New Florence. New Renaissance.

Gore-Tex: Democracy and Innovation at work

In structuring their company, the Gores were more inspired by humanistic psychologist Abraham Maslow and Douglas McGregor's management theories than by, say, Peter Drucker's. It's a bottom-up approach that com­panies often talk about, but few execute well.

Gore remains innovation-focused and market-agnostic. More than 45 million medical valves, stents, sutures, and other devices it created are walking around inside people. It makes vents for smartphones and materials for the Mars rovers. Today, the Newark, Delaware-based company has 10,000 employees worldwide and $3.5 billion in revenue.

Compensation--most of the company is owned by employees--is decided by a panel of peers. Associates use "dabble time" to create products that don't yet have a market, as was the case for mercury filters for industrial plants, developed long before regulation demanded them.

Inc

 

DeVry Advanced Manufacturing Bootcamp

In writing my recent book, Silicon Collar I saw several mismatches in the labor market. There have been nearly 5 million unfilled jobs for 4+ years. Yet, people have racked up over a trillion in student debt for education many cannot parlay into jobs. Higher education still thinks in terms of 4-6-8 years of formal school when the average job is lasting 5 years or less. We need to revisit our learning methods and fast.

I have also written about how cities like Greenville, SC and Fort Worth, TX have reinvented themselves with next-gen manufacturing and logistics.

So, I was pleased to see that DeVry offers an Advanced Manufacturing Bootcamp. I got this from their CMO

“Advanced manufacturing teams play an important role in building America’s future. The landscape of U.S. manufacturing is changing, and there are good opportunities for people with the right technical skills.

DeVry’s ONLINE SKILLS TRAINING is a blend of step-by-step explanations, interactive visuals, simulations and assessments that enabling you to master up to 11 career-oriented Advanced Manufacturing Programs at your own pace.

Many of the programs can be completed in as little as 2 to 3 months, quickly preparing you to pursue specific, entry-level manufacturing positions across a variety of industries.”

Cutting edge learning of cutting edge topics

In writing my recent book, Silicon Collar I saw several mismatches in the labor market. There have been nearly 5 million unfilled jobs for 4+ years. Yet, people have racked up over a trillion in student debt for education many cannot parlay into jobs. Higher education still thinks in terms of 4-6-8 years of formal school when the average job is lasting 5 years or less. We need to revisit our learning methods and fast.

So, I have been watching with interest as Nick Hortovanyi started describing on social media his experience in a new area using Udacity.

Nick had graced this blog a couple of years ago as he described how wearables and data were reshaping his passion for cycling 

I asked him how and why he decided on Udacity

“I'm not an academic, have never been to University and the thought maybe of going to University for 3+ years was offputting. I have had a life long learning experience with technology via technology itself. The Udacity Silicon Valley approach seems to fit how I learn using the internet itself."

However, he is not using Udacity for learn a well-trodden subject. And he is doing it across the Pacific from his home on the Gold Coast of Australia.

"I was having trouble finding a large enough market for a startup vision, I had improving performance of cyclists from the data they collected. Thus as part of my what’s next thinking I applied for the new Udacity Self Driving Car Engineer Nano Degree. I thought if I got in, that'd be great, I could get recognition for some of my more recent data science learnings as well as learn more about AI (Deep Learning & Machine Learning), Computer Vision and Robotics.”

It is cutting edge stuff like the Advanced Lane Detection project where he applied “computer vision techniques to augment video output with a detected road lane, road radius curvature and road centre offset.”