Innovation is about finding a better way of doing something. Like many of the new development buzzwords (which many of them are over-used on many business documents), the concept of innovation originates from the world of business. It refers to the generation of new products through the process of creative entrepreneurship, putting it into production, and diffusing it more widely through increased sales. Innovation can be viewed as t he application of better solutions that meet new requirements, in-articulated needs, or existing market needs. This is accomplished through more effective products, processes, services, technologies, or ideas that are readily available to markets, governments and society. The term innovation can be defined as something original and, as a consequence, new, that “breaks into” the market or society.
Innoveracy: Misunderstanding Innovation article points out that there is a form of ignorance which seems to be universal: the inability to understand the concept and role of innovation. The way this is exhibited is in the misuse of the term and the inability to discern the difference between novelty, creation, invention and innovation. The result is a failure to understand the causes of success and failure in business and hence the conditions that lead to economic growth. The definition of innovation is easy to find but it seems to be hard to understand. Here is a simple taxonomy of related activities that put innovation in context:
- Novelty: Something new
- Creation: Something new and valuable
- Invention: Something new, having potential value through utility
- Innovation: Something new and uniquely useful
The taxonomy is illustrated with the following diagram.
The differences are also evident in the mechanisms that exist to protect the works: Novelties are usually not protectable, Creations are protected by copyright or trademark, Inventions can be protected for a limited time through patents (or kept secret) and Innovations can be protected through market competition but are not defensible through legal means.
Innovation is a lot of talked about nowdays as essential to businesses to do. Is innovation essential for development work? article tells that innovation has become central to the way development organisations go about their work. In November 2011, Bill Gates told the G20 that innovation was the key to development. Donors increasingly stress innovation as a key condition for funding, and many civil society organisations emphasise that innovation is central to the work they do.
Some innovation ideas are pretty simple, and some are much more complicated and even sound crazy when heard first. The is place for crazy sounding ideas: venture capitalists are gravely concerned that the tech startups they’re investing in just aren’t crazy enough:
Not all development problems require new solutions, sometimes you just need to use old things in a slightly new way. Development innovations may involve devising technology (such as a nanotech water treatment kit), creating a new approach (such as microfinance), finding a better way of delivering public services (such as one-stop egovernment service centres), identifying ways of working with communities (such as participation), or generating a management technique (such as organisation learning).
Theorists of innovation identify innovation itself as a brief moment of creativity, to be followed by the main routine work of producing and selling the innovation. When it comes to development, things are more complicated. Innovation needs to be viewed as tool, not master. Innovation is a process, not a one time event. Genuine innovation is valuable but rare.
There are many views on the innovation and innvation process. I try to collect together there some views I have found on-line. Hopefully they help you more than confuze. Managing complexity and reducing risk article has this drawing which I think pretty well describes innovation as done in product development:
8 essential practices of successful innovation from The Innovator’s Way shows essential practices in innovation process. Those practices are all integrated into a non-sequential, coherent whole and style in the person of the innovator.
In the IT work there is lots of work where a little thinking can be a source of innovation. Automating IT processes can be a huge time saver or it can fail depending on situation. XKCD comic strip Automation as illustrates this:
System integration is a critical element in project design article has an interesting project cost influence graphic. The recommendation is to involve a system integrator early in project design to help ensure high-quality projects that satisfy project requirements. Of course this article tries to market system integration services, but has also valid points to consider.
Core Contributor Loop (CTTDC) from Art Journal blog posting Blog Is The New Black tries to link inventing an idea to theory of entrepreneurship. It is essential to tune the engine by making improvements in product, marketing, code, design and operations.
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Tomi Engdahl says:
The People Who Created Our Jobs
http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1323111&
The electrical units, equations, and concepts that we use today are named after the men who either discovered them or made significant contributions to their discovery. In 1999, Joseph F. Keithley, founder of Keithley Instruments, wrote a book about the people for whom we owe our careers: The Story of Electrical and Magnetic Measurements: From 500 BC to the 1940s.
What’s so impressive about these pioneers is how they figured things out with equipment that’s extremely crude compared to what we have today. We take so much for granted because of them.
Some of the discoveries occurred quite by accident, though most took place in university labs.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Information Mobility Means Business Opportunity
http://mds.ricoh.com/blog/information_mobility_means_business_opportunity
For most people, the term information mobility implies smartphones or tablets; but for the modern enterprise, information mobility means much more than that.
Information mobility is really about information in motion – how information is captured and transformed; how the right information is found and shared across the enterprise, and ultimately, how it is used productively to better business outcomes. Information mobility includes new technologies revolutionizing the way people collaborate and connect, changes in information management process, as well as workstyle innovations in a continually evolving workforce.
You can pick almost any process—product marketing, accounts receivable, customer service, sales enablement—and look for ways to improve your information mobility. How can you transform your information to create value?
Tomi Engdahl says:
Atmel Shows American Pride at White House Maker Faire
Posted Aug 28, 2014 at 7:27 am
http://www.eeweb.com/blog/eeweb/atmel-at-white-house-maker-faire
“Today’s DIY is tomorrow’s ‘Made in America,’” President Obama proclaimed in his opening remarks at the White House Maker Faire in June of 2014. With the rise of open-source hardware like the Arduino Uno, the limits of innovation, manufacturing, and technology have become boundless. To commemorate the rise in DIY innovation, the White House sponsored its first-ever Maker Faire in Washington DC and invited makers of all ages from around the country to show off their innovations. Projects ranged from robotic giraffes to a mobile 3D printing fab lab—all of them demonstrated for President Barack Obama himself.
These makers, as well as makers across the globe, have embraced the easy-to-use hardware and software of the Arduino platform, based on Atmel 8 bit (AVR) or a 32 bit (ARM based) microcontrollers (MCU). Cited for their ease-of-use, low-power, and high-performance capabilities, the AVR MCUs have enabled designers, inventors, and even school children to learn and innovate at a previously unheard of level. Atmel’s connection with the Arduino boards earned them an invitation to this year’s Maker Faire to see the variety of projects their MCUs have powered. EEWeb spoke with Sander Arts, vice president of marketing at Atmel, about his experience at the White House and how being involved in the maker community will enable the next generation of entrepreneurs.
