Getting Smart by Tom Vander Ark

Transforming Education through Personal Digital Learning!


We are all learners. If you are not learning something new every day, you might as well be dead. However opportunities for formal learning were very limited till a few years back. Access to content, teachers and facilities were limited to a privileged few in the world. That is now changing – digital technologies, cheap and high bandwidth internet connections and a global bunch of eduprenuers are now offering learning opportunities to all – irrespective of where you are and how much money you have.

Tom Vander Ark shows in ‘Getting Smart’ how this wave is transforming education across the world and what students, parents, teachers, leaders, and investors should do to take advantage of this revolution. Tom starts of the book by explaining what ‘personal digital learning’ is, and how it can overcome the current challenges faced by the American education system. Then in separate chapters on ‘Customization – building the right playlist for each student’, ‘Motivation- getting everyone into the learning game’, ‘Equalization – Connecting all students to Excellence’, ‘Integration – putting it all together to make schools smarter’, ‘Innovation – Policies that will make it happen’, ‘Investment – paying for innovation’, and finally ‘Employment – changing our job descriptions’ , Tom brings it all together to make you smarter.

Each chapter has clear predictions on future trends over the next five to ten years and very interesting links to a number of companies and organizations across the world that are active players in this domain. For any one interested in learning or in the future of education, this book is a must read.

The God Species by Mark Lynas - Book Review

Achieving sustainable growth within the Planetary boundaries




Global warming has been a `hot' topic for some time - but this book is not just about global warming and climate change. Going much beyond that, Mark Lynas takes us though the concept of planetary boundaries - ecological limits of the Earth's systems crossing which can push the planet into a death spiral. The book describes nine such planetary boundaries and they are: (1) Biodiversity loss (2) Climate change (3) Nitrogen cycle (4) Land use change (5) Global Fresh water use (6) Chemical Pollution (7) Atmospheric aerosol loading (7) Ocean acidification (8) Stratospheric Ozone depletion. Specific boundary limits and current data are provided for all boundaries except two - items 6 and 7. Explaining the basic science in detail, Mark shows that the debate should move from whether the dangers are real or not to how we should tackle them. More importantly, Mark shows that how many of them are interlinked and a hasty approach to solving any one of them without understanding the connected implications can lead to severe problems.

Moving himself away from the traditional Green ideologies, Mark agrees with Stewart Brand in pushing for Nuclear Power, Genetic engineering and promoting urban living. Mark also demolishes the current popular notion especially among the Republicans in the U.S that measure for protecting the environment is economically counter productive and can retard growth. The most important takeaway for me from this book was that while ecological limits are real, economic limits are not.

I found myself in agreement with most of the concepts developed by the author but am still not convinced about Nuclear power. More data will be needed to convince the public about the safety of nuclear energy, and author's handling of Chernobyl and Fukushima does not match the depth shown in other areas. I had also visited Chernobyl recently and was amazed at the effort still need to contain the contamination. Mark makes no mention of the new cover being built to cover the Chernobyl plant which hopefully will keep it safe for the next 100 years.

Though the book starts off with the developments in genomics, further coverage in the book on DNA sequencing and its potential is very limited. But the author does bravely go into articulating that sooner or later, our species would have to play `God' and take more active efforts in managing the planet through the use of our Science & Technology.

On the English language

From 'The Proust and the Squid' by Maryanne Wolfe

I take it you already know
Of touch and bough and cough and dough?
Others may stumble but not you
On hiccough, thorough, slough, and through?
Well done! And now you wish, perhaps,
To learn of less familiar traps?

Beware of heard, a dreadful word
That looks like beard and sounds like bird.
And dead; it is said likened, not bead;
For goodness sake, don't call it deed!
Watch out for meat and great and threat,
(They rhyme with suite and straight and debt).
A moth is not a moth in mother.
Nor both in bother, broth in brother.

And here is not a match for there,
And dear and fear for bear and pear,
And then there's dose and rose and lose-
Just look them up - and goose and choose,
And cork and work and card and ward,
And font and front and word and sword.
And do and go, then thwart and cart.
Come, come, I've hardly made a start.

A dreadful language? Why, man alive,
I'd learnt to talk it when I wax five.
And yet to read it, the more I tried,
I hadn't learnt it at fifty-five.

The Lean Startup by Eric Ries - A Book Review

The elixir for eternal youth! - for the Startup



Winston Churchill once said that we can depend on the United states to do the right thing - after they have exhausted all other alternatives. The same can be said for the startup company in cutting edge fields - they have to keep trying so many different options on the various product features, target market segments, pricing, technology architecture, and so on before they hit upon the right formula. And since companies will not have the necessary resources to try out the various permutations and combinations, most of them fail before they achieve success; unless they are phenomenally lucky.

