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Shareholder Primacy Is Dead. Long Live Shareholder Primacy! The highly influential US-based Business Roundtable recently announced an update to its “Statement on the Purpose of a Corporation.” Much has been … Continue reading "An Easy Way To Fix The Business Roundtable’s Toothless Purpose Statement". The post An Easy Way To Fix The Business Roundtable’s Toothless Purpose Statement appeared first on Dan Pontefract. Purpose The Purpose Effect Business Roundtable purpose MORE
I was talking with my better half, who’s now working at a nursery. Over time, she has related stories of folks coming to ask for assistance. And the variety is both interesting and instructive. There’s a vast difference of how people can be working with you. MORE
Since 2007 Jane Hart has asked working professionals for their top tools for learning — TopTools4Learning — and creates three lists from thousands of responses. Top 100 Tools for Personal & Professional Learning. Top 100 Tools for Workplace Learning. Top 100 Tools for Education. MORE
Why is Greta Thunberg so triggering for certain men? “Because of what she represents. In an age when democracy is under assault, she hints at the emergence of a new kind of power, a convergence of youth, popular protest and irrefutable science. MORE
“For anyone who follows the world of business, it is now common knowledge that the most valuable firms on the planet and the first companies to surpass the trillion-dollar mark in value (albeit temporarily) are platforms,” note Michael Cusumano , Annabelle Gawer , and David Yoffie in their recently published book The Business of Platforms : Strategy in the Age of Digital Competition, Innovation, and Power. “Moreover, in a recent list of more than two hundred current and former ‘unicorns’ - startups with valuations of $1 billion or more - we estimated that platforms made up between 60 and 70 percent.”. What do we mean by platform ? The book offer a simple definition. “Platforms, in general, connect individuals and organizations for a common purpose or to share a common resource.” A platform strategy differs from a product strategy in that it relies on an external ecosystem to generate complementary innovations and/or business transactions. The effect is much greater potential for innovation and growth than a single product-oriented firm can generate alone. Platforms are all about network effects. The more products or services a platform offers, the more users it will attract, helping it then attract more offerings, which in turn brings in more users, which then makes the platform even more valuable. Moreover, the larger the network, the more data is available to customize offerings to user preferences and better match supply and demand, further increasing the platform’s value. The digital economy has been bringing the power of platforms to an increasing number of industries and applications. But to make things simple, the book divides all digital platforms into two basic types. Innovation platforms consist of common building blocks that enable ecosystem partners to create new complementary products or services. Examples include smartphone apps on Android and iPhones, digital content on iTunes and YouTube, and cloud applications on AWS and Azure. . The second type, transaction platforms , enable access to a huge variety of information, goods and services. Examples include Amazon Marketplace, Google Search, Facebook, Uber and Airbnb. The most valuable platform companies are hybrids , offering both innovation and transactional capabilities, as is the case with Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Tencent and Alibaba. As part of the research for their book, the authors analyzed the performance of platform-based companies compared to that of conventional product and service companies in the two decades between 1995, - when the mass-market Internet first exploded onto the scene, - and 2015, - when they started the research that led to The Business of Platforms. Their analysis is based on the Forbes Global 2000 list of the world’s largest public companies. Their research was also published in an article in the May, 2019 issue of the Harvard Business Review , - A Study of More Than 250 Platforms Reveals Why Most Fail. The overall finding was that publicly listed companies associated with PC, smartphone and Internet platforms are quite rare. They only identified 43 out of the approximately 2000 firms they looked at - 18 innovation platforms and 25 transaction platforms. The median annual revenue of the platform companies was $4.3 billion, compared to $4.8 billion for the non-platform companies. However, the median number of employees for the platform companies was 10,000, around half the approximately 19,000 employed by the non-platform companies. Platform companies also had twice the operating profit, and much higher market values and growth rates compared to non-platform ones, which explains what the authors called the platformania of recent years. Platform companies fail at an alarming rate. To understand why and how they fail, the authors identified 209 platform companies that had failed between 1995 and 2015 and compared them to the 43 successful ones. The vast majority, 174 or nearly 85%, were transaction platforms; 21 were innovation and 14 were hybrid. Their overall average life span was 4.9 years and the median was 3 years. Transaction platforms lived on average 4.5 years, innovation ones 5.0 years, and hybrid 7.4 years. The reasons why these platform companies failed are numerous. After all, startup-ventures fail all the time. But the authors found four common mistakes that lead to failures: mispricing; lack of trust with users and partners; prematurely dismissing the competition; and entering too late. Let me say a few words about each. Mispricing. “The biggest business challenges for platforms are to nurture network effects and then translate the momentum and value created into a steady and growing stream of revenue and profits.” Marketplace network effects come from connecting buyers and sellers or consumers and producers, - be it a marketplace of physical products, services or information. User-driven networks effects, e.g., social media, come from connecting large number of users to each other. “Platforms make money by facilitating these connections and associated innovation.”