Outside Innovation

Disruptive Innovation: Nature’s Scitable Replaces Life Sciences Textbooks

In October 2008, Nature Publishing Group's new Education Division quietly launched the Beta of a revolutionary idea: Replace expensive textbooks with a free collaborative learning space for science. Scitable.com went live in January, 2009 and has quickly become a magnet for serious students of genetics (the first field that Nature is addressing).

Now, in the Fall of 2009, Scitable.com is alive and well. Students and faculty from all over the world are actively using Scitable's resources to teach and learn about genetics.

What can you do on Scitable?

• Explore a topic room in subjects like evolutionary genetics, gene inheritance and transmission, genes and disease, genomics, and several others.

• Follow a Learning Path on topics like the human genome project, cancer, or types of genetic diseases.

• Join or create a public or private class or study group.

• Read well-written short articles that introduce concepts in enough depth to get you oriented.

• Read the most important research on each topic.

• "Ask the Experts" at Nature Education just about any question you have about genetics or about the material you're reading.

• Design a course using any of the free materials.

  

I interviewed, Vikram Savkar, the Publishing Director at Nature Education,who led the innovation team at Nature to create and launch Scitable. I learned how he and his team approached and carried out an intrapreneurial project designed to revolutionize the textbook publishing industry. I also learned a lot about how to develop a next gen Web-based product.

I look forward to following this project and to bringing you background and updates as Nature's burgeoning Education group throws down its gauntlet at the science textbook publishing industry and introduces a new customer-friendlier business model.

Dell and Perot Systems Merger: Moving from the Desktop to the Cloud

This week’s main merger news—Dell’s $3.9 billion cash deal for Perot Systems—caused a flurry of discussions in our Pioneers’ group, since Perot Systems’ CTO, Jim Stikeleather, is one of our Ur-Pioneers. (Jim hosted our first 2-day Patty’s Pioneers’ meeting in the early 1990’s.) Of course, Jim couldn’t comment on the news, but we all had fun speculating about how the combined Dell/Perot Systems combination will transform Dell’s business (and the computing landscape). My take: Dell and Perot Systems will make a powerful combination as they shepherd clients into the brave new world of cloud computing powered by Dell hardware. Many of Dell’s customers are Linux-friendly and cloud-aware.  Perot’s services business is well-positioned in healthcare and government to reap the bounty of the U.S. government’s current obsession with health insurance “reform.”

Creating a Social Network for Physicists: AIP UniPHY

On September 8, 2009, one of our Visionaries, Tim Ingoldsby, the Director of Strategic Initiatives at the American Institute of Physics, launched a pioneering new Web site, AIP UniPHY (aipuniphy.org). Tim billed it as a first-of-its-kind scientific networking platform for physical scientists. 180,000 physical scientists from 100 countries can now easily see all of their colleagues as well as their competitors in any field of research. They can find the top experts in each field and see what relationships each person has with others in their fields or in other disciplines. 

The site makes explicit the previously hidden network of colleagues and competitors who are working in all of the sub-disciplines of physics. Here’s how it works: AIP “built” the social network by taking the database of all of the journal articles and papers that physicists have published in 100 leading physics journals by AIP’s member societies (and other publishers) in the past 30 years as well as approximately 100,000 papers from scientific conferences.

Each paper is typically authored by several colleagues, who may be working in different universities, research institutions, or companies. This database of authors and co-authors and papers with topics and metadata is then “munged” by Collexis Holdings’ semantic fingerprinting technology to produce a graphical network showing all the linkages among all of these scientists and the topics they research. In addition to exploring graphically, you can also find experts by topic, by geography, by institution, or using a combination of criteria. Once you locate the people you are interested in, you can add them to “your network.” UniPHY pre-populates the profiles for each of its 180,000 scientists based on the published information with their titles, institutions, and so on. As they log into the site, they can update their profiles with photos and other information.

Who Says Kids Can't Make a Difference?

