The text below is from an invited keynote talk I gave this morning to a seminar on innovation organised by the NSAI, the Irish national standards coordinating body.
I talked about how in the formative days of IONA, we used the OMG as a vehicle for promoting our technologies and products, and how critical our participation in a standards initiative was for our company.
------
Exactly twenty years ago, American Airlines and Hewlett-Packard Corporation took an initiative to develop new standards in the global software industry to interconnect distributed software applications. The initiative rapidly gained momentum, with all major software suppliers - with the sole exception of Microsoft - quickly joining. Yet by 1996, a small company from Ireland, IONA Technologies, was a widely recognised world leading - arguably the world leading - implementor and vendor of these new standards, ahead of such major vendors as IBM, Oracle, HP, Microsoft, Digital and Sun. As a result, IONA had major customer contracts with companies such as Motorola, Boeing, Goldman Sachs, Lufthansa and Hong Kong Telecom. How on earth did that all happen ?
Sean Baker, Annrai O'Toole and I co-founded IONA in early 1991, as a spin out from the TCD Computer Science Department. We had been working together on how best to interconnect distributed software applications for over a decade, in part using collaborative research funding through pan European R&D programmes made available by the European Community in Brussels. When in 1989, American Airlines and HP took their initiative which led to the formation of the new standards organisation, the Object Management Group, we followed the developments with interest. One of the first actions taken by the OMG was to issue a world wide call for proposals for technologies which could underpin the new standards. As a direct result of our participation in the European R&D programmes, the three of us started attending the OMG meetings to track the development and discussions about the definition of the new standards.
One of the interesting consequences of the culture of the global software industry is the frankness and openness of talented software engineers. Many experienced software engineers are quite prepared to exchange professional views on particular technologies and products, and even - perhaps especially - those upon which they themselves have worked or are currently working. Simply by engaging and discussing with such individuals who work for software vendors, a perspective can often be reached on the status of strategic initiatives being taken by their employers. Equally, the concerns and priorities for new technology adoption by large end user customers can often be discerned by chatting with experienced software professionals working for such organisations.
By our regular attendance at OMG meetings, we reasonably quickly came to a number of conclusions by late 1990. First, our research work over the prior decade was as advanced as anything that we could perceive amongst the teams working within the world's leading software vendors. Second, those major software vendors who had publicly committed to the OMG were in fact several years away from releasing commercial implementations of the OMG standards, for various reasons. Third, the customers who would use the OMG standards were very keen to have product quality implementations as soon as possible, so as to solve specific business challenges they faced in their operations and markets.
By the summer of 1993, we released one of the first implementations in the world of the new OMG standards, at a major global tradeshow hosted by the OMG in San Francisco. As a direct result of that show, we gained our first commercial customer, SAIC, a major US systems integrator. By early 1994, we had been chosen by Motorola against competition from HP and others, as a key foundational product underpinning the entire ground control systems for their 4B$ Iridium global satellite telephony system. By 1995, we were chosen by Boeing against competition from IBM and others, as a key foundation for the complete re-building of almost all the software systems for the manufacture and assembly of all Boeing airliners, across 18 factories in the USA. By 1997, we completed the fifth largest IPO in the history of the Nasdaq exchange on the basis of our diversified blue chip global customer base, rapid revenue expansion and track record of 24 quarters of profitable growth.
What lessons are there from the IONA experience, particularly as regards Irish companies, and particularly as regards the role of standards ?
I have already alluded to one lesson: working within standards organisations can give you very valuable market intelligence about the strategy and status of your competitors, and of your potential customers.
Clearly, for IONA, standards were an absolutely critical catalyst. A new company can chose to play the standards game, or instead develop its own proprietary non-standard technology. Some companies, such as Tibco and one of our competitors, chose the proprietary route. Proprietary strategies are workable, and help insulate and define intellectual property of an organisation: on the other hand substantial effort is needed in marketing a proprietary technology in the face of standards, including convincing potential customers that re-training their technical staff on a proprietary technology is nevertheless worth the effort.
We chose the standards route. But with standards at the core of your strategy, how do you build intellectual property and barriers to entry against your competitors ?
One important direct consequence of playing the standards game was that our marketing strategy and necessary budget both became much less challenging. The OMG, and major global vendors, were already investing heavily in promoting the OMG standards. Qualification of sales leads became trivial: if the prospect already had an interest in the OMG standards, then we had an interesting offering for them. If the prospect had little or no interest in the OMG standards, we qualified them out of our prospects pipeline. Furthermore, simply by attending OMG events - standards meetings, seminars and trade shows - we had a pool of qualified prospective customers immediately in front of us.
There are two complementary approaches to playing the standards game as a vendor. The first is to ensure that your product conforms to a specific standard. In my view, this is a "me-too" approach: your product conforms to the standard, as most likely do your competitors' products. Conformance to the standard becomes merely just one hurdle for your product value proposition: you will only beat your competition if your product then implements the standard in some sense "better" than anyone else - faster, smaller, lower cost, whatever.
The second approach is to establish, or to play a very strong industry lead in establishing, a new standard. In this way, your own product becomes one of the very first, if not the first, implementation of the new standard. If there are customers out there interested in the potential of the new standard - those attending the standards events and tradeshows and seminars - you can then quickly gain momentum over your competitors who have yet to ship a standards conformant product. Further, your potential customers become more comfortable in working with you as a relatively small supplier and early market entrant, since they know the more established vendors in due course will bring out their own implementations of the standard. However this is not a danger to your business but an opportunity: get a toe hold in a customer account, and show how good your company, your team and your products are.
