Are you a stakeholder in Academic Progress?

“Innovation is not what innovators do; it’s what customers and clients adopt.” — Michael Schrage, MIT, Marketing Matters

Nikola Tesla, one of the most brilliant innovators of all time, had a vision for how electrical technologies could perform faster and more efficiently. Unfortunately for him, and for society, his technologies remained unused for decades or were used for the wrong business reasons. Tesla died virtually unknown to society. It took many years after his death for society to recognize his talents and scientific contribution acknowledged by his peers. One small testament to Tesla’s innovative contribution to the field of science is the use of his name, Tesla, as the unit of measurement of magnetic fields. It is a standard reflected by adoption. When in 1887 Tesla perfected the technology for the alternating current (AC) motor (previously electrical motors were based only on direct current (DC)), he was fascinated only with applying his genius to the technology and didn’t realize that he might have helped the world more by balancing his passion for technology with an equal passion for its business application.

What if Tesla properly identified the stakeholders who were aligned with his vision rather than the path he chose? What would have happened? What if he had ignored the short-term monetary gain for the long term view to align invention with processes, stakeholders and benefits? Maybe history might have turned out differently. This teaches us a lesson to focus on the users of technology, not just the creators of it. It also teaches us to focus on a long term vision, not just the monetary rewards from technology and innovation. Had Tesla envisioned the business activities or processes in which his technology would have created the biggest impact in the long term rather than focusing only on technological innovation and selling his patent to the highest bidder, his name, rather than Thomas Edison’s, would properly be associated with AC electricity. As a consequence of not thinking about the business or social applications of his innovations, Tesla’s technology was not applied to electrical generators for many years and the world was deprived of lower-cost electrical energy production. As a result of Tesla’s lack alignment or balance between technology and business, he was a spectator to, rather than the acknowledged inventor of, the biggest step forward in electrical energy generation: George Westinghouse’s introduction in 1895 of a version of the AC electrical engine in the hydroelectric station at Niagara Falls, which successfully transmitted electrical power over a distance of 25 miles to factories to Buffalo, NY. This event started a mini industrial revolution.

As a community based standards effort, we need to focus on the business aspects of a shared vision, guiding us step-by-step through the work of identifying the right stakeholders, the key measurements of success (key performance indicators), and the alignment of business processes to be improved by the technology by mapping them to business critical success factors. Academic Progress requires us finding the right stakeholders and making sure we focus our efforts on the right processes. Many may argue that technologists do not need to master the disciplines of business as well as science, yet history presents many examples of visionaries who have not done this and the world has not benefited as a result. Witness the difference between Tesla and Edison, or Galileo compared to Christopher Columbus, who received funding (rather than imprisonment) to send three ships on an expedition based on the same radical and innovative idea that the world was not flat. Columbus was successful in receiving funds not because he presented a scientific expedition to Queen Isabella of Spain, but because he aligned the value of his expedition with the most important goal of Queen Isabella:

Discovering faster trade routes so as to more easily gain gold and spices.

— W. Bernard Carlson, Scientific American, March 2005 “To ensure that your technology vision is applied, do what Columbus did: align your vision with the right stakeholders, the ones with equal vision and the means to accomplish them.”

Are you a stakeholder in Academic Progress? If we have anything to do with learners, student life cycle and the processes spanning advising, guidance, assessment and placement, you most certainly should consider joining on our work group. Together, we can develop a joint specification and reference model to foster interoperability in tools that support our long term vision, which is to help students and learners of all types achieve success. That may mean different things to different stakeholders from achieving a credential to completing a course.