A massive, non-technology driver of change - Exhibit II

As reported by Reuters.

Chairman Ben Bernanke warned the U.S. Congress on Thursday that failure to take action soon to deal with the budgetary strains posed by an aging U.S. population could lead to serious economic harm...

"Unfortunately, economic growth alone is unlikely to solve the nation's impending fiscal problems," Bernanke told the Senate Budget Committee. "We are experiencing what seems likely to be the calm before the storm."

This week professor closes his eyes to reality

Dr. Thomas is a professor at Furman University, who wrote an op/ed for The State, Open enrollment a bad idea for S.C.’s public schools, which is as misguided as the one he wrote for the Greenville News last week. Professor closes his eyes to the facts.

Now Dr. Thomas is a fellow, just like us, who lives every day in 21st century America. Every day he makes choices about where to eat, where to buy his gas, where to get banking services. He shops for the essential he needs, decides when to splurge on the extras that make life enjoyable. He chooses where to get his news, both in terms of the news source and well as the medium. All of these options make his life richer. They are all made possible because talented and creative people are straining their brains every day thinking up new ways to make life better for him and his family, merely because he has the choice of where to shift some of the resources at his disposal in the form of purchases he makes.

How is it possible that a person who lives in this world can make a statement as inane as this?

[Choice proposals share] the same flawed premise...: Our schools are failing because there is no competition for customers.

Now mind you, Dr. Thomas is not arguing against a proposal advocated by a wild-eyed Republican who has no experience in public education wanting to melt down the public education establishment and start over. (Though that proposal actually was made recently by the current superintendent of a SC public school district.)

What Dr. Thomas is arguing against is open enrollment in existing public schools. It doesn't make sense to him that giving parents even the slightest control over where their children attend schools might have the least impact on improving the quality of public education. The simple fact that he has a choice works beautifully for him when Dr. Thomas stops off for a gallon of milk on the way home, but somehow principals and teachers are not mere mortals tempted by the same incentives that motivate the rest of us.

Does Dr. Thomas really believe that if creative, talented teachers have the ability to attract some of the resources currently being spent on students whose needs are not being met, that they wouldn't be straining their brains every day thinking up new ways to make their students education better? And does Dr. Thomas really not understand, that after beating their heads against an unchangable public education establishment long enough, that creative, talented teachers either give up and leave or settle into the frustration of surviving in a system they know is not working well. Given the world he lives in every day, can he possibly not understand that?

Milton Friedman said it best. You either believe in freedom or you don't. Maybe Dr. Thomas would be more comfortable if he moved to Venezuela and helped Hugo Chavez build one of the "socialist cities" run by "people power" that he has planned. None of us has any doubt what the ultimate outcome of Chavez's socialist cities will be. We shouldn't have any doubt about what the outcome of Thomas' public schools will be either.

Jeffrey Phillips responds to "John, we're just not innovative"

A recent Swamp Fox feature article was "John, we're just not innovative." Here's an interesting response from Jeffrey Phillips at OVO in Raleigh.

If you "just aren't innovative" then you are on the slow track to oblivion. Every company was innovative at least once sometime in their past, and innovation is not like quantum physics, which will take years to learn and master. Innovation capability is first and foremost a state of mind.

Professor closes his eyes to the facts

Furman professor Paul Thomas opines in a Greenville News op/ed on the Education Week: From Cradle to Careers report that I commented on here last week. Dr. Thomas amazingly comes to three conclusions:

* South Carolina education is performing relatively well within the socioeconomic realities of this state.

* South Carolina education is struggling to meet the needs of those students in poverty and those students we might label "at-risk," but we are succeeding in addressing the needs of the best and the brightest (see our Advanced Placement ranking).

* The myth of "good students trapped in bad schools" is not the emergency some people want to claim, but the reality of "disadvantaged students trapped in struggling schools" is.

Here's the most salient fact in the report:

The longer children are in the South Carolina public education system, the further behind their peers across the country they fall.