We took both approaches. We had a very good implementation - both from the technical perspective and business proposition - indeed of the emerging standards; and also we also took a very strong lead in helping evolve the standards. Because we had early adopters - customers who started using our product because it was an early implementation of a new emerging standards - we were able to directly influence the standards with a number of key feedbacks and proposed modifications to improve the standards based on pragmatic field experience. In turn this meant that some competitors who had yet to ship a product implementing the standards, either eventually shipped product which did not implement the latest version of the standards, or delayed their product ship dates while they busily re-engineered their work to chase a set of evolving standards. Furthermore, we encouraged our customers to contribute to the debate: by having customers actually turn up themselves at the OMG standards meetings, OMG began to accelerate the switch from a vendor driven push for a new set of standards, to a customer driven pull, whilst all the time keeping IONA at a focal point. Thus in turn created further obstacles and challenges for our competitors racing to stay current with the latest influences on the evolving standards.
Let me attempt to summarise for you. You can play the proprietary game, and face the marketing challenge of finding customers prepared to invest in non standard products. Or, you can play the standards game, gain market insights and quickly find interested customers. You have then to play the standards game better than your competitors, either by a "better" implementation or by using your technology to define a new standard, or just possibly both. Innovating and building a new standard around that innovation creates an interesting opportunity for you and simultaneously a dilemma for your competitors, as they try to catch up with the adoption of the standard in the market by your customers.
Our experience in IONA shows that it is possible to build a global technology player out of Ireland. Standards were an absolutely critical part of our strategy. I very much welcome the NSAI's excellent guide on good practice in innovation and product development. To paraphrase: yes, Ireland can.
Wednesday 25 March 2009
Friday 13 March 2009
TCD-UCD Innovation Partnership: a cottage industry perhaps ?
The Times Higher Education/QS World University Rankings, published in last October, showed Trinity College Dublin breaking into the global top 50 universities, ranked at 49 - up from 53. TCD became the first Irish third-level institution to make it into the elite global top-50 group. The rankings also delivered very good news for University College Dublin (UCD), now ranked 108 worldwide, and up from 177 last year.
Last wednesday, both universities announced an intention to further enhance their world class positioning, by integrating together their fourth level (ie postgraduate) activities, and merging the activities of their respective technology licensing offices into a single unit. The text of the press release is here.
The most significant aspect of the announcement, in my view, is the focus on innovation as an equal core part of their mission as universities alongside both research and education. They have set themselves an ambitious target of creating at least 300 new companies of scale, and of high value, by 2019. They will jointly offer new facilities for pre-competitive research and design, prototyping and process innovation - to help harness and commercialise new ideas, knowledge and inventions. They also promise to prioritise the establishment of a wider support framework of educational, legal, financial, technical, management and marketing capabilities and support needed to set good new business ideas on their way.
I strongly believe that an overall national policy objective should primarily be fostering dynamic young companies based in Ireland. While I believe that foreign multinational investments into Ireland have served us extremely well over the last forty years or so, I fervently believe that sustainable wealth and employment should be based on a vigorous breeding ground of young companies. Perhaps in the past, there has been an over-dependence on relatively rapid creation of employment by major multinational investment, and a sense that our indigenous companies were "not playing at Croker". There was a sense perhaps that the multinationals were the "A" team, and the indigenous technology companies were just a "cottage industry".
In fact, I think that's absolutely right: the indigenous technology sector in Ireland has been pretty much a cottage industry, and long may it continue to be so. We need many many more "cottages". In my view, the indigenous technology sector in Silicon Valley is also in effect a cottage industry. A vibrant community of innovative small companies, each with a relatively short life-cycle, but with re-cycling of its engineers and business leaders, is actually the foundation of Silicon Valley.
If the TCD-UCD partnership is to succeed, I believe it should do so by creating many small innovative companies. I hope most of them don't last too long: a few years each, and certainly less than a decade each. Most of these companies should exit and be bought out, and then both the human capital and financial capital re-cycled into replacement new ventures. By re-cycling, competence, expertise, wisdom, capability, and wealth are all nurtured and grown. A few of these companies may perhaps emerge to become global champions, but fostering global champions should not in itself, in my view, be a primary national strategy. Rather global champions are a by-product of a successful innovation environment.
Its perhaps ironic that an Irish Green Party Minister is in Silicon Valley this week and currently positioning Ireland as the potential Silicon Valley of Europe: I wonder does he agree with me that re-cycling (not of materials, but of human and fiscal capital) is at the core of the Valley's success.
Technology advances, and so a company founded on one exciting new technical development has only a limited window in time to be successful: it - the people and the capital behind it - should then move on. A company which overgrows itself can find itself limited in its strategic options: too small to be a sustainable global top ten player, but too big to be easily acquired.
Stating that our national technology enterprise policy should be akin to a vibrant cottage industry is probably heresy to some! But I believe that it is precisely because of the large number of small, relatively short lived, companies in Silicon Valley that giants of the Valley like HP, Oracle, Google, eBay and Cisco have emerged. These larger companies have emerged for a number of reasons: there are bounteous estate of dynamic young companies to acquire; R&D can be augmented by acquisition; emerging markets can be pump-primed by dynamic young start ups; experienced human capital can be sourced who have lived through at least one successful business expansion; and seed and investment capital can demonstrably work.
One danger inherent in the TCD-UCD announcement is the public perception that innovation is primarily the outcome of University led research. Ordinary mere mortals - not the elite fourth level and PhD types - might not expected to produce new companies of value. There is a further danger that there may be a public perception that a major - no, the major - reason for tax payers funding the universities is precisely to create new companies and new employment.
