The Value of Openness in Scientific Problem Solving

This article on the Harvard Business School website provides specific, concrete data supporting the thesis expounded in Wikinomics see below.

From the article:

Executive Summary:

Scientists are generally rewarded for discoveries they make as individuals or in small teams. While the sharing of information in science is an ideal, it is seldom practiced. In this research, Lakhani et al. used an approach common to open source software communities—which rely intensely on collaboration—and opened up a set of 166 scientific problems from the research laboratories of twenty-six firms to over 80,000 independent scientists. The outside scientists were able to solve one-third of the problems that the research laboratories were unable to solve internally. Key concepts include:

* Opening up problem information to a large group of outsiders can yield innovative technical solutions, increase the probability of success in science programs, and ultimately boost research productivity.
* Open source software communities provide a model for improving the process of solving scientific problems.
* Outsiders can see problems with fresh eyes; in this study, problems were solved by independent scientists with expertise at the boundary of or even outside their field.
* Achieving true openness and collaboration will require change in the mindsets of both scientists and lab leadership.

bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress

"Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom" (bell hooks)
bell hooks is Distinguished Professor of English at City College in New York and a nationally recognized teacher. This book is a collection of passionately written essays about teaching and about "education as the practice of freedom". A list of some of the chapter titles indicates the tone of the collection: "Engaged Pedagogy," "Theory as Liberatory Practise," and "Ecstasy: Teaching and Learning Without Limits."

hooks sees her teaching practice as a battle against sexism, racism, and classism. This book is an excellent antidote to the current fashion
of promoting education as merely a route to employment.

Technorati Tags: education, feminism, literature, women's studies, science

ErasmusPC - CityPoems

ErasmusPC - CityPoems is a very interesting collaborative web site which displays photos of graffiti poems from all over the world. Contributors take a picture of a "citypoem" and email it to the blog owner.

The site is a simple, yet brilliant, way of illustrating the universality of poetry as an art form.

Technorati Tags: art, blogs, creativity, ideas, literature

A Million Penguins

Penguin Books, in collaboration with the Creative Writing department at De Montfort University in Leicester, England, is sponsoring a collaborative novel writing project that uses mediawiki software (the software that powers Wikipedia) and a number of authors to create a novel.

To my eye the site is chaotic and the bits of novel that are posted are sophomoric--stuff you would expect from undergrads playing along with their prof's pet project. We will just have to wait to see how it turns out.

For a statement from the project organizer on what they are up to, click here.

Technorati Tags: art, creativity, education, ideas, literature, wiki

Difficult Conversations

"Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss what Matters Most" (Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton, Sheila Heen, Roger Fisher)
How to discuss tough subjects without running them off the rails. Also a book about how to listen and how to plan conversations. Not great. Works in scripted situations, but the sample conversations sound manipulative.

True discussion is a search for the answer. If you go into a meeting with the answer set in your mind and are looking for a way to deliver the message, then you are not really conversing. This is the dynamic in a lot of management situations. You are not going into the meeting to discuss whether or not a certain clause in a contract applies, or whether or not an employee is going to be laid off. You've made that decision, and need to deliver the message in a respectful and humane, yet clear and unambiguous manner.

There are other situations, say where someone has manifested unhappiness or hostility, where a "learning conversation" would probably be helpful. Sometimes anger and unhappiness are justified, and it would be good to learn their causes. It's too easy to assume that the angry person is bad at their job or a negative influence in the workplace. Complaint is a necessary part of every work environment.

Technorati Tags: ideas, management

fora.tv online videos

This is an excellent online collection of videos of lectures/talks given by leading authors, educators, and leaders in a variety of fields.
I was blown away by Richard Dawkins' speech at Randolph-Macon Woman's College in Lynchburg, VA. The Q & A session more than proves the necessity for secular, government-funded education.

Technorati Tags: atheism, biology, education, ethics, Dawkins, science, video, web2.0

Open Culture blog

The Open Culture blog is one of the finest sources of free educational/intellectual resources on the web. They regularly publish links to videos, podcasts and other resources for educators, students, and anyone interested in ideas. They have an rss feed that you can subscribe to with Google Reader or bloglines.com

A list of recent posts (all of which contain links to excellent podcasts and videos):

10 Excellent University Podcasts (includes lectures by Steve Jobs, Francis Fijuyama, Harold Bloom, the Dalai Lama, and Tim Berners-Lee [founder of the worldwide web])

50+ Free Courses from UC Berkeley on itunes

Digital MBA: America's Best Business Schools on Your Ipod

Technorati Tags: art, blogs, creativity, education, ideas

Multiculturalism under examination

Just as North American universities and colleges are making a serious effort at "internationalizing" their curriculum, European professors are seriously criticizing the concept of multiculturalism, attacking it, and its mainly postmodernist defenders, as moral relativists and nihilists.

