Good to Great , Web 2.0, & the Future of Organizations Patrick F. Bassett, NAIS President

1. Good to Great , Web 2.0, & the Future of Organizations Patrick F. Bassett, NAIS President

2. Technology and “The Wisdom of the Crowd” What does the Web 2.0 future look like, and how might it impact NAIS and member schools?

3. Chapter 1: Wikinomics • Themes: • The era of command and control is going, going, gone... The Internet vs. any prior communication medium: nobody owns it; everyone uses it; anybody can add service to it. (Vint Cerf, Internet pioneer) • The 21st century world is about being open, peering, sharing, and acting globally (the four wikinomics principles) • The flat world, demanding customers, emerging technologies = a new m.o. based on collaboration + external ideas and human capital; welcome to wikinomics! • Implications for Schools: • The customer is changing (demographics; value proposition; values): Are we being responsive? • The practice of education is changing (classroom-school operation) : future focused or strapped to the steam engine? • The educational mission is changing: Can we afford to be parochial in our outlook? • Implications for NAIS: • The way we manage the why (we do what we do) and the how (we do what we do) is changing: can we do it?

4. Chapter 2: The Perfect Storm • Themes: • New Web + Net Gen = Perfect Storm where “converging waves of change and innovation are toppling conventional economic wisdom.” • New Web is foundation for dynamic community offering creative expression, connectivity, meaning to individuals. • Implications for Schools: • Schools must harness open source technology in classroom AND in relationship building with their constituents. • World is moving from competitive to collaborative; schools must redesign systems that will reward collaboration ( and open, playful, mobile workplace). • Students already there (MyFace, YouTube, Napster) vs. “fear” reaction and repression policies of schools: Prof Boyd (Berkeley): More articles on online predators than actual reported incidents online. No more passive consumers. • Implications for NAIS: • Future NAIS website will be global commons where members (and competitors) can co-create experiences, communities, services. • NAIS must be nimble, networked, and connected to external resources (partnerships!) if it wishes to ride the Perfect Storm. • Mass collaboration online will change NAIS business model and systems as we use the wisdom of the crowds to set policies and priorities.

5. Chapter 3: The Peer Pioneers • Themes: • The Open Source Future: Collaborations that exploit the connectedness of dispersed but engaged communities: peer production of Linux & Wikipedia (“wiki” being Hawaiian for “quick”). • Driven by desire to build and share information, not by desire for profit-making, though profit-making opportunity exists. • Spurs faster cycles of continuous improvement and value creation. • Implications for Schools: • Teaching and/or hiring for skills in teaming, collaborating, sharing that drive open-source development. • Teaching responsible “wiki”-making. • Creating/utilizing educational and/or administrative software based on open-source platforms. • Implications for NAIS: • Explore potential to engage in open-source development of key software applications while protecting core IP and “brand.”: daily monitoring our wikis? • Potential for reduced costs by harnessing external peer contributions (among techies, students in schools?) instead of costly vendors: SSS, SOL, book writing implications.

6. Chapter 4 - Ideagoras • Themes • The use of Ideagoras (Internet “idea bazaars”) to connect buyers and sellers of innovation, problems presenters with problem solvers, questions in need of solutions and solutions in need of questions and to acquire outside ideas instead of developing them in-house. The use of open markets to get external ideas to fill performance gaps or fill product development. • Implication for Schools • The challenge of convincing schools to “break down deep-rooted biases that inhibit them from seizing opportunities to open up innovation.” • Implications for NAIS • The opportunities/challenges of NAIS serving as the ideagora for member schools to excite free flow of ideas and leverage other people’s talents, ideas, assets, and enthusiasm. Like the senior leadership at DuPont, NAIS can’t and shouldn’t do everything itself: Tap into InnoCentive, an “eBay for innovation” or create our version of it? • Opportunity exists for NAIS to use ideagoras to expand work in core areas and divert others to non-core activities, conserving resources for cutting-edge challenges and opportunities. • Use Ideas@Work as a ideagora for potential new products/services NAIS offers and for new initiatives, such as the Schools of the Future project.