But Eric Ries in his book `The Lean Startup' shows that it doesn't have to be so. He explains that startups cannot use traditional planning an management tools because their product and customers are unknown. So, what else? Here he comes up with his Lean Startup Methodology - which is a scientific approach for creating and managing startups. Since the product and customer are not known, startups needs to develop a process of "validated learning" through which they can learn to build a sustainable business. This is different from learning through failure - which is a very expensive and wasteful process. Startups need to have a "Build-Measure-Learn" process and get continuous feedback from the market, so that they can decide whether to continue with the current plan or `pivot' into other directions. Eric shows the various ways a startup can pivot: Zoom-in pivot, Zoom-out pivot, Customer segment pivot, Customer need pivot, Platform pivot, and so on. Eric also explains how the normal metrics which he calls `vanity metrics' fail to show how a startup is performing and he comes with solutions of defining new metrics for the startup which takes into account the continuous innovation that a startup should perform. I loved the concepts of `MVP' - minimum viable product and `power of small batches' which allow companies to be agile and experiment quickly without committing too much resources.

Over the last 25 years of my career, I have been involved with over 20 startups in various capacities - Founder, Investor or Advisor. Though every startup has been a different challenge, there are many commonalities that run across them. And the doubts that plague each one of them are the same - are we doing the right thing? are we making progress? should we presevere with what we are doing or change strategy? The `Lean Startup Methodology' is an excellent tool, which I wish I had known before. It is not that some or most of the things that Eric mentions have not been executed by me or other entrepreneurs, but we lacked the scientific approach and process that would have enables us to plan and manage better.

We look at successful startups and often feel that those winners just happened to be at the right place at the right time. With many real life examples Eric shows it is not just luck. The successful ones were able to manage the startup well through many of the principles explained in the `Lean Startup Methodology' - whether consciously or not. Further, after you move past the startup phase, how do you continue to get the company to innovate and be agile? How can large companies foster entrepreneurship? Can the smart startup maintain the spirit of entrepreneurship? Eric thinks so and lays out his thoughts of how that can be achieved.

Some caveats on the book though - please note carefully how Eric defines the entrepreneur and the startup. There will be many businesses and organizational structures that will not match that. It does not mean the `Lean Startup Methodology' will not work for those - but it will have to modified and fine tuned. Similarly Eric's experiences and the examples he quotes are mostly from the high tech fields and hence the learnings may not be exactly applicable for many traditional industries. Lastly, the book assumes that the Startup is good in execution - which from my experience, is not often the case. The management team in most Startups will have many gaps - some of which they are not even aware of - which leads to serious problems as they try to execute. However there are many other books and large number of consultants who can help the startup to solve those problems.

If you are an entrepreneur or involved with a startup in any capacity - this book is a must read; you will not regret the investment of the time and cost. I commend Eric Ries for making a significant contribution to the field of scientific entrepreneurial management.

Saving Sea Turtles by James Spotilla - Book Review

Who will save the humans?




In 'Saving Sea Turtles', James Spotilla highlights the plight of the sea turtles across the world as they fight the possibility of extinction. Having survived all kinds of threats over their 110 million years of existence, the turtles like many other species met their match when humans rapidly colonized earth over the last two hundred years. With beaches being run over by 'modern' developments, oceans being over fished and polluted, and the effects of global warming taking its toll, it is no wonder that the turtles have hardly any way out. Hopefully the admirable efforts by conservationists like Mr.Spotilla and team would make some difference in the turtles' battle for survival.

In the book, Mr.Spotilla takes us through the life of the turtle - the science is explained very well - the egg laying behavior in the beach, development of the embryo, temperature dependent sex determination, hatching, hatchlings journey to the sea, life in the ocean and the return back to the beach (same beach if possible) to lay eggs and how the cycle of life continues. At each of these phases, their numbers get dramatically reduced by natural predators (which evolution has taught them to overcome) and by human activities which have grown at such a pace that evolutionary solutions have no chance of success. Under the pressure of conservationists groups, governments are trying to enforce a few protection measures but often end up giving in to the more powerful business interests whether it be the property developers or the fishing industry. Still protection efforts from Costa Rica to India are providing some relief to the turtles and Mr.Spotilla explains how every individual can in their own way make a difference in conservation efforts. At the same time it is also clear that we as a species still do not fully realize the dire impact of our activities on earth (the plight of the turtles is just one example) and it might be too late by the time we make a serious effort to change our behavior.

The objectives of the book are very laudable and there is no doubt about the author's knowledge and expertise. Whether it be turtle biology, oceanography, geology or global warming the fundamentals are explained very well, and their relevance to the issues mapped out properly. Turtle genomics is also covered - but too briefly I feel - I would have liked to get more insights that genomics has provided about the evolution of the turtle and what current research efforts are going on leveraging the Next Generation DNA Sequencing technologies. The only drawbacks of the book are the winding narrative and the numerous side stories. Written in first person and mixed with passive and active speech, it needs a considerable determination to read. And in many occasions the author's tendency to drift into too many minor details hampers the big picture and spoils the impact the great facts and the science in the book could deliver.