Universities as Urban Community Leaders: The Indispensable University is a new book by recently retired Virgina Commonwealth University President Trani…. “The Indispensable University asserts that higher education is undergoing a ‘major transformation that is fundamentally redefining the relationship of colleges and universities to the broader community. This transformation is occurring at every level of higher education, from community colleges, to comprehensive undergraduate schools, to research-intensive doctoral universities. And it is becoming an increasingly global phenomenon as universities around the world seek to redefine themselves in ways that will enable them to become significant actors in the modern, knowledge-based economy.'” http://www2.timesdispatch.com/news/2010/jun/13/ed-tas13-ar-105711/ Great cities and great universities is a vital partnership to be nurtured http://www.usucoalition.org/downloads/part4/great_cities_great_universities.pdf
K-12
Studying Engineering Before They Can Spell It: NYT FRONTPAGE, By Winnie Hu (June 14, 2010) To compete in a global economy, some school districts are offering engineering lessons to students in kindergarten. “…the big bad wolf had to do more than just huff and puff to blow down the three little pigs’ house. To start, he needed to get past a voice-activated security gate, find a hidden door and negotiate a few other traps in a house that a pair of kindergartners here imagined for the pigs — and then pieced together from index cards, paper cups, wood sticks and pipe cleaners.” http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/14/education/14engineering.html?_r=1&emc=eta1 This is all part of the Engineering is Elementary program… http://www.mos.org/eie/
Much of K-12 Math and Science has a focus on the naturally-evolved world, but good a grounding in the human-made world is equally important. For example, even students in Kindergarten know how they got to school – by walking,bus, car, etc. And learning about transportation as a service system is important. Eventually, K-12 will be learning about holistic service systems without even knowing it, as they learn about cities they are learning about – transportation, water/air, food/products, energy, communications, buildings, retail/hospitality/media/entertainment, finance, health, education, security-governance.
Shared Service, Shared Governance Example:
Shared Service, Shared Governance Example: We know universities have libraries and most cities have libraries as well… often many of the same journal and books, but different software and systems…. So one of the very practical examples of “shared governance and share service” between city and university that is possible is the shared library…. Pioneering Example: City of San Jose, CA and San Jose State University (SJSU)…. http://www.sjlibrary.org/about/locations/king/index.htm
National League of Cities James C. Howland Awards for Municipal Enrichment ….an award winning idea for cities (2005)… http://www.library.sjsu.edu/about/news/story_05-12-07.htm “The King Library is both a public and academic library, built where the city and campus meet so that it can be shared by the entire community. ” It is green too, award winningly green: http://www.sjsu.edu/fdo/energy/sustainability/lighting/KingLightMBCx/ … a great city, great university partnership http://www.sjlibrary.org/about/index.htm
There are also service learning examples between the university and community… http://www.communivercitysanjose.org/history.htm
Our ecological footprint?
