May 2014

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 31 may 2014

Researchers from MIT, Lisa Freed and Martin Kolewe, used fabrication techniques from microelectronics industry to make thin sheets of biorubber with microscale rectangular holes of uniform dimensions and then stacked these with precise positions of pores one over the other. The stacking process was done with the help of a programmable machine adapted from electronics industry used to stack thin material layers to build circuit boards and integrated circuit (IC) packages. Researchers demonstrated pore patterns that could produce 'interwoven musle-like bundles' out of mouse muscle cells and rat neonatal heart cells. According to Professor Gordana Vunjak-Novakovic of Columbia University, this new scaffolding allowed the researchers to form tissue that mimics an important structural quality of heart tissue called 'anisotropy'. Freed and Kolewe say that their research provides unprecedented level of control over arrangement of pore networks and can lead to 'a whole new design space' to further experiment the 3-dimensional factors that influence cell alignment and tissue formation and could serve as a platform for the development of implantable organ tissue. Read on...

MIT Technology Review: Design - Matching Innovation Types to Organizational Capabilities
Author: Mike Orcutt

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 31 may 2014

Nobel laureate, Professor Muhammad Yunus, build the idea of microcredit and developed the concept of social business to solve social problems and created a substantial number of social entrepreneurs. According to him, 'application of social business concept in overcoming unemployment can produce a sustainable solution.' He is now embarking upon next level of social business concept, where loan or microcredit borrowing is displaced by equity investment in prospective social businesses, to tackle the problem of large number of youth unemployment. Social business funds are created for this purpose and the New Entrepreneur initiative was launched alongwith the Design Lab platform to bring entrepreneurs and investor funds together. (Social Business Funds -> Equity Investments -> Entrepreneurs -> Employment). This concept will be further expanded into self sustainable, unemployment and social problem free, autonomous Social Business Villages. Read on...

Huffington Post: "We Are Not Job-Seekers, We Are Job-Creators"-- Turning Unemployment into Entrepreneurship
Author: Muhammad Yunus

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 29 may 2014

The design of student learning programs, especially for young children, should be based on their age and mental development. In the article, Priyakorn Pusawiro of King Mongkut's University of Technology Thonburi, explores the importance of Brain-Based Learning (BBL) in creating a better learning environment. BBL is one of the approach that brings concepts and research from neuroscience, biology and psychology, and defines relationship between learning and brain, to keep students motivated and inspired to learn. The pace and complexity of lessons that are taught should be balanced according to the student's capacity and maturity to assist them develop confidence and improve their learning ability. While designing the learning environment, both inside classroom and outdoor, educators should focus on enhancing learning experience and exposure to new things. Moreover interaction between fellow classmates should be encouraged to imbibe social skills. Emphasis should be given to hands-on learning and the discovery process. Media and learning materials should include concepts and examples from daily lives that children can relate to. Technology assisted learning should be encouraged and incorporated in the curriculum. Read on...

The Nation: Design media technology and learning space in brain-based learning
Author: Priyakorn Pusawiro

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 29 may 2014

In today's digital environment, online presence is a required component of the overall strategy of businesses, governments, nonprofits and individuals, to reach their audience and consumers. Websites are an important tool that showcase the various aspects of the organizations and assist them to connect and interact with their customers. For small businesses, with their limited budgets, it becomes very critical to optimize their online strategy and use a good combination of design and technology in the most efficient way. There are three prevalent methods to build websites - (1) Created and coded by software developers (future alterations are expensive and require more labour hours) (2) Developed through the website building software (less labor intensive due to built-in streamlining tools) (3) 'Off the shelf' or 'Open Source' solution (least expensive if the correct choice of platform was made initially). The technologies and processes that are utilized to develop websites has a long-term impact and results in variable future expense depending on how the website was initially developed. The three important layers of website are - (1) Design layer (2) Content layer (3) Technology layer. Although design defines the visual and front-end aspects of the website and is quite important but back-end technology is a more critical element. So it is necessary to choose and implement website technology that is 'extensible' and evolves with business's requirements. This will help save costs when the website needs alterations and changes in future. Read on...