. Kickstarting these network effects generally requires underwriting one side of the market to encourage the other side to participate. Think of Amazon subsidizing two-day shipping to attract buyers and sellers to its marketplace, while consistently losing money or earning meager profits for its first several years as a public company, much to Wall Street’s displeasure. Or Uber and Lyft losing billions of dollars even though both have now gone public. It’s not surprising that so many platform companies, especially transaction ones, run out of money before their network effects achieve liftoff. Mistrust. While getting the price right is necessary for success, it’s not sufficient. Platforms, transaction ones in particular, require two or more parties who generally don’t know each other to connect. “In such a world, building trust is essential.” The book cites the example of eBay China, which had a dominant share in e-commerce in the early 2000s. As was the case in the US, eBay China relied on PayPal as its payment system. But, Chinese consumers didn’t have the kind of banking and credit card relationships that underpin PayPal in the US and other advanced economies. Enter Alibaba. Unlike PayPal, it’s Alipay payment system was based on an escrow model which didn’t release payment until the consumer was satisfied. This enabled Alibaba to quickly capture the bulk of the e-commerce market in China, forcing eBay to withdraw despite it’s first mover advantage. Hubris. Prematurely dismissing the competition is another common mistake. There’s no question that first movers often have an advantage, and once the market tips in their favor they are likely to be the long-run winner. “But there is a better way to think about tipper markets: it is the winner’s opportunity to lose. Hubris, along with overconfidence and arrogance, to name a few misdirected traits, can produce spectacular failures.” Consider the eBay China example, or that of Myspace , the largest social networking platform in the world from 2005 to 2008. Mistiming. “Perhaps the most classic platform mistake is mistiming the market.” The book illustrates this last mistake with the smartphone market. For years in the early 2000s, Microsoft tried to recreate its Windows PC leadership with Windows Mobile and Windows Phone. But despite billions of investments, including the acquisition of Nokia’s mobile division in 2013, Microsoft eventually withdrew from the smartphone market. “Entering the business five years after Apple, and three years after Google, meant that Microsoft missed the platform window and never recovered.”. Many things can go wrong in a platform market because there are so many moving parts. “Firms not only have to coordinate internal operations, a supply chain, and novel methods of distribution. They also have to manage complements, overcome chicken-or-egg problems, and simultaneously stimulate multiple sides of a market… Despite the huge upside opportunities that platforms offer, pursing a platform strategy does not necessarily improves the odds of success as a business.”. Complex Systems Economic Issues Innovation Management and Leadership Services Innovation Society and Culture Technology and Strategy MORE
I’ve just started reading Mark Fedyk’s 2017 book The Social Turn in Moral Psychology which I picked up on an impulse in the MIT bookshop on my last visit to Cambridge. I’m only one chapter in but I suspect it will end up on The bookshelf. . MORE
Now published together with Top 100 Tools for Personal&Professional Learning 2019 Top 200 Tools for Workplace Learning 2019 Top 200 Tools for Higher Education 2019 PLUS analysis of how these tools are being used in different context, new graphics, and updated comments on the tools’ pages that show how people are using the tools. Modern Workplace Learning MORE
In a Columbia Journalism Review op-ed , Bernie Sanders presents a plan to save journalism that begins, WALTER CRONKITE ONCE SAID that “journalism is what we need to make democracy work.” He was absolutely right, which is why today’s assault on journalism by Wall Street, billionaire businessmen, Silicon Valley, and Donald Trump presents a crisis—and why we must take concrete action. Real journalism is different from the gossip, punditry, and clickbait that dominates today’s news. MORE
In the continuing process of resolving what I want to do when I grow up (rest assured, not happening), I’ve been toying with a concept. And I’ve come up with the phrase: Learning Experience Design (LXD) Strategist. Which of course, begs the question of just what LXD strategy is. MORE
I recently left the corporate world. After working roughly 20 years in mega-large companies with revenues in the billions I am now a company of one. It’s me and only … Continue reading "My Interview With Paul Jarvis, Author Of “Company Of One”". The post My Interview With Paul Jarvis, Author Of “Company Of One” appeared first on Dan Pontefract. Business capitalism Culture Company Of One Paul Jarvis MORE
Crooked Broker Capitalists. Dave Pollard (2007) showed that in a ‘crooked broker society’, an Exploiter oppresses a Desperate Supplier. This unbalanced relationship is reinforced by a Procurer who in turn gouges an Addicted Buyer. MORE
Thinking that you know what other people should do is naive and arrogant. Tormenting yourself with beliefs about how you should behave is the source of most unhappiness. The seeds of both are planted by family and society as a means of control, their effects are corrosive. It's hard to think of a situation where the word should should be used MORE
SEPTEMBER 15, 2019
The US economy looks good by almost any measure. Unemployment is at historical low levels , forcing employers to raise wages and become more aggressive about hiring and training workers. There are more job openings than unemployed people to fill them. Inflation remains low. MORE
Process improvement, like Six Sigma, stifles innovation. Process improvement is a tool set, not an overarching or unifying concept for an organization. Process improvement is a means — for certain contexts like manufacturing — and not an end in itself. MORE
Boeing 737 MAX. I read an article in New Republic entitled Crash Course by Maureen Tkacic, a former Wall Street Journal reporter, which describes how “ Boeing’s managerial revolution created the 737 MAX disaster” — resulting in plane crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia. MORE
“Over the past half century, wave after wave of digital innovation has ensured that digitalization - the diffusion of digital technologies into nearly every business and workplace and pocket - has been remaking the U.S. MORE
I went to hear a talk the other day. It was about competency-based education (CBE) for organizations. Ostensibly. And, while I’m now affiliated with IBSTPI , it’s not like I’m a competency expert. MORE
Last week I was in Nairobi ase the keynote at a panel discussion on Behavioural Insights for Environment Impact for UNEP sandwiched between two pretty hellish flights. Jules was also on the panel and had done the work to set the event up. MORE
The world’s second largest automaker, Volkswagen, finally woke up to the 21 st Century. In an announcement made this month , we finally get a decent response to transportation in the 21 st century from a car company. The company has said it will transition to make only electric vehicles in the future. It is a big gamble, especially in the U.S. where charging stations are few and far between. MORE
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An innovation system should preserve range and inefficiency, concludes the book Range—Why generalists triumph in a specialized world , by David Epstein. Focusing deep yields efficiencies and incremental innovation. But a broad base of learning and experience can produce radical innovation. MORE
I’m at the ID2020 ( @ID2020 ) Summit in New York. The theme is “Rising to the Good ID Challenge.” ” My notes here are accumulating at the bottom, not the top. MORE