With the rise of Kickstarter campaigns and other crowd-funded tech projects, Atmel embraced the ever-growing DIY community as the new frontier for tech innovation.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Additive Manufacturing Trends in Aerospace
http://www.techbriefsmediagroup.com/blasts/2014/stratasys/stratasys_08_ezine.php?r=N1344661
Aerospace is the industry that other industries look to for a glimpse at what’s on the horizon. Aerospace has a long history of being an early adopter, innovator, and investigator.
examples that show that trends in aerospace are predictors of future trends in manufacturing across all industries.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Fourteen-year-old develops DIY tablet kits to educate and inspire
http://www.gizmag.com/taj-pabari-tablet-kits-educate/33613/
Less than one year ago, 14-year-old Taj Pabari was like any other kid, toiling away on a 3D printer at school (ok, maybe not quite like any other kid). An assignment required the class to sandwich two pieces of plastic together, but where some students simply saw air, Pabari envisioned the makings of a new kind of educational toy. Fast-forward some 10 months and he finds himself shortlisted for a Young Innovator of the Year award and pitching his product to potential investors.
“I was in class and we had to stick two pieces of plastic casing together,” explains Pabari. “So I thought, why not make this into a tablet? I pulled apart my Nexus, reworked the casing a little, cut out a display and built a computer in between.”
Early iterations of its tablet kits were set to cost less than AUD$50 (US$46), among the cheapest available.
“Like most children, we loved Lego and that feeling of accomplishment when a creation comes together,” says Pabari. “What we are trying to do is deliver that immediate satisfaction but with the long-lasting, educational benefits.”
The ImaginTech Tablet Kit is designed to teach children aged four to 14 the inner workings of an Android tablet, and not just its physical components. After piecing together the tablet’s hardware, visual programming software called ImaginCoder enables kids to experiment with building their own games and apps.
“What we are trying to do is inspire young innovation,” says MecTech’s COO, Ben Mandeville-Clarke, who is comparatively ancient at 19 years old. “We are creating what we hope will be the Lego of the 21st century.”
The ImaginTech Tablet Kit includes a 7-inch, 1024 x 600p multi-touch display and a 1.2 GHz Dual Core Processor.
priced at AU$219 (around $US203)
Tomi Engdahl says:
The ImaginTecH tablet kit.
a kit for children to learn and engage their imaginations anywhere, anytime!
http://www.mechtechcreations.co/
Tomi Engdahl says:
REQUIREMENTS MANAGEMENT 101:
The four fundamentals that everyone should know
http://www.jamasoftware.com/wp-content/uploads/documents/Requirements_Management_101.pdf
Too often projects fail due to poorly managed requirements. At the core
of the issue is that projects are increasingly complex, changes occur and
communication is challenging. In this paper we will discuss the significance of
requirements management without using industry jargon
Requirements management is about keeping your team in-sync and providing visibility to what
is going on within a project. It is critical to the success of your projects for your whole team to
understand what you are building and why – that’s how we define requirements management.
every team member and stakeholder can benefit from understanding:
1. Planning good requirements: “What the heck are we building?”
2. Collaboration and buy-in: “Just approve the spec, already!”
3. Traceability & change management: “Wait, do the developers know that changed?”
4. Quality assurance: “Hello, did anyone test this thing?”
ONE: Planning good requirements
So what makes a good requirement? A good requirement should be valuable and actionable;
it should define a need as well as provide a pathway to a solution. Everyone on the team
should understand what it means. Requirements vary in complexity. They can be rough ideas
sketched on a whiteboard to structured “shall” statements. They can be part of a group with
high-level requirements broken down into sub-requirements.
TWO: Collaboration and buy-in.
Is everyone in the loop? Do we have approval on the requirements to move forward? These
questions come up during development cycles.
THREE: Traceability and Change Management.
Requirements traceability is a way to organize, document and keep track of the life of all
your requirements from initial idea through to testing. A simple metaphor for traceability is
connecting the dots to identify the relationships between items within your project.
FOUR: Quality Assurance.
Getting requirements delivered right the first time can mean better quality, faster
development cycles and higher customer satisfaction with the end product.
Research has shown that project teams can eliminate 50-80 percent of project defects
by effectively managing requirements.
help drive innovation, improve the decision-making process and harness the collective genius of all stakeholders involved
Tomi Engdahl says:
The IT kit revolution’s OVER, say beancounters – but how do they know?
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/09/03/worstall_weds_is_the_it_revolution_over/
One of the great problems within economics is in trying to work out what’s a structural change, what’s a cyclical change and what’s being buggered up just because you’re not measuring it properly.
This has some people, like Slate columnist David Autor, worrying that the white hot technology revolution that is computing is running out of steam.
The concern here is that we’ve done all the heavy investing in information processing that we’re ever going to do. We’ve had a structural change: modern companies must be IT-based. Now that we’ve managed that, from here on in IT spending will become more of a maintenance item than a breacher of new frontiers. But this development is bad for the future. Why? We’re pinning a lot of our hopes of being ever richer in the future on the idea that computing is going to create a goodly part of that wealth.
There was a vast amount of money wasted in dealing with Y2K, then we splurged way too much on dotcoms and it’s hardly surprising that we’re investing less in the wake of one of the largest recessions of modern times.
A Worstall Warning
Is it a structural change? Cyclical? Is it just moving our numbers from one definition to another without really changing the underlying spend?
I dunno.A Worstall Warning
Is it a structural change? Cyclical? Is it just moving our numbers from one definition to another without really changing the underlying spend?
I dunno.
Tomi Engdahl says:
4 Big Trends From ESC Brazil
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1323739&
No. 1: The Internet of Things
The Internet of Things was a hot topic at ESC Brazil, with companies like Atmel and Microchip showcasing the latest technologies for connecting to the cloud.
“Actually, the Internet of Things is nothing new, as we have been connecting MCUs to sensors and analyzing the data for a long time,” said Andreas Eieland, senior product marketing manager at Atmel. “But what is new is the technology options available for engineers to develop connected systems without the high degree of complexity of the past.”
To wit, Atmel had on display the new Bluetooth and 802.11n WiFi solutions it has added to its SmartConnect wireless portfolio line through the acquisition of Newport Media.
Philips’s Hue Bulbs, an example of the Internet of Things, feature Atmel’s ZigBee and Lightweight Mesh Stack.
No. 2: Android running on top of a more traditional, embedded Linux kernel and distribution.
