Industries: Education

The Seven Deadly Habits of Ineffective Teachers

”Habits are useful but they can also be deadly. They are useful when the conditions in which they work are predictable and stable. But what happens if and when the bottom falls out of the stable social world in and for which we learn? Is it possible that learning itself—learning as we have come to enact it habitually—may no longer be particularly useful? Could it be that the very habits that have served us so well in stable times might actually become impediments to social success, even to social survival?”

The above quote was taken from this outstanding article, ”Unlearning Pedagogy,” which appeared in the Journal of Learning Design and was written by Erica McWilliam.

As a professional futurist, I have said repeatedly that “unlearning” will be one of the most critical skills for successfully navigating the future. In fact, I have become so enamored with the idea of unlearning that I have a website, www.unlearning101.com, dedicated exclusively to the topic.

If you don’t have time to read the McWilliam’s entire article, below are a list of the seven deadly habits teachers (and society) may want to unlearn:

1. The more learning the better
2. Teachers should know more than students
3. Teachers lead, students follow
4. Teachers assess, students are assessed
5. Curriculum must be set in advance
6. The more we know our students, the better
7. Our disciplines can save the world

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To Succeed in the Future: Think Like a Child, Now

Success Magazine recently published an article entitled ”Think Like a Child” in which I was quoted extensively. I encourage you to read it because, in addition to my insights (which I naturally think are insightful), it cites a number of other experts and practioners of “thinking like a child.” Here are a few highlights:

1. Children are naturally curious and open-minded;
2. Children aren’t conscious of what other people think;
3. Children don’t easily take “no” for an answer;
4. Children understand that recess can be the most important part of the day;
5. Children engage their imagination and aren’t afraid to try on new roles;
6. Children draw their inspiration from other children; and
7. Children don’t view setbacks as failures. 

For some other child-like thoughts, I invite you to review these past writings:

The Power of Play
Stop Acting Your Age
Take a Mandatory Recess
The Power of Creative Play
Cultivate a Beginner’s Mind

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The Future Requires Engaging in Situational Unawareness Training

”Be very, very careful what you put into that head, because you will never, ever get it out.”—Thomas Cardinal Wolsey

Question: What two colors are the yield sign?

Did you say yellow and black? That answer would have been correct if Marcus Welby, M.D. was still the top-rated TV show; Richard Nixon occupied the White House or NASDAQ had yet to become a leading stock market index. The yield sign, though, has been red and white since 1971. Interestingly, a large number of people—including many born after 1971 - still erroneously believe the yield sign is yellow and black.

This phenomenon demonstrates that once a thing has been learned—even something as common as the color of a sign—it can be very difficult to unlearn.

Compare this situation with the actions of computer industry executives in the 1980s who had learned about computers in the era of mammoth mainframes and were accustomed to producing their own proprietary hardware and software and then having internal sales teams market and sell the expensive products they created.

With the advent of the personal computer the rules suddenly changed and companies began relying on microprocessors and packaged software and using third parties to distribute and sell the product. A handful of computer companies adjusted but many others such as Digital Equipment, Wang and Burroughs did not because either they didn’t unlearn the old rules or were late in adjusting to the new signs.

The same situation occurred more recently in the telecommunications industry. Prior to the creation of the iPhone, providers dominated the telecom industry and dictated to phone manufacturers the terms of agreement. The creation of Apple’s multi-touch, gesture interface and “apps"--laden device flipped the industry on its head. In a matter of months, millions of people switched providers and began using mobile devices to access the Internet (with a user--friendly browser), watch videos, read books and, together with the growing universe of software applications, do everything from locate their parked car at an airport and identifying obscure birds and songs to keeping their child mildly amused with an easy-to-download “fart app.”

In each case, the signs of change were not immediately obvious but they could have been picked up on if industry leaders had engaged in some situational “unawareness” training by stepping outside their industry’s existing paradigm and scanning the environment for subtle changes in technology, consumer behavior or the competitive landscape. For example, in the automotive industry, new advances in nano-materials and battery power could lead to radical new designs; the continued growth of social networking may demand the cars of the future to maintain constant connectivity and improve the driving experience; and advances in robotics and rapid prototyping could transform both the manufacturing process and the supply chain. In each case, automotive professionals will have to unlearn what a car looks like; how it is made; what it is expected to do; and who they will have to partner with in order to build the car of the future.

Homework Assignment: Using Starbucks as a case study, indentify three emerging trends in technology, consumer behavior or the beverage/food industry that may necessitate company officials to unlearn some aspects of its current business model.

Extra Credit: Identify at least two things which have contributed to Starbucks past success but that it should consider stop doing? (Hint: In 2009, the company dropped its name from a store in Seattle and replaced it with a name that more closely resembles a neighborhood corner coffee shop.)

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Future Headline: Teenager Controls Mars Rover from Home

Yesterday, on the front page of the Minneapolis Star Tribune, there was this article: Flying deep into the Middle East, from a cockpit in Fargo. The piece, which documented how Air Force personnel are controlling drones over Iraq and Afghanistan, was likely met with a collective yawn by most of the reading public. However, if you stop and think about it for a moment, the idea would probably have been dismissed as preposterous as recently as a few years ago. I mean think about it: Kids in North Dakota using their computer to control flying robots half a world away.

