Leadership in the Interactive Age

Finally got around to archiving this work. Probably more accurately stated, my information technology tools finally allowed me to create this archive.

"Leadership in the Interactive Age" was one of significant accomplishments of my consulting career. It was a collaboration between my business partner, Donna Prestwood, our colleague, Barbara Benjamin, New York, and me. We met at least three times for a week at a time in New York and Maine discussing the issues, teasing out the basics and creating the concepts contained in this work. We interviewed over 60 people and placed clips of those interviews in the appropriate place in our structure.

For the actual production of the work, Barbara moved to Austin for about three months. The series consisted of 8 sessions each 1 hour and 50 minutes long. These were broadcast live over NTU's satellite network weekly in January and February 1995 from Oklahoma State's studios in Stillwater, Oklahoma. It was quite a grind to get everything ready in a week's time. Many very late hours.

NTU was a pioneer of distance learning using satellite TV.

I still believe that some of the concepts developed through this collaboration are still relevant today. Unfortunately we did not get national recognition for this work. To just name two. I think we were right in naming our times as the interactive age. Look around you or at yourself, how much time is spent interacting, sometimes without much to show for it? And, second, I think our focus on ingenuity was correct, rather than creativity or innovation.

This project was one of the most challenging, and creative endeavors I had as a consultant. And, I enjoyed it. I like working in the medium and the integration of interviews. It would have been nice to do several more of these, but it didn't work out that way.

Here's what I archived:

Leadership in the Interactive Age Brochure
Leadership in the Interactive Age Description
Video Programs

1. Leadership and Technology: Is Your Mental Map Ready? Part 1 and Part 2
2. Personal Ingenuity and Emerging Technologies Part 1 and Part 2
3. Knowledge and the Ethics of Technology Part 1 and Part 2
4. Integrating Technologies  in the Age of Interaction Part 1 and Part 2
5. Leading in the Age of Interactions Part 1 and Part 2
6. Leadership is a State of Mind, Not a Position Part 1 and Part 2
7. Leadership, Ingenuity and Technology: Accelerators of Innovation Part 1 and Part 2
8. Organizations and Individuals Who Have Invented new Tools for New Times Part 1 and Part 2

National Technological University (NTU), Fort Collins, Colorado, was founded in 1984 as a non-profit organization offering graduate courses via satellite and leading to a Master of Science (M.S.) degree. It was a collaborative effort among many major engineering and management colleges in the United States to meet the graduate and continuing education needs of “engineers, technical professionals and managers using advanced educational and telecommunications technology.” Graduate and non-credit courses were sourced from a number of distinguished universities and were delivered through NTU to working technical professionals and managers at corporate and government sites across the United States and at international locations as well. NTU was accredited by the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools, The Higher Learning Commission.

"There is widespread recognition of the growing need for engineers and the organizations that employ them to create a new engineering culture that encourages lifelong learning....The National Technological University (NTU) is an important example. NTU delivers classes from major engineering schools by satellite to working professionals in industry. NTU and Motorola University...have been cited as U.S. 'best practices' in this field."

In 2002, NTU was sold to Sylvan Learning Systems and then folded into Walden University in 2004. Wikipedia

Ingenuity: Humans and their Organization a the Crossroads

Why don't things work the way that they used to? Where are our leaders? Why am I working harder and harder while I seem to be going backwards? Why do my children perceive that they will not have as good a life as mine? Why is violence rampant in our streets? Why are schools, business, and government broken? These are questions that we hear over and over again in millions of forms as we grope to grasp the meaning of what's happening to us.

The basic problem is that our models of organizations and of ourselves are out of date. We, as humans, our societies and their artifacts, have evolved. The gap between what is and what we perceive has widened to the point of breaking. We must change our mental maps to reflect the world. And, our organizations must emulate the new mental maps.

We are at a crossroads and we have a choice. We cannot deny any longer the existence of the need for change. And, we cannot waste our energies any longer fighting against change. We must embrace change and move rapidly towards a new state of being, knowing, and creating. We must develop our ingenuity and the ingenuity of our organizations.

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The Ingensis Project

The current financial system has reached the limits of its effectiveness. Interest on debt has exceeded the system’s ability to pay it off. But debt is simply a promissory note on future productivity. The only sustainable way to increase productivity is to innovate. This means that in order to continue printing money, we must increase productivity at the same or greater rate. With a national debt in excess of 10 Trillion dollars, we need to have an extraordinary increase in our current innovation capabilities.

There are three relatively simple web applications specified here which if deployed to social networks will allow human knowledge to become tangible outside of the organizational construct of the traditional corporation. The result will be a comprehensive, diversified, and integrated innovation system locked in a virtuous circle with our financial system.

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Leadership in the Interactive Age

These are difficult times! Change is everywhere. The pace is accelerating, propelled by global social, political, economic, technical and demographic forces. These are times about which scientists, sociologists and historians will write books. Our country is in the midst of transition from the last vestiges of the industrial age to the age of interaction -- a special time full of opportunity and challenge. Leaders at all levels must be able to model and encourage the application of ingenuity. Leadership in thriving organizations is a state of mind, not a position.

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