Brazil has a strong community of Linux developers, so it’s no surprise that it is the OS of choice for many embedded systems designers.
The ordinary Android operating environment sucks for these general use cases, because it lacks the control points and signaling features that something more complicated than a cell phone always needs.
“We used to be 100% Linux, but now it is a mix of Android running on top of a standard Linux kernel (60%), 20% free RTOS, and 20% Linux,”
No. 3: Embedded systems startups
One of the big “buzzes” at ESC Brazil 2014 was the number of embedded systems startup companies rapidly appearing on the scene here.
No. 4: Tin foil hats are multinational
To demonstrate how difficult it is to predict the future, Maxfield presented the evolution of embedded systems over the past 100 years. This led into a discussion on the concept of self-aware artificial intelligences, the creation of which could lead to a robot apocalypse.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Engineers Pioneer Future at Freescale Discovery Lab
Engineers’ visions realized by multinational teams
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1323741&
The Freescale Discovery Lab aims to invent the future by giving its most brilliant engineers the time and resources to realize their wildest dreams. On projects lasting from six months to two years or more, select Freescale engineers will be given free rein to prove that their visions of the future are doable, marketable, and will improve the world.
“The Discovery Lab sponsors what we call high-risk, high-reward ideas,” David Kramer, director of Freescale Discovery Lab, told EE Times. “When we accept any idea from one of our engineers, he then leaves his normal job and spends 100 percent full time on proving his concept in our lab.”
The Discovery Lab started quietly last year,
“We expect to have more failures than wins, but the wins will be home runs,” says Kramer. “Toward the end of 2014, Freescale will announce what it believes are its first two home runs, each of which is about six to nine months old now.”
“We sent out a call to all employees to come forward with bright ideas and got about 200 submitted, nine of which we accepted. Now we have 22 engineers working on those nine projects, four of which were international engineers brought to Austin to work on the project.”
“We are willing to consider any idea, but most of the ones that are accepted are aligned to a Freescale product group with the sales, the channels, and the marketing to make it work as a product. So far, eight of the nine projects are aligned with Freescale’s existing businesses, but one is not. We accepted it anyway because if it works, it will be such a game changer that we are allowing the team to pursue it.”
Each team faces regular reviews, the first after one month, looking for some kind of milestone toward a deliverable, then about every six months after that, looking for positive progress.
Tomi Engdahl says:
What the best education systems are doing right
http://ideas.ted.com/2014/09/04/what-the-best-education-systems-are-doing-right/
In South Korea and Finland, it’s not about finding the “right” school.
The Koreans have achieved a remarkable feat: the country is 100 percent literate. But success comes with a price.
The Finnish model: Extracurricular choice, intrinsic motivation.
In Finland, on the other hand, students are learning the benefits of both rigor and flexibility. The Finnish model, say educators, is utopia.
Finland has a short school day rich with school-sponsored extracurriculars, because Finns believe important learning happens outside the classroom.
In Finland, school is the center of the community, notes Schleicher. School provides not just educational services, but social services. Education is about creating identity.
A third of the classes that students take in high school are electives, and they can even choose which matriculation exams they are going to take. It’s a low-stress culture, and it values a wide variety of learning experiences.
But that does not except it from academic rigor, motivated by the country’s history trapped between European superpowers
Teachers in Finland teach 600 hours a year, spending the rest of time in professional development. In the U.S., teachers are in the classroom 1,100 hours a year, with little time for feedback.
“A key to that is education. Finns do not really exist outside of Finland,” says Sahlberg. “This drives people to take education more seriously. For example, nobody speaks this funny language that we do. Finland is bilingual, and every student learns both Finnish and Swedish. And every Finn who wants to be successful has to master at least one other language, often English, but she also typically learns German, French, Russian and many others. Even the smallest children understand that nobody else speaks Finnish, and if they want to do anything else in life, they need to learn languages.”
Finns share one thing with South Koreans: a deep respect for teachers and their academic accomplishments. In Finland, only one in ten applicants to teaching programs is admitted. After a mass closure of 80 percent of teacher colleges in the 1970s, only the best university training programs remained, elevating the status of educators in the country.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Two giants of online learning discuss the future of education
http://ideas.ted.com/2014/01/28/in-conversation-salman-khan-sebastian-thrun-talk-online-education/
Scratch the surface of online education, and you’re destined to run into the names of two men. The first, Salman Khan, never intended to be an education icon. Instead, he simply watched with increased interest as videos he had uploaded to YouTube to help his cousin learn math were seized upon by a world apparently eager to learn via his thoughts on the subject. By making his sideline into the non-profit Khan Academy, which now offers more than 5,000 free online lessons on an array of topics, Khan has since become a central figure in the “what should we do about education?” debate.
He also inspired the second key figure. Sebastian Thrun was a computer scientist who helped build Google’s driverless car before seeing Salman Khan’s TED2011 presentation and deciding, pfft, autonomous driving was no challenge at all. Taking inspiration from Khan’s model, he resolved to do his part to redesign higher education, first via his computer science class at Stanford and now through Udacity, an organization that offers massive online courses.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The attack on our higher education system — and why we should welcome it
http://ideas.ted.com/2014/01/31/the-attack-on-our-higher-education-system-and-why-we-should-welcome-it/
George Siemens taught the first “massive open online course” back in 2008. He shares his take on why the class form is still valid — and what might happen next in higher ed.
In the past few years, Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) have become a lens used by educators, entrepreneurs, education reformers and venture capitalists to view the higher education system. They are now a proxy for our hopes and fears for education; how we speak of MOOCs increasingly says more about our personal philosophy than it does about open online courses.
After a frenetic 2012 and 2013, the last several months have been disappointing for many advocates of MOOCs. Until recently, major newspapers, magazines, and TV programs fawned over and feted the emergence of learning models that offered the tantalizing prospect of an education system where thousands of people could learn together. The entire higher education system would soon be obsolete, supporters crowed, while Silicon Valley solutionism drove unprecedented hype for online-based higher education. Presidents and provosts shared panels with entrepreneurs and venture capitalists, each seeking to out-proclaim and out-hype the other. Davos called. So did TED, as well as numerous state, provincial and national conferences and think tanks. Consultants and management firms generated reports and operationalized solutions, eager to capitalize on the profit potential of a system in transition. Higher education leaders, accustomed to a small audience of academic peers, were attracting large audiences outside of the university. If education is grunge, MOOCs became our Nirvana.
