wireless hot spots.
Running through Page’s plans for Google was theme picked up on by Rose: a faith that business is the best way to build his version of a better future
Tomi Engdahl says:
Shift workers beware: Sleep loss may cause brain damage, new research says
By Ben Brumfield, CNN
http://edition.cnn.com/2014/03/19/health/sleep-loss-brain-damage/index.html?hpt=hp_t2
Are you a truck driver or shift worker planning to catch up on some sleep this weekend?
Cramming in extra hours of shut-eye may not make up for those lost pulling all-nighters, new research indicates.
The damage may already be done — brain damage, that is, said neuroscientist Sigrid Veasey from the University of Pennsylvania.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Creating Gender-Neutral Engineering Prose: Does Anyone Actually Care?
http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=216&doc_id=1321553&
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Myth of the Science and Engineering Shortage
http://science.slashdot.org/story/14/03/21/0341241/the-myth-of-the-science-and-engineering-shortage
“The truth is that there is little credible evidence of the claimed widespread shortages in the U.S. science and engineering workforce.”
The Myth of the Science and Engineering Shortage
American students need to improve in math and science—but not because there’s a surplus of jobs in those fields.
http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/03/the-myth-of-the-science-and-engineering-shortage/284359/
Everyone knows that the United States has long suffered from widespread shortages in its science and engineering workforce, and that if continued these shortages will cause it to fall behind its major economic competitors. Everyone knows that these workforce shortages are due mainly to the myriad weaknesses of American K-12 education in science and mathematics, which international comparisons of student performance rank as average at best.
Such claims are now well established as conventional wisdom. There is almost no debate in the mainstream. They echo from corporate CEO to corporate CEO, from lobbyist to lobbyist, from editorial writer to editorial writer. But what if what everyone knows is wrong?
The truth is that there is little credible evidence of the claimed widespread shortages in the U.S. science and engineering workforce. How can the conventional wisdom be so different from the empirical evidence?
Over time, new technologies, price changes, or sharp shifts in the labor market can create rapid rises in demand in a particular occupation. When that happens, the evidence shows that the market seems to adjust reasonably well.
Every high school graduate should be competent in science and mathematics—essential to success in almost any 21st century occupation and to informed citizenship as well.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Get out of your head! How to stop internal dialogues from halting your productivity
http://thenextweb.com/lifehacks/2014/03/23/get-head-stop-internal-dialogues-halting-productivity/
I’ll begin to focus on work and then immediately my internal dialogue will get in the way. The more I have to do, the more unhelpful it seems to be.
For many, our inner dialogue goes beyond just being disruptive. It can totally hamper our creativity and destroy productivity.
Internal speech gives us psychological autonomy—our ability to self-regulate. Without it we would lack consciousness or self awareness.
The problem is not that we have internal speech but rather it’s the kind of internal speech our mind chooses to engage in.
When our inner dialogue turns disruptive and unhelpful, this is called a cognitive distortion.
Thankfully the universe has also provided us with a bunch of ways to combat the internal speech holding us back.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Schoolkids given WORLD’S CHEAPEST TABLETS: Is it really that hard to swallow?
What’s the point of one device per child?
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/03/25/aakash_tablet_india_project_comment/
For some time now The Register has been tracking an effort by the Indian government to provide their schoolchildren with low cost tablets. The subsidised cost of the devices for Indian families is slated to be 1,500 rupees (£14, $24), with the unsubsidised version available to the rest of the world for £30.
The decision to subsidise tablets for schoolchildren has attracted a lot of criticism, almost all of which misses the mark completely.
The most simple of problems is the hardest to resolve: if you crank out low-end commodity tablets for kids, they are going to break and break often – as occurred in a similar project in Thailand. Any such programme needs a way to cope with this.
Is an OLPC or a low-end tablet going to let a child in a developing country learn Autocad? No. Will it allow them to become familiar with Microsoft Office or any of the other “standard” technologies of the developed world? No. Are they even particularly useful as devices to type up homework or any of the dozens of other mundane “chore-like” tasks that students have to perform? No.
That’s not the purpose of these devices.
A “worthless”, low spec, outdated-before-it-is-launched £30 tabled that no person from the developed world would ever want can contain dozens of times more information than Encarta 1994. When and where internet access is available, it can give those children access to all of humanity’s collected knowledge.
Will every kid that gets their hands on one of these tablets dive in, learn, and explore? Certainly not.
