"We teach computer science here..."

Lately I've been involved in discussions with educational leaders about the upcoming 1,000,000 jobs gap in computer science careers.

Why we have this gap became clearer on Friday.  I was visiting a high school and asked a teacher if they taught computer science classes in the high school.  He said, "Yes, we teach computer science here.  Mr. Smith he teaches Microsoft Word.  Mrs. Lee she teaches Excel."

We need your help.  This is a boots on the ground effort with Superintendents, Principals, Counselors, CTE coordinators, and Parents all getting pumped to produce more students with "SuperPowers." 

If you are involved in a high school in any way, will you watch the video above starring Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerburg, Will.i.am, and Chris Bosh and bring up the discussion with your school administrators?

Why Education?

It's taken me 15 years to realize my professional purpose in life is to solve problems in education.  Why education?  This quote about Jean Valjean from Les Miserables sums it up best.  It's about providing

sustainability for people.  May we all play a role in this great cause.

"He makes the entire region prosperous. There is no pocket so obscure that it didn’t have a little money in it. No dwelling so low that there wasn’t a little joy within it.

Father Madellan made his fortune but a singular thing and a simple man of business did not seem as though that was his chief care. He seemed to thinking much of others, and little of himself."

Minor (don't Major) in Entrepreneurship

You know I'm all about student entrepreneurship.  It takes a very rare breed to start a company as a student or recent grad.  Today I was at lunch with my new Elon colleagues and Sean McMahon stated his opinion that students should major in engineering (or some other practical field) and minor in entrepreneurship.

Why did I do a business major as an undergrad then go get an MBA?  Should have done engineering then MBA if needed.  Actually scratch the MBA.  Use that money for runway to start a company and learn more.

Someone convince me since I'll be consulting my kids with that advice.


 

Email: An Emotional Roller Coaster

We've all done it and it must stop.  Constantly checking our email on a smartphone will be the death of us.  Don't we have anything better to do?  Seriously, we know better.  We know how to be productive.

We just checked it 5 minutes ago and there was nothing.  Why do it again?

Here's why we must stop the madness:

Each email we receive causes some type of good or bad emotion.  I've received encouraging and discouraging work emails when I was at home with the family that affected my mood.  So email is basically controlling our emotional life and we must take back control.

So what do we do instead of check out emails constantly?  Anything.  Memorize a poem or scripture or song.  Meditate.  Have a book handy.  I'm about the finish Outliers and have really enjoyed it.  

Ideas Come From....

The WSJ ran a piece yesterday called "How to Come Up with a Great Idea."  My favorite was....

You Can't Rush the Brain

I don't know where great ideas come from. I am not sure anyone does. I am not even sure how I come up with my ideas. The brain does its thing, and out pops an idea.

While you are waiting for the brain to get its act together, do what you can do. Do the doable. Meet with people, schmooze, have a laugh or two. Build mock-ups and prototypes. At the very least, collect other people's problems. That's always a guaranteed doable.

The deep idea here is that action has a creative aspect distinct from thinking. And thinking need not come first. Mostly it doesn't.

Saras D. Sarasvathy 

Isidore Horween research associate professor of business administration, University of Virginia's Darden School of Business

Students Must Lead on Campus

I've spent the last year working in Innovation & Entrepreneurship at Duke (specifically helping InCube) and have finally realized that students that must lead entrepreneurship efforts.

As hard as we administrators attempt to lead efforts, they usually fall flat if students are not at the helm.  Just like Brad Feld explains in his Startup Communities book, we as "feeders" need to understand our place in the world and not attempt to drive the bus.

So what should university administrators be doing?  In the startup world, entrepreneurs would say "feeders" (CED, Government, Chamber of Commerce, etc) should simply buy the beer and get out of the way.

Translation for the university:  Buy the pizza and get out of the way of student leaders.

If we DO, we will LEARN

Recently my church made an amazing change to the way we teach our youth (see Come Follow Me) by encouraging our young people to do most of their learning during the week (scripture study, choosing good friends, Family Home Evening) and then encouraging them to share what they learned when they get to church on Sunday.  I'm so excited to have my 3 little ones to learn this way.

This principle resonated this morning as I was studying John 7:17, "If any will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself."  Learning by doing has always been the secret formula.  

Two examples from the secular world:

1.  I love playing and watching basketball.  Just imagine if all your learning in basketball came in a classroom.  Then you were expected to go out a play a big game with no practice time on the court.

2.  Teaching entrepreneurship has become a passion and too often high schools and universities spend the majority of their time in the classroom.  For example, to grow entrepreneurial thinking on a college campus we can't simply hire an army of academics to teach more classes.  Hackathons, competitions, pro-bono projects, and independent studies are how students will learn.