Girls and womens' empowerment story that I submitted (#436)  to Nicholas Kristof's "Half the Sky" contest

Sanyu Provia’s description of her experience as a student at the URDT Girls’ School in rural, western Uganda. Sanyu’s schoolmates are girls from the ages of 12 to 18 years old, who come from low income rural families. Sanyu applied to be admitted to the boarding school, did well on the interview, and has been not only receiving an education in the 3R’s, but also in sanitation, nutrition, organic farming, carpentry, solar technology and visionary leadership. While in school, she has helped her family improve their income. She describes how this works:

"· The backhome projects have helped to increase our income. Our family got involved in sugar cane growing and out this we were able to buy a motorcycle (TVS); thanks to URDT.

· Backhome projects have improved our sanitation and health standards through improvements on our house, constructing a good drying rack, and a good birth room.

· We as family members we have managed to get school fees for our sisters who are in secondary schools to proceed with their education.

· Back home projects have helped my family to improve on nutrition, which has been done through planting different vegetable gardens and rearing some animals like pigs and goats.

· They have helped me to improve on the co-operation in family through working together to earn a living as a family.

· Back Home projects have helped me to increase on the relationships with our neighbours. This has been done through sharing with them what we have as they also get attracted and take these seeds to their families to plant them.

· I have also realized that the back home projects have helped me to have a shared vision with my family members. This is through bringing my suggestion towards our family as they agree after talking about it."

Young Girls Improve their Families' Income in Africa

Another inspiring story submitted (#434)  to Nicholas Kristof's "Half the Sky" contest. 

Here’s an example of 12-to 18 year old girls in Uganda who are increasing their families’ income through their schools’ projects. Most families expect kids to become productive members of society AFTER they graduate from school. At the Uganda Rural Development and Training (URDT) Programme’s Girls’ School, 240 girls increase their families’ incomes every year by training, organizing and inspiring their family members. Here’s one of their stories:

Namata Eva, a student at the URDT (URDT.net) Girls’ School, has witnessed changes at her home because of sustainable income- generating Back Home Project and she had this to share:

“Back Home projects are series of activities we do at home as we have learnt them at school. They are family projects because every member has a role to play in implementing these projects.

Earlier, our family back home projects were growing pineapples, sugar canes, beans, maize and other traditional crops. However, in 2007/2008 we were introduced to organic farming for income generation with a specific focus on Sesame and chillies. Our family chose to grow Sesame but did not abandon the pineapples.

Through back home projects, we have built a permanent house and can afford to save at least four thousand (4,000) per month through a revolving SACCO fund. We make other savings, pay school fees for other children in the family, and provide them with the necessary school requirement – this was not the case before I joined the URDT Girls school. The family is now proud of this saving culture because we meet all our needs without straining so much.

Through back home projects, we can afford a balanced diet because we grow a variety of crops including vegetables. Before these trainings, we used to depend on cassava as our daily meal. In brief I can say that the back home projects have become a backbone of our rural livelihood”.

Submitted by Alida Bakema, Girls' School Curriculum Development

Redundant Clouds; Next Gen Site Design

When Gmail went down for a couple of hours this week, I was annoyed but not distressed. As a small business owner, I rely on Google’s paid services for email and calendaring as well as on many of the company’s free services (e.g., Google Analytics).  Over the past three years, I have found Gmail to be as reliable and much less costly than our previous in-house, internally-hosted, and professionally maintained (by a full-time IT person) email system.

In monitoring my own calm reaction, I realized that I no longer rely on any single service to keep me online and in touch with the world. Like most of you, I have several email accounts on a variety of email services. I have messaging on my cellphone, Blackberry email and SMS, iTouch WiFi access, Internet phone service (free and paid), and both land line and cable Internet in my home/office and most of the places that I work from while travelling. I also use Facebook, Twitter, and other services to keep in touch with clients, family, and friends. Switching from one mode to the other isn’t really a problem. Not having the history or context available on my laptop or handheld IS a problem, so I’m quite conscious of making sure that I have access to my calendar and contacts (or someone to call or email who can access that info) in a pinch. I only begin to freak out when I am away from any source of Internet/Wireless connectivity. When I visit Uganda to work at the African Rural University, where connections are sparse and slow, I worry about missing something important. (But then I relax and realize that what I’m doing –working with smart young women who are changing people’s lives is MORE important than what I might be missing).