It is not the majority of individuals who grow up to be inventors, engineers and scientists in any society. They are a rare lot, and governments need to both nurture the young and fledgling as well as provide inviting environments for the mature and practicing.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Virtual Genius of Oculus Rift
http://time.com/39577/facebook-oculus-vr-inside-story/
How a 19-year-old hacker set out to invent a gaming headset and ended up reviving a dead technology and building a global communications platform worth $2 billion
Tomi Engdahl says:
Today’s Apps Are Turning Us Into Sociopaths
http://www.wired.com/opinion/2014/02/outsourcing-humanity-apps/
Technology that optimizes for efficiency is good for society
BroApp is good for society, its makers argue, because it can make people happy without adverse consequences.
Most interestingly, the BroApp makers depicted this functionality in economic terms — as increasing both agents’ happiness.
Tech progress is inevitable; it’s “what technology wants”
We can’t (and shouldn’t) reject automation
Tech change elicits discomfort only at first before it changes the norm
But what if people actually use these apps in a meaningful way, so the apps only offloaded the logistics?
Tomi Engdahl says:
Molyneux: Working at Microsoft is ‘like taking antidepressants’
Legendary game dev prefers the indie life
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/03/27/peter_molyneux_speech_/
Game Developers Conference Legendary game producer Peter Molyneux has claimed that working on Microsoft is like being dosed up on antidepressants.
The Populous creator launched a bizarre attack on the corporate safety net offered to Microsoft workers – claiming that life at an indie developer is more creative.
“I left Microsoft because I think when you have the ability to be a creative person, you have to take that seriously, and you have to push yourself,”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Which College—and Which Major—Will Make You Richest?
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/03/which-college-and-which-major-will-make-you-richest/359628/
A new study finds that nine of the 10 most lucrative degrees in America are in computer science programs at elite colleges—and Harvey Mudd runs away with the lead
A Bachelor of Science from Harvey Mudd College, the small California science and engineering school, is the most valuable college degree in America.
Stanford’s computer science program pays off more than any single major in the country.
For the best dollar-for-dollar investment, nothing beats the University of Virginia.
it’s devilishly difficult to measure the cost and benefit of college.
PayScale found that a degree in business, or computer science, or engineering, or economics at UVA has a higher dollar-for-dollar return than any major at any other school in the country. Yes, better than majoring in finance at Harvard, or computer science at Stanford, or business at Berkeley, or anything at Harvey Mudd.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Google’s Scientific Approach to Work-Life Balance (and Much More)
http://blogs.hbr.org/2014/03/googles-scientific-approach-to-work-life-balance-and-much-more/
Our first rounds of gDNA have revealed that only 31% of people are able to break free of this burden of blurring. We call them “Segmentors.” They draw a psychological line between work stress and the rest of their lives, and without a care for looming deadlines and floods of emails can fall gently asleep each night. Segmentors reported preferences like “I don’t like to have to think about work while I am at home.”
For “Integrators”, by contrast, work looms constantly in the background. They not only find themselves checking email all evening, but pressing refresh on gmail again and again to see if new work has come in.
Of these Integrators (69% of people), more than half want to get better at segmenting.
They worked for 20 years before trends began to emerge, and today those findings are among the clearest risk factors of heart disease we’ve got–think cigarette smoking, lack of exercise, and obesity. gDNA is still in its infancy, and is inherently limited because we’re only including current and former Googlers.
Tomi Engdahl says:
STEM Study Shows Hiring Managers Favor Men Over Women
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1321681&
Men outnumber women in technical fields by more than four to one. A good deal of this disparity is due to biases by both sexes when it comes to hiring new employees, according to researchers who watched how technology managers behaved, rather than asking their opinions in a survey.
Women are a minority in STEM jobs because they are kept out by hiring managers of both genders, who prefer to hire men for math- or technology-intensive positions, according to Ernesto Reuben, assistant professor of management at Columbia Business School and lead author of the study, “How Stereotypes Impair Women’s Careers in Science.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
11 Mind Blowing Facts about Creativity [VIDEO]
http://www.goodnet.org/articles/11-mind-blowing-facts-about-creativity-video
1. You’re more creative when you’re tired
2. Blue is a creativity-enhancing color
3. Creatives tend to enjoy high risk situations
4. Creatives tend to have mellow personalities because they have slower nerves
5. Senior citizens who do creative projects age slower
6. Exercise increases your creativity
7. Traveling abroad spurs creativity
8. Creativity can indicate promiscuity
9. Studies show left-handed people are more creative
10. Creatives tend to lie more often
11. Clutter increases creative thinking
Tomi Engdahl says:
How Old Are Silicon Valley’s Top Founders? Here’s the Data
http://blogs.hbr.org/2014/04/how-old-are-silicon-valleys-top-founders-heres-the-data/
The central evidence was largely anecdotal: several well-worn quotes by prominent techies talking up the innovative nature of younger founders, the struggles of a “fortysomething” entrepreneur in Boston, the thesis of an angel investor betting on older, overlooked founders, and the sociological musings of a plastic surgeon who has seen more middle-aged men coming to him to look young as a way to help their career. Nonetheless, it was enough for VC Fred Wilson to concede that, “Yes tech is biased toward younger people.”
start-up world has a real problem with age discrimination.