Do you think Dr. Thomas could have possibly have read the entire report and come to the conclusions that he did? Or did he just ignore the parts he didn't like.

One of those that commented online at the Greenville News observed:

Many talk about how bad our SAT scores are in this state. What they fail to look at is the fact that in our state ALL students are allowed to take the SAT as long as they pay to take it.

We've dealt with that fallacy before too. Those of us at the top like to believe that the problem is those at the bottom, when the truth is:

The better educated a SC student's parents, the further behind their peers they are.

Until we accept the reality of the problems we face, we've never make the improvement that is essential for our children to compete in the world in which they will live and work.

Viral Learning Center - What a hoot

Original link compliments of our friends at Brains on Fire

Curse of Knowledge

This post says

Lots of research in economics and psychology shows that when we know something, it becomes hard for us to imagine not knowing it. As a result, we become lousy communicators.

I'm certain this is a problem I have. I see it so clearly, then I realize that I'm not able to get others to see it as clearly. When I'm lucky, I don't realize it too late.

The moon landing like you've never seen it. Is this cool or what?

My kids say this is just history. (I admit that stung when they told me that at the moon landing exhibit in the National Air and Space Museum in Washington.) But I'll always think this is very cool. To see it like it's never been seen before. How cool is that?

Apollo 11 the first man on moon

Declining Success of Students in SC Public Schools

The longer children are in the South Carolina public education system, the further behind their peers across the country they fall.



Source: Education Week: From Cradle to Careers

Liberty Fellowship seeks nominations

The Liberty Fellowship is a program founded by Hayne Hipp to identify and develop outstanding leadership in the state. I can tell you from the personal experience of having been in the initial class that this is one of the most incredible experiences of your life.

I had lunch recently with Jennie Johnson, Executive Director, and she reminded me that she is seeking nominations of outstanding individuals for the fourth class. Those qualified to be nominated include executives/professionals between the ages of 25 and 45 who have achieved success in their fields and who who have demonstrated their potential for leadership at the highest levels of corporate and civic responsibility.

Nominating someone deserving is a tremendous gift from you to them. You can find more information at the Liberty Fellowship website.

What we want the Southeastern Innovation Community to become...

Chris Anderson, Editor in Chief of Wired Magazine and Author of The Long Tail, gave his answer below to the question, "What are you optimistic about?"

What strikes me most is:

Today's Web, which is as much about contributing as it is consuming — two-way links, as opposed to the old one-way networks of broadcast and traditional media — allows the same to apply to people. Connecting minds allows our collective intelligence to grow with each person who joins the global conversation.

A growing collective intelligence is what we want the Southeastern Innovation Community to become.

Metcalfe's Law of Minds

Our species is unique in its ability to use communications to spread learning across populations, allowing us to get smarter and more capable far more quickly than evolution alone would allow. What makes me continually hopeful is that those tools of communications continue to get so much better, so much faster. Anyone who can explore Wikipedia and not be both humbled and filled with confidence in the collective potential in the people all around us is a cynic indeed. And we've only just scratched the surface of such networked intelligence.

Metcalfe's Law says that value of a networks grows with the square of the number of nodes. Today's Web, which is as much about contributing as it is consuming — two-way links, as opposed to the old one-way networks of broadcast and traditional media — allows the same to apply to people. Connecting minds allows our collective intelligence to grow with each person who joins the global conversation. This information propagation process, which was once found in just a few cultures of shared knowledge, such as academic science, is now seen online in everything from hobbies to history. The result, I think, will be the fastest increasing in human knowledge in history.

This morning I was explaining to a nine-year-old about Moore's Law and the magical power of the continuous learning curve. "Will it ever end?" he asked. "I don't see why it should," I answered. That's optimism for you.

InnoVenture 2007 registration open

Registration for InnoVenture 2007 is now open. You'll notice that as a part of the registration process, we're collecting information about the expertise and resources that you are seeking as well as the expertise and resources you have from which others might benefit. This is the next step towards proactively building the Southeastern Innovation Community.

