Innovation

Justin Rhodes, associate professor of psychology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, tells us that excercise can be the answer.  The essay appeared in the Scientific American. Rhodes says that there is a growing body of evidence that suggests that we think and learn better after we exercise.  Part of the reason that cognition […]

In “Forget The Mission Statement:  What’s Your Mission Question?”,  Warren Berger challenges us to consider responding to a set of mission questions instead of writing a mission statement that is so general it can apply to almost anything.  He argues that mission questions provide a reality check on whether you are staying true to what […]

It is a fundamental principle that leadership in today’s higher education environment must be collective, concurrent, and collaborative.  To make that happen, campuses need to create, nurture, and sustain communities in which leaders at all levels can be successful. On day three of the 2013 MOR IT Leaders conference, the morning session focused on building […]

In Warren Berger’s Harvard Business Review blogs essay, he writes that his work has led him to conclude that the three words “how might we …” unlock our creative juices.  He notes that too often our language with phrases like “How can we do this?” and “How should we do that?” imply judgment:  Can we really do […]

  Todays Reading,  “Leadership Reflections from a ‘Motorbike,’” Part 2 continues IT•LP reflection written by Michelle Reynolds, alumnus of IT•LP 2012 and Assistant Director for Central IT Support at Cornell.   Last week Michelle led us to reflect on her first five rules:    •  Stay alert    •  Be conscientious of the neighborhood    •  Visibility is important    •  Everyone can see things […]

  There’s a rule you really have to make New Year’s Resolutions.  Today’s Tuesday Reading, “10 Resolutions to Make 2013 Your Best Year Ever” http://www.fastcompany.com/3004179/10-resolutions-make-2013-your-best-ye…, will help you get started.  It’s from the pen of Shawn Parr, CIO of Bulldog Drummond, a San Diego based consultancy focused on innovation and design. Parr notes that we […]

Today’s reading is “The Simplicity Thesis” by Aaron Levie, CEO and cofounder of Box. Levie begins his piece with the provocative statement “A fascinating trend is consuming Silicon Valley and beginning to eat away at the rest of the world:  the radical simplification of everything.”  He continues by noting Jeff Bezos’ “rallying cry against gatekeepers […]

This week’s Tuesday Reading “12 Things Good Bosses Believe”comes from Bob Sutton’s pen and appeared in the Harvard Business Review blogs.  Sutton is Professor of Management Science and Engineering at Stanford University.  He studies and writes about management, innovation, and the nitty-gritty of organizational life.  He is author of Good Boss, Bad Boss. Part of Sutton’s research has […]

Today’s Reading, Christensen on disruptive innovation in higher education, comes to us from the Changing Higher Education blog.  (Clayton Christensen coined the term “disruptive innovation” in 2003, having used “disruptive technology” earlier for the same concept.) This blog post draws from a well-written white paper – Disrupting College – that describes the challenges facing higher education today, […]

Roger Schwarz writes an occasional newsletter titled “Mindset. Behavior.  Results.”  In a recent edition he noted that collective wisdom is often found in unexpected places, for example, bumper stickers.  Here is his article:   BUMPER STICKERS FOR LEADERS   I like bumper stickers. They’re brief, to the point, and often clever. Here are a few of […]

Today’s reading “You are what you learn”comes from Scott Adam’s blog at dilbert.com and was drawn to my attention by my oldest son. The key point in Adam’s short essay is simply: A person changes in a fundamental way as he or she engages with a particular field of knowledge, i.e., when he or she […]

Today’s Tuesday Reading “Transforming Your Organization with the Three-Box Approach”reports on a conversation with Vijay Govindarajan and Brian Goldner.  Govindarajan is a professor of internation business and founding director of the Center for Global Leadership at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmath.  Goldner is president and CEO of Hasbro, Inc. Like last week’s reading, […]

This week’s reading is a piece “What Steve Jobs Taught Me About Growth” by Nilofer Merchant.  Merchant is a writer for the Harvard Business Review.  This piece is part of the HBR Insight Center Growing the Top Line. The text of this post focuses on corporate growth, and Apple’s in particular, and, more importantly for higher […]

Today’s reading is “Managing Yourself:  Stop Holding Yourself Back”from the Harvard Business Review.  The authors are Ann Morriss, managing director of the Concire Leadership Institute and Robin Ely and Frances Frei, both professors at the Harvard Business School. Morriss, Ely, and Frei have been studying for over a decade what gets in the way of […]

Ray Ozzie, chief software architect at Microsoft and previously a key figure at Software Arts and at Lotus, and founder of Groove, is leaving Microsoft after a short transition period.  Shortly after he made his announcement, Ozzie wrote “Dawn of a New Day,” as an email to Microsoft’s Executive Staff and his direct reports.  He also posted […]

This Tuesday’s Reading “Lessons in IT Leadership:  Doing Less with Less and Failing for Success” is from Mark Katsouros, Director of Telecommunications and Network Services at the University of Iowa.* In Katsouros’ view, the combination of expanding IT demands and customer expectations in concert with dwindling resources have meant that doing more with less has been […]

Today’s reading is a Matt Richtel piece “Growing Up Digital, Wired fro Distraction” which first appeared in the New York Times on November 21, 2010.   This piece caught my attention for three reasons: 1.  The picture it conveys of teenagers’ use of technology today.  While my kids, three decades ago when they were  teenagers, were distracted and, in […]

Yesterday, EDUCAUSE released its 2010 study of undergraduate students and information technology.  The study’s ROADMAP, prepared by Judith Borreson Caruso and Shannon Smith, the study’s authors, can be found on the EDUCAUSE site at <http://www.educause.edu/Resources/TheECARStudyofUndergraduateStu/187215> (click on ROADMAP at the bottom of the page) or downloaded directly from <http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ECM/ECM0906.pdf>.   I believe that this document is must […]

I came across today’s reading, “Leaders Develop Daily, Not in a Day“, last week in John Maxwell’s GIANT Impact newsletter.  Maxwell is an internationally know writer — over 19 million books sold — and speaker on leadership. His’s thesis in this piece is very straightforward:  “Unless we set aside time to grow into the person […]

In today’s reading “Back from a vacation?”, David Rock, founder of the NeuroLeadership Institute and CDO of Results Coaching Systems, reports on research indicating that we are more likely to solve really difficult problems when we have a fresh or quiet mind.  Specifically the research points out that when faced with a new problem we […]