What I noticed in the chatter and punditry that surrounded the news of the recent 2-hour Gmail outage were three main threads of discussion:

1. What do you expect? It’s a cloud computing service. Don’t trust anything in the cloud!
2. What’s wrong with you guys? Don’t you use alternative emails (Facebook, AOL, Yahoo!) and alternative modes of communication (SMS, iPhone, Twitter)?
3. Big deal. It’s no worse than other email services and utility outages on services we have used.

A Lifeline

by Susan Warshauer, Vice Chancellor of the African Rural University (at Uganda Rural Development and Training) -- submitted (#405)  to Nicholas Kristof's "Half the Sky" contest. 

I look up and Odembos, the Human Rights Officer at URDT, is standing in my office door. After a few minutes of chatting, Odembos explains that he has a sad story to tell me. He hands me a photo of a very little girl talking into the microphone at KKCR, the community radio station run by URDT. He tells me she is 8 years old; she looks about 5 or 6.

Apparently, the little girl’s Mother moved away and her Father began abusing her. Although her Father said he would kill her if she told anyone, she told her Aunt. Her Aunt began treating the injuries she sustained from the abuse but would do nothing about stopping it. Finally, this tiny, little girl went to the church in her village. She sat still and waited until everyone finished praying, then told them she wanted to see the Human Rights Officer she had heard on the radio. She said she needed his help and explained what was happening. The good people at her church raised the money necessary to transport her to URDT. While they were making the arrangements, the little girl’s Father came looking for her. The members of the church told him that she was at URDT already.

When the little girl got to URDT she told her whole story to Odembos. He worked with her over several days, getting her lodging and food in the URDT Girls’ School. Odembos kept reassuring her that she was now safe. He went to the police, they investigated, and the Aunt and others from the village came forward. There was more than enough evidence to arrest the man.

The photograph Odembos had just handed me was taken when the little girl decided she would go on the radio to talk about what had happened to her so other children would know that they too could get help from URDT.

For more than 20 years, Uganda Rural Development and Training Programme (URDT) has helped people in rural, western Uganda create better lives for themselves. Besides KKCR, which has over 2 million listeners, and the Human Rights Office, URDT offers many other services. There are primary and secondary schools for girls that use a two-generation approach involving the students’ families in training and back-home projects. URDT runs a Technical Institute for young men and women helping them create jobs for themselves and others, a Land Rights Office, an HIV/Aids Programme, a demonstration organic farm and farmer training, and African Rural University (ARU) for women, focused on creating Rural Transformation Specialists, where I work. http://www.urdt.net

— Susan Warshauer

Want Customer-Contributed Content? Make It Easy for Your Customers to Multi-Post

My favorite content creation and social networking tools are the ones that save me time and kill several birds with one stone. I am more likely to post or curate content in an environment that will "automagically" syndicate that comment or posting out to several other sites. I suspect many of you feel the same way. Your insightful customers probably do too—the ones you want to encourage to contribute their thoughts, ratings, and discussions to your Web site, blog, or online community.

As I've mentioned before, I like Businessweek's Business Exchange because I can post abstracts and links of interesting articles or videos that catch my fancy on topics I care about. When I do, Business Exchange automatically posts these contributions to my Twitter and Facebook accounts.

I like the new blogging platform Posterous because it is designed to be easy to post to from email and it also automagically posts to multiple sites, including Flickr, Facebook, and Twitter.

I like the fact that anything I "tweet" automatically turns up on my Facebook page, on my blog, on my web site, and in FriendFeed.

In fact, it's so easy to set up these automatic updates among social networking sites, I resent it when the platform or site doesn't provide that functionality and I have to do it myself.