New Florence. New Renaissance.

20 from 20: No industry untouched

This is the 19th post in a series of 20 highlights from the Acrobatics during the crisis, Analyst Cam, Burning Platform  and other series I ran last year.

2020 turned most industries upside down. I posted earlier about conversations in four industries here and another four here 

Here's another dozen. 

Jason Blessing, President and CEO of Model N, describes the intensity when 24 out of 25 of his largest customers like Stryker and Gilead have worked on some life-saving COVID-19 related products or services. The longer interview is here 

At 2.52 is Mark Galloway, Chief Commercial Officer at GrandPad which offers a simple and secure tablet computer that digitally connects a senior to their family and friends. Mark describes the speed at which they rolled out the device to nursing homes and elderly care facilities. The average user is 82 years old and technology which most readers of this blog use on a daily basis is a big challenge for these seniors. The longer interview is here 

At 5.54 Phiroz Darukhanavala, who goes as "Daru" is the ex-CTO of BP and points out the oil and gas industry has faced other "shocks" before, usually on the supply side. The sector in the past has bounced back and has been more efficient each time. The longer interview where he discusses industry changes is here 

At 9.48 is Bill Berutti, CEO of Plex talks about the auto industry. He and CTO Jerry Foster cover global manufacturing trends and the effect of COVID lockdowns in the longer interview here. 

At 12.99 is M.R. Rangaswami of Sand Hill Group. He talks about sustainability efforts at the members in the Corporate Eco Forum he runs. He also points how the definition has extended beyond renewables and climate issues to also cover diversity and inclusion. The longer interview including coverage of other communities he runs is here 

At 16.00 is Associate Dean Bill Moncrief at the Neeley School of Business at TCU. He describes the complexities of moving from campus to on-line education in under 2 weeks and the challenges of teaching in hybrid mode - some students in-class and some on-line. I am on the school's advisory board and the longer presentation to the board is here 

At 19:33 is Bob Ferrari of Supply Chain Matters. He describes how supply chains - PPE, global, food etc - came under a lot of pressure but responded amazingly. In the longer interview here, he talks about adjustments most industries are making to their supply chains. 

The sports world had never seen this much disruption since WWII. Yet, it bravely kept us entertained with its bubbles, empty stadiums and shortened seasons, At 22.06, you get a glimpse at the maneuvering from Max Mueller, CEO and Christian Nilson, COO of Daimani, a unique marketplace for VIP experiences in sports, rock concerts and other events. The full interview is here 

At 25.52 Vittorio Viarengo of VMware shares how he brought to life COO Sanjay Poonen's desire to record a rendition of "This little light of mine" using a group of musically talented employees around the world. These are amateurs and the result is amazing - you can see how Taylor Swift and others in the music world managed to do even more with their virtual productions. The longer session with Vittorio is here 

At 31.21 is Rod Johnson, President of Infor. He points out how the TV and entertainment industry has an opportunity to help refine tech and other events in a virtual format.  The longer conversation is here.

Apple, in reverse, promises to reshape physical events and the TV and movie industries with its iPhone 12. At 32.56 is an excerpt of the stunning imagery recorded from the back of a truck and from a drone. The longer coverage of the launch of that device is here.

Sector after sector saw massive changes. Yes, Toto we are not in Kansas anymore. 

 

The future of the MBA?

In recent years the trend has been for MBAs to become shorter with more offering one-year compared with two-year degrees.  Demand for a one-year MBA rather than a two-year degree is again highlighted in this year’s Tomorrow’s MBA report.  The future is likely to find not just growing demand for one-year MBAs, but also for part-time, executive, blended, online and stackable degrees, potentially with the stackable MBA being delivered by different schools at different times in a student’s career.  Just over two-thirds of respondents (69%) in this year’s study also indicated that they would consider a specialist master’s degree such as a Masters in Finance.

CarringtonCrisp

 

Math education for the data age

The gathering grew out of an ongoing collaboration between (Jo) Boaler (of Stanford) and Steven Levitt, a professor of economics at the University of Chicago and co-author of the best-selling Freakonomics books, which apply data science to a variety of topics in contemporary culture. The pair recently co-authored an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times that called for putting data science at the center of high school mathematics. 

Levitt, a father of four teenagers, became interested in the issue when he saw the mismatch between his own experience of mathematics and what his kids were learning. They came to see math as “voodoo,” said Levitt, who cofounded the nonprofit Center for Radical Innovation for Social Change (RISC) at the University of Chicago. “They were taught by teachers that these sets of things work, without any real understanding of why they’re doing what they’re doing.”