On the contrary, I believe that in principal anyone can be innovative. In my view, the primary source for innovation is intelligent insight into a market opportunity. Thus innovation is primarily (not solely of course) led by market intelligence: a deep understanding of a market opportunity that in general leads to an evolution from where the market already is today, rather than a complete revolution. In general, revolutionary new ideas take considerable marketing investment and muscle to become successful; incremental step forwards from what the market already understands are in general easier to introduce and commercialise.
Being successful in the global marketplace requires a careful holistic orchestration of various activities: market and opportunity analysis; technology assembly and integration; field testing and early, reference, customers; go-to-market capability and channel reach; funding; and leadership. I refer to this orchestration as an "innovation score", in the same sense that a musical score synchronises concurrent orchestral activities into an overall harmonious effect.
The technology underpinning innovation need not always be developed in Ireland: innovation scoring requires technology assembly and integration, identifying and selecting the correct technologies, regardless of their global origin. Tax payer funded Irish based science may as a result not be exploited in Ireland: equally, successful young Irish companies should not limit their source of technology to Irish based science. Most of all, a successful innovation may simply bring together pieces of technology which already exist, but which have never been put together before in such an innovative way.
At a recent event in the Science Gallery, a composite map of the world was shown at night. It clearly shows the industrialised world against the darkness of the third world.
The presenters, the Lebone group (pronounced "le-bone-nay"), met as undergraduate engineers at Harvard University. They observed that the coupling of two existing technologies - microbial fuel cells and standard high efficient light emitting devices (LEDs) - could provide light in rural Africa. The same technology can also be used to re-charge mobile phones. Their product is used by simply inserting two wires into rotting compost or dung, and the microbes bio-electrochemically generate small amounts of direct current which is then used to power highly efficient LEDs, or to re-charge mobiles. The product has been field-tested in Tanzania over several months, and the project is now supported by the World Bank.
This example shows how an innovative, pragmatic solution was derived by understanding a market problem (off-the-grid power generation throughout much of the third world), identifying existing technologies (microbial fuel cells and new generation LEDs) invented and researched elsewhere, bringing these technologies together into a new product, field testing and then initiating a new business venture. The successful innovation score did not require extensive scientific research to be carried out by the innovators.
Technology can come from latent and unexploited intellectual property within major corporations. As just one example, Hewlett Packard has just closed their second global call for their Innovation Research Programme, in which they requested proposals from innovators outside of HP anywhere on the planet, to license specific intellectual property from HP in areas such as analytics, cloud computing, intelligent infrastructure, digital commercial print and so on. This enables HP to test new emerging technology markets via young dynamic partner companies.
In the current global economic climate, it is not unusual for major corporations to in effect out-source their R&D. Acquiring young companies who are each proving that a new innovation is successful in an early stage market, but which do not have the global channel reach, may be a less expensive way to enhance their product portfolio and innovate, than funding internal R&D and product teams. As a further consequence, internal R&D and product development teams have increasing difficulty getting internal budget, increasing the possibility of spin-outs from the corporation, and increasing the possibility of licensing intellectual property out of the corporation. HP has completed 116 acquisitions in its life time: it is now actively licensing intellectual property out of HP.
An insightful understanding of the current state of a market can come from emerging global industry standards, particularly when there is end user pull. IONA Technologies was successful precisely because we personally participated in such an initiative. For a time IONA was able finesse the global industry by using global end user feedback and experience of IONA products to improve these standards, creating global industry leadership and a "catch-up" game for other global vendors.
I've probably written enough in this blog article. In summary, I very much welcome the TCD-UCD link up, and fervently hope that it results in more commercial research being attracted. But I also fervently hope that we can create a small company culture, with reasonably frequent re-cycling of human and financial capital, and from which a small number of larger companies may eventually emerge. I also fervently hope that we can foster "innovation scores" in which anyone with insight, skill and sheer determination can build a great company, whether or not they happened to gain a PhD from UCD-TCD (or anywhere else).
Last wednesday, both universities announced an intention to further enhance their world class positioning, by integrating together their fourth level (ie postgraduate) activities, and merging the activities of their respective technology licensing offices into a single unit. The text of the press release is here.
The most significant aspect of the announcement, in my view, is the focus on innovation as an equal core part of their mission as universities alongside both research and education. They have set themselves an ambitious target of creating at least 300 new companies of scale, and of high value, by 2019. They will jointly offer new facilities for pre-competitive research and design, prototyping and process innovation - to help harness and commercialise new ideas, knowledge and inventions. They also promise to prioritise the establishment of a wider support framework of educational, legal, financial, technical, management and marketing capabilities and support needed to set good new business ideas on their way.
I strongly believe that an overall national policy objective should primarily be fostering dynamic young companies based in Ireland. While I believe that foreign multinational investments into Ireland have served us extremely well over the last forty years or so, I fervently believe that sustainable wealth and employment should be based on a vigorous breeding ground of young companies. Perhaps in the past, there has been an over-dependence on relatively rapid creation of employment by major multinational investment, and a sense that our indigenous companies were "not playing at Croker". There was a sense perhaps that the multinationals were the "A" team, and the indigenous technology companies were just a "cottage industry".
In fact, I think that's absolutely right: the indigenous technology sector in Ireland has been pretty much a cottage industry, and long may it continue to be so. We need many many more "cottages". In my view, the indigenous technology sector in Silicon Valley is also in effect a cottage industry. A vibrant community of innovative small companies, each with a relatively short life-cycle, but with re-cycling of its engineers and business leaders, is actually the foundation of Silicon Valley.