Alas, such is the nature of technological progress. To get your creative futuristic juices flowing let me offer another possible headline from the future: Teenager Controls Mars Rover from Home. As NASA gets more serious about using robots to explore space, I think the agency may some day have a glut of robotic devices on the “Red Planet” and it won’t know what to do with them all. In an effort to tap into the “open-source” ethos as well as get kids excited about science, technology and space exploration, NASA will then allow students (thorough a secure satellite connection) to conduct their own exploration using older robots.

Impossible? No. Unlikely? Perhaps, but then again how many people would have dismissed the idea of North Dakota teenagers using a video game-like joy stick to control and drop and bombs in Afghanistan as recently as a decade ago?

Interested in other headlines from the future? Check out this old post:

Worldwide Solar Farm Construction Forces Coal Plants to Shutter

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The Future is on the Back Pages of the Newspaper

In my 2008 book, Jump the Curve: 50 Essential Strategies to Help Your Company Stay Ahead of Emerging Technologies, one strategy I encourage people to employ from time to time is that of reading the newspaper backwards. Why? Because it can help you more clearly see where the future is headed.

Yesterday, for example, as I was returning from Dallas where I delivered a keynote presentation on the future of travel and tourism to the Texas Travel Industry Association, I began by reading the marketing section of the Wall Street Journal from back-to-front. Here’s what I noticed. On Page 8, it was revealed that Sarah Palin’s new book won’t be released in an E-book until after Christmas. This is noteworthy for the simple fact that it wouldn’t have been noteworthy as recently as last year. In other words, E-books have now become so popular that when a new book isn’t released in electronic format at the same time as the print version it qualifies as news. It’s clear from this news that e-book sales will only continue to rise at the expense of traditional hardcover books and that the publishing industry must adapt.

On Page B7 there was a similar story, only this one related to the advertising industry: Web Ad Sales in Britain Overtake TV. On Page B6, it was announced that Lemmis Lighting is releasing a 20-year lightbulb. (Imagine this: In the future your kid or grandchild might not be able to change a lightbulb because it is something they only have to do once every two decades!)

And then on Page B5 there were two articles of note. First, there was a small article announcing that Princeton University was testing Amazon Kindle’s DX e-book as part of a national pilot program; and, second, there was a larger article explaining that the airline industry is finally getting serious about employing RFID tags to track baggage. Both news stories reinforce the growing prevalence of e-books and RFID technology.

My friends, the future is here. To learn more about it all you need to do is read the back of the newspaper!

P.S. If you keep reading the 9/30/09 edition of the WSJ, on Page 3, there is article explaining why biobutanol might soon replace ethanol as America’s biofuel of choice.

Related Posts by America’s leading futurist, Jack Uldrich

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Hey YouTwitFace, The Future Will Require Unlearning Social Media

Earlier today I had the opportunity to give a short presentation on unlearning to the Olson advertising agency in Minneapolis. During the course of my talk I mentioned how fast technology is changing and I reminded my audience that although Facebook is only 5 years old and Twitter barely 3 years of age, it is important to remember that new social media tools are being created everyday—some of which will undoubtedly require us to unlearn some of our current communications habits. Afterwards, someone mentioned that Conan O’Brien addressed this very theme during last evening’s 2009 Emmy Awards. Enjoy this short (and hilarious) look at the Year 3000.

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Jump the Curve Strategy #15: Mandatory Recess

A mandatory recess might not sound like a sure-fire path to prosperity, but providing employees a period of unstructured free time to pursue activities of their choosing can be very beneficial. A handful of companies have already instituted such policies. Among some of the better known companies are Google, Genentech, and 3M.

All three companies have policies that allow some of their employees to spend anywhere between 15 percent and 20 percent of their time pursuing independent projects of their own choosing. In essence the companies are giving their employees permission to play.

3M has been a proponent of this practice for the longest period of time. According to company officials, the practice dates back to the 1920s when an employee reportedly disobeyed an order to abandon a project and ended up creating Scotch masking tape--one of the most successful products of all time.
One of 3M’s better known and more recent success stories is that of the Post--t Note, which was developed by an employee who, because of 3M’s policy, was free to pursue the project.

The benefits, though, go beyond these isolated successes. 3M has an incredible history of developing new products. For years the company has publicized the fact that 50 percent of its annual revenues can be traced back to products that were developed within the past five years.

One of the reasons it has been able to regularly achieve this goal is because employees have been encouraged to innovate and have then been given the freedom to pursue new ideas. The mandatory recess policy has not only reinforced the idea that continued innovation was critical to the company’s success, it has given management the confidence to stay focused on ideas that at first might have seemed either like dead ends or were too off the wall to pursue.

Another company that has embraced a discretionary time policy is Genentech. For the past few years the biotechnology company has consistently been ranked as one of the best places to work in America. There are many reasons for this, but one is because it allows its scientists discretionary time to pursue independent projects--in some cases up to 100 percent of their time. Genentech officials credit the creation of the anticancer drug Avastin--a product with over a $1 billion in annual sales--to its “discretionary time” policy.