Occasionally I try to look at the broader swings we see (in a variety of things). In learning technology, there’s been a gross pendulum swing, and maybe smaller ones. I think we’ve swung between craft and commercial approaches to design, and I’m hoping we’re on a return swing. MORE
The Kremlin stepped up its 2020 election interference in September. You might not have noticed the heightened interference this month. But we did. That's because NineShift is headquartered in Wisconsin, a swing state in the 2020 election. We and many people we know are getting hit more now on social media and email with fake bots trying to communicate with us and sway our opinion and information source. MORE
I’ve been thinking on LXD for a while now, not least because I’ve an upcoming workshop at DevLearn in Lost Wages in October. And one of the things I’ve been thinking about are the tools we use for LXD. MORE
Halfway through George Harrison’s song, “For You Blue” from the Abbey Road album, you hear him say, “Elmore James got nothin’ on this, baby.” ” As a 10-year-old I was intrigued. MORE
A few weeks ago, in Where journalism fails , I wrote about how journalism is interested only in stories, that all stories have just three requirements— character , problem , and movement —and that journalism comes up short both by tending to exclude facts that don’t meet those requirements and by being vulnerable to expert manipulation of by experts at feeding journalism’s appetites for stories. In this post my focus is on the vast abundance of stories that have never been told, or have been forgotten. The most abundant example of these is cemeteries. All a cemetery’s occupants were, in life, characters. Each of their lives was a story, and within their lives were many more stories. But their problems are all over, and there is no movement toward a conclusion, since all their lives are done. In most cases their characters have been erased by time and the disinterest of the living, especially across subsequent generations. For example, among the three hundred and fifty thousand persons buried in New York’s Woodlawn Cemetery is my great-grandfather, Henry Roman Englert , whose headstone is above. To make him more real as a character, here is how he looked as a sharp young man: His headstone says nothing about him, other than that he died at age eighty-seven, seventy-six years ago. Being a journalist, however, and knowing a bit about Henry, I tell some of his story in captions under the dozens of photos I’ve put in this album. For example, that he headed the Steel and Copper Plate Engravers Union in New York, that he was what his daughter ( my grandma ) called a “good socialist,” that he had at least seven daughters and one son ( Henry Jr., known as Harry , who died at age four), that he was married twice, and outlived both his wives and three of his kids, all by long margins. There are also questions (or, in a more storylike way of putting it, mysteries) that have no answer or solution, or even a way to get one; so the story just stops, even if the facts matter. For example, Henry’s plot is marked only by his headstone, with no markers for five others buried in the same plot, in just three graves, including both his wives and three of his children, all of whom predeceased him: My grandmother and her sisters used to take their families on picnic trips to this plot, which was unmarked until their dad died, and was then marked only for him. Why was that? (Henry’s brother Andrew, who also died young, and a cousin, are buried not far away in a grave that remains unmarked.). The sad but true summary here is that today none of these people matter much to anybody, even though they mattered to others a great deal when they were all alive. The great-grandchildren of Henry and his wives are now all advanced in death’s queue, or have already passed on. The living ones, including me, are way too busy with stories of their own and long since past caring much, if at all, about any of the gone people here. And the same is pretty much true for all but the most recently planted dead among the occupants of Woodlawn. For a very different example (one that hardly matters more), take the killing fields of Cambodia: the story about how Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge committed a genocide on a massive scale, wiping out between one and a half to two million people, or around twenty-five percent of the country’s population. I first heard about this one day in the late 1970s, from Hughes Rudd , who was anchoring the CBS Morning News. He said, almost offhandedly, that there were reports coming in saying that perhaps half a million people were dead in Cambodia. Rather than a story, this was just an item: too important to not mention but not interesting enough to say more about. The next morning I checked The New York Times and found the same item mentioned in a short piece on an inside page. It blew my mind: half a million dead, and no story. What made it not a story was the absence of all three elements. There were no characters, no conflict that was easy to describe, no movement toward resolution. Just a statistic. It hardly mattered to journalistic institutions of the time that the statistic itself was a massive one. The killing fields finally became a story on January 20, 1980, when Sydney Schanberg ‘s The Death and Life of Dith Pran ran in the Times ‘ Sunday Magazine. Now the story had all three elements, and pulled in lots of relevant an interesting facts. Eventually it became the movie that gave Cambodia’s killing fields their name. For journalism, however, what also matters about this is that years went by, with hundreds of thousands more dying, before the killing fields became a big story. And this wasn’t the first or last time that massively important and consequential facts got too little attention in the absence of one or more of a story’s three elements. Consider The Holocaust (six million dead) vs. the story of Ann Frank. The Rwandan genocide vs. Hotel Rwanda. The Rohingya conflict (more than 10,000 civilians dead, 128,000 internally displaced, 950,000+ fled elsewhere) vs. approximately nobody. Heard of Holodomor ? How about any of the millions who died during Mao’s revolution in China? Without characters to care about, or a conflict to focus interest, or movement toward resolution, you mostly just have statistics which, in telling without a story context, become cemeteries of facts. Sure, some of it will be studied by academics and obsessives of other kinds (including journalists who care about the topics and publish what they learn wherever they can). But Big-J journalism will mostly be preoccupied elsewhere, by more interesting stuff. Like it is right now. Journalism MORE
In my thinking about LXD strategy , I also was thinking about what roles are necessary. While you can do handoffs, what are the core skills you need to make this happen? And it’s not that you need all these people, but you need these roles. MORE
This is the result of a quick survey I did today on the Canadian governments' stance on cryptocurrency, responding to an internal request. This is a policy-neutal document; that is, I don't advocate one way or another for any of the items described below. MORE
“Artificial intelligence is reshaping business - though not at the blistering pace many assume,” notes Building the AI-Powered Organization , an article in Harvard Business Review by McKinsey partners Tim Fountaine , Brian McCarthy , and Tamim Saleh in its opening sentence. MORE
What would many, if not most, Americans feel is odd about this picture in downtown Copenhagen, Denmark? The photo appeared this month in a major American newspaper. MORE
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In this joint webinar with Brandon Hall Group , hosts David Wentworth, Principal Learning Analyst with BHG and Leslie Farinella, Chief Operating Officer at Xyleme, explore the modern learning experience, the current content landscape, designing for the modern learner, and real-world examples of organizations that are doing it right. Ready to learn more about Xyleme’s industry-leading Learning Content Management System (LCMS)? Contact us today to find out how Xyleme can help your organization unlock the power of your content. The post Webinar Recording Link: Is Your Content Keeping Up with the Learning Experience? appeared first on Xyleme. MORE
A few months ago, Babson College professor Tom Davenport gave a talk on the state of AI in the enterprise at the annual conference of MIT’s Initiative on the Digital Economy. His talk was based on two recent US surveys conducted by Deloitte, the first one in 2017 followed by a second in 2018. MORE
SEPTEMBER 14, 2019
Bianca Andreescu recently won the 2019 Women’s US Open. It was an epic win, one that almost 3.5 million people in Canada watched live on TV. Hers is a story … Continue reading "The Noble Acts Of Compassion From Bianca Andreescu And Naomi Osaka". MORE
In this joint webinar with Brandon Hall Group , hosts David Wentworth, Principal Learning Analyst with BHG and Leslie Farinella, Chief Operating Officer at Xyleme, explore the modern learning experience, the current content landscape, designing for the modern learner, and real-world examples of organizations that are doing it right. To view the webinar recording, please fill out the form below. Name *. First. Last. Email *. Company * Job Title * Work Phone * Industry * Accommodation or Food Services Architecture, Construction or Real Estate Association or Not for Profit Business, Technical, or Scientific Services Consulting Educational or Training Services Energy or Utilities Entertainment Finance or Insurance Government Healthcare, Pharmaceutical, Assistance Manufacturing and Distribution Other Publishing Retail or Wholesale Trade Technology Telecommunications Transportation or Logistics Country * Choose Country Afghanistan Albania Algeria American Samoa Andorra Angola Antigua and Barbuda Argentina Armenia Australia Austria Azerbaijan Bahamas Bahrain Bangladesh Barbados Belarus Belgium Belize Benin Bermuda Bhutan Bolivia Bosnia and Herzegovina Botswana Brazil Brunei Bulgaria Burkina Faso Burundi Cambodia Cameroon Canada Cape Verde Cayman Islands Central African Republic Chad Chile China Colombia Comoros Congo, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Republic of the Costa Rica Côte d'Ivoire Croatia Cuba Curaçao Cyprus Czech Republic Denmark Djibouti Dominica Dominican Republic East Timor Ecuador Egypt El Salvador Equatorial Guinea Eritrea Estonia Ethiopia Faroe Islands Fiji Finland France French Polynesia Gabon Gambia Georgia Germany Ghana Greece Greenland Grenada Guam Guatemala Guinea Guinea-Bissau Guyana Haiti Honduras Hong Kong Hungary Iceland India Indonesia Iran Iraq Ireland Israel Italy Jamaica Japan Jordan Kazakhstan Kenya Kiribati North Korea South Korea Kosovo Kuwait Kyrgyzstan Laos Latvia Lebanon Lesotho Liberia Libya Liechtenstein Lithuania Luxembourg Macedonia Madagascar Malawi Malaysia Maldives Mali Malta Marshall Islands Mauritania Mauritius Mexico Micronesia Moldova Monaco Mongolia Montenegro Morocco Mozambique Myanmar Namibia Nauru Nepal Netherlands New Zealand Nicaragua Niger Nigeria Northern Mariana Islands Norway Oman Pakistan Palau Palestine, State of Panama Papua New Guinea Paraguay Peru Philippines Poland Portugal Puerto Rico Qatar Romania Russia Rwanda Saint Kitts and Nevis Saint Lucia Saint Vincent and the Grenadines Samoa San Marino Sao Tome and Principe Saudi Arabia Senegal Serbia Seychelles Sierra Leone Singapore Sint Maarten Slovakia Slovenia Solomon Islands Somalia South Africa Spain Sri Lanka Sudan Sudan, South Suriname Swaziland Sweden Switzerland Syria Taiwan Tajikistan Tanzania Thailand Togo Tonga Trinidad and Tobago Tunisia Turkey Turkmenistan Tuvalu Uganda Ukraine United Arab Emirates United Kingdom United States Uruguay Uzbekistan Vanuatu Vatican City Venezuela Vietnam Virgin Islands, British Virgin Islands, U.S. Yemen Zambia Zimbabwe Phone This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged. The post Webinar Recording: Is Your Content Keeping Up with the Learning Experience? appeared first on Xyleme. Blog Uncategorized MORE
The fallout from the Jeffrey Epstein scandal continues to roil. Ethan Zuckerman has left the Media Lab. MORE
I like having a large group of online friends and the variety of viewpoints that I am exposed to as a result. I am also very sensitive to the risk of avoiding criticism or dissent, only hearing views that I agree with, and ending up in an echo chamber. However. A couple of times recently people from my past have asked to be friends on Facebook and without so much as a "Hello, how are you?" have waded in with critical, snide, smart arse comments. MORE
Is the U.S. in decline? We want your opinion. And any comments about why, or how. At the start of every new economic age, every country basically starts all over in a “new game” of economic prosperity. Exactly 100 years ago, Great Britain was the world’s superpower, but lost that status to the United States. Are we seeing the same thing today? . Hit "Comments" below this post and tell us what you think MORE
Should be earned, not assumed; conferred, not taken. Fascinating watching this playing out on the streets of Hong Kong and the front benches of Parliament MORE
164 Dave Snowden
SEPTEMBER 11, 2019
Last week I was in Nairobi ase the keynote at a panel discussion on Behavioural Insights for Environment Impact for UNEP sandwiched between two pretty hellish flights. Jules was also on the panel and had done the work to set the event up.
Irving Wladawsky-Berger
SEPTEMBER 9, 2019
A few months ago, Babson College professor Tom Davenport gave a talk on the state of AI in the enterprise at the annual conference of MIT’s Initiative on the Digital Economy. His talk was based on two recent US surveys conducted by Deloitte, the first one in 2017 followed by a second in 2018.
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Dan Pontefract
SEPTEMBER 14, 2019
Bianca Andreescu recently won the 2019 Women’s US Open. It was an epic win, one that almost 3.5 million people in Canada watched live on TV. Hers is a story … Continue reading "The Noble Acts Of Compassion From Bianca Andreescu And Naomi Osaka".
