Non-Disruptive Innovation: Part 1

"Centuries-old" scholar Abelard is hailed as a model teacher.

The flap copy (i.e., the folded portions of the jacket on a print book---remember those?) for From Abelard to Apple by Richard A. DeMillo screams that higher ed institutions are "clinging precariously to a centuries-old model."

Egad!

Not your typical policy wonk, former university administrator, or staunch DoH or DoLA (defender of the humanities/defender of the liberal arts), DeMillo is a computer science prof and former center director at Georgia Tech. He even has industry experience under his belt, having served as the first-ever CTO at Hewlett-Packard. So in short, he's got the kind of cred to make one take notice.

"Disruption is important, but even more important is why some schools make good choices and why others seem so trapped by tradition and culture that they are unable to act to save themselves from economic and political forces that are reshaping other institutions," he said in an interview with Inside Higher Ed. 

Clayton Christensen's portend that disruption is coming to the groves of academe has everyone passing around magic elixir fix-it-alls. More online learning! Greater emphasis on outcomes! Zeroing-in on the essentials (and less on new gyms, luxury dorms, and organic dining options). Even presidential hopeful Mitt Romney took time out to praise for-profit higher learning (before investigating the price tag or outcomes).

A once college is now a state park.

By contrast, DeMillo offers no single remedy. Instead, he suggests that all higher educational institutions, especially those in the messy middle (not big state U's or the top Ivy or Ivy-like places), clearly define their value proposition---or be relegated to the dustbin of history.

Good news for all of us in public relations, as we have been telling our deans and presidents about the need to better define our respective value propositions for years... through better marketing!


And yet, we must admit that we always need something new and exciting to tout, and often look with envy at our corporate world counterparts and their constant roll out of shiny new products.

By contrast, many institutions of higher learning appear old and unchanging. With those fancy iron gates around the quads and yards (easily spotted where I work), some campuses even appear proudly aloof---and that may not always be a bad thing (a nod to former Harvard president and DoH or DoLA supreme Derek Bok).

An alumni survey done about a decade ago, however, revealed that Harvard most reminded its graduates, in terms of its willingness to change, as akin to the Vatican.

Good news. A lot has changed in the past ten years---and even more in the past five.

“It’s really a different environment from when Zuckerberg was here,’’ Hamed said. “He was working with his roommates in his dorm room; I’ve been able to work with an innovation lab. I’ve talked to venture capitalists; I’ve looked at term sheets. I have office space and people to work with. “If Zuckerberg were here today, I bet he would have stayed a little longer,’’ he said. (Boston Globe)

DeMillo doesn't suggest that universities are un-evolving or devolving a la Kurt Vonnegut's riot-fest Galapagos. What he has right is that higher education has continually changed over the centuries and decades.

They now support a good portion of the R&D in this country. Have some of the world's best museums. Amazing libraries (even now). And so on. Moreover, the sheer variety of American higher educational approaches (from co-op programs to great book programs to online only) is, in fact, utterly astounding.

So what's the problem? DeMillo is worried that the market will no longer tolerate such variety, especially as cheaper (as in the free Khan Academy) or alternative programs (like badges instead of degrees) begin to dig in. Unless an institution can show value-add (amazing teaching, dynamic learning, great job placement, value for $, etc.) its once beautiful campus may end up as a park.

He doesn't want market forces to do to the majority of colleges and universities what they did to Polaroid, Blockbuster, and Barnes & Noble. They need to get ahead of the curve---STAT!

The top 1% (to borrow a popular phase) have already gotten the hint and are enjoying a grand head start.

"Where are the daring experiments? They are at places like MIT and Stanford. The ability to set your own agenda is a powerful advantage for the elite colleges. Truly innovative universities will do the best in the long run, and you have to get a lot of ideas on the table. The elites seem to be the ones that are most interested in doing that." (Inside Higher Ed)

Want specific examples? MIT's Open Courseware. The online AI course for everyone and for credit at Stanford.

Those are big ticket experiments. They make the news and make their respective institution's publicity shops grin from ear-to-ear.

Even students applaud such moves.

Mr. Nguyen [who enrolled in Stanford's AI course tells Wired Campus that he is a big fan of the online lecture format, however. “I think this is the future of education,” he says. (Chronicle of Higher Education).

DeMillo is more reserved, saying he doesn't know what the future will look like, but that higher ed leaders have to strive to not be bested by it. The real changes, he hints, will not actually be at the 1% elite institutions---which will be pretty much be fine no matter what happens.

Sure, the ivies and tech institutes will influence everyone else as they plunge into online learning, unveil innovative classrooms, and design truly global experiences. That will likely be positive (as the push for diversity and financial aid has been) and help raise many boats.

Yet, the lauded institutions that seem to be the most daring are, in fact, the most risk averse. When thinking about innovation they are only able to conceive of it on a grand, massive scale equal to their intellectual heft. Meaning, they tend to invest in endeavors they are fairly certain will be successful.

Under his guise of gloom and doom DeMillo actually has a message of hope: the middle-tiered institutions may very well be the places where the grandest experiments arise---out of necessity.

Innovation enabler Paul Bottino suggests small yet wild experiments.

Paul Bottino, who runs the Technology and Entrepreneurship Program at Harvard (TECH), based at SEAS, has long advocated that the big league schools should be the ones that help foster an environment of experimentation.

One that could have a true trickle down effect.

By focusing too much on grand gestures, however, they miss out on the iterative and incremental steps that ultimately fuel true innovation.

He recently said: Why can't places like Harvard be more like the idea incubators and try a bunch of ideas on a small scale? They have zero risk!

Engage alumni (one of the biggest assets of any institution) in brand new ways. Create specific social networks that open up knowledge. Rethink the lecture (as our own Eric Mazur is already doing). Try out short, wacky course ideas.

Encourage the kind of thinking in and outside the classroom that is okay with failure.

As I will explore in Part 2, communications professionals have a role to play in all of this.

In addition to pushing out the cleaned-up, positive releases about amazing accomplishments, PR pros might want to consider writing pieces that celebrate the kinds of experiments that, metaphorically, blew up the lab.

At Harvard, we have a natural place to start. J.K. Rowling's 2008 Commencement Address (one of the most downloaded items from the Harvard servers several years running).

The title: “The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination."