List of Free Online Education

Update No. 5: 10. January.2012

Stanford: www.ai-class.com (Certificate of attendance from professors but not Stanford). Additional certification with credits at German university ( Prof. Wolfram Burgard at the University of Freiburg! http://www.informatik.uni-freiburg.de/~burgard/ai_exams/: many international Universities accept such a certificate)
Other free classes at Stanford Engineering.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology MIT: http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesmarshallcrotty/2011/12/21/m-i-t-game-changer-free-online-education-for-all/ (Certificate of attendance not from MIT)

Academic Earth: http://academicearth.org/

Khan Academy: http://www.khanacademy.org/ (K12 Education)

P2PU: http://p2pu.org/en/

The Open University Learning space (600 free courses also with credits): http://openlearn.open.ac.uk/ See Credit Accumulation and Transfer  scheme (CATS):http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credit_Accumulation_and_Transfer_Scheme. (Remark: Can be transfered into ECTS)

Udemy: www.udemy.com (free courses available not all) – I have started a free course myself: http://ude.my/uWKNlR.

Free online learning resources:
see http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesmarshallcrotty/2012/01/01/free-education-for-all-a-meme-whose-time-has-come/2/

Open Learning Initiative: http://oli.web.cmu.edu/openlearning/

Learning English Video Lectures:
http://www.businessbookmall.com/Learning%20English%20Video%20Lectures.htm

Online College Classes: http://www.onlinecollegeclasses.com/

Alison (Over 300 Free Online classes at Certificate or Diploma Level: http://alison.com/

Any other university, organisation, instititution offering free education ?

Continuous Social Learning Journeys – the new way to effective, efficient and free or cost efficient Learning and Education

I am exited by the potential of social learning.

First of all I have seen many examples where a group of learners is smarter about the topic to study than just the teacher alone.
Social learning also accelerates the personal learning and is more effective than self study alone. And it makes learning more sustainable.
If used with Web2.0 it can be turned into a continuous learning journey, where each learner can stay on the learning journey as long until the personal learning goal is reached. On top it is a highly flexible learning, where participants spend the time they can invest during the days, weeks, months as they wish.

I am just testing such a social learning environment in a free course on Linkedin Profile Best Practice at www.udemy.com: http://ude.my/uWKNlR.
This also offers me a practical way to learn and study more about social learning environments and journeys. It gives me first hand insight about learners using it and what works best and what does not.

My Alltop on Linkedin

http://my.alltop.com/ppalme

2011 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Syndey Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 56,000 times in 2011. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 21 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

In search of the best run companies, but once that you find them are they the next dinosaurs ?

Picture: Courtesy to Creative Comens.

The dinosaur as probably every kid by now knows were once the most mighty animals on the planet. Clearly when the conditions were right, they had the right strength. Once the conditions changed drastically they were not able to adapt.

In the 1980s, Tom Peters and Robert Watermann identified best performing companies but a decade later after the book was published 50% of these companies struggled which was way above the average rates of companies with performance problems.  (Reference: Edward Lawler, Christopher Worley: Built to Change, Page Preface XIV)

In the 1990s James Collins and Jerry Porras came up with a list of best performing companies in their book “Built to last”. Well guess what, a decade later 50% of those companies were struggling. Again way above market average. (Reference: Edward Lawler, Christopher Worley: Built to Change, Page Preface XIV)

You do not have to be a clairvoyant to predict what happened to the list of outperforming companies in the book “Good to Great” authored by Jim Collins and published at the beginning of 2001. Here as well over 50% of those companies struggled a decade later while market average was 30% of companies underperforming.

So what is the list for 2011  ?

Conclusion: If you take the three lists and look which companies are left and additionally list all the performance attributes that were revealed in these books you will have the list of dinosauric behaviour, the list of unsustainable performance.