As 2013 drew to a conclusion, the 18-month intoxicating hype machine produced the inevitable headache.
So what happened?
For one thing, the MOOC hypesters were wrong. They discovered, on the backs, or within the wallets, of their VC partners, that knowledge building is a complex integrated system with multiple facets. The linear nature of MOOC solutions to the perceived problems of higher education (better instructional software and greater numbers of learners) failed to account for knowledge building as an integrated social, economic and cultural activity of society. Suggestions of MOOCs replacing universities began to seem quaint and childlike.
So what happens now?
Corporate MOOCs will be the big trend of 2014. Companies will use open online courses to recruit employees, market their products, support vendors and develop relationships with their customers. MOOC providers will partner with corporations and fill in the gap that existing universities do not address. Providers such as Coursera will be pressured in this direction as their VC backers become more eager to see the prospect of an income stream.
Tomi Engdahl says:
10 Things Public Education In America Is Getting Right
http://www.teachthought.com/industry/10-things-public-education-in-americsystem-is-getting-right/
1. It’s Inclusive
2. Data Matters
3. Funding
4. Promotion Of Literacy
5. Acknowledgement Of Socioeconomic Influences
6. Cursory Connection Between K-12 & Universities
7. Teacher-Student Relationships
8. Extra-Curricular Activities
9. Insistence On Slow-Change
10. Commitment To Professional Development
Tomi Engdahl says:
10 Team-Building Games That Promote Critical Thinking
http://www.teachthought.com/teaching/10-team-building-games-that-promote-critical-thinking/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Teaching Is Establishing The Need To Know
http://www.teachthought.com/learning/the-need-to-know-in-teaching-and-learning/
‘Not knowing’ is an awkward but precise label for the starting point of learning.
The purpose of assessment can be thought of in ‘not knowing’ terms–not so much to find out what the student understands, but what they don’t understand. What they don’t ‘know.’
What is knowledge? Wisdom? How does knowledge lead to understanding, and how can understanding calcify to something approaching wisdom?
This sounds like a lot of abstraction and wasteful what-for, but it’s not different than an artist thinking about color, or an architect thinking about design. Wisdom, understanding, knowledge, skills–and the pathways between each–are the very core of learning. There is nuance within each of these ideas–critical distinctions that matter. If our fall-back phrasing concerns whether or not they “get it,” we shouldn’t be surprised when they don’t.
So then, ‘not knowing.’ Is this the same as curiosity? Probably not. ‘Not knowing’ can precede curiosity, but it’s not a certainty that it will evolve itself that way.
This happens by first starting with what is known.
all lower-level knowledge that is easy to distribute. To tell. Inform. Pass from one person to another.
And that’s a key characteristics of knowledge–it can be, in large part, distributed.
Understanding cannot. Wisdom cannot. These are acquired under a self-imposed cognitive duress. The moment a student can no longer tolerate not knowing, they can pursue an idea. If they do so with curiosity, and in terms and forms they can be playful and confident with, that curiosity can evolve itself to something aggressive.
Help me to see the limits of my own knowledge in a way that fills me with wonder. As a song I’ve never heard. Why should I care? Not the future me–the right-here-and-now me.
Tomi Engdahl says:
What Kind of CIOs Will Millennials Make?
http://www.cio.com/article/2601741/leadership-management/what-kind-of-cios-will-millennials-make.html
Remember the adage, ‘No one ever got fired for buying IBM’? You can bet millennials don’t. In fact, they like the energy of startups run by young people like themselves, according to a recent survey. Expect the CIO of the future to take a much different approach to tech decisions.
As millennials flood the workplace, climb corporate ladders and spread throughout the four corners of a company, they will eventually take on positions of leadership in marketing, human resources, finance, sales and IT. They’ll gain more influence inside an organization, along with purchasing power over technology.
What kinds of decisions will they make?
“They’ll probably look at different vendors if they think somebody is getting stale, if they feel like they’re not getting creative ideas,” says Todd Thibodeaux, president and CEO of CompTIA. “If something is not working out, if they’re not being treated the way they want to be treated, then they’ll move. That’s not just for the products they buy, but the jobs they’re in.”
Millennials – born between the early 1980s and the early 2000s – are 80 million strong in the United States, according to CompTIA. By 2025, millennials will make up as much as 75 percent of the U.S. IT workforce, as some 40 percent of IT workers retire in the next 10 to 12 years.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Productivity power tools
Harness the power of cognitive science to enhance your productivity. Change your workday in these three ways.
http://www.csemag.com/single-article/productivity-power-tools/75fc17943fc26aaec8a7aa59c03f44b3.html?OCVALIDATE&ocid=101781
For engineers, time literally is money. Therefore, managing productivity—making the best use of time—needs to be explicit and disciplined. Otherwise deadlines are not met, quality is not adequate, budgets are busted, and careers are imperiled.
Individual productivity is a challenge in today’s hyper-connected workplace. At work, we get interrupted, on average, every 3 minutes. After a major interruption, it can take up to 25 minutes to get back on track with the task we were doing. This is significant because the No. 1 productivity killer, research shows, is interruptions.
These statistics are motivation for increasing your individual productivity, which can be accomplished with three changes in how you work.
1. Structure your day
Several university studies show we peak in our workflow and focus just before 11 a.m. In fact, our mental acuity is the sharpest at the start of the morning. Until 3 p.m., we are able to effectively pour our energy into heavy, complex work tasks. After 3 p.m., our productivity decreases significantly. In essence, we should structure our most thought-requiring project time between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. each day.
Start with your heavy tasks first. Research shows that when we tackle the hard stuff with our sharpest minds, it can take up to 50% less time and we feel accomplished and less stressed.
2. Build routines
Our brains are wired to recognize and execute behaviors in patterns.
The simplification of complex tasks occurs, so our brains lump similar items together over time.
3. Communicate efficiently
A Fortune 500 company recently focused on revising its internal communications. Managers noticed an increase in complaints around the amount of time spent in e-mail. Employees were multitasking in meetings, bringing cell phones to comb through e-mails during the meetings.
The solution? The company revised internal communications based on two variables: importance and complexity.