InnoVenture deadline - 1/9 for entrepreneurs and inventors

Applications InnoVenture 2007 from entrepreneurs seeking capital and inventors seeking business partners are due January 9, 2006. Please let us know ASAP if you have any interest in participating.

Here's why YouTube is worth $1.6 billion dollars

One of the most amazing events of 2006 was Google's acquisition of YouTube for $1.6 billion 19 months after launch. Here's the two founders making the announcement themselves.

The last comment is, "The kids have gotten together and we're going to have it our way." Need more be said.

We're only scratching the surface of human potential: 50 marathons in 50 days

This is an article about Dean Karnazes,who ran 50 marathons in 50 days. He does 200 miles just for fun. He'll race in 120-degree heat.

I particularly appreciated his 12 secrets to his success.

I walked five miles yesterday and was beaming with pride at myself. Oh well.

Swamp Fox for the holidays

OK. It's shameless self-promotion, but I hope you enjoy it.

Pepperhill Elementary: A successful experiment in public education

A recent story in the Post and Courier highlights Pepperhill Elementary.

For two periods each day, the North Charleston school ignores students' grades and ages in determining what they should learn and instead organizes classes based on their strengths and weaknesses.

Etheline Mizell, a mother of 10-year-old twin sons at Pepperhill, pointed out what should be obvious, "Everyone is not good at everything."

I don't know anything about Pepperhill other than what is in this article, but it sure sounds encouraging. Do you know anything else about what seems to be a very successful experiment in public education?

2007 Opportunity #1: How to Have an Overnight Internet Success Story

YouTube was founded and sold to Goggle for $1.6 billion all within 19 months. Yes you can do it too. How to Have an Overnight Internet Success Story

2007 Opportunity #2: Visualizing the rise of the Long Tail

Visual evidence of the enormous, longtail opportunities we can tap into.

Those who favor freedom are merely bigots

Jane Clark Lindle, Eugene T. Moore professor of educational leadership at Clemson University, writes in The State that freedom doesn't work, and even if it did it doesn't work in public education.

Few studies of free-market schools show any greater improvement in student achievement than public schools have produced.

Of course its not true. Had she really cared to look, the Manhattan Institute, the Milton and Rose D. Friedman Foundation and the Mackinac Center for Public Policy are but three sources of academically rigorous research that freedom produces superior results even in education.

Joseph Schumpeter accurately described what Dr. Lindle is afraid of:

The opening up of new markets and the organizational development from the craft shop and factory to such concerns as US Steel illustrate the process of industrial mutation that incessantly revolutionizes the economic structure from within, incessantly destroying the old one, incessantly creating a new one ... [The process] must be seen in its role in the perennial gale of creative destruction.

Dr. Lindle rightly perceives that allowing teachers to be innovative and parents to choose what's in the best interest of their children will destroy the status quo of education today on which she and her College of Education depend. Dr. Lindle does not want to engage in a competition of ideas, and ultimately results, because she instinctively knows that Schumpeter's Gale will blow her away.

What really is disappointing, and quite frankly embarrassing, is for a professor to be reduced to arguing that those who favor freedom are merely bigots.

Proponents of free-market schools...care only that their children benefit from schooling, and they don’t care about other people’s children. Other people are people they don’t know, who live in apartments or public housing, not in their neighborhood. The other people are single parents or immigrants working two or three jobs daily to put food on the table. The other people have different skin color, different abilities or disabilities, different languages, different religions and different politics.

By the way, check out Gaston College Prep and Pride High, which destroys Dr. Lindle's arguments about both freedom and bigots: Most students are black. They are poor. And they are scholars. The founders, Tammi Sutton and Caleb Dolan, weren't trained in a traditional college of education and don't spend much time worrying about the way schools are supposed to operate. That's what Dr. Lindle is really worried about.

May the gale blow.

Have you ever seen the sun with a hole in it? Spectacular!