As I explained before, the cost of the price of sequencing genes will continue to plummet due to the creation of ever faster computers and more sophisticated gene sequencing techniques and tools. As these things occur, not only will new drug treatments become available, but scientists and researchers are more likely to find innovative solutions to create drugs that are increasingly tailored to individual users.

Finally there is Google. In many ways, it has the boldest recess policy because it applies to all of the company’s employees (3M’s and Genentech’s programs are limited to its scientific and R&D staffs). Among the programs company officials attribute to its policy are the creation of Google News Service, Orkut (its social networking site), and Gmail.

In addition to generating new innovative products, mandatory recess offers one additional benefit that is hard to quantify, but is nonetheless extremely important: It is a powerful recruiting and retention tool. There is a fierce battle to attract and retain talented workers. One of the reasons Google, Genentech, and 3M are doing as well as they are is their policies send a clear message to prospective employees: The company trusts them to pursue interesting and important projects that they believe are in the company’s best long-term interests.

By giving workers this freedom, companies accrue one additional benefit. Employees now have a way of not simply meeting expectations--they have a way of surpassing them.

Exponential Insight

If you want employees to jump the curve, you have to give them the time and space to jump. As I will continue to demonstrate throughout this website, there will be no shortage of wild ideas and strange possibilities arising due to exponential advances in technology. Consider just a few of the possibilities that the emerging science of nanotechnology might enable materials scientists to play around with. For instance, plastic, glass, and steel are already being made stronger, lighter, more flexible and, in some cases, self-cleaning. Soon self-healing materials, flexible electronics, and solar fabrics will be on the market. Some of these advances will lead to innovative new products and applications. Thinking up new ideas will require people to follow their hunches and, sometimes, make counterintuitive jumps in logic. Running such off-the-wall ideas by management could, at best, be difficult. Better those employees just be given some mandatory recess time to pursue their ideas.

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The Future of Social Media is Now

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The Future of College Education?

CNN is reporting about a Monroe College graduate who is suing her Alma Mater for $72,000 because she has been unable to land job. In many ways, I find the article disturbing because not only does the student appear unwilling to accept any responsibility for her own plight, but also because I don’t believe people should use our courts to address every ill (real or perceived) that afflicts society.

Nevertheless, as a futurist, I find the report fascinating because I believe a number of students are going to begin questioning the wisdom of spending $50,000; $75,000 and upwards of $200,000 for a college education that offers—in many cases—marginal value.

I have written about the future of college before (here and here) and I remain convinced that in the future it will matter far less where students receive their degrees. What will matter is a student’s ability to demonstrate knowledge. The reality is that the world is awash in free knowledge and the future belongs to those who can assimilate it and apply it in meaningful ways—regardless of whether they received it for free or, as in the case of the suing student, $72,000.

Now, I am not saying that college and university will go away. I am merely implying that savvy and self-motivated students (and their parents) will no longer be willing to pay exorbitant tuition fees. Colleges and universities, if they wish to stay relevant in the future, must address the issue of rising tuition costs.

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A Future of Black Swans … or Unlearning the Future

”Those who have knowledge, don’t predict. Those who predict, don’t have knowledge.” Lao Tzu

This famous quote was uttered over 2500 years ago and may strike some people as odd that, as a professional futurist, I have chosen to highlight it.

My rationale is two-fold. First, as I have said many times before, the chief responsibility of a futurist is not to “predict” the future but rather outline a range of future possibilities. Second, and more important, I have highlighted the quote because it is true.

If you have not already read Nassim Taleb’s outstanding book, The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable, do so as soon as possible. On Page 177 of the book, Taleb has an illustration of the scattering effect which artfully explains why predicting the future—especially for longer time frames—is virtually impossible.

Because I can’t reprint the figure here, I am left with Taleb’s analogy for understanding the scattering effect: the prediction of a billiard ball.

Assuming one has knowledge of the location of every ball and the speed and accuracy of the cue ball, it is relatively easy to predict the expected movement of the ball after the first shot. A person might even expect that second, third and fourth degree movements can be estimated with great accuracy due to the growing computational power of computers. The problem, however, grows increasingly complex with each subsequent movement. This is because after the ninth movement the gravitational pull of a person standing at the next pool table exerts enough of an effect to alter the trajectory of the ball. And after 56 movements even the smallest particle on the outer edge of the universe will effect the trajectory!

The bottom line is this: There are simply too many factors to consider when contemplating the future 20, 30, 50 or 100 years out. (Even a small effect today can have outsized implications 50 years hence). The situation, of course, becomes even more complicated because of Taleb’s main thesis which is that “Black Swans”—described as “high impact, low probability” events—tend to shape the future more than “expected” trends.

Therefore, whether a future “Black Swan” takes the shape of a pandemic, an asteroid, an E-bomb, a rogue terrorist attack, a North Korean or Iranian nuclear attack, an unexpected breakthrough in quantum computing or synthetic biology, or, more likely, some “unknown unknown;” the future will be difficult too predict because we don’t have—and won’t ever have—enough knowledge about the future.

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To Succeed in the Future: Unlearn Information

Unlearning information. It’s sounds paradoxical, right? After all, who in their right mind, would want less information? Well, you might if you want to succeed in the future.

