How Healthcare Can Become Higher in Quality, Lower in Cost & Widely Accessible

Check out this very engaging and interesting video with Clayton Christensen: Prescribing a common framework/theory about how to approach the complex problems within healthcare.

12 Disruptive Technologies that Will Create and Destroy Jobs in the Future

Oh damn, it has been a long time since I blogged. Well, here goes nothing.

I have always been fond of Clayton Christensen's ideas about disruptive innovation. I just found this report from McKinsey: "Disruptive Technologies: Advances that will transform life, business, and the global economy".According to the report these technologies could have a potential economic impact between $14 trillion and $33 trillion a year in 2025. Quite interesting stuff.

Check out the illustration below. It shows a list of the disruptive technologies and their potential impact. Let's look back in about a decade and see if the prediction holds true...

Exploiting Digital Benefits in Education

I am currently co-authoring an article about how new technology might be integrated within existing learning practices in an educational setting.

Having an interest in disruptive innovation and sociological practice-theoretical aspects I like to find illustrative examples of how new technologies might change the way we learn and potentially create new routines of learning and teaching. Even though much has been written about ICT competence (or the lack of it) amongst teachers and students - I believe that evaluating change within practices and routines might be a fruitful approach in order to comprehend what creates value towards various user groups. So, instead of assessing ICT competence (or technology readiness indexes) as a subjective measurement I am more interested in how existing doings/actions/routines change when new technologies are introduced.

The integration of meaning, know-how and technology might be a challenging task when considering new technologies in an educational setting typically characterized by long-held traditions. What we do know is that many students are enthusiastic about new technologies and services (think about smart phones, iPad, Facebook etc.) but many of these digital features are not integrated as part of their routines at school in a manner which might facilitate more efficient and interactive learning. So, the challenge is to be able to exploit benefits that might potentially derive from new technologies (i.e. interactivity), utilize student motivation towards new gadgets and encourage teachers to integrate these new tools as part of their teaching programme. Ofcourse, we must wait for those innovative solutions which could actually introduce interactivity, such as interactive textbooks (more than e-books), self-test exercises with digital feedback, social interactivity amongst students etc.) which the new generation of students are waiting for....

The video below (in Norwegian) illustrates how new technology may bring forward interactivity that only digital can do. It shows how visualization and simulation may enhance the way we learn about complex concepts and theories in new ways.

Senter for IKT i utdanningen - Fremtiden starter nå from Howie Arnstad on Vimeo.

Explaining the theory of disruptive innovation in an innovative manner...

What is Catalytical Innovation?

Professor Clayton Christensen from Harvard Business School has increasingly been recognised as a guru in the field of innovation theory. His "The Innvoator's XYZ" books prove his concept of disrupive innovation in a very exciting and cheerful manner and make them an interesting read indeed.

The main focus for his disruptive innovation theories is often directed towards private sectors. However, Christensen has also adapted business based theories in the context of social change - coined "Catalytical Innovation". Interestingly, the principles of disruptive innovation may support organizations who aim at creating new solutions to social challenges. Christensen, Bauman and Heiner have identified several criteria for catalytical innovation:

The Five Qualities of Catalytic Innovators:

1) They create systemic social change through scaling and replication.
2) They meet a need that is either overserved (because the existing solution is more complex than many people require) or not served at all.
3) They offer products and services that are simpler and less costly than existing alternatives and may be perceived as having a lower level of performance, but users consider them to be good enough.
4) They generate resources, such as donations, grants, volunteer manpower, or intellectual capital, in ways that are initially unattractive to incumbent competitors.
5) They are often ignored, disparaged, or even encouraged by existing players for whom the business model is unprofitable or otherwise unattractive and who therefore avoid or retreat from the market segment.

Interesting stuff!