The data we collected confirms that 20-something founders are quite common among those who have built billion-dollar businesses.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Hackathon gold: How to win a job offer in a coding competition
http://www.itworld.com/it-management/412754/hackathon-gold-how-win-job-offer-coding-competition
Are software competitions bad? Some participants say hackathons can stifle innovation and chill the vibe of camaraderie because they offer such large prizes. But that doesn’t have to always be the case.
A lot depends on what happens during the contest itself, and who is participating and who is running the competition.
Tomi Engdahl says:
While struggling to build companies, some founders also quietly battle depression
http://betaboston.com/news/2014/04/03/while-struggling-to-build-companies-some-founders-also-quietly-battle-depression/
the doctors couldn’t find anything wrong
It was a moderate case of depression, an affliction that often goes unacknowledged and undiscussed in the startup world.
It was Rosen’s co-founder, Mike Salguero, who told me that I should talk to Rosen about depression and founding a company.
“It’s important, Seth’s story can help other people.”
“Nobody cares if I’m anxious about what’s going on [in my company],” he said. “I took money from people, and I feel a deep sense of obligation to get them their money back.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Technology’s Man Problem
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/06/technology/technologys-man-problem.html?_r=0
Ms. Shevinsky felt pushed to the edge. Women who enter fields dominated by men often feel this way. They love the work and want to fit in. But then something happens — a slight or a major offense — and they suddenly feel like outsiders. The question for newcomers to a field has always been when to play along and when to push back.
Today, even as so many barriers have fallen — whether at elite universities, where women outnumber men, or in running for the presidency, where polls show that fewer people think gender makes a difference — computer engineering, the most innovative sector of the economy, remains behind. Many women who want to be engineers encounter a field where they not only are significantly underrepresented but also feel pushed away.
Tech executives often fault schools, parents or society in general for failing to encourage girls to pursue computer science. But something else is at play in the industry
Computer science wasn’t always dominated by men. “In the beginning, the word ‘computers’ meant ‘women,’ ”
Six women programmed one of the most famous computers in history — the 30-ton Eniac — for the United States Army during World War II.
This lack of women has become of greater concern in the industry for a number of reasons. For one, the products that the tech industry creates are shaping the future for everyone. “Women are increasingly consumers; they’re not going to like products that don’t work for them,”
Perhaps more fundamentally, there are simply more jobs than can be filled by available talent.
Tech’s biggest companies say that recruiting women is a priority.
Tomi Engdahl says:
How Product Innovation Happens: The Origin of Agilent’s Oscilloscope Trigger
http://www.eeweb.com/blog/eeweb/how-product-innovation-happens-the-origin-of-agilents-oscilloscope-trigger
Engineers who use oscilloscopes are typically focused on solving problems and looking for ways to make better products. It turns out that engineers who design oscilloscopes are essentially doing the same thing.
And how do you get from the original spark of inspiration to its implementation in an innovative product? Genther’s story sheds light on how product innovations happen.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Study: People That Think Social Media Helps Their Work Are Probably Wrong
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/14/04/09/2138223/study-people-that-think-social-media-helps-their-work-are-probably-wrong
Although the harmful social media behaviors were related to decreased job performance, the beneficial social media behaviors were unrelated to job performance.
Tomi Engdahl says:
‘Software-defined anything’ is NONSENSE. Don’t bother pitching it
Be original, and I might just say something nice about you
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/04/12/new_service_offering_from_storagebod/
And I’ll give you a tip: if your new concept is “[anything]-defined-[anything]”, it’s rubbish.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Ask Ethan #32: Are our students doomed to an inferior education?
As teachers begin using new and questionable methods, will students suffer and get left behind?
https://medium.com/starts-with-a-bang/20af39ce51f6
“Quite frankly, teachers are the only profession that teach our children.”
-Dan Quayle
Tomi Engdahl says:
Product / Market Fit is a Trap.
Why you should focus on the jobs to be done instead
https://medium.com/product-love/2c2bf6c88cc6
So frankly having product/market fit or obsessing about it isn’t very useful.
It’s as actionable as obsessing about having success or being productive.
Reaching product/market fit just means that …
… there is a lucrative market you operate in
… you create a product for that market
… you get better at it (either at product or at distribution or both)
Reaching product/market fit is just a side-effect of doing the right things. The only way to get there is to focus on product and distribution.
Tomi Engdahl says:
How the Information Age is Changing Us
http://www.workintelligent.ly/information/transformation/2014-4-2-information-age-changing-humans/
Is the Information Age helping us to evolve as human beings since we have answers at the ease of a simple Google search; or has it become a crutch for laziness? At the end of the day, it’s a matter of perspective.