Jane Hart
SEPTEMBER 18, 2019
Now published together with Top 100 Tools for Personal&Professional Learning 2019 Top 200 Tools for Workplace Learning 2019 Top 200 Tools for Higher Education 2019 PLUS analysis of how these tools are being used in different context, new graphics, and updated comments on the tools’ pages that show how people are using the tools. Modern Workplace Learning
Clark Quinn
SEPTEMBER 24, 2019
I’ve been thinking on LXD for a while now, not least because I’ve an upcoming workshop at DevLearn in Lost Wages in October. And one of the things I’ve been thinking about are the tools we use for LXD.
Harold Jarche
SEPTEMBER 30, 2019
Crooked Broker Capitalists. Dave Pollard (2007) showed that in a ‘crooked broker society’, an Exploiter oppresses a Desperate Supplier. This unbalanced relationship is reinforced by a Procurer who in turn gouges an Addicted Buyer.
Dave Snowden
SEPTEMBER 1, 2019
I’ve just started reading Mark Fedyk’s 2017 book The Social Turn in Moral Psychology which I picked up on an impulse in the MIT bookshop on my last visit to Cambridge. I’m only one chapter in but I suspect it will end up on The bookshelf. .
Working Smarter Daily brings together the best content for professionals interested in working smarter from the widest variety of industry thought leaders.
Dan Pontefract
SEPTEMBER 21, 2019
I recently left the corporate world. After working roughly 20 years in mega-large companies with revenues in the billions I am now a company of one. It’s me and only … Continue reading "My Interview With Paul Jarvis, Author Of “Company Of One”". The post My Interview With Paul Jarvis, Author Of “Company Of One” appeared first on Dan Pontefract. Business capitalism Culture Company Of One Paul Jarvis
Nine Shift
SEPTEMBER 26, 2019
What would many, if not most, Americans feel is odd about this picture in downtown Copenhagen, Denmark? The photo appeared this month in a major American newspaper.
Clark Quinn
SEPTEMBER 11, 2019
I was talking with my better half, who’s now working at a nursery. Over time, she has related stories of folks coming to ask for assistance. And the variety is both interesting and instructive. There’s a vast difference of how people can be working with you.
Harold Jarche
SEPTEMBER 2, 2019
Since 2007 Jane Hart has asked working professionals for their top tools for learning — TopTools4Learning — and creates three lists from thousands of responses. Top 100 Tools for Personal & Professional Learning. Top 100 Tools for Workplace Learning. Top 100 Tools for Education.
Euen Semple
SEPTEMBER 3, 2019
Should be earned, not assumed; conferred, not taken. Fascinating watching this playing out on the streets of Hong Kong and the front benches of Parliament
Irving Wladawsky-Berger
SEPTEMBER 15, 2019
The US economy looks good by almost any measure. Unemployment is at historical low levels , forcing employers to raise wages and become more aggressive about hiring and training workers. There are more job openings than unemployed people to fill them. Inflation remains low.
Dan Pontefract
SEPTEMBER 20, 2019
Halfway through George Harrison’s song, “For You Blue” from the Abbey Road album, you hear him say, “Elmore James got nothin’ on this, baby.” ” As a 10-year-old I was intrigued.
Doc Searls
SEPTEMBER 1, 2019
In a Columbia Journalism Review op-ed , Bernie Sanders presents a plan to save journalism that begins, WALTER CRONKITE ONCE SAID that “journalism is what we need to make democracy work.” He was absolutely right, which is why today’s assault on journalism by Wall Street, billionaire businessmen, Silicon Valley, and Donald Trump presents a crisis—and why we must take concrete action. Real journalism is different from the gossip, punditry, and clickbait that dominates today’s news.
Clark Quinn
SEPTEMBER 3, 2019
In the continuing process of resolving what I want to do when I grow up (rest assured, not happening), I’ve been toying with a concept. And I’ve come up with the phrase: Learning Experience Design (LXD) Strategist. Which of course, begs the question of just what LXD strategy is.
Harold Jarche
SEPTEMBER 27, 2019
Boeing 737 MAX. I read an article in New Republic entitled Crash Course by Maureen Tkacic, a former Wall Street Journal reporter, which describes how “ Boeing’s managerial revolution created the 737 MAX disaster” — resulting in plane crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia.
Stephen Downes: Half an Hour
SEPTEMBER 12, 2019
This is the result of a quick survey I did today on the Canadian governments' stance on cryptocurrency, responding to an internal request. This is a policy-neutal document; that is, I don't advocate one way or another for any of the items described below.
Irving Wladawsky-Berger
SEPTEMBER 30, 2019
“Artificial intelligence is reshaping business - though not at the blistering pace many assume,” notes Building the AI-Powered Organization , an article in Harvard Business Review by McKinsey partners Tim Fountaine , Brian McCarthy , and Tamim Saleh in its opening sentence.