Stanford Graduate School of Education

The Future of Humans

Wide ranging report from the UBS Chief Investment Officer

The millennials and Generation Z will move into their peak earnings years and likely benefit from wealth transfer. These cohorts are broadly more conscious of their social and environmental impact. They often value experiences more than material ownership. Companies that produce goods and services that cater to these generations’ social and environmental values are likely to benefit. Furthermore, companies that provide new consumer experiences through technologies like augmented and virtual reality can offer attractive investment opportunities.

Download full report here.

Below is a graph from the healthcare section

 

AI in Education

Experts agree AI will be important in 21st-century education—but how? While academics have puzzled over best practices, China hasn’t waited around. In the last few years, the country’s investment in AI-enabled teaching and learning has exploded. Tech giants, startups, and education incumbents have all jumped in. Tens of millions of students now use some form of AI to learn—whether through extracurricular tutoring programs like Squirrel’s, through digital learning platforms like 17ZuoYe, or even in their main classrooms. It’s the world’s biggest experiment on AI in education, and no one can predict the outcome.

Silicon Valley is also keenly interested. In a report in March, the Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation identified AI as an educational tool worthy of investment. In his 2018 book Rewiring Education, John Couch, Apple’s vice president of education, lauded Squirrel AI. (A Chinese version of the book is coauthored by Squirrel’s founder, Derek Li.) Squirrel also opened a joint research lab with Carnegie Mellon University this year to study personalized learning at scale, then export it globally.

MIT Tech Review

 

 

 

 

I Promise school

Ninety percent of the students at LeBron James' I Promise School met or exceeded individual growth goals in recent district assessments, outpacing students across their Akron, Ohio, district and marking "extraordinary" test-score improvement from when the school opened in July 2018.

That's according to The New York Times' Erica L. Green, who reported Friday that the third- and fourth-graders at I Promise School "were, by many accounts, considered unredeemable" upon their arrival -- "identified as the worst performers in the Akron public schools and branded with behavioral problems." Now, with the inaugural 240 students finished with Measures of Academic Progress testing, the school is "helping close the achievement gap in Akron."

CBS Sports

 

 

 

Esports as the new Premed

The Ohio State University recently announced an e-sports program for the upcoming fall semester that includes courses about coaching e-sports teams, marketing video games, and managing the business side of gaming. There’s also a new major: a bachelor of science in game design and e-sports.

Bloody shooter games like Call of Duty are a long way from traditional college subjects such as literature or chemistry. But with billions of dollars invested in video games, plus the huge money that fans splurge on game-related merchandise, careers in e-sports are booming.

Fortune

 

 

Lifelong learning

General Assembly, for example, is just one of a number of coding-bootcamp providers. Massive open online courses (MOOCs) offered by companies such as Coursera and Udacity, feted at the start of this decade and then dismissed as hype within a couple of years, have embraced new employment-focused business models. LinkedIn, a professional-networking site, bought an online training business, Lynda, in 2015 and is now offering courses through a service called LinkedIn Learning. Pluralsight has a library of on-demand training videos and a valuation in unicorn territory. Amazon’s cloud-computing division also has an education arm.

Universities are embracing online and modular learning more vigorously. Places like Singapore are investing heavily in providing their citizens with learning credits that they can draw on throughout their working lives. Individuals, too, increasingly seem to accept the need for continuous rebooting. According to the Pew survey, 54% of all working Americans think it will be essential to develop new skills throughout their working lives; among adults under 30 the number goes up to 61%. Another survey, conducted by Manpower in 2016, found that 93% of millennials were willing to spend their own money on further training. Meanwhile, employers are putting increasing emphasis on learning as a skill in its own right.

The Economist

Melinda Gates’ new mission

Though she’ll continue to work on the foundation, she’s building up a personal office to dedicate resources and attention to an issue of central personal importance: getting more women into tech — and helping them stay there.

It’s personal. Gates got her start in tech. After graduating from Duke with a computer science degree (and an MBA), she spent a decade working at Microsoft. That was back in 1987, when just over a third of undergraduate computer science degrees went to women. Nearly 30 years later, fewer than one in five CS degrees are earned by women. That, according to Gates, constitutes a crisis. “This has got to change,” she told me when we met to discuss her efforts last week.

Backchannel

Virtual Spin Classes

Peloton is a startup focused delivering virtual spin classes via distributed video and a $1,995 bike that is also an integrated hardware and software system.

The company, which has been opening up showrooms in major cities and shopping outlets, offers unlimited streaming rides live and on-demand as well as an app with content. Peloton's goal is to use gamification to spur competition and engagement among riders.

ZDNet