This will blow the doors off book publishing

Not just textbooks, which it targets, but also non-fiction (assuming the Boundless plan for monetizing the site works):

What Boundless does is to map open source content to chapters and sections of dominant textbooks. Students can enter the name of the assigned textbook on Boundless site, and the site automatically creates an aligned web based textbook (that is also totally free).   

4 Thoughts About Boundless, Publishers, and the Lawsuit | Inside Higher Ed

If publishers and booksellers haven’t gotten around to rethinking their business models, they’d better get started.

You don’t own what you think you own

The Good Book says you can't take it with you, and we'll make sure you can't leave it behind:

Customers own a license to use the digital files—but they don’t actually own them.

Who inherits your iTunes library? - MarketWatch

Adaptive leadership concepts

I came across these ideas in an article about adaptive leadership that sounded similar to transformational leadership:

Adaptive leadership	Transformational leadership
Know the organization. Ecosystems bound together by a common purpose, but steeped in difference	Idealized Influence (II) - ideal role model
Forecast the future. Take the long view of all impacts	Inspirational Motivation (IM) - ability to inspire and motivate
Break down barriers. Community of interest that looks beyond contractual relationships, and is more about developing a collective of nontraditional public- and private-sector partners focused on sustaining whole community well-being	Individualized Consideration (IC) - genuine concern for needs and feelings
Be disruptive. Privilege outcome-focused goals and principles above all else, even if they require major changes to organizational norms and sacred cows	Intellectual Stimulation (IS) - challenges followers to be innovative and creative
Be agile to get to the end game. Adjust mid-course if new information is revealed or if economic, technological or social changes occur that require a different approach
Empower the organization. Empower and flatten the organization to deemphasize hierarchy and silos
Sense and respond. Hold true to your understanding of other people, and of yourself

Adaptive leadership seems more action- and outcome-oriented, and transformational leadership seems oriented to the personal qualities of the leader. Overall, these aren’t new ideas. Here’s a list of US Army leadership principles that have been around since the 70s and certainly since before then:

• Principle #1 – Know Yourself and Seek Self Improvement
• Principle #2 – Be Technically Proficient ( in the 70s, this principle was “Be technically and tactically proficient.” In your organization, technical proficiency means knowing how to to your job and use your tools; tactical proficiency means being able to execute plans based on understanding the goals and business model)
• Principle #3 – Seek Responsibility and Take Responsibility for Your Actions
• Principle #4 – Make Sound and Timely Decisions
• Principle #5 – Set the Example
• Principle #6 – Know Your Personnel and Look Out for Their Well Being
• Principle #7 – Keep Your Followers Informed
• Principle #8 – Develop A Sense of Responsibility In Your Followers
• Principle #9 – Ensure Each Task is Understood, Supervised and Accomplished
• Principle #10 – Build A Team
• Principle #11 – Employ Your Team In Accordance With Its Capabilities

Notice how the 11 principles correspond to the ideas of adaptive and transformational leadership? Which one do you think is most important?

Megachurches are megaterrific, so some say

Came across this article about a study indicating that Americans really do like their megachurches.

Why? “Corcoran attributes the rise in megachurches to charismatic pastors, optimistic messages and activities for every interest.”

Let’s think about this organizationally:

• Does “charismatic pastors” mean the church’s survival depends on the pastor staying in place? If so, it’s time for the pastor to help church members focus on the institution, not the leader, so it becomes a lasting entity.
• Do “optimistic messages” mean pastors make it easy for church members to dodge responsibility? The flip side is those kinds of messages help church members stay motivated in doing service projects and staying course in their faith journeys. I’ve been involved in lots of service projects, and it’s hard to keep volunteers motivated to commit for the long term. If optimistic messages keep the message of hope in front of people, that may help them keep pushing forward.
• Do “activities for every interest” foster a consumer mindset? Perhaps. On the other hand, people to gather according to interests so they can exchange ideas.

I’ve been in large, established churches and in startup churches and churches in between (including dying churches).

Responsibility in architectural design–a useful framework applicable in other decision-making situations

Philippe D’Anjou (An Ethics of Freedom for Architectural Practice by Philippe D’Anjou in Journal of Architectural Education, March 2011) proposed the following points to help architects develop a clear awareness of their freedom and responsibility in architectural design:

1. Acknowledgment of design freedom: The designer has choices in design.
2. Acceptance of complete design responsibility: The designer must accept responsibility for those choices and can’t pass the buck to committees or codes.
3. Consideration of past design choices: The past is prologue and influences current decisions.
4. Consideration of influencing forces of external design agents involved in the design project situation: Designers may consider what others advise but must be responsible for the choice of what to do with that advice.
5. Consideration of the factual design conditions of the design project situation: There are some things designers can’t change (e.g., physical features) and so must take responsibility for how they factor those issues into design choices.
6. Enacting the design choice that most reflects both freedom awareness and personal responsibility acceptance: Making the choice is the outcome of the process.