Powering your productivity with new tools will take time and practice.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Is There a Creativity Deficit In Science?
http://science.slashdot.org/story/14/09/04/2314244/is-there-a-creativity-deficit-in-science
“There’s a current problem in biomedical research,” says American biochemist Robert Lefkowitz, winner of the 2012 Nobel Prize for Chemistry. “The emphasis is on doing things which are not risky. To have a grant proposal funded, you have to propose something and then present what is called preliminary data, which is basically evidence that you’ve already done what you’re proposing to do. If there’s any risk involved, then your proposal won’t be funded. So the entire system tends to encourage not particularly creative research, relatively descriptive and incremental changes which are incremental advances which you are certain to make but not change things very much.”…There is no more important time for science to leverage its most creative minds in attempting to solve our global challenges.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Is there a creativity deficit in science?
If so, the current funding system shares much of the blame.
http://arstechnica.com/science/2014/09/is-there-a-creativity-deficit-in-science/
The rewards of safe ideas
With so many ideas competing for limited government science funds, rejection is common for most scientists.
But there is a hidden trick that betters your chances of funding. “Everyone familiar with NIH operations knows that it is extremely difficult to obtain funding for groundbreaking, high-risk research,” writes Professor Andrew Marks, director of the Center for Molecular Cardiology at Columbia University Medical Center. “Indeed, the unwritten rule, often said tongue-in-cheek, is that when applying for NIH funding, one should only propose experiments that one has already done and for which one can show convincing preliminary data.”
Instead of proposing risky, creative ideas when looking for research funds, scientists now tend to pitch ideas that are safer and already proven.
“There’s a current problem in biomedical research,”
Tomi Engdahl says:
“Roads? Where we’re going, we don’t need roads.”
http://businessvalueexchange.com/2014/03/13/roads-going-dont-need-roads/?utm_source=taboola&utm_medium=referral
The article focused on eight big promises of the information technology revolution that seemed to have had negative effects:
The Internet Will Create a “New Economy”
The Internet Will Create a World Community
The Digital Age Will Make Us All Get Smarter
The Digital Generation Will Save Us
Digital Technologies Will Narrow the Wealth Gap
The Internet Will Spread Democracy
The Internet Will Make Us Better Informed
Everyone Gets to Be a Publisher
What is evident is that while the effect was as described, the article’s author points out that there are also negative consequences.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Comparison Of iPhone 6 Innovative Features: Which Apple Smartphone Model Had The Most Improvements?
http://comparisons.financesonline.com/comparison-of-iphone-6-innovative-features/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Reading, writing and refactoring: How 7 forward-thinking countries are teaching kids to code
http://www.itworld.com/slideshow/161754/reading-writing-and-refactoring-how-7-forward-thinking-countries-are-teaching-kids-code-431500
The importance of knowing how to program is reflected in the increasing number of countries teaching computer science in elementary school
Most American students will continue to focus on the traditional three Rs (reading, writing and arithmetic), while their counterparts in some other countries will also be learning a fourth R: refactoring, as in programming code.
While efforts are being made to bring computer science into American classrooms (e.g., Code.org, the proposed Computer Science Education Act), other governments have moved more aggressively and made it a core subject in their national curriculums, starting in primary school.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Earlier this year, Finland’s Minister of Education and Science, Krista Kiuru announced that programming will be introduced to the national primary school curriculum beginning in the fall of 2016. First and second grade students will not be taught a coding language, but instead will learn how to give precise, unambiguous commands to another person, much like programming requires. Students in grades 3 through 6 will learn how work with a visual programming language, such as Scratch. Finally, students in grades 7 through 9 will learn a real programming language (still to be determined).
Source: http://www.itworld.com/slideshow/161754/reading-writing-and-refactoring-how-7-forward-thinking-countries-are-teaching-kids-code-431500#slide4
Tomi Engdahl says:
How will robots impact the job market in the future?
http://www.vision-systems.com/articles/2014/09/how-will-robots-impact-the-job-market-in-the-future.html?cmpid=EnlVSDSeptember82014
With advancing technologies and the proliferation of robotic usage across various industries, one question has been on the mind of many: How will robots affect the job market? The answer to this, according to one expert, is that robots are unlikely to take big bites out of employment.
Hummels sites historical precedent as a main reason to not worry too much about robots leading you to unemployment. In a viral video called “Humans Need Not Apply,” it is suggested that new robots will be smart enough to take jobs even in occupations that are normally thought of as being incompatible with automation. One of the problems with this video is the claim that innovation is getting faster and cheaper, and that we are going to lose the ability to control it, noted Hummels.
“That’s just not consistent with any historical evidence we have.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Information Technology makes things too complicated
CIO does not know how to simplify the page and it will remain part of the company’s Executive Board discussions, unimpressed by Microsoft’s Tim Hynes.
Business digitalized rapidly. In this turmoil IT department prominence to the importance you would think, but this is not the case. CIO has been part of the page, when the company’s top management is planning for the future digital strategies.
Why? As the IT people do not speak the language used by the management to understand, rumbles Microsoft EMEA region CIO Tim Hynes.
Hynes, the IT leaders would change their behavior radically.
“When the company management turns pulmissaan CIO’s advice, he has a tendency to make things complicated. The majority of IT managers have engineering education, they do not want to solve simple problems. This is the wrong way, the CIO must be able to simplify things, “Hynes calls.
In his opinion, should be helpful in simplifying cloud services. Cloud is an excellent tool for the IT reforms to accelerating implementations.
CIO has to be a vision
Hynes, the digitization of the most successful transition CIO’s, who have a clear vision of the future.
“The IT leader must have a vision of where we are going. Change, and a third of employees resist change fiercely, another third in favor of it and in the end view is somewhere in between. CIO’s want to focus on getting this over with, and the last third to convince them their vision of the operation, “he says.
A successful IT leader needs to actively follow in his opinion, more than just the latest technology trends. His keeping track of economic development, economic magazines and read professional literature in the field.
“Traditionally, information management role has been to be a business enabler. It is responsible for ensuring that the business needed equipment and systems operate”
According to him, this is no longer enough.
“Today, information management should be a role as a catalyst and a genuine business partner.”
Source: http://summa.talentum.fi/article/tv/uusimmat/89603
Tomi Engdahl says:
Laid off from job, man builds tweeting toilet
http://www.computerworld.com/article/2605093/laid-off-from-job-man-builds-tweeting-toilet.html
What you can do with some household parts, some coding and a BeagleBone
Technology, like comedy, uses improvisation.