If the TCD-UCD partnership is to succeed, I believe it should do so by creating many small innovative companies. I hope most of them don't last too long: a few years each, and certainly less than a decade each. Most of these companies should exit and be bought out, and then both the human capital and financial capital re-cycled into replacement new ventures. By re-cycling, competence, expertise, wisdom, capability, and wealth are all nurtured and grown. A few of these companies may perhaps emerge to become global champions, but fostering global champions should not in itself, in my view, be a primary national strategy. Rather global champions are a by-product of a successful innovation environment.
Its perhaps ironic that an Irish Green Party Minister is in Silicon Valley this week and currently positioning Ireland as the potential Silicon Valley of Europe: I wonder does he agree with me that re-cycling (not of materials, but of human and fiscal capital) is at the core of the Valley's success.
Technology advances, and so a company founded on one exciting new technical development has only a limited window in time to be successful: it - the people and the capital behind it - should then move on. A company which overgrows itself can find itself limited in its strategic options: too small to be a sustainable global top ten player, but too big to be easily acquired.
Stating that our national technology enterprise policy should be akin to a vibrant cottage industry is probably heresy to some! But I believe that it is precisely because of the large number of small, relatively short lived, companies in Silicon Valley that giants of the Valley like HP, Oracle, Google, eBay and Cisco have emerged. These larger companies have emerged for a number of reasons: there are bounteous estate of dynamic young companies to acquire; R&D can be augmented by acquisition; emerging markets can be pump-primed by dynamic young start ups; experienced human capital can be sourced who have lived through at least one successful business expansion; and seed and investment capital can demonstrably work.
One danger inherent in the TCD-UCD announcement is the public perception that innovation is primarily the outcome of University led research. Ordinary mere mortals - not the elite fourth level and PhD types - might not expected to produce new companies of value. There is a further danger that there may be a public perception that a major - no, the major - reason for tax payers funding the universities is precisely to create new companies and new employment.
On the contrary, I believe that in principal anyone can be innovative. In my view, the primary source for innovation is intelligent insight into a market opportunity. Thus innovation is primarily (not solely of course) led by market intelligence: a deep understanding of a market opportunity that in general leads to an evolution from where the market already is today, rather than a complete revolution. In general, revolutionary new ideas take considerable marketing investment and muscle to become successful; incremental step forwards from what the market already understands are in general easier to introduce and commercialise.
Being successful in the global marketplace requires a careful holistic orchestration of various activities: market and opportunity analysis; technology assembly and integration; field testing and early, reference, customers; go-to-market capability and channel reach; funding; and leadership. I refer to this orchestration as an "innovation score", in the same sense that a musical score synchronises concurrent orchestral activities into an overall harmonious effect.
The technology underpinning innovation need not always be developed in Ireland: innovation scoring requires technology assembly and integration, identifying and selecting the correct technologies, regardless of their global origin. Tax payer funded Irish based science may as a result not be exploited in Ireland: equally, successful young Irish companies should not limit their source of technology to Irish based science. Most of all, a successful innovation may simply bring together pieces of technology which already exist, but which have never been put together before in such an innovative way.
At a recent event in the Science Gallery, a composite map of the world was shown at night. It clearly shows the industrialised world against the darkness of the third world.
The presenters, the Lebone group (pronounced "le-bone-nay"), met as undergraduate engineers at Harvard University. They observed that the coupling of two existing technologies - microbial fuel cells and standard high efficient light emitting devices (LEDs) - could provide light in rural Africa. The same technology can also be used to re-charge mobile phones. Their product is used by simply inserting two wires into rotting compost or dung, and the microbes bio-electrochemically generate small amounts of direct current which is then used to power highly efficient LEDs, or to re-charge mobiles. The product has been field-tested in Tanzania over several months, and the project is now supported by the World Bank.
This example shows how an innovative, pragmatic solution was derived by understanding a market problem (off-the-grid power generation throughout much of the third world), identifying existing technologies (microbial fuel cells and new generation LEDs) invented and researched elsewhere, bringing these technologies together into a new product, field testing and then initiating a new business venture. The successful innovation score did not require extensive scientific research to be carried out by the innovators.
Technology can come from latent and unexploited intellectual property within major corporations. As just one example, Hewlett Packard has just closed their second global call for their Innovation Research Programme, in which they requested proposals from innovators outside of HP anywhere on the planet, to license specific intellectual property from HP in areas such as analytics, cloud computing, intelligent infrastructure, digital commercial print and so on. This enables HP to test new emerging technology markets via young dynamic partner companies.
In the current global economic climate, it is not unusual for major corporations to in effect out-source their R&D. Acquiring young companies who are each proving that a new innovation is successful in an early stage market, but which do not have the global channel reach, may be a less expensive way to enhance their product portfolio and innovate, than funding internal R&D and product teams. As a further consequence, internal R&D and product development teams have increasing difficulty getting internal budget, increasing the possibility of spin-outs from the corporation, and increasing the possibility of licensing intellectual property out of the corporation. HP has completed 116 acquisitions in its life time: it is now actively licensing intellectual property out of HP.
An insightful understanding of the current state of a market can come from emerging global industry standards, particularly when there is end user pull. IONA Technologies was successful precisely because we personally participated in such an initiative. For a time IONA was able finesse the global industry by using global end user feedback and experience of IONA products to improve these standards, creating global industry leadership and a "catch-up" game for other global vendors.
I've probably written enough in this blog article. In summary, I very much welcome the TCD-UCD link up, and fervently hope that it results in more commercial research being attracted. But I also fervently hope that we can create a small company culture, with reasonably frequent re-cycling of human and financial capital, and from which a small number of larger companies may eventually emerge. I also fervently hope that we can foster "innovation scores" in which anyone with insight, skill and sheer determination can build a great company, whether or not they happened to gain a PhD from UCD-TCD (or anywhere else).