Consider this quote which I came across in Jonah Lerner’s informative new book, “How We Decide”:

“A wealth of information creates a poverty of attention.”

It is counter-intuitive but often having access to too much information can lead people to make worse decisions.

For example, in a classic study, one group of MIT graduate students were given access to a steady stream of financial information—CNBC, Barron’s, The Wall Street Journal, etc—while a second group was only given information on the changing price of a stock.

Given this disparity which group do you think did a better job in selecting stocks? Most people would assume the first group. After all isn’t this why people read the Wall Street Journal and watch the analysts on CNBC? Well, you would be wrong. The second group—the group with less information—performed better.

Various versions of this experiment have been conducted with other groups, including college counselors who were asked to predict the future success of different students. One group was provided high school transcripts, SAT/ACT test scores, application essays and were even allowed personal interviews with the students. The second group was only given access to transcripts and SAT scores.

Again, the group with less information performed better. One big reason why this occurs is because when people are inundated with too much information they tend to think of all information as being equal. In the process, they lose track of what information is really important. More problematic is the finding that with more information people increasingly confident of their bad decisions!

The bottom line is not just as Jonah Lerner says that “Knowledge has diminishing returns,” but rather as Nassim Taleb wrote in the Black Swan that “Additional knowledge of the minutiae of daily business can be useless, even toxic.”

So there you go. De-toxify your system. Unlearn. Put down the newspapers and blogs; stop watching TV news programs; and quit following everyone on Twitter—you’ll make better decisions because of it.

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To Prepare for the Future Take a Course on Unlearning

At the end of yesterday’s post on learning to unlearning (on my other website, Unlearning101.com), I posed the following question: How does one learn a new gestalt? To begin a person must start by unlearning some things. But what things do we unlearn? For our purposes, a good place to start might be to imagine what a course on unlearning what might look like.

One place to start is to imagine where the course would take place. Initially it will be--and already is--online. In 2007 the Massachusetts Institute of Technology announced that it was putting all of its courses online for free--for anyone in the world to access.

And let’s remember, the online, virtual classroom of the future is only going to get better. The Internet of the future will be streaming incredible amounts of data-rich information anywhere in the world, students will be capable of wirelessly downloading the latest information from flexible electronic books that display both the written word and video files, and new software programs will be capable of translating text from Mandarin Chinese, French, or Farsi into English--and vice versa. (See ”The Future of Reading.")

Another place a course on unlearning might gravitate toward is 3-D virtual-reality environments such as Linden Labs’ Second Life--a site where anyone can create a personal avatar of himself, meet other virtual avatars, and engage in online training sessions. As of this writing IBM, Dell, Intel, Circuit City, and Sears have all created a virtual presence in Second Life.

Interestingly, one of the initial motives of this move was not to create a stronger presence on the Internet (although that is certainly a factor), it was to achieve cost savings on employee education.

What is more interesting from the perspective of unlearning is how Second Life and other virtual-reality sites can be exploited to provide people with different perspectives. In a virtual environment, people can take on any appearance they want. While some people will undoubtedly use it for escapist fantasies, it could also be a powerful tool to help people unlearn certain habits. Imagine, for example, customer service representatives or managers being required to act as customers in one of their own online stores. The experience could provide a unique and refreshing perspective. (And, as I recently wrote, we could all benefit on occasion from unlearning everything from your perspective of color to your view of a stranger standing across the street.)

Longer term, the classroom of unlearning will likely become even more immersive. Perhaps Second Life will morph into Third Life. Among the technologies this environment are likely to incorporate will be enhanced visual, auditory, voice and speech recognition, and haptic technologies. Doctors and service technicians could use these tools to practice operations and repairs in silico before being allowed to ply their trade in the real world.

These tools will also be a boon for learning, unlearning, and relearning. People are often classified into one of three broad categories of learning: visual, auditory, or kinesthetic. Visual people learn by seeing or reading something, auditory learners by hearing it, and kinesthetic learners learn by doing it with their hands and muscles. (It is not quite this simple. Many people use a combination of different techniques for different things, but in general, most people tend to favor one of the three methods over the other two.)

A course on unlearning could exploit these natural tendencies and help people absorb new ways of doing things. For instance, instead of just reading about how a new drug works on a cancer patient, doctors could watch how it interacts with and disables a cancer cell. Other businesses could use such immersive technology to gain a deeper appreciation of what an elderly person experiences and create products that better address their needs. (See ”Unlearning Your Age.")

Many courses on unlearning won’t have a teacher. They will rather be open source in nature, and the content will not be provided by a single “expert” but rather it will be continually added to and improved upon by a vast collection of people. To this end, a relatively new wiki called Curriki has recently been created. Its goal is to support the development and free distribution of world-class educational material to anyone who needs it--anywhere in the world.

But far from being a shoddy collection of disjointed or inferior ideas, the result of these wikis will be vastly superior to anything a single expert could pull together. In the case of business wikis, they will contain advice and insights from employees, suppliers, and customers.

Among the adjustments this will require is that managers will need to unlearn their own reliance on experts. People will need to unlearn the idea that money and quality are synonymous. In the future, many of the best products will be the creation of open-source methods and wikis.