Dan Pontefract
SEPTEMBER 25, 2019
Shareholder Primacy Is Dead. Long Live Shareholder Primacy! The highly influential US-based Business Roundtable recently announced an update to its “Statement on the Purpose of a Corporation.” Much has been … Continue reading "An Easy Way To Fix The Business Roundtable’s Toothless Purpose Statement". The post An Easy Way To Fix The Business Roundtable’s Toothless Purpose Statement appeared first on Dan Pontefract. Purpose The Purpose Effect Business Roundtable purpose
Doc Searls
SEPTEMBER 24, 2019
A few weeks ago, in Where journalism fails , I wrote about how journalism is interested only in stories, that all stories have just three requirements— character , problem , and movement —and that journalism comes up short both by tending to exclude facts that don’t meet those requirements and by being vulnerable to expert manipulation of by experts at feeding journalism’s appetites for stories. In this post my focus is on the vast abundance of stories that have never been told, or have been forgotten. The most abundant example of these is cemeteries. All a cemetery’s occupants were, in life, characters. Each of their lives was a story, and within their lives were many more stories. But their problems are all over, and there is no movement toward a conclusion, since all their lives are done. In most cases their characters have been erased by time and the disinterest of the living, especially across subsequent generations. For example, among the three hundred and fifty thousand persons buried in New York’s Woodlawn Cemetery is my great-grandfather, Henry Roman Englert , whose headstone is above. To make him more real as a character, here is how he looked as a sharp young man: His headstone says nothing about him, other than that he died at age eighty-seven, seventy-six years ago. Being a journalist, however, and knowing a bit about Henry, I tell some of his story in captions under the dozens of photos I’ve put in this album. For example, that he headed the Steel and Copper Plate Engravers Union in New York, that he was what his daughter ( my grandma ) called a “good socialist,” that he had at least seven daughters and one son ( Henry Jr., known as Harry , who died at age four), that he was married twice, and outlived both his wives and three of his kids, all by long margins. There are also questions (or, in a more storylike way of putting it, mysteries) that have no answer or solution, or even a way to get one; so the story just stops, even if the facts matter. For example, Henry’s plot is marked only by his headstone, with no markers for five others buried in the same plot, in just three graves, including both his wives and three of his children, all of whom predeceased him: My grandmother and her sisters used to take their families on picnic trips to this plot, which was unmarked until their dad died, and was then marked only for him. Why was that? (Henry’s brother Andrew, who also died young, and a cousin, are buried not far away in a grave that remains unmarked.). The sad but true summary here is that today none of these people matter much to anybody, even though they mattered to others a great deal when they were all alive. The great-grandchildren of Henry and his wives are now all advanced in death’s queue, or have already passed on. The living ones, including me, are way too busy with stories of their own and long since past caring much, if at all, about any of the gone people here. And the same is pretty much true for all but the most recently planted dead among the occupants of Woodlawn. For a very different example (one that hardly matters more), take the killing fields of Cambodia: the story about how Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge committed a genocide on a massive scale, wiping out between one and a half to two million people, or around twenty-five percent of the country’s population. I first heard about this one day in the late 1970s, from Hughes Rudd , who was anchoring the CBS Morning News. He said, almost offhandedly, that there were reports coming in saying that perhaps half a million people were dead in Cambodia. Rather than a story, this was just an item: too important to not mention but not interesting enough to say more about. The next morning I checked The New York Times and found the same item mentioned in a short piece on an inside page. It blew my mind: half a million dead, and no story. What made it not a story was the absence of all three elements. There were no characters, no conflict that was easy to describe, no movement toward resolution. Just a statistic. It hardly mattered to journalistic institutions of the time that the statistic itself was a massive one. The killing fields finally became a story on January 20, 1980, when Sydney Schanberg ‘s The Death and Life of Dith Pran ran in the Times ‘ Sunday Magazine. Now the story had all three elements, and pulled in lots of relevant an interesting facts. Eventually it became the movie that gave Cambodia’s killing fields their name. For journalism, however, what also matters about this is that years went by, with hundreds of thousands more dying, before the killing fields became a big story. And this wasn’t the first or last time that massively important and consequential facts got too little attention in the absence of one or more of a story’s three elements. Consider The Holocaust (six million dead) vs. the story of Ann Frank. The Rwandan genocide vs. Hotel Rwanda. The Rohingya conflict (more than 10,000 civilians dead, 128,000 internally displaced, 950,000+ fled elsewhere) vs. approximately nobody. Heard of Holodomor ? How about any of the millions who died during Mao’s revolution in China? Without characters to care about, or a conflict to focus interest, or movement toward resolution, you mostly just have statistics which, in telling without a story context, become cemeteries of facts. Sure, some of it will be studied by academics and obsessives of other kinds (including journalists who care about the topics and publish what they learn wherever they can). But Big-J journalism will mostly be preoccupied elsewhere, by more interesting stuff. Like it is right now. Journalism
Clark Quinn
SEPTEMBER 10, 2019
Occasionally I try to look at the broader swings we see (in a variety of things). In learning technology, there’s been a gross pendulum swing, and maybe smaller ones. I think we’ve swung between craft and commercial approaches to design, and I’m hoping we’re on a return swing.
Harold Jarche
SEPTEMBER 23, 2019
An innovation system should preserve range and inefficiency, concludes the book Range—Why generalists triumph in a specialized world , by David Epstein. Focusing deep yields efficiencies and incremental innovation. But a broad base of learning and experience can produce radical innovation.
Nine Shift
SEPTEMBER 26, 2019
The Kremlin stepped up its 2020 election interference in September. You might not have noticed the heightened interference this month. But we did. That's because NineShift is headquartered in Wisconsin, a swing state in the 2020 election. We and many people we know are getting hit more now on social media and email with fake bots trying to communicate with us and sway our opinion and information source.