Wednesday 11 March 2009
Dr. Robert Fung, Chair of UNICEF Hong Kong
One of the easiest people to meet if you ever attended an annual UNICEF conference of the fund raising National Committees somewhere on the planet, was Dr. Robert Fung. This wonderful gentle unassuming man, with his positive and tireless warmth after a lengthy day of endless presentations and discussions, was everyone's friend. If this was your very first annual conference, Robert would be sure to approach you, introduce himself and crack a wry joke with a gentle smile, all the time making you feel as if you - like he - had been part of the UNICEF family for years. Robert loved his work with children, he loved people, he loved his work as an accomplished paediatrician (having degrees from both Harvard and McGill), he loved his work as a successful businessman, he loved Hong Kong, and he loved his work with UNICEF. He reached out to everyone, and quietly understood the functioning of the UNICEF machine. If you felt lost in the scale of UNICEF's operations around the planet, UNICEF's awful acronyms, UNICEF's extensive programmes, UNICEF's subtle machinations, and UNICEF's global organisation, Robert, with his wonderful mop of silver hair and warm face stood out, and he'ld give you a great big hello. You now belonged to the UNICEF international family.
Robert sadly passed away peacefully in Hong Kong last friday. He founded UNICEF's fund raising operations in Hong Kong in the mid 1980's, and was its Chairman until his untimely death. He devoted so much of his time and energy to raising the profile of UNICEF amongst the people of Hong Kong, including the business community and of course the regional government. His was the public face of UNICEF in Hong Kong, a well known fatherly figure working endlessly for children.
Farewell, Robert: I didn't know you well, but I knew you enough to know that you improved the lives of so many children, and their mothers, and meant so much to so many people. Your passing will be mourned not just in Hong Kong but across the world.
Thursday 5 March 2009
Educators and Technologists: how can we best change Ireland ?
The text below is an invited talk that I gave this morning to a symposium organised by the National Association of Principals and Deputy Principals - the heads of primary and secondary (high) schools of Ireland, and their deputies.
My goal was to encourage the teaching profession in Ireland to seize the initiative, and help themselves to help their colleagues. In these very challenging fiscal times in Ireland, it seems clear to me that our Department of Education and Science will not have the fiscal capability to lead, and so leadership must be bottom-up, indigenous and community based - which, in my mind, is at the core of the ethos of the internet.
If you are a technologist yourself, please forgive my poetic license below in categorising some web sites and technologies - I am trying to explain essential characteristics in laymens', non-technical, terms.
----
"The ancient Masters didn't try to educate the people, but patiently taught them to not-know. When they think they know the answers, people are difficult to guide. When they know that they don't know, people can then find their way"--- from Lao Tzu's "Tao Te Ching" - the Book of the Way.
Teaching is about not-knowing. Educating is about fostering self-awareness. Learning is about finding.
Being an educator is one of the most privileged professions. In knowing herself, an educator imprints on the next generation a way to understand themselves and thus to find their way.
I went to Newpark Comprehensive in Blackrock, finishing in 1974. John Harris, who introduced the Transition year project to Ireland, was my Mathematics teacher throughout my time in secondary school. Derek West likewise taught me in English classes for six years. Dr John de Courcy Ireland taught me History, and also French. I was so fortunate to have many further fine teachers - Derek Langran, Chris Sealy, Roy Rohu, Bob Weatherill and many others. And I believe in every case, all those years ago, I viewed each of these teachers as a prime source of information and knowledge. They knew, and I didn't.
Today, I think many of us accept that the situation has irrevocably changed. Teachers are of course still fine people, but many students no longer accept their teachers as the prime source of information and knowledge. The internet, and in particular Google, is now the primary way to find out and learn. Wikipedia - an online encyclopedia, to which I will later return - is a chief reference and authority. Twitter - an online headline broadcast service - is a rapid access to what's happening. Facebook and Bebo - online social communities - are a quick way to find and share what's cool. Youtube - an online video clip service - is a quick way to humour. iTunes - an online music and "podcasting" service - is a quick way to music and interesting interviews.
Ten years ago, I used to worry about the 'digital divide' -- that the wealthy had access to the internet, and those of limited means did not. I remember the Ennis Information Age project in which we asked ourselves what would happen if an entire community was trained on how to use a PC and had access to the internet. Over the last decade I believe that, in Ireland at least, there is considerably greater uptake and affordable access to the internet, compared to some of those countries I have experienced through my work with UNICEF. There are of course still digitally impoverished communities in Ireland, but the situation is improving. The convergence of mobile phone technology with broadband internet access, is a further catalyst.
Now I worry, maybe unnecessarily, about the digital divide of the generations. Most of us know how to book an airline seat online. Most of us know how to send an email, or access our bank account. But how many of us know how to upload a video to Youtube, or to make a podcast, or how to contribute to the wisdom of the crowd ? Meanwhile, for the younger generation there is no divide between virtual reality and the real world: for them this would be an unnecessary and unnatural distinction, and for them the internet is an intrinsic part of the real world as much as the telephone, the radio or even the weather.
Therefore today, what role should a teacher and educator now play ? It's now clear to many students that their teachers don't know as much about their chosen subject as Google does. It's also clear to many students that traditional classroom teaching isn't particularly interesting or stimulating. Instead, on the internet, you can quickly browse from headline to headline, quickly learn, quickly find out what's happening, quickly participate and quickly share with your friends and community. It's not that today's students have attention deficit, and are incapable of absorption or focus: on the contrary, they immerse themselves deeply - for hours sometimes - in what they find interesting, such as specific games and challenges. The difference today is that students have found a way - the internet - to so much more easily quickly find out what is really interesting, and to rapidly filter out and discard what is mundane.