It almost seems a rule of thumb. Each time the new role models of best run business emerge

Chinese Economic System (Modell) vs. the Laissez-Faire Anglo-Saxon Economic Modell

Nouriel Roubini stated the failure of the Laissez-Faire Anglo-Saxon economic modell in his article: The Instability of Inequality. He was also questioning if an asian, if a Chinese Economic System exists.
If there would be one, it probably would be based on the Chinese Sciences. A very good introduction to the Chinese science concepts can be found in Joseph Needham:  Science and Civilisation in China: Volume 7, The Social Background; Part 1, Language and Logic in Traditional China

The first concept of this Chinese Sciences one will encounter is usally the Ying and Yang principal forces. These forces will bring forth the five Elements. These two concepts are the foundation of all ancient Chinese science. It will be mainly known to the western world in the form of the traditional Chineses Medicine or Feng Shui.

Chinese “Cybernetic System” – The Five Elements (Please click on graphic to enlarge)

It is in principal a cybernetic system. In this five elements system there are three key relations between the elements. Mainly a nurturing relation (blue color) which is the dominant relation. In this system there is water nurturing wood, wood to nurture the fire, fire to nurture the earth element and so on. Additionally there is a control relation (red color). Metall is controlling the wood, the wood is controlling the earth, the earth the water, etc. And as we know already from cybernetics there is also a feedback relation (black color). So Wood is giving feedback to the controller metall and so on. To summarize each element has four connections: it nurtures, it controls, it gets controlled, it gives feedback.

If these principals are applied to a potential Chinese Macroeconomic Modell it could look as follows:

Chinese Macroeconomic Modell.

Additonally to the western macroeconomic modells it would contain a fifth element which is described by Markets. These are not the consumer markets, but would represent all the markets that build the foundation of an economy, such as the currency markets, the money markets and the markets for all the commodities and resources (oil, copper, etc.).

Each element also has a Yin-Yang component. Yin could be seen as the framework, the structural logic or variable, whereas Yang is the dynamic variable. If this concept is added to the five elements the following system would emerge:

The Chinese Economic System extended by the Yin and Yang components.

In the case of the household the structural variable is the income, which derives from different sources (earning, interest, etc.) , but mainly from companies.  And the household spends on consumption, on taxes and on savings, which would be considered in this modell as deferred spend.

In the case of the state, the Legislative (Yin) sets the framework and it depends on the Executive (Yang) to ensure the implementation of the legislative framework. This might vary from state (country) to state and can depend for example on how corrupt the system is.

In the market element the available resources (Yin)  determin the price (Yang). States can to a certain extend influence prices of certain resources such as for example the currency, the price for oil, etc. .  The interest rates (yang component) are regulated via the capital made available in the financial institutes system. They can turn quickly to the upside if financial institutions start to mistrust each other as we have seen in the past. And finally there is the company element where the supply represents the Yin variable and the demand the Yang component.

For those who like to play with and validate such as a “Chinese” macroecomic modell there are mathematical ways to described this potential Chinese cybernetic Macroeconomic systems and what the best interventions could be when imbalances in this economic modell occur. It is also a modell that would explain economic growth and economic crisis.

Related Posts:
Chinese Western Management Concept – how to bring two concepts together

Chinese Western Management Concept – how to bring two concepts together

This post is for all those who intensively now work with China or will do so in the future. At first it seems that the western and Chinese concepts do not match and thus it appears that one will never understand the thinking of their counterparts in China. With this post I will try to help build a bridge between the western and chinese thinking in the hope that this will allow you the reader to translate your concepts or strategies into the chinese thinking.

The first concept one will encounter is usally the Ying and Yang principal forces. These forces will bring forth the five Elements. These two concepts are the foundation of all ancient Chinese science. It will be mainly known to the western world in the form of the traditional Chineses Medicine or Feng Shui.
A very good introduction to the Chinese science concepts can be found in Joseph Needham:  Science and Civilisation in China: Volume 7, The Social Background; Part 1, Language and Logic in Traditional China or by Chao-Chuan Chen: Leadership and Management in China: Philosophies, Theories, and Practices
.

Image: Yin and Yang and the Five Elements

In the five elements system there are two key relations between the elements. Mainly a nurturing relation which is the dominant relation. In this system there is water nurturing wood, wood to nurture the fire, fire to nurture the earth element and so on. Additionally there is a control relation. Metall is controlling the wood, the wood is controlling the earth, the earth the water, etc.