Another thing people will have to unlearn is that there isn’t always an answer. This is because so many fields are constantly evolving. An admission of one’s own ignorance may well be the first step most people will need to take upon entering the unlearning classroom of the future. Exponential executives may even have to go a step farther and accept that ignorance will be the largest element in their future educational needs.

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The Future of Association Meetings

In my business as a futurist and a public speaker, I have addressed hundreds of business association meetings. They are great networking opportunities, but it is not uncommon at these events to see a great many people stick to the safety of their pre-existing social circles. There is nothing inherently wrong with this, but most people would probably agree that in so doing these people are missing out on a great opportunity to form new connections as well as gain insight from other people whom they haven’t—and might never—meet.

Well, there is a new technology brewing on the horizon which could radically alter the dynamics of future meetings and enhance the productivity of these meetings. The technology I am speaking of is known as ’smart badges” and while they have been around in a limited form for the past few years, the technology is now getting better and they are poised to have a big impact on how future meetings are conducted—especially association meetings.

For instance, if you look at the picture above it is easy to see who is talking to who. Armed with this information, it might be easier for people to make common connections. For example, if you don’t know Bob but you see that your friend Sarah does, it might be easier for you to introduce yourself to Bob. Similarly, the technology can be used to bring together people who share common interests, hobbies or who might have even read the same book. It is even feasible to draw in people who would otherwise prefer to stay on the fringe—and this could be important because these people might have something really valuable to add to the conversation.

MIT’s Media Lab and such spin-off companies as nTag are producing a variety of innovative new technologies that could revolution the field of sociometrics. When one couples this progress with advances being made in the fields of mobile communication, RFID technology and software programs and algorithms, it boggles the mind to think how much more enjoyable, informative and entertaining future business and trade association meetings might be.

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Unlearn by Learning to Ask New Questions

We have all been there at some time—standing in line at the airport waiting to board a plane and thinking to ourselves that “there has to be a better way.” Well, apparently, there is now. According to this informative article a researcher at Fermilab has figured out the optimal way to board an airplane.

His findings are counter-intuitive to say the least. Contrary to what one might expect, boarding from the back of the plane first isn’t the optimal method. Rather, the optimal method is to board passangers 10 at a time in every other row. Apparently, this allows passengers to store their baggage overhead at a faster rate.

As I say in my book, Jump the Curve, accelerating advances in computer processing power and algorithms often result in findings that challenge conventional wisdom. The big question now is whether executives in the airline industry will have the courage to listen to an outsider (the researcher, Jason Steffen is a physicist) and whether the industry itself can “unlearn” its current behavior of loading passengers from the the back of the plane.

Interested in other posts on the topic of unlearning? Check out these articles:

Does the Pharmaceutical INdustry Need to Unlearn?
Is the Health Care Industry prepared to Unlearn?
Learning to Unlearn: Case Study #1
Examples of Unexponential Thinking

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Think About the Future, Today

Effective today, June 8, 2009, General Motors and Citigroup are no longer components of the Dow 30. In and of itself this news has no great relevance, but it does highlight how fast today’s economy continues to change. As I mentioned the other day, many people think that ”tomorrow will be pretty much like yesterday.” This simply isn’t true.

One strategy I have advocated for thinking about the future is to ”develop a future bias.” As a thought exercise and to help you “jump the curve,” I’d like to suggest a second exercise: review the members of the current Dow 30 and imagine which company will be the next to be removed from the list and explain why it might go. (For extra credit, I invite you to imagine which company might replace it.) The purpose of this exercise is to force you what of your comfort zone and come face-to-face with the reality that “the only constant is change.”

To help you get started, here are some possibilities. Advances in nanotechnology could cause many of the materials Alcoa makes to become either irrelevant or obsolete, and the company will be replaced by a nanomaterial company. Or perhaps Caterpillar will not remain competitive due to advances in robotics and it will be replaced by iRobot. A third alternative is that intense competition from Nokia will wreak havoc on both AT&T and Verizon and they will be replaced on the Dow 30 by Google, which may continue to make strides in the communication field with its new Android platform. A fourth possibility is that new advances in biotechnology will render many existing drugs obsolete and Pfizer will be replaced on the Dow 30 with a biotech company such as Genentech.

Really, there is no shortage of possibilities but one of the best ways to prepare for the future is to simply acknowledge that it is going to change. And, as Darwin said: “It is not the strongest of a species that survives, nor is it the fittest; it is those that can adapt the fastest.” Are you and your organization prepared to adapt? Quickly?

If not, you could go the way of General Motors.

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Into the Unknown: A Historical Lesson from Lewis & Clark

In 2004, I wrote the book Into the Unknown: Leadership Lessons from Lewis & Clark’s Daring Westward Expedition. One of my favorite stories—because it has so much relevance for today’s business leaders who are looking to jump the curve—occurred during the early part of June 1805.

On June 2, 1805, Lewis and Clark approached a fork in the Missouri River. During their consultations with the Indians the previous winter nothing had been mentioned of this second river. It was, however, critical that the Corps of Discovery follow the true Missouri River. If they didn’t, they were unlikely to reach and successfully pass over the Rocky Mountains before winter. This setback would have jeopardized the entire mission.

