The discussion was flowing until—yup. You guessed it.
But because this is the internet, a few trolls showed up, too, asking bizarre and rude sexist questions, some involving parts of the human body. A PR person from MIT forwarded the links to us [Business Insider], asking us to expose these trolls.
To everyone’s amazement, instead of leaving it to the crowd to vote the yucky comments down, Reddit stepped in.
But Reddit aims for these AMAs to be respectful. Reddit’s policy is that it will remove comments that are “abusive or harassing” as well as “comments where there would be no possibility of a real answer, especially where it is deliberately creepy or offensive.”
Reddit exemplifies the anything goes/no censorship/trust the crowd to police itself internet.
One has to wonder if this is a sign that people have had enough, that anonymous hate and bullying are finally falling out of favor — at least a little bit.
The Gates Foundation has pumped $4.6 million into a startup called MicroCHIPS, which has developed an implant that is capable of delivering steady, regular doses of hormones to control fertility for up to 16 years. When a woman is ready to start a family, her doctor simply disables the implant remotely, and then restarts it when she wants to prevent additional pregnancies.
This could be a Harvard case study of what happens when an idea is funded without thinking through the possible hitches, glitches and repercussions.
In short, contraception is both a religiously and politically charged concept and everything is hackable. (Read the article for the details.)
The thing for entrepreneurs to remember is that what sounds great late at night after a few beers, among a group of like-minded folks whose excitement and enthusiasm feeds off each other or like a flash of genius or an epiphany may not stand up to cold logic and due diligence—not to mention possible ethical implications.
A Friday series exploring Startups and the people who make them go. Read allIf the Shoe Fits posts here
Have you defined your market?
Do you know what it takes to reach your market?
Who do you talk to when your market doesn’t respond?
That’s the problem that edX, a consortium started by MIT and Harvard University to develop free online courses, faced and here is what they found.
Though edX aimed to reach the world, its initial courses were designed for the people professors at MIT and Ivy-caliber partners know best—the ultraqualified students they’re accustomed to teaching in their hallowed halls.
edX needed to learn why they weren’t reaching their target market, since it there was no question of the need.
And learn they did, but not from the brainpower already involved in the project.
They learned from a 15 year-old user from Mongolia who aced the course in spite of the way the experts designed it (it’s been changed).
The edX team and contributors show the error in looking to ‘stars’ and assuming what they say/do is the best approach.
While Battushig Myanganbayar is a genius, one of the best skills I offer clients is my ignorance of their project, but they will literally fight to forcibly educate me about it.
But it is ignorance that allows me to ask the question-sans-assumptions that light up inconsistencies, missing pieces, and other customer turnoffs.
The Lean approach pushes founders to talk to their market early and often, but that doesn’t necessarily mean the main market.
Often you can learn more talking to outliers, both inside and outside the company, than you can from the majority and the experts.
Education, at least higher education, is finally changing and moving forward. And like a jar of olives after you pull out the first one the rest come out faster and faster.
The exorbitant cost of a college education and the spiraling debt of new grads have led many to question the value of a college degree; what no one questions is the need for continual, ongoing education just to stay relevant.
The need to constantly adapt is the new reality for many workers, well beyond the information technology business. Car mechanics, librarians, doctors, Hollywood special effects designers — virtually everyone whose job is touched by computing — are being forced to find new, more efficient ways to learn as retooling becomes increasingly important not just to change careers, but simply to stay competitive on their chosen path.
“Higher education will change; the system is unstable,” says Kevin Werbach, a Wharton legal studies and business ethics professor, who is teaching a MOOC on Coursera this summer. “It’s an industry that will be in severe turmoil in the next decade. There are so many schools in distress, and the student loan burden is [huge]. In that environment, online platforms like Coursera are an interesting opportunity.” (…) In April, Coursera announced it had secured $16 million in funding from two Silicon Valley venture capital firms. Udacity is also venture backed. MIT and Harvard contributed a combined $60 million to launch edX, which is overseen by a nonprofit, but program directors have said they plan to make the initiative self-supporting.
The new efforts dwarf the few classes that started being offered online about ten years ago. There are no actual course credits, but with major universities, such as Harvard and MIT jumping in things are getting interesting.
In what is shaping up as an academic Battle of the Titans — one that offers vast new learning opportunities for students around the world — Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on Wednesday announced a new nonprofit partnership, known as edX, to offer free online courses from both universities.
In a new report, Moody’s Investor Service calls MOOCs a “pivotal development” that has the potential to revolutionize higher education. Questions remain whether these online courses can be profitable and whether traditional colleges will award credit for them. But if successful, MOOCs could lead to lower costs for families and access to higher-quality instruction for anyone in the world who has Internet access.
As to the grads, according to the media most of them want to be entrepreneurs or are still looking for riches on Wall Street, but not all. What other career path is attracting interest these days—would you believe farming?