The best suitable western concept in Management for helping to bridge the gap between western and chinese thinking is based on the Malik Management System. Fredmund Malik developed this system over many years. It is based on the St. Galler Systems Management modell by Alois Gälweiler, Hans Ulrich und Walter Krieg, the works on  management cybernetics of Stafford Beer and on the world leading research into Management by Peter Drucker. For a deeper understanding I would recommend Fredmund Malik:
Management: The Essence of the Craft (Management: Mastering Complexity)

For this Management System Fredmund Malik uses the systemic relations between Corporate Policy and Governance, Strategy, Structure, Culture and Executives.

Based on his works it is possible to bring the Chinese Concept of the Five Elements together with the Fredmund Malik’s systemic relations of his Management System.

Image: Systemic Relations in the Malik Management System aligned to the Five Elements concept

Now what is so intriguing about it is that the business tools that are used in a modern western coorperation can now be translated over the holistic system approach developed by Fredmund Malik into the Chinese thinking. And maybe it will lead to even to more new discoveries in this area.

Let me give you an example on how to merge the two systems:
Usually when a Chinese would use the five elements to diagnose a system he would look at the imbalances of Yin and Yang within the Five Elements. A diagnosis as an example would sound like: “There is excess heat in the wood element and a coldness in the metal element”. To translate this back with the help of the Malik Management Systems it would show that there is an uncontrolled situation in the strategy area and a weakness in the Corporate Policies and Governance space.

How would one now remedy this situation and use the language of both concepts ?
A Chinese System expert would look not only at the elements out of control but also see what interelations in the system are causing the imbalance in these two elements. He might not only address the excess heat in the wood element but also check if the metall element should be strengthened to increase the control of the wood element.
He would actually look at the two fundamental forces Yin and Yang within each of these elements to see the best intervention points to stablize and rebalance the system.
A very good insight in how this system is applied is in the works of Manfred Porkert : Theoretical Foundations of Chinese Medicine: Systems of Correspondence (Asian Science Series: No. 3)
.

To translate this back into a western concept it would require to go one level deeper in the management system of Fredmund Malik and add the related yin and the yang components. The system would look like this (The Yin comp0nent on the left in each element and the yang component on the right. Example the Element Structure now contains the Yin Component structure and the yang component process).

Image:  The Malik Management System translated by the author into the Five Elements and the Yin and Yang concept. Please be aware that Fredmund Malik did not structure his system in such a way, but based on his works the author deducted this graphical representation.

Depending on the findings, the interdependencies that led to the imbalance in the first place there are several ways to stabilize the system. One example of such solution could be to strengthen the managment (Yang) component in the Executives element by upskilling the executives in strategic thinking and execution and thus getting a control over the excess in the strategy element. It does not stop to additionally have an intervention in the strategy element by organizing a vision workshop, etc.

This is a likely bridge to bring the western and chinese concepts togehter. As seen in the examples above a system needs to be carefully analysed on the sublevels before translating this into a common concept.

One more concept that often is used in China is the qi concept. It is the result of how yin and yang forces are balanced among the five elements and how well the energy is flowing between the elements. Heike Bruch at the HSG St.  Gallen has done research on organisational energy and how it is influenced. A good read is Heike Bruch: Fully Charged: How Great Leaders Boost Their Organization’s Energy and Ignite High Performance
Now with these combined chinese western management system of Malik one has a great tool to analyse and direct the organisational energy.

Always happy to discuss further. This was just a high level introduction.