How Big Is Our Ecological Footprint: The carrying capacity of Earth depends on the quality of service systems that exist. Here is a nice website and quiz to help build awareness of our ecological footpprint http://www.myfootprint.org/
Of course, “Our Ecological Footprint” is a classic book by Mathis Wackernagel (search Google books). There is a great deal of work required to model humanities ecological footprint http://www.footprintnetwork.org/en/index.php/GFN/page/footprint_basics_overview/ as well as to understand nature’s service http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nature’s_services and ecological service http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecosystem_services
Short takes week of July 9
Ovum Comments: New Skills and Service Science http://www.ovum.com/go/content/c,77654
Best Paper Award Health INFORMS: http://www.informs.org/Recognize-Excellence/INFORMS-Community-Prizes-and-Awards/Pierskalla-Best-Paper-Award
Urban Dive Experience http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNnuFkMrMPM
Earthmine (US Berkeley) collect-process-deliver pixel-level-accurate urban-maps http://www.earthmine.com
US Dept ED SCANS http://www.arp.sprnet.org/default/curric/scans.htm
Service Innovation (Netherlands) Rene van Buuren http://www.novay.nl/about-novay/22
Water Test Kits for Students http://www.worldwatermonitoringday.com/Test_Kits/Kits_Main.html
Making Service Science Mainstream: http://www.servicefactory.aalto.fi/fi/wp-content/themes/default/Service_Science_Summit_White_Paper.pdf
Executive Masters in Service Science (Switzerland) EMISS Michel Leonard http://matis.unige.ch/
Complexity in Business Conference (US) Washington DC 11/12/2010 – last year’s http://www.rhsmith.umd.edu/ccb/cbconference.aspx
Services and Enterprise Research Unit (UK) Paul Daniels University of Birmingham http://www.gees.bham.ac.uk/research/clusters/ee/seru/
Enterprise Risk Management for Universities (US) University of California http://www.ucop.edu/riskmgt/erm/
Silicon Valley Innovation Initiative (US) http://svii.net/events/?event_id=18
Visit University of Wisconsin Madison (US) NMC event (humorous) http://www.nmc.org/2010-summer-conference/nmc2011-invitation
International Doctoral or Post-Doc Grant (Portugal) IBM/UP/FEUP http://www.fe.up.pt/~ibmcas
IBM CAS (Portugal) Center for Advanced Study https://www.ibm.com/ibm/cas/sites/portugal/index.shtml
Service in Abnormal Situations (UK) Steve Baron (U Liverpool) sent this chilling video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qb5rZkB1GgU
Modeling and Simulation (US) University of Central Florida http://www.iems.ucf.edu/about/leaders.html
Luxury resort hotels (US) of the complexity of the Venetian in Las Vegas http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hm7MeZlS5fo
Universities (US) key economic drivers for regions http://www.usucoalition.org/downloads/part4/great_cities_great_universities.pdf
Cities (US) models of cities http://www.earthmine.com and http://www.vterrain.org/Culture/BldCity/Com/services.html
Service Innovation (US) Steve Kwan San Jose State University (SJSU) http://www.cob.sjsu.edu/ssme/kwanmanchester2010.pptx
The Karlsruhe Service Research Institute (Germany) KSRI http://www.ksri.kit.edu
Service Innovation in Cities
Service Innovation in Cities: More and more stakeholders agree – we need to focus on urban sustainability and service innovation. Cities, Universities, Companies, are convening to declare their challenges, intentions, solutions, and most of all trigger discussion of future opportunities for co-creating value together. http://www.amiando.com/livinglabsglobalcopenhagen.html I am especially interested in the work of Prof. David Gann at Imperial College’s Innovation and Entrepreneurship Group in London. He is contributing to the UK’s Digital City effort, which is is quite compelling. http://www.livinglabs-global.com/documents/events/2010_WellConnectedCity/Speakers_Biographies.pdf He also have a very nice book Think-Play-Do. After reading it you will agree, we need to replace ThinkTanks with Think-Play-DoTanks. See http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/product/9780199268092.do There are many, many companies with visions of what the Digital City might be, including Autodesk’s http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/index?id=11053875&siteID=123112
SRII conference & CFP
Service Research and Innovation Institute (SRII): IEEE and ACM are excellent well-established professional associations. Many other great professional associations also exist (e.g., INFORMS, AMA, IIE, AIS, etc.). For example, a note from Prof. Ralph Badinelli, Virginia Tech and Chairperson of INFORMS Service Science Section, informs: “The Service Research Innovation Institute (http://www.thesrii.org/) is fast becoming a major force in integrating academic and industry research and development in services. SRII will hold its second annual conference, co-sponsored by the INFORMS Service Science Section, on March 30 – April 2, 2011. This conference is a unique opportunity to share the latest research and IT technologies with the most notable colleagues in the field of service science. Please see the Call for Papers (http://www.thesrii.org/index.php/global-conference) and consider submitting an abstract. Due dates for abstracts will be extended. Updates about the conference schedule will be forthcoming on the conference web site.” http://www.thesrii.org