The above six points are applicable to other decision-making situations and are especially useful in helping decision-makers understand even external influences don’t relieve decision-makers of the responsibility for their choices.

Get an education to get a job

Sobering graphic about US unemployment and education:

The new moneyball: Some management ideas from a college football coach

Here’s something most managers can relate to: "Probably one of the toughest things for these coaches to do is convince their administrations that the investment in these other areas is important.”

In a Sports Illustrated article (quoted above, linked below) Nick Saban, coach at Alabama, has a whole player development system rather than a scheme for playing the game. He focuses on developing the players and trusts his subordinate coaches to take care of the games. This may be a fad. After all, Alabama attracts great football players anyway.

However, the message of the article is that other coaches are adopting the practice and their schools are funding the effort to some extent. Not a surprise – any coach who’s won as much as Saban has will be imitated. Here’s the thing: at a level where the differences between competitors are small and preparation is at the diminishing returns stage, everyone’s looking for that edge. Michael Lewis’ Moneyball described how a general manager found undervalued players so he could win baseball games on a tight budget.

What does this mean for managers?

• It’s not easy to convince your board that developing people is an important investment. Alabama committed to supporting its coach’s philosophy.
• You have to get people to think beyond their immediate task because accountability is key to execution.

Read more: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2012/writers/andy_staples/08/14/sabanization-of-college-football/index.html#ixzz23tgk1HtF

Some additional reading for your Kindle that links some sports ideas to executing strategy in organizations:

Robotics Companies Look to Near Future - Disruptions - NYTimes.com

Via NY Times Bits:

…possible applications for robots in the near future. Some examples included robots that prepared food; swarms of fly-size robots that could patrol a home or office like guards; robots that cleaned the house, did laundry and took out the trash; and robots that could drive cars, maybe even doing a better job than humans do.

Robotics Companies Look to Near Future - Disruptions - NYTimes.com

The pace is picking up. Robotics will drive the next economic boom.

Lego Celebrates 80th Birthday With Whimsical Animated Short [VIDEO]

Via Mashable

Kield recounts Lego’s transition from wood to plastic toys, the evolution of the signature interlocking brick and rebuilding after two burned-down factories.

 

Lego Celebrates 80th Birthday With Whimsical Animated Short [VIDEO]

One of the more inspiring stories you’ll come across with sound business lessons to boot:

• The name is a great example of ingenious branding.
• The stories of loss and disaster are examples of perseverance.
• The idea of a toy system is an example of strategic unity.
• The decision to discontinue wooden toys is an example of focusing on your competencies.

Picking the Man Who'd Lead Basketball's Dream Team to Gold - Jeffrey M. Cohn - Harvard Business Review

Via HBR Blog Network:

Picking the "right" coach depended on his understanding of how the players felt and what motivated them.

Picking the Man Who'd Lead Basketball's Dream Team to Gold - Jeffrey M. Cohn - Harvard Business Review

A very interesting entry about leadership. The search for a coach for Team USA in basketball for the Olympics that resulted in Coach K began with an effort to understand the players.

Notice it was a bottom up effort: understand those on the front lines because they’re the ones who have to do the work. Then you can determine who the right leader should be. That means leadership is a relationship between leader and led, with the led granting trust to the leader so the led can do their specific roles.

Time Wars

Via Boing Boing:

…it is clear that most political struggles at the moment amount to a war over time.

INCUBATE-special: Exclusive essay ‘Time-wars’ by Mark Fisher : Gonzo (circus) | Tijdschrift over vernieuwende muziek en cultuur

The extra time we were promised through use of modern technology hasn’t materialized. Instead, we’re working harder than ever.

Points to ponder from the article:

• No such thing as the long term because measures like safety net programs and the pensions an earlier generation worked for are going away.
• Technology has tethered us to work more closely than ever.
• The wealth divide isn’t because a few people are rich. It’s because the rest have to work hard every day to earn a fraction of what a large investment passively gains in interest.
• “Only prisoners have time to read.”

The author blames the war on time as the fault of neoliberals who want to reduce government spending and put everyone on the treadmill of meaningless work. That sounds like something to be worked out by the theorists and activists. Meanwhile, simply developing a stronger sense of contentment in the Biblical sense may go a long way to getting us off that treadmill.

A deal’s a deal

Via WORLDMag:

How many times have opportunities seemed handed to us from God on a silver platter—but with a teeny little integrity test attached? Ninety percent of the signals for your move are a "go"; there's just this one little nagging detail: I will have to welsh on a commitment.

WORLDmag.com | Integrity test | Andrée Seu Peterson | Aug 25, 12

Opportunity or temptation? In the drive to move onward and upward, it’s tempting to go back on a deal before it’s fully completed. How can you keep from having to make that kind of choice? Focus your efforts at not getting into a position where the deals define you. On the practical side, that means things like keeping your finances in good order so you have less pressure from a “greener grass” outlook. It also means achieving a greater degree of contentment so you can look at these choices with a more critical eye.