Lewis and Clark split their team up and sent one group up the north river and a second group down the south river. After three days, both teams returned and were still unsure as to which river was the true Missouri.

Lewis and Clark being the good leaders that they were then split up. Meriwether Lewis traveled north and William Clark went south. After a few days the two men returned and they still weren’t sure.

While they were away something very interesting occurred. All 30 members of the team determined that the north river was the true Missouri. They reached this decision the following way: For the past year, the Corps of Discovery had been traveling up the Missouri River and the water was “warm, slow, muddy and brown.” The water of the north river was also “warm, slow, muddy and brown,” therefore they reasoned it was the true Missouri. It is the equivalent of saying that “Tomorrow is going to be pretty much like yesterday.”

Lewis and Clark conferred among themselves and reached a far different conclusion. In the face of complete opposition, they announced the south river was the true Missouri. They reasoned as follows: At some point the snow from the mountains needed to melt and when it did it would create a river that was cold, fast and clear.” Those characteristics matched the south river and, as history demonstrated, the two captains made the correct decision.

My point is this: Many, if not most, people think that “tomorrow will be pretty much like yesterday.” From my perch as a professional futurist, I see the trends in biotechnology, nanotechnology, information technology, RFID, social networking and robotics (to name but a few) are accelerating and I know that tomorrow is going to be radically different then either yesterday or today—and we need more leaders with the courage to head out into the unknown.

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An Unlearning Tutorial

Yesterday, I wrote this post entitled Why Businesses Must Unlearn on my other blog, www.unlearning101.com.

Shortly thereafter a thoughtful reader posed this question:

I like this idea of an organization doing some top-down “unlearning” of bad habits. But what new habits do they develop and put in place—how do you get a seasoned exec that’s devoted to a way of thinking to accept another view?”

It is an excellent question. In short, the questioner is asking: How does a person unlearn?

The first step—and I’ll admit this the most difficult—is to get the person to admit their ignorance. (Remember, “we don’t know what we don’t know.") One way of doing this is encourage the person to take the quiz prescribed in this post entitled Have Some Intellectual Humility. A second strategy is to invite them to start what Nassim Taleb calls an anti-library.

The second step is to get the person to at least acknowledge that there is a different way to do things. For a potential exercise, I would invite a person to Study Carneades and learn to debate both (or all) sides of an issue.

Three, as an adjunct to this exercise, ask the person to envision a future scenario that might require the person or the organization they are leading to change either their position or the direction of the organization. It has been proven that merely contemplating a different scenario (other than the one the person thinks most likely to occur) can help people and organizations adapt faster in the face of a fundamental change to underlying conditions. Two strategies I recommend in this arena are encouraging people to ask new questions and training them to see different points of view.

Four, tell stories. Personally, I am a big fan of telling stories and frequently, when addressing corporations, associations or government and non-profit organizations on unlearning and change management, I’ll pepper my keynote speeches and consulting sessions with the antidotes. I recently had this post which served as a warning to the scientific community and, last month, I put together this short four-minute video telling the story of executives at Bethlehem Steel. (If you really want to scare the person into unlearning try this post entitled Unlearn or Die. If, however, your selected audience is attune to sports try these sports-related unlearning stories: Unlearn Barriers; Why Not Granny Style; Unlearn Your Putting Game; and Practice Your Unlearning Game.

The latter four strategies work well for most people, but if the person can’t submit his or her ego to the unlearning concept; I would suggest this post entitled Beware of Growing Icebergs. It outlines why everyone should be open to unlearning.

I hope this post helps and for organizations that are interested in unlearning I now offer full and half-days seminars on the topic. Interested parties can contact me at jack@nanoveritas.com or 612-267-1212.)

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Did You Know … You Have to Jump the Curve

This 5-minute video entitled “Did You Know” has been around in various forms for a few years, but it still serves as an excellent reminders to why organizations must learn to “jump the curve:”

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Unlearning Science

In relative terms, the field of plate tectonics is still fairly new—becoming widely accepted only in the mid-1960’s. The idea that massive continents could have drifted apart over millions of years was, however, first expounded on by an amateur American geologist, Frank Bursley, in 1908. Bursley was struck by how the shape between the west coast of Africa and the east coast of South America looked as though they could fit together like two pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, and suggested the movement of the continents might also explain the formation of mountain ranges. Bursley provided little evidence and his idea was soon—and easily—dismissed by the scientific establishment who had little time for the “strange” theories from amateurs.

A few years later Bursley’s idea was picked up by a German meteorologist, Alfred Wegener, who was disturbed by the many animal and fossil anomalies which didn’t fit conveniently into the day’s existing theory of how the earth was formed. Again, it was dismissed. This time because the idea came from an outsider—a meteorologist.

And what precisely was the leading theory used by geologists to explain how the exact same fossils of animals and plants could have existed on the opposite sides of different oceans? The answer was “land bridges”—mysterious strips of land, for which no evidence existed, but miraculously allowed animals to peacefully and successfully meander thousands of miles across vast expanses of the world’s oceans.