SmartCompany: Why your website technology is more critical than its design
Author: Craig Reardon

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 28 may 2014

Companies are utilizing content marketing strategies to attract customers and it is now possible, with numerous analytics tools, to measure and assess the ROI (Return on Investment) on content. But there is a challenge that arises due to lack of cooperation between the marketing and sales and the resulting gap. This gap is further exacerbated when there is one way communication, from marketing to sales, through lead information. According to Hubspot's '2013 State of Inbound Marketing Report', based on a survey of 3300 marketers from 128 countries, only 24% of marketers had a formalized agreement for lead handoffs, implying low level of marketing-sales cooperation. On the other hand, average cost per lead for marketers with a formal sales agreement is US$ 24, versus US$ 49 for those without. Content marketing strategy should further focus on buyer personas throughout the sales cycle and emphasise solving customer's challenges with relevant content. Hubspot suggest SLAs (Service Level Agreements) to ensure cooperation between marketing and sales that finally results in better content results. Author suggests the following content marketing challenges, from most difficult to least - Creating truly memorable content that reinforces brand and expertise; Bridging the sales-marketing gap for accurate personas and better/cheaper lead generation; Establishing content marketing ROI; Building a robust opt-in distribution platform; Measuring/analyzing the success of content marketing campaigns. Read on...

diginomica: Content marketing ROI and that dangerous sales-marketing gap
Author: Jon Reed

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 27 may 2014

The purpose of nonprofits is to utilize the public donations and contributions in the most efficient manner for their stated causes and in the best interest of the communities they intend to serve. But sometimes this is far from true. According to the Charity Navigator website, 'Many of the charities with CEO's making more than US$ 250000 a year use less than 60 percent on average of their revenue for their stated goals, this means that these organizations are using at least 40 percent of donations for administrative and fundraising costs which includes very lucrative salary packages for Executives.' Some of the negative issues regarding nonprofits that hinder their proper functioning and achieve their social causes include - Greed and misrepresentation at the top; Bureaucratic functioning particularly for large nonprofits; Government regulations, restrictions and bureaucratic hurdles; Multiple regulating agencies. Recent report by Connecticut Institute for 21st Century states, 'The contracting process is difficult at best, it is inconsistent across agencies, time consuming and inherently unfair to nonprofit service providers. This has led to mistrust between the nonprofit community and the state and a nonprofit community resistant to systemic change.' Brookings Institute study justifies the mistrust that people have on charities & nonprofits - 'Just 11 percent of the public think that nonprofits are spending their money wisely and only 19 percent feel that they do a good job of running their programs effectively.' Smart and streamlined regulations that put a cap on executive compensation, limit administrative costs, improve efficiency and innovation, bring transparency and honesty and at the same time protect the whistle-blowers who report wrongdoings, will ensure proper functioning and best possible use of public money by NGOs. Moreover a rating system can be evolved that should be based on the parameters that indicate whether the organization is meeting its stated goals or not. Read on...

OpEd News: For Profit - Why the Non Profit System can't seem to get it right
Author: Cory V. Clark

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 26 may 2014

Programmatic marketing is a form of digital marketing platform that is driven by software and algorithms that utilizes big data to target consumers through diverse channels and devices. To optimize the programmatic marketing campaign and maximize marketing budget it is important to know the details regarding the campaign. But most platforms only provide certain aspects like impressions, click-throughs and conversions for a particular audience segment and lack critical insights into converter's pre-impression behavior. Amber Benson, VP of Simpli.fi, suggests 4 elements of the programmatic marketing platform that marketers must know to focus on value areas for maximum impact - (1) Know Who You Are Targeting (Avoid pre-packaged audience segments. Use unstructured data to build and optimize for specific target audience); (2) Know Precisely What It Costs (Unstructured data provides flexibility and control regarding bidding options. It provides bidding clarity. Programmatic vendor should be transparent regarding all kinds of costs); (3) Know That Your Results Are Real (Able to recognize click fraud. Unstructured data helps in this regard providing focus on individual data element level. It results in removal of fraudulent elements without dumping the whole segment); (4) Know Why It Works (Unstructured data provides specific in-depth insights on consumer behavior). Read on...