Sightandsound.com has published a number of articles on both sides of the controversy and has links to the posts here. All of the contributors are very "high end" intellectuals and all argue convincingly.
The one that I found most convincing was by Dutch Professor Paul Cliteur. Read it here.

Technorati Tags: education, feminism, history, ideas

Is Shakespeare "universal"?

In the academy, it is generally accepted that there are no such things as "universal" human values that transcend time and culture. In a article on The Claremont Institute for the Study of Statesmanship and Political Philosophy website author Paul A. Cantor puzzles over why the historicist proposition that universal values don't exist is so at odds with his perception that people in various cultures, at various times, have found Shakespeare so important to their lives.

Technorati Tags: art, education, history, ideas, literature

Madame de Chatelet

Madame de Chatelet was one of the leading lights of the Enlightenment in France, a friend and collaborator of Voltaire, author of books on philosophy, mathematics, and physics. Because she was a woman, she had difficulty getting her writings about mathematics and physics taken seriously. Cabinet Magazine has an excellent introductory article on her.

A significant figure for feminist theory, history of science, and French history.

Technorati Tags: feminism, history, ideas, literature, education, tagging

Twyla Tharp, The Creative Habit

"The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life" (Twyla Tharp)
Twyla Tharp is one of the world's greatest choreographers: artistically honoured and commercially successful. This book is Tharp's analysis of her creative process/habits. It's a very clearly written, optimistic, and inspiring book.

Tharp does it all; she's a dancer, choreographer, director, entrepreneur, manager. She understands the necessarily chaotic nature of creativity, as well as the need for discipline in harnessing that chaos and shaping it to serve our ends. We are partially the servants of our best creative moments, partially the creators, and partially the masters. This is book will be incredibly useful to any manager or creative person who is willing to listen to it.

Interesting passages:

"being creative is a full-time job with its own daily patterns" (p.6)

"Too much planning implies you've got it all under control. That's boring, unrealistic, and dangerous. It lulls you into a complacency that removes one of the artist's most valuable conditions: being pissed. Art is competitive with yourself, with the past, with the future. It is a special war zone where you first make the rules, and then you test the consequences." (p. 133)

"The more you fail in private, the less you will fail in public. In many ways, the creative act is editing." (p. 213)

"When it all comes together, a creative life has the nourishing power we normally associate with food, love, and faith." (p.243)

Technorati Tags: art, dance, design, ideas, management, creativity

The Ten Faces of Innovation

"The Ten Faces of Innovation: IDEO's Strategies for Defeating the Devil's Advocate and Driving Creativity Throughout Your Organization" (Thomas Kelley, Jonathan Littman)
This is a follow-up book to Kelley's "The Art of Innovation: Lessons in Creativity from IDEO, America's Leading Design Firm" (Tom Kelley, Tom Peters, Tom Peters). It is not as good as the first, which had some excellent advice and exposed the world to the innovative practices of the Ideo Design firm, where Kelley works.

The second book is generally a rehashing of its predecessor, with the points rearranged to be in numbered lists (thus the title). I doubt if a truly innovative practice can be codified into numbered points.

He begins with an excellent piece of advice: banish the Devil's Advocate from your organization. Beware the person who habitually responds to a new idea with "Let me play the Devil's Advocate for a minute …" and goes on to explain why the new idea won't work. Give innovation a chance. Don't kill ideas at birth.

Kelley says there are ten personality types needed to contribute toward institutional innovation. It is possible for an individual to have traits of more than one personality, but not possible for one person to contain all ten.

I like the idea of diversity of character type and approach. Too often we hire people who are just like us, who think just like us. Who needs all that me-tooing?

Interesting lines:

"Stories persuade in a way that facts, reports, and market trends seldom do, because stories make emotional connection." (p. 242)

"Flexibility is the new strength" (p. 263)

An ok read, but not an essential book.

Technorati Tags: design, management