The future of education

I just started taking CS 50 at Harvard College.  I have all of the lecture notes, video of the class sessions, the problem sets and the quizzes.  The amazing thing is the course cost me nothing.  Welcome to open courseware.  This is where colleges and universities create course content and share it freely across the internet.  The classes won't give you course credit, but will provide you with the same knowledge as the student who pays $20,000 a year in tuition.  What does this mean for the future of education?  I don't know, but I have a class to watch.  I'm trying to learn to program.  If you want more information on open courseware please go to OCW Consortium

Sunk Costs

I was looking for the best definition I could to properly explain a sunk cost and then I came across a Seth Godin blog post from 3 years ago which explains it perfectly.  Click on this and then come back to me.  Good reading, right?!  Especially in a down economy, we have to beware of the sunk cost.  Not all decisions are going to pan out, but we have to be willing to keep trying to make the right one.  My Dad said to me that "if you aren't making any mistakes, it means you aren't making enough decisions."  Too many organizations  aren't willing to make the right decision after a wrong one because it costs more.  I assert the costs will be much higher if you don't make the best decision in the moment.

Ipad dominates tablet market

Very interesting article from All Things D commenting on the utter dominance of the Ipad.  The Kindle Fire sales numbers have decreased.  Are people buying the discounted Ipad2?

Squeezing the Lemon

How many of you have ever disagreed with decisions made above you, but you had to execute?  You can  all put your hands down now.  Let's take this a step farther.  Have any of you either made, or executed a decision that was entirely about making your numbers this quarter, or even this year, but you knew the decision could potentially mortgage the companies future?  These are decisions managers and leaders have to wrestle with every day.  Where is the line between being efficient and lean vs. choking sales and service and causing longer term repercussions in the out years?  How many instances can you come up with where mass cutting of expenses have ended being a good long term decision for your company?  I pose these situations as questions because I'm not sure there is just one right answer, but I do think companies owe it to their employees, customers, and stockholders to operate as efficiently as possible every day so you can scale your costs up, or down based on the size of the business and not just slash, or "squeeze the lemon" to hit a number without really understanding how it will effect the day to day operation.