Irving Wladawsky-Berger
SEPTEMBER 23, 2019
“For anyone who follows the world of business, it is now common knowledge that the most valuable firms on the planet and the first companies to surpass the trillion-dollar mark in value (albeit temporarily) are platforms,” note Michael Cusumano , Annabelle Gawer , and David Yoffie in their recently published book The Business of Platforms : Strategy in the Age of Digital Competition, Innovation, and Power. “Moreover, in a recent list of more than two hundred current and former ‘unicorns’ - startups with valuations of $1 billion or more - we estimated that platforms made up between 60 and 70 percent.”. What do we mean by platform ? The book offer a simple definition. “Platforms, in general, connect individuals and organizations for a common purpose or to share a common resource.” A platform strategy differs from a product strategy in that it relies on an external ecosystem to generate complementary innovations and/or business transactions. The effect is much greater potential for innovation and growth than a single product-oriented firm can generate alone. Platforms are all about network effects. The more products or services a platform offers, the more users it will attract, helping it then attract more offerings, which in turn brings in more users, which then makes the platform even more valuable. Moreover, the larger the network, the more data is available to customize offerings to user preferences and better match supply and demand, further increasing the platform’s value. The digital economy has been bringing the power of platforms to an increasing number of industries and applications. But to make things simple, the book divides all digital platforms into two basic types. Innovation platforms consist of common building blocks that enable ecosystem partners to create new complementary products or services. Examples include smartphone apps on Android and iPhones, digital content on iTunes and YouTube, and cloud applications on AWS and Azure. . The second type, transaction platforms , enable access to a huge variety of information, goods and services. Examples include Amazon Marketplace, Google Search, Facebook, Uber and Airbnb. The most valuable platform companies are hybrids , offering both innovation and transactional capabilities, as is the case with Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Tencent and Alibaba. As part of the research for their book, the authors analyzed the performance of platform-based companies compared to that of conventional product and service companies in the two decades between 1995, - when the mass-market Internet first exploded onto the scene, - and 2015, - when they started the research that led to The Business of Platforms. Their analysis is based on the Forbes Global 2000 list of the world’s largest public companies. Their research was also published in an article in the May, 2019 issue of the Harvard Business Review , - A Study of More Than 250 Platforms Reveals Why Most Fail. The overall finding was that publicly listed companies associated with PC, smartphone and Internet platforms are quite rare. They only identified 43 out of the approximately 2000 firms they looked at - 18 innovation platforms and 25 transaction platforms. The median annual revenue of the platform companies was $4.3 billion, compared to $4.8 billion for the non-platform companies. However, the median number of employees for the platform companies was 10,000, around half the approximately 19,000 employed by the non-platform companies. Platform companies also had twice the operating profit, and much higher market values and growth rates compared to non-platform ones, which explains what the authors called the platformania of recent years. Platform companies fail at an alarming rate. To understand why and how they fail, the authors identified 209 platform companies that had failed between 1995 and 2015 and compared them to the 43 successful ones. The vast majority, 174 or nearly 85%, were transaction platforms; 21 were innovation and 14 were hybrid. Their overall average life span was 4.9 years and the median was 3 years. Transaction platforms lived on average 4.5 years, innovation ones 5.0 years, and hybrid 7.4 years. The reasons why these platform companies failed are numerous. After all, startup-ventures fail all the time. But the authors found four common mistakes that lead to failures: mispricing; lack of trust with users and partners; prematurely dismissing the competition; and entering too late. Let me say a few words about each. Mispricing. “The biggest business challenges for platforms are to nurture network effects and then translate the momentum and value created into a steady and growing stream of revenue and profits.” Marketplace network effects come from connecting buyers and sellers or consumers and producers, - be it a marketplace of physical products, services or information. User-driven networks effects, e.g., social media, come from connecting large number of users to each other. “Platforms make money by facilitating these connections and associated innovation.”. Kickstarting these network effects generally requires underwriting one side of the market to encourage the other side to participate. Think of Amazon subsidizing two-day shipping to attract buyers and sellers to its marketplace, while consistently losing money or earning meager profits for its first several years as a public company, much to Wall Street’s displeasure. Or Uber and Lyft losing billions of dollars even though both have now gone public. It’s not surprising that so many platform companies, especially transaction ones, run out of money before their network effects achieve liftoff. Mistrust. While getting the price right is necessary for success, it’s not sufficient. Platforms, transaction ones in particular, require two or more parties who generally don’t know each other to connect. “In such a world, building trust is essential.” The book cites the example of eBay China, which had a dominant share in e-commerce in the early 2000s. As was the case in the US, eBay China relied on PayPal as its payment system. But, Chinese consumers didn’t have the kind of banking and credit card relationships that underpin PayPal in the US and other advanced economies. Enter Alibaba. Unlike PayPal, it’s Alipay payment system was based on an escrow model which didn’t release payment until the consumer was satisfied. This enabled Alibaba to quickly capture the bulk of the e-commerce market in China, forcing eBay to withdraw despite it’s first mover advantage. Hubris. Prematurely dismissing the competition is another common mistake. There’s no question that first movers often have an advantage, and once the market tips in their favor they are likely to be the long-run winner. “But there is a better way to think about tipper markets: it is the winner’s opportunity to lose. Hubris, along with overconfidence and arrogance, to name a few misdirected traits, can produce spectacular failures.” Consider the eBay China example, or that of Myspace , the largest social networking platform in the world from 2005 to 2008. Mistiming. “Perhaps the most classic platform mistake is mistiming the market.” The book illustrates this last mistake with the smartphone market. For years in the early 2000s, Microsoft tried to recreate its Windows PC leadership with Windows Mobile and Windows Phone. But despite billions of investments, including the acquisition of Nokia’s mobile division in 2013, Microsoft eventually withdrew from the smartphone market. “Entering the business five years after Apple, and three years after Google, meant that Microsoft missed the platform window and never recovered.”. Many things can go wrong in a platform market because there are so many moving parts. “Firms not only have to coordinate internal operations, a supply chain, and novel methods of distribution. They also have to manage complements, overcome chicken-or-egg problems, and simultaneously stimulate multiple sides of a market… Despite the huge upside opportunities that platforms offer, pursing a platform strategy does not necessarily improves the odds of success as a business.”. Complex Systems Economic Issues Innovation Management and Leadership Services Innovation Society and Culture Technology and Strategy