Further Readings:
What to look for in Chinese Management Studies

Related Posts:
Chinese Economic System (Modell) vs. the Laissez-Faire Anglo-Saxon Economic Modell

Top quotes from the visionary leader Steve Jobs

The role model for New Business Development is without doubt Steve Jobs and his biogrphy is now avialable Steve Jobs
. Here are some of his top inspirational quotes and they might help to guide you in your visionary journey:

“Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life”. (Steve Jobs, Standford commmencement ceremony 2005). Reference: CNBC

“Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarassement or failure — these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important.” (Steve Jobs, Standford commmencement ceremony 2005). Reference: CNBC

“Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.” (Steve Jobs, Standford commmencement ceremony 2005). Reference: CNBC

“You’ve got to find what you love”. (Steve Jobs, Standford commmencement ceremony 2005). Reference: Stanford University

“I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out.”  (Steve Jobs, Standford commmencement ceremony 2005). Reference: Stanford University

“So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. ” (Steve Jobs, Standford commmencement ceremony 2005). Reference: Stanford University

“And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on.”  (Steve Jobs, Standford commmencement ceremony 2005). Reference: Stanford University

“Again, you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.  (Steve Jobs, Standford commmencement ceremony 2005). Reference: Stanford University

“I didn’t see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.” (Steve Jobs, Standford commmencement ceremony 2005). Reference: Stanford University

“ Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith. I’m convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You’ve got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do.” (Steve Jobs, Standford commmencement ceremony 2005). Reference: Stanford University

“”If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you’ll most certainly be right.” It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: “If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?” And whenever the answer has been “No” for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.” (Steve Jobs, Standford commmencement ceremony 2005). Reference: Stanford University

“Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new.”  (Steve Jobs, Standford commmencement ceremony 2005). Reference: Stanford University

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.” (Steve Jobs, Standford commmencement ceremony 2005). Reference: Stanford University

“Be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren’t used to an environment where excellence is expected.” Reference: BrainyQuote

“Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.” Reference: Brainy Quote

“Sometimes when you innovate, you make mistakes. It is best to admit them quickly, and get on with improving your other innovations.” Reference: Brainy Quote

“To turn really interesting ideas and fledgling technologies into a company that can continue to innovate for years, it requires a lot of disciplines.”  Reference: Brainy Quote

“Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn’t matter to me … Going to bed at night saying we’ve done something wonderful… that’s what matters to me.” Reference: Wikiquote 

Related Posts:
Accelerating New Business Development through Talent Management
Examples of Failed Talent Management
Talent Management of High Potentials – Role Model Example

Linkedin Profile – Free Best Practice Course on Udemy

I have created a course on Linkedin Profile – Best Practice
Link to course.

In this course you will learn how to optimize your Linkedin Profile to attract more leads or job offers.  Also you will get an insight what the key vital behaviours are to increase your success on Linkedin.

Career Progression – Derailment Factors to watch out for

Most of my “clients” who consult me as a coach & talent manager on career development want to understand what is needed to progress further in their careers and what derailment factors they should be watching out for.
Based on my survey  (still open) which is relevant to any employee who has career aspiration – the following results are currently emerging:

The likely derailment factors are:
1. Not developing continuously (81%)
2. Inability to manage cross functional teams (79 %)
3. Too narrow functional experience (77%)
4. Not adapting to new role (77%)
5. Difficulties to manage team (73%)
6. Over ambitious (72%)
7. Manipulative Style (69%)
8. Not having the right relationsships (68%)
9. Difficulties when presenting in front of senior management (68%)
10. Not meeting targets (68%)

The good news is that all of the above items can be adressed by learning & development interventions.
It is all under your control.

A full list of derailement factors and the results please click here.

If you look at the list again at only what the most likely derailment factors are then a different picture emerges:
1. Inability to manage cross functional teams (25%)
2. Not adapting to new role (23%)
3. Not meeting targets (21%)
4. Arrogant behaviour (17%)
5. Manipulative style (17%)

The same list now again sorted only by quite likely will bring the following top 5:
1. Difficulties to manage team (40%)
2. Not meeting targets (35%)
3. Not developing continuously (35%)
4. Not adapting to new role (33%)
5. Inability to manage cross functional teams (31%)

The same sorting excercise for only likely factors – the chances are up to a certain level that you will get away with it -
reveal the following:
1. Over ambitious (35%)
2. Too narrow functional experience (33%)
3. Authorative management style (33%)
4. Not developing continuously (31%)
5. Abrasive character (31%)