For example, when an ancient horse named Hipparion was found to have lived in both Florida and France, geologists drew a land bridge across the Atlantic Ocean to explain away this disturbing discrepancy. Soon, a variety of other land bridges begun to spring up and populate the world of geological science in order to explain everything from how tapirs existed in both Southeast Asia and South America at the same time to how snails could turn up in both Scandinavia and New England.

Surprisingly, and in the face of a complete and utter lack of evidence, land bridges remained the geological orthodoxy for the next 50 years. In 1944, a British geologist, Arthur Holmes, wrote a book entitled Principles of Physical Geology elaborating on Wegner’s theory but it was dismissed by one reviewer who even had the temerity to warn that Holmes presented his arguments so coherently that they might actually be believed by students! In 1955, no less a figure than the esteemed Albert Einstein wrote a ringing endorsement for a book which all but ridiculed the ideas of Wegener and Holmes.

And in 1964, in the face of mounting evidence, a Canadian geologist by the name of Lawrence Morley wrote a paper explaining how magnetic studies of the floor of the Atlantic Ocean were spreading in the exact motion prescribed by the theory of “continental drift.” Morley’s paper was abruptly and rudely dismissed by the editor of the prestigious Journal of Geophysical Research with this now infamous note: “Such speculations make interesting talk at cocktail, but it is not the sort of thing that ought to be published under serious scientific aegis.”

Later that year at a conference of the Royal Society the tide finally began to turn but it wasn’t until 1968 when the same publication, which had rejected Morley’s paper only four years earlier, published the article which gave the science of plate tectonics its name.

The story serves as a wonderful reminder to those scientists who are quick to dismiss ideas from amateurs, outsiders, and unconventional thinkers. To this end, I invite you to watch this 60 Minutes segment on “Cold Fusion” and pay special attention to the outright dismissal of the idea by some of today’s leading experts. Could they be wrong? I don’t purport to know the answer but history suggests that these scientific experts should at least entertain the notion that they might be wrong.

The same is true of the theories of Aubrey de Grey, an outsider from the field of computer science, who is strongly challenging today’s conventional wisdom on the “science of aging.”

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The Future is Creative

I recently finished reading the June 2009 edition of Fast Company. It is entitled “The 100 Most Creative People in Business” and I highly recommend it. If you don’t have the time but are interested in the future, I will provide links to two “must-read” profiles. The first is of Neri Oxman, a Presidential Fellow at the MIT Media Lab. I especially loved this quote of hers: “I believe that in 50 years buildings will be like biological tissues.”

The second profile is of Dr. Anthony Atala, Director of the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine, and a world leader in growing human tissues. I have always been a strong advocate of “thinking like a child,’ and I enjoyed this quote of Atala’s: “It was naive of me. But being naive helped me not accept the current dogma that tissue can’t grow outside the body.”

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The Future Will Blow You Away

Dear Readers:

I am off to enjoy this Memorial Day weekend. Here is a short video that I produced last year. If you haven’t seen it, it is worth five minutes of your time.

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How Tools Are Shaping Our Future

Marshall McLuhan once wrote, “We shape our tools then our tools shape us.” Never has this been more true. Consider first this article from today’s news reporting that a new nanotechnology microscope has been developed to aid in our understanding of the human brain. This, of course, will lead to new discoveries in the field of neuroscience. And, as this article on ”Harnessing science to develop the ultimate warrior” describes, these advances in neuroscience (and genomics) will begin to shape us in new and profound ways.

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May 15, 2009 Jump the Curve: Beware of Emerging Technologies

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Will Wolfram Alpha Jump the Curve?

At 7pm (Central Standard Time) tonight, a new type of search engine—called Wolfram Alpha -- will go live. There is still much that can go wrong with the program but, personally, I am very excited about the project and believe it heralds yet another step down the inevitable path toward artificial intelligence. All I can say is stay tuned. (Below is a 5-minute video explaining tonight’s venture.)

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Jump the Curve, Today!

I have said it before and I will say it again, ”The future is here. It is just not evenly distributed.” For proof of this statement and a glimpse into tomorrow, I suggest that you only peruse today’s news. The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Case Western Reserve is experimenting with a new version of Kindle for textbooks. It is only a matter of time before e-books begin replacing old-fashion textbooks on campuses around the world. (Of course, this begs the question of whether colleges will even be relevant in the future.)

Elsewhere, researchers at UCSD have reported that advances in the field of quantum dots have taken society one step closer to ”mainstreaming nanotechnology in medicine.” And, if you don’t think the robotic revolution is real, check out this story reporting that a robot now has its own Facebook page.

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The Future Requires Unlearning

Recently, I participated in the first-ever Ignite Minneapolis event. The format stipulates that you can discuss any topic you want but you must use 20 slides and you have exactly 5 minutes to make your case. Below is my presentation on why I believe unlearning will be just as—if not more important—than learning in the 21st century. (I apologize in advance for my swearing but when you have to capture the attention of 500 (often intoxicated) 20-30 year-olds who are Twittering during your presentation, sometimes drastic action is required.)

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Will the Learners Unlearn?

I have written about the future of college before. However, after reading this article suggesting that universities will be irrelevant by 2020 my interest has been piqued again.

Let me begin by saying that I am not a disinterested bystander to this issue. My children are now in the 2nd and 4th grades, respectively, and I would love for college to irrelevant by 2020—if for no other reason than to save me a boatload of money.