Xyleme
SEPTEMBER 24, 2019
In this joint webinar with Brandon Hall Group , hosts David Wentworth, Principal Learning Analyst with BHG and Leslie Farinella, Chief Operating Officer at Xyleme, explore the modern learning experience, the current content landscape, designing for the modern learner, and real-world examples of organizations that are doing it right. To view the webinar recording, please fill out the form below. Name *. First. Last. Email *. Company * Job Title * Work Phone * Industry * Accommodation or Food Services Architecture, Construction or Real Estate Association or Not for Profit Business, Technical, or Scientific Services Consulting Educational or Training Services Energy or Utilities Entertainment Finance or Insurance Government Healthcare, Pharmaceutical, Assistance Manufacturing and Distribution Other Publishing Retail or Wholesale Trade Technology Telecommunications Transportation or Logistics Country * Choose Country Afghanistan Albania Algeria American Samoa Andorra Angola Antigua and Barbuda Argentina Armenia Australia Austria Azerbaijan Bahamas Bahrain Bangladesh Barbados Belarus Belgium Belize Benin Bermuda Bhutan Bolivia Bosnia and Herzegovina Botswana Brazil Brunei Bulgaria Burkina Faso Burundi Cambodia Cameroon Canada Cape Verde Cayman Islands Central African Republic Chad Chile China Colombia Comoros Congo, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Republic of the Costa Rica Côte d'Ivoire Croatia Cuba Curaçao Cyprus Czech Republic Denmark Djibouti Dominica Dominican Republic East Timor Ecuador Egypt El Salvador Equatorial Guinea Eritrea Estonia Ethiopia Faroe Islands Fiji Finland France French Polynesia Gabon Gambia Georgia Germany Ghana Greece Greenland Grenada Guam Guatemala Guinea Guinea-Bissau Guyana Haiti Honduras Hong Kong Hungary Iceland India Indonesia Iran Iraq Ireland Israel Italy Jamaica Japan Jordan Kazakhstan Kenya Kiribati North Korea South Korea Kosovo Kuwait Kyrgyzstan Laos Latvia Lebanon Lesotho Liberia Libya Liechtenstein Lithuania Luxembourg Macedonia Madagascar Malawi Malaysia Maldives Mali Malta Marshall Islands Mauritania Mauritius Mexico Micronesia Moldova Monaco Mongolia Montenegro Morocco Mozambique Myanmar Namibia Nauru Nepal Netherlands New Zealand Nicaragua Niger Nigeria Northern Mariana Islands Norway Oman Pakistan Palau Palestine, State of Panama Papua New Guinea Paraguay Peru Philippines Poland Portugal Puerto Rico Qatar Romania Russia Rwanda Saint Kitts and Nevis Saint Lucia Saint Vincent and the Grenadines Samoa San Marino Sao Tome and Principe Saudi Arabia Senegal Serbia Seychelles Sierra Leone Singapore Sint Maarten Slovakia Slovenia Solomon Islands Somalia South Africa Spain Sri Lanka Sudan Sudan, South Suriname Swaziland Sweden Switzerland Syria Taiwan Tajikistan Tanzania Thailand Togo Tonga Trinidad and Tobago Tunisia Turkey Turkmenistan Tuvalu Uganda Ukraine United Arab Emirates United Kingdom United States Uruguay Uzbekistan Vanuatu Vatican City Venezuela Vietnam Virgin Islands, British Virgin Islands, U.S. Yemen Zambia Zimbabwe Phone This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged. The post Webinar Recording: Is Your Content Keeping Up with the Learning Experience? appeared first on Xyleme. Blog Uncategorized
Stephen Downes: Half an Hour
SEPTEMBER 9, 2019
The fallout from the Jeffrey Epstein scandal continues to roil. Ethan Zuckerman has left the Media Lab.
Clark Quinn
SEPTEMBER 19, 2019
I went to hear a talk the other day. It was about competency-based education (CBE) for organizations. Ostensibly. And, while I’m now affiliated with IBSTPI , it’s not like I’m a competency expert.
Harold Jarche
SEPTEMBER 26, 2019
Why is Greta Thunberg so triggering for certain men? “Because of what she represents. In an age when democracy is under assault, she hints at the emergence of a new kind of power, a convergence of youth, popular protest and irrefutable science.
Nine Shift
SEPTEMBER 26, 2019
Is the U.S. in decline? We want your opinion. And any comments about why, or how. At the start of every new economic age, every country basically starts all over in a “new game” of economic prosperity. Exactly 100 years ago, Great Britain was the world’s superpower, but lost that status to the United States. Are we seeing the same thing today? . Hit "Comments" below this post and tell us what you think
Euen Semple
SEPTEMBER 1, 2019
I like having a large group of online friends and the variety of viewpoints that I am exposed to as a result. I am also very sensitive to the risk of avoiding criticism or dissent, only hearing views that I agree with, and ending up in an echo chamber. However. A couple of times recently people from my past have asked to be friends on Facebook and without so much as a "Hello, how are you?" have waded in with critical, snide, smart arse comments.
Xyleme
SEPTEMBER 25, 2019
In this joint webinar with Brandon Hall Group , hosts David Wentworth, Principal Learning Analyst with BHG and Leslie Farinella, Chief Operating Officer at Xyleme, explore the modern learning experience, the current content landscape, designing for the modern learner, and real-world examples of organizations that are doing it right. Ready to learn more about Xyleme’s industry-leading Learning Content Management System (LCMS)? Contact us today to find out how Xyleme can help your organization unlock the power of your content. The post Webinar Recording Link: Is Your Content Keeping Up with the Learning Experience? appeared first on Xyleme.
Doc Searls
SEPTEMBER 19, 2019
I’m at the ID2020 ( @ID2020 ) Summit in New York. The theme is “Rising to the Good ID Challenge.” ” My notes here are accumulating at the bottom, not the top.
Clark Quinn
SEPTEMBER 4, 2019
In my thinking about LXD strategy , I also was thinking about what roles are necessary. While you can do handoffs, what are the core skills you need to make this happen? And it’s not that you need all these people, but you need these roles.
Harold Jarche
SEPTEMBER 4, 2019
Process improvement, like Six Sigma, stifles innovation. Process improvement is a tool set, not an overarching or unifying concept for an organization. Process improvement is a means — for certain contexts like manufacturing — and not an end in itself.
Nine Shift
SEPTEMBER 25, 2019
The world’s second largest automaker, Volkswagen, finally woke up to the 21 st Century. In an announcement made this month , we finally get a decent response to transportation in the 21 st century from a car company. The company has said it will transition to make only electric vehicles in the future. It is a big gamble, especially in the U.S. where charging stations are few and far between.
Euen Semple
SEPTEMBER 4, 2019
Thinking that you know what other people should do is naive and arrogant. Tormenting yourself with beliefs about how you should behave is the source of most unhappiness. The seeds of both are planted by family and society as a means of control, their effects are corrosive. It's hard to think of a situation where the word should should be used
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