For decades, the number of farmers has been shrinking as a share of the population, and agriculture has often been seen as a backbreaking profession with little prestige. But the last Agricultural Census in 2007 showed a 4 percent increase in the number of farms, the first increase since 1920, and some college graduates are joining in the return to the land. (…) “You don’t get into farming for the money. You do it for the love of the game.” –Calvin Kyrkostas, 25
Last year, when I had more time, I occasionally wrote for Technorati; this article was published there first.
Company vs. Societal Culture
There are many companies and other organizations that pride themselves on their diversity and the effective programs that opened opportunities for women, but are they effective in changing the way people actually think?
Not so much.
MIT is an excellent case study, especially since it was an MIT study 12 years ago that triggered many changes; not just in academia, but in the corporate world, too.
However, changing organizational culture is easy in comparison to changing societal attitudes.
Let me use a bit of personal history to illustrate.
In 1977 I joined MRI as a recruiter. Fortunately for me the manager with whom I interviewed left and it was his second in command who actually made the decision to hire me (his predecessor thought I was too pushy).
I was given a choice of two areas, insurance and telecom, and I chose telecom.
Telecom meant engineering and included military, e.g., microwave, RF, radar, etc. I worked telecom for 12 years, migrating from the military/industrial stuff to commercial voice and data. Another woman worked a biomedical desk.
Although we were both in the top producers circle all 12 years I can still remember other managers at the beginning asking my boss how he managed us and what he did if we cried. And the (usually) unstated assumption by male recruiters that we closed our deals by sleeping with the clients. (I found this hysterically funny considering the number of clients, most of mine on the East Coast, and the time required for the “visits.”)
Today the accusation is more general, that women are promoted because they are women, not because they are good at what they do.
“No one is getting tenure for diversity reasons, because the women themselves feel so strongly that the standards have to be maintained.” –Marc A. Kastner, Dean of the School of Science, MIT
When I am working with clients to change/shift their company’s culture I remind them that the most they can hope for is solid functional change. It is unlikely, if not impossible, that their efforts will actually change the way people think.
And I always remind them how far away we still are from Bella Abzug’s definition of success, although I must admit we are much closer to that reality in politics.
“Our struggle today is not to have a female Einstein get appointed as an assistant professor. It is for a woman schlemiel to get as quickly promoted as a male schlemiel.”
An interesting interview with Ed Schein, a senior professor at MIT and a “pioneer” on the subject of corporate culture, who now believes corporate culture is irrelevant.
The real answer to that is that Corporate Culture is no longer the relevant topic. I think the relevant topic is macro culture, nations, corporations, corporate culture (where all these nationalities and occupations play out), and micro cultures where you have problems in the operating room and in teamwork because you have multi-nationals, people from different occupations that cultures, all interplaying.
OK, I don’t have a PhD and I’m not a brilliant, recognized expert with an international reputation, but my initial reaction to reading the transcript of the interview was ’duh’.
Of course corporate culture is impacted by having multiple nationalities working together, but it was impacted when the workforce were all native-born, but from different regions or even neighborhoods.
As to the micro cultures created by each boss (leader in the accepted jargon), again my reaction is ‘duh.’
Every person is shaped by their MAP (mindset, attitude, philosophy™), AKA, values. Every manager (from team leader to department vp) creates a culture in their organization that is based on those values and it can be similar, synergistic or diametrically opposed to the cultures above.
All that said, I think it’s great when recognized experts put shape and definition to the things that most workers know by instinct and they do it with a level of credibility far beyond the reach of someone like me.
Here is the interview or you can read the transcript at the link above.
‘Leader’ is one of the most maligned, abused and misused words in any language, but now and then it’s aptly applied.On July 9, 2007, the world lost a real leader, someone who truly deserved that appellation, Alexander Vladimir d’Arbeloff.
Co-founder of high-tech company Teradyne, philanthropist and MIT patriarch, he was a unique individual.
Unsuited to the corporate culture of the Fifties, he was fired three times in his first ten years.
Here’s what others thought of him.
A personal interaction with Alex was an event not soon forgotten.
Alex d’Arbeloff was a force of nature. We all experienced his laser-like intellect, his wry wit, his insatiable curiosity, his amazing ability to engage, cajole, persuade, educate and enlighten those with whom he came in contact.
…we will remember Alex d’Arbeloff and his remarkable leadership, deep devotion and magnificent generosity…
Entrepreneurs face difficulties that are hard for most people to imagine, let alone understand. You can find anonymous help and connections that do understand at 7 cups of tea.
Crises never end.
$10 really does make a difference and you’ll never miss it,
Have you defined your market?
Education, at least higher education, is finally changing and moving forward. And like a jar of olives after you pull out the first one the rest come out faster and faster.
There are many companies and other organizations that pride themselves on their diversity and the effective programs that opened opportunities for women, but are they effective in changing the way people actually think?
An interesting 