I do not believe college will be completely irrelevant by 2020 for two reasons. First, I believe that college is still an important venue for learning. This learning, however, has little to do with the learning typically associated with the classroom and more to do with learning how to socialize with one’s peers in an environment outside of the home. Now, there is absolutely no reason why young people can’t—and won’t—learn many of these “life skills” elsewhere; I just think many will choose a college setting because it is safe and familiar.

The second reason college will still be relevant in 2020 is because parents, educators and community leaders simply can’t envision a different future. In short, it will take them a long time to unlearn their idea of college. As a result, the transition to college becoming “irrelevant” will occur over a longer timeframe than the article suggests if, for no other reason, than society is generally resistant to change.

Don’t misunderstand me, though. At some point college as we now know it will be irrelevant. (This date will likely occur in inverse proportion to the degree that colleges and universities continue to inflate tution).

Knowledge deserves to be free and it has, for all practical purposes, now reached this point. In the future, it won’t matter where you received your degree; what will matter is your ability to demonstrate knowledge.

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Reliving Flight 1549 into the Hudson

Below is an amazing reanimation of Flight 1549—the now infamous flight into the Hudson. What’s impressive about the technology is that not only does it give the average citizen a better feel for what actually occurred that fateful day, more importantly, it will now be used by pilots all around the world to help them train for similar emergencies. (Hat tip to Techcrunch for the original story.)

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Jump the Curve Strategy #4: Just Wiki It

The earlier point about how P&G has increased its productivity speaks to another new mechanism that can increase productivity: wikis. Established on the premise that all of us together are smarter than any of us individually, wikis provide a powerful tool for helping companies collaborate on projects, manage group information, and incubate ideas on an accelerated basis.

The concept has grown so popular that even the process of writing of books is being wiki-fied. In the fall of 2006, I accepted an invitation to participate in the writing of a book entitled We Are Smarter Than Me, which attempts to demonstrate that a community can write a more compelling book than an individual expert.

I can’t say I contributed anything terribly profound, but I did add the following example to the chapter on open-source ideas:

Scott Adams and Dilbert. In 1998, Scott Adams, the creator of the comic strip Dilbert, became the first cartoonist to publish his e-mail address in his carton strip. Whether it was by strategic intent or dumb luck, Adams now regularly supplements his comic strip--which chronicles bureaucratic absurdities, management ineptitude, and bouts of corporate stupidity--with poignant insights and stories from his legions of fans who send him more than one thousand e-mails a day. From this pool of ideas, Adams has been able to augment his own extraordinary creativity to create more cartoons strips, and he also draws on the public’s input to provide better content for his books, Web site, and blog.

Whether it will be accepted, modified, or deleted is now in the hands of the community. The more intriguing result will be if the project works and the community creates a compelling book. My hunch is that it will because wikis offer an easy-to-use mechanism for tapping into a wider base of knowledge. Wikis also allow ideas to be shared, modified, amended, and otherwise improved on a faster basis than any conventional system.

One company that is employing a wiki with some success today is GlaxoSmithKline, which uses one to allow employees to share information during clinical trials for its new drugs. By providing people with the opportunity to supply their colleagues with more context, updated information, and even advice, the company’s management is using the wiki to help GlaxoSmithKline successfully avoid traps and pitfalls that have hindered it in the past. The net impact is that faulty drug candidates are being pulled quicker, and successful ones are reaching market sooner because regulators’ questions and concerns are being addressed in greater detail at an earlier stage. The former outcome saves the company money; the latter helps it make new money.

Exponential Insight

It is often hard for employees to be productive when coworkers constantly interrupt them with questions. A wiki can minimize such disruptions by allowing employees to create an ongoing database of common information. Questions and answers can be posted directly to the site where they can even be given more contextual depth. For instance, comments can be left and related Web sites and documents can be hyperlinked into a wiki. As more people begin contributing increasing amounts of information to the wiki, the utility and value of it will increase proportionately.

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Re-"Kindle”: The Future?

In late 2007, I wrote this piece about the future of education being “rekindled.” In it, I advised readers to expect further advances.

Yesterday’s introduction of the latest Kindle device has borne out this advise. The new electronic book is twice as thin; has a 7.5X increase in memory capacity (meaning it can now store 1500 books versus only 200 for the first device); has a 25% improvement in battery life; has 16 shades of gray (versus 4); is easier to navigate; and comes with a cheesy, robotic speech recognition device that can read aloud the text of the book.

Many of the reviews have been overly critical of the latter tool, but it is important to remember that speech/voice recognition technology—like almost everything else in Kindle (except the price)—is only going to get better with time. In fact, within a few years, I envision electronic books will serve as substitute reading tutors in public schools. (Note: I’m not predicting that Amazon’s Kindle will necessarily be the de facto device to play this role. Google and others will soon develop similar devices that may be even easier to use and come with a more attractive price.)

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Is a $20 Laptop Computer Really Impossible?

Without wanting to sound like a broken record, I am continually amazed at many people’s inability to understand how certain technological advances will make some things that sound “impossible” today imminently possible tomorrow. A case in point is this