Here's the deal. Sunspot 930 is exploding on the sun.
(Click image to make it bigger)

A lesson for every entrepreneur and innovator

Yahoo is getting their clocked cleaned by Google.

The lesson for every entrepreneur and innovator is to figure out what business you are in and what drives your economic engine, then focus, focus, focus.

Geoffrey Moore in Crossing the Chasm nailed it when he observed that lack of focus is not a problem of the head, but of the emotions.

First, let us understand that [lack of focus] is a failure of will, not of understanding. That is, it is not that these leaders need to learn about niche marketing. MBA marketing curricula of the past 25 years have been adamant about the need to segment markets and the advantages gained thereby. No one, therefore, can or does plead ignorance. Instead, the claim is made that, although niche strategy is generally best, we do not have time—or we cannot afford—to implement it now. This is a ruse, of course, the true answer being much simpler: We do not have, nor are we willing to adopt, any discipline that would ever require us to stop pursuing any sale at any time for any reason. We are, in other words, not a market-driven company; we are a sales-driven company.

Three great sound bites from Moore School Annual Economic Outlook Conference

The Moore School of Business held their 26th Annual Economic Outlook Conference in Columbia November 28th. Don Herriott, Head of Roche Global Chemical Manufacturing, had three great sound bites.

Universities are great at turning money into knowledge, and then companies are great at turning knowledge into money.

What we really need to be talking about is not brain drain, but brain gain.

What would I advise us to stop doing? Stop apologizing.

The better educated a SC student's parents, the further behind their peers they are

Laurens School District Opposes Thornwell Charter School For Children in Crisis

What we need in this state is a more innovative and entrepreneurial public education system that delivers creative educational alternatives for students not well served by the status quo. If there ever was a group of students that met that definition it is "children from broken or torn families" that the Thornwell Charter School is designed to serve.

If you've never toured the Thornwell Children Home in Clinton, you should. It's doing desperately needed work with children in crisis. You would think that because presumably the the Laurens School District cares about providing quality education to all children, they would be bending over backwards to help the Thornwell Charter School be successful.

But no. What's at the core of their objection?

A charter school would cause disruptions for 250 to 300 students spread throughout the district's schools. "If they came out in classes, we could close the class and not pay a teacher. But they wouldn't and that would mean we'd receive less money and still have to pay the same number of teachers."

You know, the way the real world works is that if you've not providing value that attracts customers, you have to downsize. And it is never easy nor painless. That keeps managers at the top of their game to do anything they can to make sure it doesn't happen if it doesn't need to.

Let's move beyond the charade that the objection of the public education establishment to educational alternatives is about meeting the needs of underserved children, and acknowledge that at the end of the day, as is true in everything else, to understand their objections you have to follow the money. The mantra "We don't want public money going to private schools" is a ruse. Charter schools are public schools, and the public education establishment doesn't like them either. They don't really care about children getting the best quality education, nearly as much as they care about the the public education establishment getting the money so they can control education.

It's why we're in the mess where in. To get out, we must clearly and passionately identify that we have "a culture of education which is 'limiting – even ruining – the lives of millions of Americans every year,'" and we will no longer tolerate that in South Carolina.

Ralph Bristol is precisely right about market driven health insurance

If you don't know Ralph Bristol, he's a radio talk show host in Greenville, who I happen to know personally. Unlike a lot of talk show hosts who rant and rave, Ralph approaches issues in a thoughtful way that's very refreshing. Ralph's conservative, and you may not agree with him, but he each day he promotes a dialogue not an argument.

A recent discussion about market driven solutions for health insurance is a great example. I completely agree with Ralph that consumer directed health plans that are 100% portable and independent of employers is the ultimate solution to the health care crisis we face. The solution absolutely is not government provided, universal health care.

The first will promote innovation in health care that will drive cost down and quality up. The second will result in long waits and crummy care.

I also agree with Ralph that getting 100% portability may take an act of Congress. It shouldn’t, but it might. That's a great example of why I'm not a libertarian.