Service in Abnormal Condiditons
Service in Abnormal Conditions. Steve Baron (UK, University of Liverpool) and Gary Warnaby are developing a fascinating sub-area in the emerging service science area that they call “service in abnormal conditions.” Steve recently presented at the Frontiers in Service Conference in Karlstad Sweden, and I quote a bit of their abstract: “As we write this abstract, the UK is in the grip of the worst winter conditions for over forty years. Extremely heavy snowfalls, coupled with temperatures as low as -18oC, have disrupted normal life. Roads have become impassable, schools have closed, and millions of people have been unable to get into work. The extreme, ‘arctic’ weather conditions have been the number one news item on every bulletin for the past three weeks. Every citizen has a weather-related critical incident to share. ‘Normal service’ has been temporarily suspended. ”
Did I mention how much planning they must do for “service in abnormal conditions”? Watch this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hm7MeZlS5fo (and to see application of same asset management technology at University of Dayton http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfzsnLJcS7I) Also see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hm7MeZlS5fo
What is a holistic service system?
Defining What is a Holistic Service System: I am looking for ideas about what is a good definition for a holistic service system. My own definition is to first offer some examples: cities, universities, luxury resort hotels. And then mention that holistic service systems are a type of system of service systems (service network), that must address: transportation, water/air, food/products, energy, communications, buildings, retail, finance, health, education, security-governance. And then to give an out of this world example – a space ship. And finally, a more mundane example, a luxury ocean liner… So what is a good definition for a holistic service system? My primary interest these days is apply service science to the study of universities and cities — two tightly coupled “holistic service systems” — nations and states are also good examples of holistic service systems. Populations of holistic service systems balance interdependence and independence. An interesting finding so far is the near linear correlations between % of GDP of nations and % of universities in the top 500….. A good source of data is http://www.arwu.org/ARWUAnalysis2009.jsp For exanmple, China makes a nice country to look at over the last few years, since they have jumped both in GDP and top-500-universities. So far the leader though is still the US, with 23% of WW GDP and 30% of top-500-universities…. So universities and cities as tightly-coupled holistic service systems are of keen interest these days… a city-making industry is beginning to emerge, and universities seem to be a core aspect of new cities. In IBM University Programs (IBM UP) WW, we are very interested in helping to align universities on the idea of an emerging “city-making” industry. The key is not just a city-making industry, but making it economical to re-cycle and re-make cities as a sustainable investment decade over decade… even the most environmentally friendly buildings today, may look like dinosaurs in 20 years as green-tech gets onto its own Moore’s law of continuous improvement. Think of super-computers 20 years ago compared to super-computers today. Green buildings are approaching their own kind of decade-based accelerated improvement curves due to new materials and techniques.
IAMOT
Academic Discipline Growth and Management of Technology (MOT): Prof. Yasser Hosni (US University of Central Florida) is the President of the International Association for Management Of Technology (IAMOT). He recently invited me to serve as a member of IAMOT’s Management of Technology Accreditation Board (MOTAB). Prof. Tarek Khalil (Egypt Nile University and US University of Miami) was one of the founders of this academic discipline and author of one of the first MOT textbooks that is revised and still in use today. Ben Amaba (US IBM) introduced me to Prof. Khalil and this area several years ago, and helped point out connections to both systems engineering as well as service science, management, engineering, and design. We all agree technological change is a great enabler of business model and social-organizational change as well. After all it was the technologies of agriculture that allowed cities to work as an organizational structure, and it was rail and telegraph technologies that enabled modern businesses that depend on economies of scale to become viable. In other words, technological innovation can enable service innovation, as service systems and service networks are transformed, and new win-win mechanisms arise (that entities can engage in) to co-create value.