Take Thomas Ruecker’s project. With parts from an electric motor, a few household items, an open-source hardware board running Linux, and some coding, he built a connected toilet that Tweets with each flush.
he first reaction to the Twitter feed at @iotoilets may be a chuckle. But the idea behind this and what it illustrates is serious. It tracks water usage, offers a warning about the future of privacy in the era of the Internet of Things, and just might say something about the modern job hunt.
The genesis of the project began with a series a Tweets from Taneli Tikka, a manager at his former employer.
Tikka wrote: “Silly sensor IoT question: does anybody know about “smart toilets & sinks” something that measure liquid flow? # of flushes? etc. :)” [You can see the Tweet chain here.]
Ruecker Tweeted back and said he would look into it.
Ruecker gutted a servo motor to get its potentiometer, a resistor used to control a device, and created a plastic arm using zip tie cut to length. Styrofoam acts as the float in the tank.
But Ruecker says his creation also illustrates yet another way that a connected home can invade privacy. A device that records flushes can reveal that a house is occupied, for example, and even offer an indication of the number of occupants.
Tomi Engdahl says:
CS50 Logs Record-Breaking Enrollment Numbers
http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2014/9/11/cs50-breaks-enrollment-records/
Nearly 12 percent of Harvard College is enrolled in a single course, according to data released by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences Registrar’s Office on Wednesday.
The course, Computer Science 50: “Introduction to Computer Science I,” attracted a record-breaking 818 undergraduates this semester, marking the largest number in the course’s 30-year history”
CS50 instructor, David J. Malan ’99, and other computer science professors said that the boost in enrollment stems from increasing Harvard-wide and nation-wide interest in computer science.
“Harvard students are smart people,” said Harry R. Lewis ’68, former dean of the College and current director of undergraduate studies for Computer Science. “They have figured out that in pretty much every area of study, computational methods and computational thinking are going to be important to the future.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Code.org Launches Code Studio, A Toolset And Curriculum For Teaching Kids Programming
http://techcrunch.com/2014/09/11/code-org-launches-code-studio-a-toolset-and-curriculum-for-teaching-kids-programming/
Since its creation, Code.org‘s mission has been to get coding into curriculums for students as schools nationwide. Today, the nonprofit group is launching Code Studio, a combined set of tools and curriculum to get students in kindergarten through high school interested in the underlying concepts behind coding through guided lesson plans.
Rather than having kids pick up a language like Python or Java (as you would in a college or AP Computer Science class), Code Studio teaches the underlying concepts in programming through the manipulation of blocks of logic that, when stacked together in a particular order, move a character around a scene or draw a shape. The interface works a lot like MIT’s Scratch, though Code.org director of product Mona Akmal told me over a Google Hangout that there are a few key difference’s between MIT’s offering and Code Studio, chief among them the use of HTML5 (so it can run in most browsers) and the puzzle-based lesson plans for K-12 students.
The other big differentiator in Code Studio is an interface for teachers to monitor where their students are in the lesson progression. It’a a natural addition
Tomi Engdahl says:
The MOOC Revolution That Wasn’t
http://news.slashdot.org/story/14/09/13/1248258/the-mooc-revolution-that-wasnt
Dan Friedman at TechCrunch is ready to call Massive Open Online Courses a failure. Originally hailed as a revolution in learning, MOOCs have seen disappointing course completion numbers. Coursera and Udacity, two of the most prominent online learning hubs, have seen about 8 million enrollments in the past few years. Unfortunately, half of those students didn’t even watch a single lecture, and only a few hundred thousand completed the course they signed up for.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Innovator’s Method: Bringing the Lean Start-up into Your Organization
http://hbr.org/product/the-innovator-s-method-bringing-the-lean-start-up-into-your-organization/an/16914E-KND-ENG
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Industries Plagued by the Most Uncertainty
http://blogs.hbr.org/2014/09/the-industries-plagued-by-the-most-uncertainty/
It’s a cliché to say that the world is more uncertain than ever before, but few realize just how much uncertainty has increased over the past 50 years. To illustrate this, consider that patent applications in the U.S. have increased by 6x (from 100k to 600k annually) and, worldwide, start-ups have increased from 10 million to almost 100 million per year. That means new technologies and new competitors are hitting the market at an unprecedented rate. Although uncertainty is accelerating, it isn’t affecting all industries the same way. That’s because there are two primary types of uncertainty — demand uncertainty (will customers buy your product?) and technological uncertainty (can we make a desirable solution?) — and how much uncertainty your industry faces depends on the interaction of the two.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Ethiopian Kids Hacked Their Donated Tablets In Just Five Months
http://www.fastcoexist.com/1681011/ethiopian-kids-hacked-their-donated-tablets-in-just-five-months
After a box of Motorola Xoom tablets was dropped off in an Ethiopian village, kids who had never seen a computer before quickly taught themselves how to make modifications to Android.
What happens if you drop off a thousand Motorola Xoom tablet PCs in a village with kids who have never even seen a printed word? Within five months, they’ll have taught themselves to customize the software, reactivate disabled features and, perhaps, start down the path of learning to read.
Since vast swaths of the world unable to provide even basic education, scaleable solutions are needed to complement the long road to achieve universal schooling (something that took the West centuries).
No one’s cracked the code yet on how to turn formal education into something children do themselves–but the first attempts at such a world are already emerging.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Ethiopian Kids Hack Their OLPC Tablets in 5 Months, With No Help
http://updates.gizmodo.com/post/34694603553/ethiopian-kids-hack-their-olpc-tablets-in-5
Give a thousand Ethiopian kids – who have never seen a printed word let alone played around with expensive consumer technology – a tablet, and what happens? They hack it. Obviously.
The amazing One Laptop Per Child scheme has been offering up Motorola Xoom tablets to kids in developing countries for a while.