Marketing Land: 4 Things You Deserve To Know About Your Programmatic Marketing
Author: Amber Benson

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 25 may 2014

Eric Topol, in his book 'The Creative Destruction of Medicine', explores and explains the transformatory shifts taking place in healthcare with more democratization and power in the hands of patients as compared to caregivers and healthcare providers. Present state of our world with technological advancements and digital devices becoming part of our daily lives, has totally altered and transformed our communications and interactions. In other words, our world has been 'Schumpetered', based on the theory of 'creative destruction' by Joseph Schumpeter that describes transformation that is brought about by radical innovation. Similar transformations are beginning to happen in healthcare. The digitization process of human life is made possible due to the convergence of digital technologies and processes - remote and continuous health monitoring with wearable smart devices, three dimensional reconstruction of any part of the body, hand-held high resolution imaging devices to capture information anywhere, determination of a person's genome sequence, advance health information systems, availability of downloadable laboratory reports and medical records etc. The healthcare can now be individualized and personalized contrary to the traditional population-level model of practicing medicine. With genome and DNA sequencing, it is possible to dissect, decode and define individual granularity at the molecular level, from the beginning to the end of life. David Gelernter introduced the concept of WikiWatson computer that could bring the world's medical literature and clinical expertise at one platform for global health improvement. Medical community, government and life science industry have to converge and consolidate their efforts to embrace, adopt and facilitate healthcare innovation for the benefit of society. Read on...

US News & World Report: How Technology Is Transforming Health Care
Author: Eric Topol

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 23 may 2014

As business environment continues to change and evolve, the present set of skills and competencies of employees and business leaders may not be the desired ones in the future. They need to adapt to the realities of the times to survive and succeed and should continue to update and upgrade their skills. Claudio Fernández-Aráoz, of the executive search firm Egon Zehnder, in his latest book 'It's Not the How or the What but the Who' focuses on 'potential' as the key element and characteristic that defines the next wave of talent acquisition. He suggests that companies should focus more on qualities that grow and get enhanced with times while hiring prospective employees and less on their current skills. More on where they intend to be then on what they are. This becomes even more important and critical in case of hiring for top management positions. According to Fernández-Aráoz, companies should acquire talent on the basis of five indicators of an individual's potential - (1) Motivation (desire to have an impact) (2) Curiosity (illustrated by history of seeking out new experiences, skills, roles and challenges) (3) Insight (comes to those with industry expertise and exposure to diverse disciplines) (4) Engagement (ability to connect with others & motivate them for success) (5) Determination (resilient, overcome failures, adapt as markets change). He further mentions that it would be a mistake to assume that potential is only found in younger, less experienced people and cites the example of 77-years-old, Pope Francis, as a role model of potential due to his focus on dialogue, engagement and ability to challenge conventional wisdom. All these qualities demonstrate his willingness and openness to growth. Read on...

Businessweek: The Next Wave of Talent? The High-Potential Boss
Author: Diane Brady

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 21 may 2014

The recent report by PwC, based on a survey of 1300 CEOs in 68 countries, finds that 63% of UK business leaders consider availability of skills as the most serious concern for their organizations. Moreover megatrends like technological development, demographic change and urbanization have created substantial challenges for the future of business and workforce. UK-based businesses have to expand their talent sourcing reach to newer countries as labor costs are rising in high growth markets. Another challenge cited is the current state of regulation that hampers talent acquisition. According to Jon Andrews of PwC, 'Business leaders are looking for people with a far wider range of skills than ever before.' He further mentions, ' The most successful organisations will combine recruitment with internal mobility and the development of their own people to be more adaptable to its evolving strategy and business environment.' Read on...

CIPD: HR 'unprepared' for global transformation, say business leaders
Author: Grace Lewis

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 17 may 2014

The value of education is often gauged on the basis of the acceptability of students in the job marketplace. The skills and competences that students learned and imbibed during their stint at colleges and universities are generally directed towards getting gainful employment in the real world. The common perception is that students who took STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) have better job prospects. But according to Professor Edward J. Ray of Oregon State University, 'in today's world with changing demographics, 24/7 news cycles and a highly competitive global marketplace, the liberal arts are critical to success in every professional field'. He further mentions that, 'all careers require critical thinking, teamwork, sensitivity to cultural, demographic, economic and societal differences and politcal perspectives. And a liberal arts education normally provides these capabilities'. LEAP (Liberal Education and America's Promise) is an initiative that champions the importance of 21st century liberal education. The findings of the national survey conducted by Association of American Colleges and Universities also emboldens the value of liberal arts education. About 93% of those surveyed say that 'a demonstrated capacity to think critically, communicate clearly, and solve complex problems is more important than (a candidate's) undergraduate major.' Read on...

Huffington Post: The Value of a Liberal Arts Education in Today's Global Marketplace
Author: Edward J. Ray

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 15 may 2014

Massive Online Open Courses (MOOCs) holds a promise to expand educational reach to those with limited resources to pursue education in colleges and universities. Research has suggested some concerns for this education tool as the completion rates are low and those who access them already have substantial learning experience and prior education. Professor Jennifer M. Morton of City University of New York provides a perspective on how MOOCs can possibly influence and alter the dynamics of the current socio-economic class structure that traditional college education entails. According to her, college education is considered to be the first place where students with low-income families have to consistently engage with middle-class students and professors and navigate middle-class social norms. Moreover, in addition to cognitive skills like mathematical, scientific and historical knowledge, college education also imparts practical skills like social, emotional and behavioral competencies. But full adoption of MOOCs by large public universities can potentially harm the prospects of the students for whom college education is essential to elevate their status into middle-class. Online education may not provide them social and practical skills that are considered a necessity in highly competitive workplace environment. Tenacious, confident and socially competent employees have an edge over equally cognitively talented employees who lack practical skills. Professor Morton suggests that with extensive adoption of MOOCs by institutions that provide an environment to disadvantaged students to break the barrier of poverty and deprivation, the socio-economic segregation of the US educational system will further expand to the postsecondry level and widen the gap between haves and have-nots. When these students that lack social skills apply for employment with degrees they will more likely be considered lacking competencies by their prospective employers and unfit to effectively contribute to their organizations. Read on...

The Chronicle of Higher Education: Unequal Classrooms - What Online Education Cannot Teach
Author: Jennifer M. Morton

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 14 may 2014

Human resources department plays an important role in providing and managing organization's people assets. It supports and develops the human talent and aligns them with the goals of the organization. Although their work dynamics and relationships are centered around employees but their loyalty is focussed on the objectives, interests and success of the organization. Article provides an inside take on the working of the HR department and the secrets that employees should be aware of - (1) HR isn't there to be your advocate (2) HR isn't obligated to keep what you tell them confidential, even if you request their discretion (3) HR knows things that they aren't telling you (4) HR's job is to support the company's managers, not to dictate how they operate (5) Your HR department might be great, or it might be awful. Read on...

US News & World Report: 5 Secrets You Should Know About HR
Author: Alison Green

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 13 may 2014

Organizations try to develop leaders at all levels to survive the highly competitive and evolving business environment. Businesses in US spend more than US$ 170 billion annually on leadership-based curriculum, says Association of Talent Development (ATD). Inspite of all the needed efforts businesses find it difficult to effectively manage leadership related challenges. Moreover most leaders in organizations are not proactive to accept and make the changes that are needed to create and develop a thriving enterprise capable of enduring. These leaders stick to the old ways of doing business and seldom make the paradigm shifts required to survive and sustain their businesses in the rapidly changing business scenarios. Mike Myatt, author of 'Hacking Leadership', suggests businesses to transition from the old paradigm to the new paradigm to remain relevant in the times to come. Some of the selected transitions are - Have a Leader -> Create a Cuture of Leadership; Invest in Tools -> Invest in People; Play the Game -> Change the Game; Compete -> Collaborate; Discourage Independent Thinking -> Embrace Dissenting Opinions; Trivialize Youth -> Give Youth a Seat at the Table; Reward Potential -> Reward Contribution; Ideate -> Innovate; Message -> Engage; Have a Plan -> Have a Purpose; Manage Risk -> Manage Opportunity; Train -> Develop; Destination Mentality -> Continuum Mentality; Think Span of Control -> Think Span of Awareness & Influence; Goal Driven -> Discovery Driven; Observe -> Understand. Read on...