So, as educators and technologists, what should we do ? How together can we change Ireland ?
One thing we must of course continue to do is to challenge students' understanding - the old "compare and contrast" technique which Derek West drummed into me. No single source of information should be taken as definitive, including Wikipedia. How easy it is today for example to instantly compare the front pages of the Irish Times and the Irish Independent, but also for example the Sydney Morning Herald, the South China Morning Post and the Los Angeles Times!
One thing I personally strongly believe that we cannot do, is wait and expect our Government and the apparatus of the State to help us. From where we stand today, it is pretty clear that the State has a rapidly diminishing capability to invest in education. With a ballooning national budget deficit, the worst thing we can now do is to fold our arms, sit back, and wait for some fiscally impotent Minister of Education to put together some study on what on earth should be done; then perhaps sometime put a computer and broadband link in front of every single student in every classroom; ensure that there is support and maintenance for all those machines; and put all of our educators through continued professional education on computer use. Ladies and Gentlemen, from where I stand, this just isn't going to happen anytime soon.
So, we have two challenges: (1) how to get all of our professional teachers conversant and confident with the latest internet technologies; (2) even if we achieve the first challenge, how do we make teaching relevant in today's internet world where the teacher in general knows little and Google knows everything ? Let me address both challenges with the same solution.
One of the key points about the internet is that it is self-creating and self-sustaining. It is bottom-up, a community phenomenon. In the early days of the internet, you could connect your computer for free to the mesh of computers already in the network, but only if you were then prepared to let others - even strangers - use your computer to in turn connect theirs into the mesh. The world wide web came about by a bunch of physicists devising their own way to better share their scientific results, and then sharing their new way with anyone else interested. The ethos of the internet is sharing, "bottom-up". So let me talk to you about the technology underpinning wikipedia.
Perhaps some of you have a jaundiced view of wikipedia. It has replaced the Encyclopedia Britannica - which my parents encouraged me to consult in Blackrock library as the definitive source of knowledge. But some educators, and I do understand, question its accuracy and are concerned that students may place an unnecessary over-reliance on its authority. We should always compare and contrast.
But allow me to distinguish between wikipedia - the web site - and a wiki - the technology on which wikipedia is based. Wikipedia is but one example of a wiki, and there are many others. The basic technology of a wiki is free - zero cost - as result of Ward Cunningham's work in the 1990s. A wiki is a web site in which not only can anyone read its content, but anyone can also edit the content. At first this sounds extraordinary - what prevents somebody from editing accurate content and defacing it ? In fact, the answer is nothing, and defacement happens - however, the wiki keeps a record of who edited what, and what was the previous version (and the previous version to that and so on). Anarchists and political pundits can quickly be identified by the community of readers, isolated from the wiki so that the wiki refuses to accept any further edits from these rogues, and the maverick changes made by these fraudsters are quickly unwound.
The consequence is that the community of bona-fide contributors work together to make the wiki better and better, capturing the best inputs from everyone, and discarding the weaker edits. The system becomes Darwinian - the best survives, the weakest is dropped. A wiki thus captures the "wisdom of the crowd" - the collective wisdom of a community of readers and contributors.
If you Google on the topic of wikis and teaching, you will see some articles about how some teachers elsewhere in the world (I couldn't find any from Ireland) are experimenting with the use of wikis within the classroom, to encourage a class of students to work together on group projects. We can of course adopt this idea here in Ireland, but I have a broader suggestion to make to you.
Ladies and Gentlemen, you are a community. Your professional teaching colleagues are another larger community, to which you also belong. Why not use wiki technology to address the two challenges - digital confidence amongst your community, and enhanced teaching ?
I do make the assumption that the vast majority of you and your teaching colleagues already have access to the internet (not necessarily in your schools but at home or elsewhere), and know the rudimentaries for example on how to book an airline ticket online. To contribute to, or to just read, a wiki you do not need needlessly complicated tools like Microsoft Word or Powerpoint or some such. Instead, you use any internet browser: editting is done using the browser itself and very simple controls. In fact, by examining a wiki, you can quickly see how other contributors have achieved the layout and presentation of the wiki, and simply copy their styling. If you know how to start a computer, connect to the internet and launch an internet browser, then you really need only learn very little more to be able to read and to contribute to a wiki.
I then envisage a new wiki (not Wikipedia!) created by some of you and your teaching colleagues which starts to capture the wisdom inherent in the national community of teachers in Ireland on how to get the best out of the internet, and out of internet trends (such as podcasting..), for teaching students in Irish schools. Such a wiki would then potentially help every teacher in Ireland. I envisage another new wiki that some of you, and/or some of your teaching colleagues, create on experiences, and best practice, of engaging classroom experiences in Irish schools. Such a wiki would then further help every teacher in Ireland.
I envisage another wiki, created by some of your mathematics teachers, on each topic within the Higher Level Leaving Certificate Mathematics syllabus, not only explaining each such topic but illustrating it from real world examples from applications in society and science as to how that particular mathematical technique can be beneficially used. I envisage another wiki, created by some of our Irish history teaching colleagues, on each topic within the Junior Certificate History syllabus, not only laying out each such topic but explaining its consequences on Irish society and culture.
I envisage many wikis, one for each syllabus in Irish schools, through which both experienced and neophyte teachers alike of that syllabus can share with each other nationwide the best ideas and experiences.
Ladies and Gentlemen, my proposition to you is that in todays fiscal environment, it is unrealistic to expect much help anymore from the State. Instead there is a huge wealth of competence and wisdom within your own community, and it really would not take very much for you to work together to help all of your interests.
