I spent time talking with some colleagues regarding the importance people vs. process. It seems that there is questions is a difficult one for management to solve. Conventional wisdom suggests that people are commodities to be used when most appropriate. Actually, I'm not certain that this is the best answer. In fact, I asked this same question of my Linked-In community and the answers were quite thought provoking.
So, do you fit people to the process or fit the process to the people. Arguably, you will not have a successful process if you do not have the correct blend of talented people. I suppose to some extent, you must take great care to provide the best training for your personnel.
Lastly, there is that expectation that leadership is a 'natural selection' process. In that, leaders will gravitate to the head of the pack and provide stability for the process in question. I have never subscribed to the idea of a natural born leader. I happen to believe that leadership can be taught and is a learned behavior.
On the rare occasion that I watch a TV show, I make an earnest effort to view something stimulating. Harvard Prof. Henry Louis Gates, narrated a trip to Timbuktu. If you're not familiar the rich history of this Sub-Saharan city, I encourage you to do a bit of research. It was the educational center for world scholars, unfortunately, it was sacked during the onslaught of European imperialism. Nonetheless, there is still a very large archive of scholarly texts that survived the fires.
Gates visited many villages and communities on his quest to uncover the mystery behind Timbuktu. The intent of his journey was to dispel several myths relative to early-Africa, and its rich legacy and contributions to modern world progress.
As an aside, I too struggled with this idea in question, during my days in undergrad. In fact, I'm clear that I had to check a history professor. I clearly recall his arrogance when he uttered, "Most scholars believed that the Egyptians were not of African descent." I had to blast him in local campus papers, and quote several texts to the contrary (ie. "Black in Science" Dr. Ivan Van Sertima, "Destruction of Black Civilization" Dr. Chancellor Williams, "They Came Before Columbus" Dr. Chancellor Williams), just to name a few.
Not surprisingly, I was not one the prof's favorite students, and I earned a 'C' in that Global Civilizations course.
Gates took a special interest in South Africa, specifically Johannesburg and some of the more lavish tourist attractions in Pretoria. Of particular interest was the re-telling of the history from the African and _not_ the European perspective. According to Gates, some of the European prospectors took great pride in building make-believe tourist attractions, which described their concept of early-Africa. Re-writing history to suit their needs and also burying in realistic opportunity to set the record straight and give the indigenous people the chance to shine. It also appeared as though many of the tourist have accepted these false images as gospel. Quite sad indeed.
How do we stop this foolishness? Well, it begins by having knowledge of self and recognizing that the legacy of great people can never be quelled.
One aspect of this Gates narrative that rubbed me the wrong way was a response he'd given to a young South African student. Apparently, the student was living in the Soweto townships, which have been provided by the new government. The conditions were certainly deplorable, even Gates remarked, "It would take 1000 years for them to catch up." This student indicated that he was planning to attend college, and that money to fund his education was a concern. Gates replied, "If you're grades are good, you shouldn't have any problem getting funding." At this moment I figured Gates was having a proverbial out of body experience. His tone dripped of arrogance. This Ivy League, prof certainly should use his ability to help this young man. Hell, bring him to your beloved Harvard if you choose, but to assume that the system will work as designed is misguided at best. Once Mandela was freed and apartheid was crushed, the government was supposed provide for the indigenous people. That is housing, electricity, and the necessities were to be provided. Judging from the footage, none of of this happened. What makes you think, getting good grades will help this man eject from this desperate situation? Clearly everyone cannot be saved, but you can help at least one person. This student was your best opportunity to reach down and grab someone. Wasn't the purpose of the visit to reveal truth?
Outside of that exchange, I thought Gates did a decent job. Actually, there has been much goodness on PBS this month. It's a shame that we can only get our culture freedom once a year..
Update : Great addition to this conversation at Kintespace.