Forbes: 30 Outdated Leadership Practices Holding Your Company Back
Author: Mike Myatt

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 05 may 2014

Case studies are an important learning tool for students to gain insights into the functioning of companies in variety of industries and the decision making processes that make or break them. Most business schools provide case studies in their curriculum to give students practical knowledge that relates with their theoretical learning. Michael Pich of INSEAD Business School explains his perspective on writing case studies and its value to students in their business learning. According to him, combination of academic research with practical insights is essential for writing good cases. He explains the importance of case studies and its value to students - 'Case study provides a description of 'what' the firm or protagonist was doing, and the context for the challenge presented in the case. It also provides then the context for discussing the 'why', the theory and frameworks through which we can develop deeper insights into what is really going on in the case. Finally, it leads to further discussion of how this issue raised in the case applies to other contexts; contexts that are more relevant to the particular students or executives in the case discussion.' Read on...

The New Indian Express: A 'Case' for Effectiveness
Author: NA

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 01 may 2014

For ethical decision making both quantitative and qualitative approaches have to be considered for better results. Research by Dr. Chen-Bo Zhong of Rotman School of Management advocates a decision strategy that gives importance to both reason and intuition. He suggests that organizations can improve their decision making strategies as they plan and develop incentive structures by balancing economy with psychology and they should emphasize the value of people's intuition and emotions. In today's socially networked and interconnected world consequences of people's actions are more significant and impact wider society. So it becomes important to study unethical behavior and understand why it happens and how we can counteract it. Most current theories in ethical decision making are based on Lawrence Kohlberg's model of moral development that holds that moral reasoning, the basis for ethical behavior, has six identifiable development stages - two stages within three levels. (1) Pre-conventional level - judging the morality of an action by its direct consequences. (2) Conventional level - judging the morality of actions by comparing them to society's views and expectations. (3) Post-conventional level - is marked by a growing realization that individuals are separate entities from society and individual's own perspective may take precedence over society's view. The ethical decision-making research that follows in the Kohlberg tradition considers decision-making as very linear and cognitive, with it broken into discrete steps: recognize the moral dilemma -> reason based on your moral principles -> make a moral judgment -> act on that judgment. But Dr. Chen-Bo Zhong's research challenges the idea that moral reasoning is so much systematic and linear. It builds on NYU Psychologist Jonathan Haidt's findings, that first questioned the rationality-based moral judgment. Dr. Haidt's Moral Foundations Theory considers the way morality varies between cultures and identifies six foundations that underlie morality in all societies and individuals. He names them using pairs of opposites to indicate that they provide continua along which judgments can be measured: care/harm; fairness/cheating; loyalty/betrayal; respect for authority/subversion; sanctity/degradation and liberty/oppression. Haidt showed that oftentimes, moral judgement follows not from the analysis of harm, but from a very instinctive and intuitive reaction of disgust, and as a result, moral judgment is often based on intuition. Based on this line of research, moral judgment and decision-making is not just a systematic process: peoples' affect, or emotion, plays an important role in these judgments. Dr. Zhong's research shows that there are two distinct processes involved in moral decision-making: one is very reasoned and systematic, while the other is more intuitive and affective. He believes that our affective reactions actually play a role in regulating our ethical behaviour. This is in line with University of Southern California Professor Antonio Damasio's work on 'somatic markers'. Prof. Domasio has shown that reactions such as guilt, disgust and happiness play an important role in regulating behaviour. Dr. Zhong further explains that as economics is substantially based on rationality, reason and incentives, its education influences people towards numbers and calculations i.e. to quantify things. Economics tends to under-emphasize things that are less tangible, less quantifiable, and that can have impacts on multiple domains. Research shows that when people are asked to use a numeric metric to evaluate a product it actually dampens people's enjoyment of the product. This is even recognized by economists. Robert Frank showed that students trained in economics tend to be more competitive and often make more selfish choices. It is possible that being reminded of money, a standard quantitative measure of value, automatically activates a calculative mindset that suppresses emotional influence and disinhibits unethical behaviours. Dr. Zhong's hypothesis is that over emphasis on reason and excessive deliberation might actually have negative ethical consequences. Read on...

Forbes: The Downsides of Deliberative Decision Making
Author: Chen-Bo Zhong