In the business world of global companies, such as IONA was, great emphasis is placed on team work, and ensuring that every member of a global organisation contributes to and benefits from the collective wisdom of the staff: domain experts share their knowledge and skills so as the whole company benefits. The commercial world for which we are preparing the vast bulk of our young people is one in which team work abounds. In the world of education, perhaps the current fiscal position of our State can be a catalyst for change, an impetus to encourage sharing amongst education professionals what is the very best.
A wiki is a community self-help tool. Best of all, a wiki can be created by anyone, by any small group of like-minded professionals, at any time. It does not require a mandate from a Government, a Minister, a Trade Union, or even the NAPD! It is a "bottom-up" tool, deep from within the community itself. A wiki can just emerge pretty much overnight, and regardless of any national agenda and policy: it just needs bona fide like-minded professionals.
Be wary of educating people, but instead teach them to not-know and hence to find out. When people think they already know the answers, they become difficult to guide. When people know that they don't know, they can find their way. One of the best ways is to ask and share with others. That is what the internet is all about.
My goal was to encourage the teaching profession in Ireland to seize the initiative, and help themselves to help their colleagues. In these very challenging fiscal times in Ireland, it seems clear to me that our Department of Education and Science will not have the fiscal capability to lead, and so leadership must be bottom-up, indigenous and community based - which, in my mind, is at the core of the ethos of the internet.
If you are a technologist yourself, please forgive my poetic license below in categorising some web sites and technologies - I am trying to explain essential characteristics in laymens', non-technical, terms.
----
"The ancient Masters didn't try to educate the people, but patiently taught them to not-know. When they think they know the answers, people are difficult to guide. When they know that they don't know, people can then find their way"--- from Lao Tzu's "Tao Te Ching" - the Book of the Way.
Teaching is about not-knowing. Educating is about fostering self-awareness. Learning is about finding.
Being an educator is one of the most privileged professions. In knowing herself, an educator imprints on the next generation a way to understand themselves and thus to find their way.
I went to Newpark Comprehensive in Blackrock, finishing in 1974. John Harris, who introduced the Transition year project to Ireland, was my Mathematics teacher throughout my time in secondary school. Derek West likewise taught me in English classes for six years. Dr John de Courcy Ireland taught me History, and also French. I was so fortunate to have many further fine teachers - Derek Langran, Chris Sealy, Roy Rohu, Bob Weatherill and many others. And I believe in every case, all those years ago, I viewed each of these teachers as a prime source of information and knowledge. They knew, and I didn't.
Today, I think many of us accept that the situation has irrevocably changed. Teachers are of course still fine people, but many students no longer accept their teachers as the prime source of information and knowledge. The internet, and in particular Google, is now the primary way to find out and learn. Wikipedia - an online encyclopedia, to which I will later return - is a chief reference and authority. Twitter - an online headline broadcast service - is a rapid access to what's happening. Facebook and Bebo - online social communities - are a quick way to find and share what's cool. Youtube - an online video clip service - is a quick way to humour. iTunes - an online music and "podcasting" service - is a quick way to music and interesting interviews.
Ten years ago, I used to worry about the 'digital divide' -- that the wealthy had access to the internet, and those of limited means did not. I remember the Ennis Information Age project in which we asked ourselves what would happen if an entire community was trained on how to use a PC and had access to the internet. Over the last decade I believe that, in Ireland at least, there is considerably greater uptake and affordable access to the internet, compared to some of those countries I have experienced through my work with UNICEF. There are of course still digitally impoverished communities in Ireland, but the situation is improving. The convergence of mobile phone technology with broadband internet access, is a further catalyst.
Now I worry, maybe unnecessarily, about the digital divide of the generations. Most of us know how to book an airline seat online. Most of us know how to send an email, or access our bank account. But how many of us know how to upload a video to Youtube, or to make a podcast, or how to contribute to the wisdom of the crowd ? Meanwhile, for the younger generation there is no divide between virtual reality and the real world: for them this would be an unnecessary and unnatural distinction, and for them the internet is an intrinsic part of the real world as much as the telephone, the radio or even the weather.
Therefore today, what role should a teacher and educator now play ? It's now clear to many students that their teachers don't know as much about their chosen subject as Google does. It's also clear to many students that traditional classroom teaching isn't particularly interesting or stimulating. Instead, on the internet, you can quickly browse from headline to headline, quickly learn, quickly find out what's happening, quickly participate and quickly share with your friends and community. It's not that today's students have attention deficit, and are incapable of absorption or focus: on the contrary, they immerse themselves deeply - for hours sometimes - in what they find interesting, such as specific games and challenges. The difference today is that students have found a way - the internet - to so much more easily quickly find out what is really interesting, and to rapidly filter out and discard what is mundane.
So, as educators and technologists, what should we do ? How together can we change Ireland ?
One thing we must of course continue to do is to challenge students' understanding - the old "compare and contrast" technique which Derek West drummed into me. No single source of information should be taken as definitive, including Wikipedia. How easy it is today for example to instantly compare the front pages of the Irish Times and the Irish Independent, but also for example the Sydney Morning Herald, the South China Morning Post and the Los Angeles Times!
One thing I personally strongly believe that we cannot do, is wait and expect our Government and the apparatus of the State to help us. From where we stand today, it is pretty clear that the State has a rapidly diminishing capability to invest in education. With a ballooning national budget deficit, the worst thing we can now do is to fold our arms, sit back, and wait for some fiscally impotent Minister of Education to put together some study on what on earth should be done; then perhaps sometime put a computer and broadband link in front of every single student in every classroom; ensure that there is support and maintenance for all those machines; and put all of our educators through continued professional education on computer use. Ladies and Gentlemen, from where I stand, this just isn't going to happen anytime soon.