That, that is just sensational. To go from never having seen a written word – remember, the towns these kids grow up in have no street signs, no newspapers, no food packaging – to hacking an Android tablet in five months shows how inquisitive and adaptable the human brain is.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Given Tablets but No Teachers, Ethiopian Children Teach Themselves
A bold experiment by the One Laptop Per Child organization has shown “encouraging” results.
http://www.technologyreview.com/news/506466/given-tablets-but-no-teachers-ethiopian-children-teach-themselves/
Tomi Engdahl says:
EmTech Preview: Another Way to Think about Learning
Why I hope kids in Ethiopia can teach the rest of us something profound about education.
http://www.technologyreview.com/view/429206/emtech-preview-another-way-to-think-about-learning/
As we industrialized learning and created schools, we needed to measure the system’s efficacy and each child’s progress. What you really want to measure is curiosity, imagination, passion, creativity, and the ability to see things from multiple points of view. But these are hard to measure other than one on one, and even then, the assessment will be subjective. So instead, we measure what a child knows, and from that we infer that the child has learned how to learn. This is the real aspiration we have for our children: learning learning.
The closest I have ever come to thinking about thinking is writing computer programs. This involves teasing apart a process into constituent parts, step-by-step functions, and conditional statements. What is so important about computer programs is that they (almost) never work the first time. Since they do something (versus nothing), just not what you wanted, you can look at the (mis)behavior to debug and change your code. This iterative process, so common in computer programming, is similar to learning.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Have you watched a two-year-old use an iPad?
The meteoric rise of modern instructionism, including the misguided belief that there is a perfect way to teach something, is alarming because of the unlimited support it is getting from Bill Gates, Google, and my own institution, MIT. While Khan Academy is charming and brilliantly nonprofit, Salman Khan cannot seriously believe that he and a small number of colleagues can produce all the material, even if we did limit our learning to being instructed.
Source: http://www.technologyreview.com/view/429206/emtech-preview-another-way-to-think-about-learning/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Ethiopian kids hack OLPCs in 5 months with zero instruction
http://www.dvice.com/archives/2012/10/ethiopian-kids.php
What happens if you give a thousand Motorola Zoom tablet PCs to Ethiopian kids who have never even seen a printed word? Within five months, they’ll start teaching themselves English while circumventing the security on your OS to customize settings and activate disabled hardware. Whoa.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Illiterate Ethiopian children manage to hack Android
http://www.humanipo.com/news/2256/illiterate-ethiopian-children-manage-to-hack-android/
In an interesting statement, One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) founder Nicholas Negroponte has revealed that the illiterate Ethiopian children they had given the locked down Motorola Xoom tablets earlier this year have within five months not only started teaching themselves English, but managed to bypass the security on the tablet’s operating system to customize settings and to activate disabled hardware such as the camera.
One needs to remember and put into context that these are Ethiopian villages, where the children and some adults have never read a written word. The type of rural villages where there are no books, no newspapers and no street signs.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Fashion & Style | Disruptions
Steve Jobs Was a Low-Tech Parent
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/11/fashion/steve-jobs-apple-was-a-low-tech-parent.html?_r=0
When Steve Jobs was running Apple, he was known to call journalists to either pat them on the back for a recent article or, more often than not, explain how they got it wrong.
“So, your kids must love the iPad?” I asked Mr. Jobs, trying to change the subject. The company’s first tablet was just hitting the shelves. “They haven’t used it,” he told me. “We limit how much technology our kids use at home.”
Chris Anderson, the former editor of Wired and now chief executive of 3D Robotics, a drone maker, has instituted time limits and parental controls on every device in his home. “My kids accuse me and my wife of being fascists and overly concerned about tech, and they say that none of their friends have the same rules,” he said of his five children, 6 to 17. “That’s because we have seen the dangers of technology firsthand. I’ve seen it in myself, I don’t want to see that happen to my kids.”
The dangers he is referring to include exposure to harmful content like pornography, bullying from other kids, and perhaps worse of all, becoming addicted to their devices, just like their parents.
So how do tech moms and dads determine the proper boundary for their children? In general, it is set by age.
Children under 10 seem to be most susceptible to becoming addicted, so these parents draw the line at not allowing any gadgets during the week. On weekends, there are limits of 30 minutes to two hours on iPad and smartphone use. And 10- to 14-year-olds are allowed to use computers on school nights, but only for homework.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Show us the money: EU seeks billions of euros to revive economy
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/09/14/us-eu-economy-idUSKBN0H80B020140914
The European Union sought ways on Saturday to marshal billions of euros into its sluggish economy without getting deeper into debt, considering options from a pan-European capital market to a huge investment fund.
With Europe’s economy struggling to recover from the worst financial crisis in a generation, EU finance ministers tasked the European Commission, the EU executive, and the European Investment Bank (EIB) to draw up a list of projects that would create growth and decide how to finance them.
Ministers are expected to discuss the projects and investment tools at their next meeting in Luxembourg in October.
There were no details of what those projects might be.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Net neutrality protestors slam the brakes on their OWN websites
Sites link up to protest slow lanes by bogging down pages
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2367430/one-third-say-pressure-from-their-companies-leads-to-coding-errors
OVER A THIRD of INQUIRER readers think undue pressure from companies is to blame for software errors.
34 percent of respondents said, “Firms that put too much pressure on their IT teams” were to blame for coding errors, suggesting a lot of frustrated coders among the INQUIRER readership, with pressure to deliver product on deadline sometimes leading to elementary errors.
One programmer told us, “Often technical decisions are made from a business point of view, and the two are very rarely in sync. The more an IT project is hindered by business decisions, the more it snowballs into something that can’t be unravelled later, therefore causing more time and effort in the future when the inevitable changes and enhancements are required.”
“Business logic seems to only take into account the current requirements, whereas anyone with development experience will think about the bigger picture.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
The article focused on eight big promises of the information technology revolution that seemed to have had negative effects:
The Internet Will Create a “New Economy”
The Internet Will Create a World Community
The Digital Age Will Make Us All Get Smarter
The Digital Generation Will Save Us
Digital Technologies Will Narrow the Wealth Gap
The Internet Will Spread Democracy
The Internet Will Make Us Better Informed
Everyone Gets to Be a Publisher
- See more at: http://businessvalueexchange.com/2014/03/13/roads-going-dont-need-roads/?utm_source=taboola&utm_medium=referral#sthash.BUrDQZgZ.dpuf
Tomi Engdahl says:
Stubb: Open data creates jobs and growth
“Sustainable growth and employment creation require an open knowledge-based business. The number of public databases aware of the opening to promote open science, and creates opportunities for new types of entrepreneurship and innovation. Digitalisation is a central opportunity to increase productivity and opening up new opportunities for civil society. Finland needed a change requires an agile and open to ideas of pilot activities, ” says Finnish Prime Minister Alexander Stubb
Source: http://www.tivi.fi/kaikki_uutiset/stubb+avoin+data+luo+tyollisyytta+ja+kasvua/a1011497
Tomi Engdahl says:
How to Ensure a Smooth IT Reorganization
http://www.cio.com/article/2604430/it-management/how-to-ensure-a-smooth-it-reorganization.html
If you spend enough time in the upper tiers of technology leadership, you will eventually reach a point where you need an IT department reorganization. Here are the key things to consider before you set the wheels of change in motion.