Tomi Engdahl says:
7 Hand Gestures That Make You Look Like a Real Intellectual
http://www.wired.com/2014/01/use-hand-gestures-look-like-real-intellectual/#slide-id-398011
You’ve definitely seen it at some point. Maybe it was in a lecture in college. Maybe it was in a TED talk you watched recently. Someone is trying to explain some important historical connection, drawing up a grand theory of art or science or human progress, and there it is, as if by reflex: the hand lifts in front of them like an upturned claw, the fingers slowly turning an invisible dial. That’s “The Dialectic,” one of the hand gestures you’ll need to master to become a genuine thought leader.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Over half of software developers think they’ll be millionaires – study
‘New power class’ is rising ‘from basements into boardrooms’
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/04/14/chef_sponsors_software_developers_study/
IT automation-tool supplier Chef has sponsored a study that it says shows software developers are “emerging as a new power class” who believe their jobs are recession-proof, and that money will flow to them like honey.
“Traditionally considered a disenfranchised group that was underappreciated and not well understood in business,” the study reports, “this class is now recognized as the source of ideas and innovation.”
This “highly influential group” is refashioning enterprises and tugging them into the digital economy, an effort that is “pulling them up from basements and into boardrooms.”
79 per cent believe that management’s “pursuit of near-term profits may be holding their companies back from making long-term investments in innovative and unproven solutions.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Kids Can Swipe a Screen But Can’t Use LEGOs
http://news.slashdot.org/story/14/04/16/1754226/kids-can-swipe-a-screen-but-cant-use-legos
“Children are arriving at nursery school able to ‘swipe a screen’ but lack the manipulative skills to play with building blocks, teachers have warned. They fear that children are being given tablets to use ‘as a replacement for contact time with the parent’ and say such habits are hindering progress at school”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Children can swipe a screen but can’t use toy building blocks, teachers warn
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/apr/15/children-swipe-screen-toy-building-blocks-teachers
Teachers call for research into effects of tablet addiction amid concerns computer habits are hindering progress at school
“Teachers talk of students who come into their classrooms having spent most of the previous night playing computer games and their attention spans are so limited they might as well not be there,” Kinney said.
“I’ve spoken to a number of nursery teachers who have concerns over the increasing numbers of young pupils who can swipe a screen but have little or no manipulative skills to play with building blocks – or pupils who can’t socialise with other pupils, but whose parents talk proudly of their ability to use a tablet or smartphone.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
major new technologies actually require a financing bubble to get off the ground.
Source: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/04/09/not_the_stockopolis/
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Sorry State Of IT Education
http://www.informationweek.com/strategic-cio/executive-insights-and-innovation/the-sorry-state-of-it-education/d/d-id/1204552
Our profession is rife with people capable of performing procedures they’ve been taught, but incapable of thinking through a problem. Here’s what we need to do.
As our traditional corporate silos continue to collapse, IT professionals will need to take on more cross-discipline responsibilities to advance their careers. Unfortunately, our education systems are failing to prepare IT pros for those responsibilities, and it will fall on employers to pick up the slack.
First, we must put the expectation of “professional” back into the job descriptions of those people we call IT pros. “Professional” should mean the same thing for IT as it means for any other credentialed profession
So why do we tolerate IT pros who don’t understand the basics of how a computer or network works?
Almost every profession requires its members to engage in continuing education. Not IT. Furthermore, it’s one of the few professions that isn’t licensed by the government.
I instructed my staff to spend 10% of their work time on professional development outside of the skills necessary to do their jobs.
Tomi Engdahl says:
12 ethical dilemmas gnawing at developers today
http://www.infoworld.com/d/application-development/12-ethical-dilemmas-gnawing-developers-today-240574
As software takes over more of our lives, the ethical ramifications of decisions made by programmers only become greater
Tomi Engdahl says:
There Is A Moral To This Story That Only Engineers Will Fully Understand
http://www.tickld.com/x/engineers
Tomi Engdahl says:
Need An Idea For Your Next Kickstarter? Check Out This Kickstarter!
http://hackaday.com/2014/04/23/need-an-idea-for-your-next-kickstarter-check-out-this-kickstarter/
Kickstarter has become the most powerful force in kickstarting new hardware projects, video games, documentaries, and board games, and now everyone wants a piece of the action. The problem obviously isn’t product development and engineering; you can just conjure that up with a little bit of Photoshop and some good PR. The only you really need for a good Kickstarter is an idea, and META is just the tool for the job. It’s the Arduino-powered Motivational Electronic Text Adviser, the perfect device to generate the next big idea in the world of crowdfunding.
Tomi Engdahl says:
You will Kickstart the:
http://kickmeta.com/