So, we have two challenges: (1) how to get all of our professional teachers conversant and confident with the latest internet technologies; (2) even if we achieve the first challenge, how do we make teaching relevant in today's internet world where the teacher in general knows little and Google knows everything ? Let me address both challenges with the same solution.
One of the key points about the internet is that it is self-creating and self-sustaining. It is bottom-up, a community phenomenon. In the early days of the internet, you could connect your computer for free to the mesh of computers already in the network, but only if you were then prepared to let others - even strangers - use your computer to in turn connect theirs into the mesh. The world wide web came about by a bunch of physicists devising their own way to better share their scientific results, and then sharing their new way with anyone else interested. The ethos of the internet is sharing, "bottom-up". So let me talk to you about the technology underpinning wikipedia.
Perhaps some of you have a jaundiced view of wikipedia. It has replaced the Encyclopedia Britannica - which my parents encouraged me to consult in Blackrock library as the definitive source of knowledge. But some educators, and I do understand, question its accuracy and are concerned that students may place an unnecessary over-reliance on its authority. We should always compare and contrast.
But allow me to distinguish between wikipedia - the web site - and a wiki - the technology on which wikipedia is based. Wikipedia is but one example of a wiki, and there are many others. The basic technology of a wiki is free - zero cost - as result of Ward Cunningham's work in the 1990s. A wiki is a web site in which not only can anyone read its content, but anyone can also edit the content. At first this sounds extraordinary - what prevents somebody from editing accurate content and defacing it ? In fact, the answer is nothing, and defacement happens - however, the wiki keeps a record of who edited what, and what was the previous version (and the previous version to that and so on). Anarchists and political pundits can quickly be identified by the community of readers, isolated from the wiki so that the wiki refuses to accept any further edits from these rogues, and the maverick changes made by these fraudsters are quickly unwound.
The consequence is that the community of bona-fide contributors work together to make the wiki better and better, capturing the best inputs from everyone, and discarding the weaker edits. The system becomes Darwinian - the best survives, the weakest is dropped. A wiki thus captures the "wisdom of the crowd" - the collective wisdom of a community of readers and contributors.
If you Google on the topic of wikis and teaching, you will see some articles about how some teachers elsewhere in the world (I couldn't find any from Ireland) are experimenting with the use of wikis within the classroom, to encourage a class of students to work together on group projects. We can of course adopt this idea here in Ireland, but I have a broader suggestion to make to you.
Ladies and Gentlemen, you are a community. Your professional teaching colleagues are another larger community, to which you also belong. Why not use wiki technology to address the two challenges - digital confidence amongst your community, and enhanced teaching ?
I do make the assumption that the vast majority of you and your teaching colleagues already have access to the internet (not necessarily in your schools but at home or elsewhere), and know the rudimentaries for example on how to book an airline ticket online. To contribute to, or to just read, a wiki you do not need needlessly complicated tools like Microsoft Word or Powerpoint or some such. Instead, you use any internet browser: editting is done using the browser itself and very simple controls. In fact, by examining a wiki, you can quickly see how other contributors have achieved the layout and presentation of the wiki, and simply copy their styling. If you know how to start a computer, connect to the internet and launch an internet browser, then you really need only learn very little more to be able to read and to contribute to a wiki.
I then envisage a new wiki (not Wikipedia!) created by some of you and your teaching colleagues which starts to capture the wisdom inherent in the national community of teachers in Ireland on how to get the best out of the internet, and out of internet trends (such as podcasting..), for teaching students in Irish schools. Such a wiki would then potentially help every teacher in Ireland. I envisage another new wiki that some of you, and/or some of your teaching colleagues, create on experiences, and best practice, of engaging classroom experiences in Irish schools. Such a wiki would then further help every teacher in Ireland.
I envisage another wiki, created by some of your mathematics teachers, on each topic within the Higher Level Leaving Certificate Mathematics syllabus, not only explaining each such topic but illustrating it from real world examples from applications in society and science as to how that particular mathematical technique can be beneficially used. I envisage another wiki, created by some of our Irish history teaching colleagues, on each topic within the Junior Certificate History syllabus, not only laying out each such topic but explaining its consequences on Irish society and culture.
I envisage many wikis, one for each syllabus in Irish schools, through which both experienced and neophyte teachers alike of that syllabus can share with each other nationwide the best ideas and experiences.
Ladies and Gentlemen, my proposition to you is that in todays fiscal environment, it is unrealistic to expect much help anymore from the State. Instead there is a huge wealth of competence and wisdom within your own community, and it really would not take very much for you to work together to help all of your interests.
In the business world of global companies, such as IONA was, great emphasis is placed on team work, and ensuring that every member of a global organisation contributes to and benefits from the collective wisdom of the staff: domain experts share their knowledge and skills so as the whole company benefits. The commercial world for which we are preparing the vast bulk of our young people is one in which team work abounds. In the world of education, perhaps the current fiscal position of our State can be a catalyst for change, an impetus to encourage sharing amongst education professionals what is the very best.
A wiki is a community self-help tool. Best of all, a wiki can be created by anyone, by any small group of like-minded professionals, at any time. It does not require a mandate from a Government, a Minister, a Trade Union, or even the NAPD! It is a "bottom-up" tool, deep from within the community itself. A wiki can just emerge pretty much overnight, and regardless of any national agenda and policy: it just needs bona fide like-minded professionals.
Be wary of educating people, but instead teach them to not-know and hence to find out. When people think they already know the answers, they become difficult to guide. When people know that they don't know, they can find their way. One of the best ways is to ask and share with others. That is what the internet is all about.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)