“The Fab Lab program has strong connections with the technical outreach activities of a number of partner organizations, around the emerging possibility for ordinary people to not just learn about science and engineering but actually design machines and make measurements that are relevant to improving the quality of their lives.” [MIT Center for Bits and [...]

Peter Senge, Bryan Smith, and Nina Kruschwitz wrote an article in Booz Allen Hamilton Inc.’s strategy+business on transforming business thinking to combat climate change.
We cannot meet the 80-20 challenge under the present industrial system. Success will require a sea change in the prevailing kinds of energy we use, cars we drive, buildings we live and [...]

Jeffrey Phillips asks:
Here’s a challenge for you. Find me a firm, any firm, that isn’t telling it’s people, it’s customers and it’s investors that innovation isn’t important. Can you imagine that? Telling these constituents that innovation isn’t important is like telling people that oxygen isn’t important. So, let’s take as a given that most firms [...]

News of the absurd:
Conservative front group Family Security Matters (FSM) today released its list of “The Ten Most Dangerous Organizations in America.” Universities and colleges earned the #2 spot in the rankings. FSM writes that these 10 “hate” organizations are “growing powerful in the world of politics” and share a common “unwillingness to bend in [...]

Upcoming Urban Leadership Academy workshop in Minneapolis:
Creating Schools of the Future through Systems ThinkingFebruary 1, 2006
Verna Allee, Verna Allee and Associates
Verna Allee, M.A., is recognized worldwide for her work as a pioneer in the field of knowledge management. She is a practitioner, thought leader, author, and frequent keynote speaker on value networks, knowledge management, [...]

Article link: Innovation and disruption still going hand in hand
The New York Times reports that “the cutthroat environment of ever increasing competition could actually hinder future technological advances.” The drive for innovative business models in an increasingly deregulated and globalized environment creates rapid continuous change in the global economy. An American school textbook [...]

Van der Heijden, K. A. (2002). Sixth sense: accelerating organizational learning with scenarios. Chichester ; New York: Wiley.
Van der Heijden builds upon the ideas in Scenarios and delves into more modern approaches to scenario planning. He argues, scenario-based continuous learning is the best approach for organizations to identify and plan for external environmental inputs [...]