As tax time approaches, I unlike many others actually enjoy the preparation of my tax return. The simple trick is save _every_ receipt and use a reliable budget or expense reconciliation method. Yeah, I know that vendors look at you crazy when they have hastily taken your money and given you the goods which you've just purchased, but actually a receipt should always be part of every transaction. Regardless of what is being sold (snacks, coffee, water, etc). These knick-knack items add up and almost all of them are not fixed costs, so they can be controlled.
If you get into the habit of collecting receipts for everything you purchase, it becomes quite simple to track and plot your monthly expenses. So when tax time rolls around and you must produce accurate records for your accountant or for some simple tax program, you do not have to guess about about itemized deductions. Hell, you don't even have to claim mystery children or other foolishness.
The tracking system need not be very complicated at all. A simple spreadsheet will suffice. Just make sure that you have some sort of accordion, tabbed folder which list all of your monthly expense categories (ie dinner, lunch, home furnishing, gas, groceries, etc). If you're really sophisticated, you can run a program like GNUcash or some other financial software to help track your annual expenses and help you manage your small business expenses. I suppose the beauty of all of this is that you can begin to see trends and even find that _extra_ loot that you thought you have been missing. The extra loot can then be diverted to money market or CD. Perhaps you could then use some of this money to finance your next overseas vacation.
Bottom Line: If you think of your financial health as a Fortune 100 business, you will be more likely to take an aggressive approach to cost savings and waste reduction. Frugality becomes a learned behavior.
Although, I have limited classical teaching experience, I am keenly aware that having equal access to problem solving tools can be critical for students at all levels. Unfortunately, the average educator is unaware that there are alternatives to mainstream commercial software.
The term Software Libre can be literally translated to mean Software Freedom, and this definition is more eloquently stated in the Free Software Foundation manifesto, overseen by Richard Stallman .
Scholarship is serious business, and it is clear that providing children with easy access to software is paramount. When you teach children using only proprietary software tools, you are essentially encouraging software piracy. In that, it is unlikely that they will have access to the same software outside of the classroom. If the child wishes to learn more, they will be forced to get access to this exclusive software.
So, if we understand that there are alternatives to proprietary software offerings, what we immediately discover is that there is another avenue for seeking knowledge and scholarship. What is liberating about this discovery? Well, aside from the obvious reduction of costs associated with educational software licenses, we also gain the ability to redirect these aforementioned savings to curriculum development and specialized teaching tools.
The wide-world web has opened a vast amount of access to people who normally would be shut out from these opportunities.
However, the proliferation of geeky jargon and sophisticated tools can be daunting to even the most savvy computer users.
As discussed previously, Open Source seeks to level the playing field by providing access to all teaching disciplines.
The Open Source Assistive Technology Software (OATS) initiative is one such organization which seeks to help programs which empower and treat special needs students. Their site is chock-full of helpful programs and they showcase plethora of Open Source Software (OSS) projects that have started to scratch the itch and provide solutions to various special needs problems.
Other interesting OSS projects are Moodle, Mozilla Firefox, and Openoffice.org.
The Course Management System(CMS), Moodle is particularly interesting due to the very large and extremely active developer network. The ability to manage interactive testing and share real-time feedback with students and parents is a very intriguing value proposition.
Most everyone has at least heard about Mozilla Firefox, as it basically forced Microsoft to freshen its aging Internet Explorer web browser. If you have been a Firefox user for any length of time, you will note from different online screen shots that IE 7.0 really is not very innovative.
Openoffice.org(OOo) is recognized as a very capable replacement for Microsoft Office, and it is championed by Sun Microsystems(SUN). It is standards compliant and will run on several platforms. Perhaps most importantly, it is easily reads the Microsoft Office formats and with the click of button, publishes the very popular Adobe Acrobat (.pdf) file format on the fly.
Lastly, it is understood that children seem to respond to sensory stimulus (ie. sound, color, and visual). The 3-D world of SecondLife has begun to receive serious consideration for advanced teaching tool for students. The separate teen grid provides a special layer of protection from adult content.
Software Libre is a community effort which lends credence to global and forward thinking. The time for collaborative, participatory thinking is now. How will you leverage this opportunity?