7. Chapter 5: The Prosumers • Themes: • Prosumers: customers who co-innovate and design; develop modifications to products that appeal to mainstream markets. Second Life and Lego Mindstorm entrepreneurs. • Media industry under siege since it won’t let go of the old model and roll with the remix and download culture: all industries need to fine the right mix of free goods, consumer control, versioning, and ancillary products & services. • Implications for Schools: • Allow customers (parents and students) to be involved early in design of curricula or any innovations (changes) in educational systems. Then listen to customers! • Implications for NAIS: • Allow customers (members and nonmembers) to be involved early in products’ and services’ design. Then listen to customers!

8. Chapter 6: The New Alexandrians Themes: The power of openness and collaboration: Genome Project Precompetitive Knowledge Commons: one “library”- not in one location The balance between the Public Foundation (shared knowledge) and private enterprise Implications for Schools: Learning how to differentiate what they offer from others Knowing the future is now Implications for NAIS: Partnerships are critical Deciding if building the library part of our brief. Knowing where the balancing point of proprietary information.

9. Chapter 7: Platforms for ParticipationAll the World’s a Stage & You’re the Star • Themes: • Open platforms enable communities to share in the creation and use of value (Google & Amazon) • Leverage and power to innovate is unprecedented: grass roots environmental monitoring via GPS. • Business viability requires balance of closed and open elements • Implications for Schools: • Antithetical to foundations of school mindset. Teacher and school as enabler of learning platform vs. controller. • Content and pedagogy can come from anywhere – students, podcasts, other schools. Global community of students can share and evaluate their school work. • Competition from open communities of educational alternatives, commoditization of curriculum • Enabler for efficient sharing of resources and ideas with peers and internal school communities • Implications for NAIS: • Barriers of entry to community-building business are low and getting lower • Associations were open platforms before it was cool. Just need to leverage new technology (API’s, etc) to accelerate value creation • Can we relinquish control of value creation process? • Can we close what needs to be closed to maintain business viability?

10. Chapter 8: The Global Plant Floor • Themes: • Innovation now about coordinating good ideas across the international factory floor to come to a better / new / more innovative end • Focusing on the hedgehogs of your parts/modules and figuring out how to plug into others to create something new: orchestrating, not building. • Capitalizing on efficiencies of others without losing self: Boeing 787: supplier now true partners and peers. World-wide design team. Dispersed manufacturing: Boeing = less manufacturer, more systems coordinator. BMW harnessing customers as key change agents. • Implications for Schools: • Education of the future may not come from one school for each student. • Students will be key source of innovation in the future. • Implications for NAIS: • Move ISAnet to a new mindset of leveraging each others strengths – via a transparent and egalitarian ecosystem. • Need to also do this within the office – e.g., when we cross team most successfully. • Need to identify those outside our field who can bring value.

11. Themes: • The use of networking technologies to change organizational structures, to decentralize decision making, and to capture knowledge across departmental and organizational boundaries: e.g., Best Buy’s Geek Squad. Not “set the agenda” but “discover the agenda and serve it.” • Workplace less hierarchical to more self-organized, distributed, collaborative human capital networks that draw knowledge from inside and outside the organization. • Old Gen values loyalty, seniority, security, authority; Net Gen values creativity, social connectivity, fun, freedom, speed, diversity. • Implications for Schools: • School workplace resides on Old Gen values: How to transform the environment to attract Net Gen? • Implications for NAIS: • Resist the temptation to centralize and to “set the agenda.” • Harness the collective knowledge of staff and constituents. • Explore decentralizing where/when/how we meet. Gather to bowl. Chapter 9: The Wiki Workplace

12. Themes: • Profound changes favor the innovator or the organizations that learn to think differently: value migrates towards innovation (e.g., from horses to iron horses; from telegraph to telephone; from static Web1.0 to dynamic Web2.0). • Take cues from your lead users. • Harnessing external sources of innovation & creativity by providing the infrastructure for collaboration. • Implications for Schools: • How do schools practice and capitalize upon their students own instincts towards the four principles of the wiki-future (openness, peering, sharing, and acting globally). • Implications for NAIS: • How do we harness outside innovators? • How do we convert ourselves then train leaders in the four principles? Chapter 10: Collaborative Minds

13. The End