IT reorganizations are costly both in terms of resources and productivity. To minimize those costs, CIOs and IT leaders should understand the nature of the problems they are looking to solve, have a solid strategy and be sure that business strategy is at the heart of the reorganization efforts.
IT leaders need to ask themselves three questions when considering a reorg: ”
1. Are we outside-in?
2. Are we cloud-first?
3. Are we mobile-centric?”
A “no” to any of these questions is a major warning sign. In today’s era of mobile and the cloud, having an insular IT department isn’t enough to survive and succeed
Let’s look at common reasons an IT department gets reorganized.
1. IT isn’t delivering results
2. New leadership on board
3. New technology changes company mission
Be Aware of Team Morale
It’s hard to get things done in an atmosphere where people are worried about the unknown. Experts agree that communications is the key.
“Reorganizations can be stressful for employees – they’re waiting to see how things change and what that means for their day-to-day work.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
3D Printing: The Future Is Now
http://www.3d-print.today/?categoryId=29888&itemId=52085
Ever sketched a design idea on paper and wondered what it might look like if it could be brought to life? An earring design, a pendant, perhaps? A sculpture, or special widget? Or even a house plan?
One of the greatest challenges faced by artisans, entrepreneurs and small business operators is turning an idea into a tangible product. Often, the task of moving from concept to a functional prototype can be so difficult, many great ideas simply remain just that – ideas.
3D printing is not really that new, it’s just newly affordable. It popularity was confined to the world of engineering, architecture and manufacturing until the last few years. That all changed with the introduction of relatively low-cost 3D-pirinters, and the wider availability of 3D-printing software, online how-to guides and thousands of practical applications. This convergence has sparked a 3D printing revolution, fuelled by mainstream media interest and growing popularity with consumers and small businesses. Today, 3D printing is one of the most hyped advancements in the technology arena.
Driving Innovation
A relatively sophisticated, 3D printer can cost between $2,500 and $5,000. Cruder models are available for as little as $300-$400. This is giving rise to a growing community – from individual inventors and creative types, to nascent businesses – exploring the potential of 3D printing. They are driving innovation beyond the novelty of uniquely made printed objects.
Business models are evolving as well. A number of companies are emerging that enable anyone to upload a design to a website and order and receive their ‘prints’. Companies like Sculpteo and Shapeways take it even further. They help promote and sell products in a 3D marketplace.
For all the hype, there remains several constraints to 3D-printing moving into mainstream consumer applications. Though many things can now be 3D-printed, there are limits. One limitation is size.
Perhaps the biggest limitation to mass adoption of the technology, however, is ease of use. 3D printing is not yet a simple click-and-print experience for the end-users.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Oculus Rift CEO Says Classrooms of the Future Will Be In VR Goggles
http://news.slashdot.org/story/14/09/14/2258219/oculus-rift-ceo-says-classrooms-of-the-future-will-be-in-vr-goggles
“Oculus Rift isn’t just for gaming. Brendan Iribe, CEO of the VR company, says the immersive tech will be “one of the most transformative platforms for education of all time.”
” And if we can make virtual reality every bit as good as real reality in terms of communications and the sense of shared presence with others, you can now educate people in virtual classrooms, you can now educate people with virtual objects, and we can all be in a classroom together [virtually], we can all be present, we can have relationships and communication that are just as good as the real classroom”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Will the Next Classroom Disruption Be in 3-D? Facebook’s Virtual-Reality Company Thinks So
http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/will-the-next-classroom-disruption-be-in-3-d-facebooks-virtual-reality-company-thinks-so/54517
Tomi Engdahl says:
Night Owls and Early Risers Have Different Brain Structures
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-michael-j-breus/night-owl-sleep_b_4276411.html
Are you one of those people who rises before dawn and never needs an alarm clock? Or would you happily sleep until midmorning if you could? Do you feel like you are just hitting your day’s stride by late afternoon, or do you like to get the big tasks of the day accomplished early?
Some of us are clearly “larks” — early risers — while others of us are distinctly night owls. The rest of us fall somewhere in between the two.
We’re learning that these night owl and early riser tendencies are driven by some significant degree by biological and genetic forces. Different chronotypes are associated with genetic variations, as well as differences in lifestyle and mood disposition, cognitive function and risks for health problems, including sleep disorders and depression.
New research has now found evidence of physical differences in the brains of different chronotypes.
Research indicates that people who stay up late are at higher risk for depression. Studies have also shown night owls more prone to more significant tobacco and alcohol use, as well as inclined to eating more, and also less healthful diets than early risers or people with intermediate sleep patterns. But research on the influence of chronotype isn’t all bad news for night owls. Some studies have shown that people who stay up late are more productive than early risers, and have more stamina throughout the length of their days. Other research has shown that night owls display greater reasoning and analytical abilities than their earlier-to-bed counterparts. Stay-up-late types, according to research, achieve greater financial and professional success on average than those people with earlier bedtimes and wake times.
This latest study is the first to offer physical evidence of neurological differences among people with different sleep tendencies
Tomi Engdahl says:
Why Night Owls Are More Intelligent Than Morning Larks
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-scientific-fundamentalist/201005/why-night-owls-are-more-intelligent-morning-larks
Some people are night owls, and others are morning larks. What makes the difference may be their levels of general intelligence.
However, humans, unlike other mammalian species, have the unique ability, consciously and cognitively, to override their internal biological clock and its rhythmic outputs. In other words, at least for humans, circadian rhythm is not entirely a matter of genetics.
Extensive ethnographies corroborate these observations and suggest that people in traditional societies usually rise shortly before dawn and go to sleep shortly after dusk, to take full advantage of the natural light provided by the sun.
Compared to their less intelligent counterparts, more intelligent individuals go to bed later on weeknights (when they have to get up at a certain time the next day) and on weekends (when they don’t), and they wake up later on weekdays (but not on weekends)