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GE’s Ecomagination: From Marketing Campaign to Business Commitment

Sunday, April 3rd, 2011

Most of us have seen General Electric’s ecomagination advertisements. But while ecomagination may make for a catchy slogan and an interesting, and even compelling advertising campaign, it is much more than a marketing program. It is a totally new way of viewing General Electric’s value proposition, of defining markets and conceiving products and of allowing GE to “Create Shared Value”—a set of business policies and practices that enhance the competitiveness of a company while simultaneously advancing the economic and social conditions in the communities in which it operates.

GE CEO Jeff Immelt has spoken directly and often of the private sector’s responsibility to the country. He believes that the private sector must embrace the realities of environmental, national security, and other societal concerns; and that it must assume responsibility for addressing these challenges.

The company’s ecomagination initiative is a central component of his willingness to stake General Electric’s future on this proposition. His recent acceptance of President Obama’s invitation to chair the newly created Council on Jobs and Competitiveness is indicative of his believe that business must partner with the government to jointly address such needs.

The Genesis of Ecomagination

One may be forgiven for assuming that GE’s five-year old ecomagination initiative, which has been at least partially promoted around GE’s concerns for the environment and a desire to “leave the earth as they found it”, has its roots planted firmly in the clouds.

This, however, is not the case. The initiative, which is intended to promote the development and sale of energy-efficient products is, in fact, a hard-headed business decision. It is based primarily on Jeff Immelt’s conviction that energy efficiency and alternate energy are becoming big growth markets and that most resources, and especially energy resources, will become increasingly scarce, costly and subject to government regulation. And since GE is already so ensconced in so many related markets (from water purification to jet engines and all stages of the electricity chain, from huge nuclear plants through home appliances and light bulbs (or as one exec poetically puts it, “from turbines to toasters), it was ideally situated to stake out a leadership position.

This vision of proactive business opportunity is bolstered by another, much more defensive calculation—that Americans’ perception of big business is in a “dark cycle” where the people who can make our economy better (including corporate executives) are considered its worst enemies. With citizens’ trust in big business at an all-time low, Immelt is concerned that “populism will turn to protectionism”, harming not only economy as a whole, but GE in particular.

To some, ecomagination was initially perceived primarily as a marketing campaign. The program, however, is a corporate business strategy built upon the belief that one doesn’t have to choose between economic viability and environmental responsibility; you can have both. The program has steadily gained momentum as public awareness and commitment grew around sustainability, as GE doubled down on its investments, and as the market has come to accept—and indeed demand—a growing number of energy-efficient products. Over the program’s first five years, GE:

  • More than doubled its investment in cleaner technologies, from $700 million in 2004 to $1.5 billion in 2009;
  • Earned more than $70 billion in revenue from ecomagination; and
  • Introduced more than 90 ecomagination products. (Note: Ecomagination products must be both significantly and measurably better in operating performance and in environmental performance. GE business applications are audited by GreenOrder, a sustainability strategy consulting firm. Compliance is measured by a GE corporate approval council.)

GE surpassed a number of its initially, publically-stated ecomagination goals and has now committed to going further—re-doubling its ecomagination investments over the next five years to $10 billion and growing ecomagination revenues at twice the rate of the company’s top line. Employees and investors have long since come to recognize that what’s good for the environment can be good for business—and vice versa.

Ecomagination Initiatives

Ecomagination initiatives now pervade the company. General Electric has and will be dedicating $15 billion over 10 years to work on new ecomagination-related projects and virtually every division of the company is involved, with many introducing new product categories, in addition to fielding more energy-efficient versions of traditional offerings.

The company’s power and energy groups, in particular, are commercializing smart grid solutions, sodium and lithium battery technology, offshore wind, multi-fuel gas turbines and new generations of nuclear reactors and clean coal technology. Examples across GE groups, as shown at www.ecomagination.com/technologies, include:

  • GE Appliance’s ENERGY STAR qualified washers, refrigerators, dishwashers and GeoSpring water heaters;
  • GE Aviation’s GEnx Aircraft Engines and Fuel and Carbon Services consulting solutions and ecomagination-certified TrueCourse™ flight management system to help airlines optimize jet fuel use;
  • GE Energy’s 7FA and LMS 100 gas turbines, wind turbines, nuclear generators, and Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle coal gasification process;
  • GE Lighting’s compact fluorescent and LED lights;
  • GE Rail’s Trip Optimizer throttle control systems and especially its Evolution series of locomotive;
  • GE Software + Services, which pulls together offerings from multiple groups, including GE Digital Energy, with its Digital Energy UPS system, and GE Intelligent Platforms, with its Proficy software platform, that helps industrial and commercial companies improve energy efficiency;
  • GE Water’s line of advanced water and wastewater treatment systems, which cut water consumption, energy usage and its associated greenhouse gas emissions); and
  • GE Healthcare, which is generally focused on the company’s parallel (to ecomagination) vision of “Healthymagination,” is also improving the energy efficiency and reducing emissions and paper usage attributable to products by going digital, including through its use of Digital X-Ray, Digital Mammography, High Efficiency MR (Magnetic Resonance) Systems and Voluson ultrasound technology.

Then there is the rapidly growing number of specialized ecomagination products, including a growing portfolio of solar- and wind-powered alternative energy systems, smart meters and recently announced Nucleus home energy management hub and Wattstation electric car charging station.

Even the company’s Finance units get in on the ecomagination action. Its Business Finance group, for example, finances purchases of the company’s locomotives and jet engines and the building of solar and wind farms. It also earns money from eco-friendly assets by investing in third-party verified carbon offset projects that would not have been viable without the offsets. GE Energy Financial Services now counts on renewable energy investments for 30% of its $26 billion portfolio.

In fact, GE Broadcasting is one of the few divisions that is not in the ecomagination act (unless, that is, you count the ecomagination commercials that are run on NBC and other GE networks). But now that 51% of NBC Universal is being sold to, and will be operated by Comcast, it no longer counts. Smile

Whatever one believes may have been the original motivation for ecomagination, there can be little doubt that it is now fundamental to the General Electric’s business. But, as discussed in my next post, it is now becoming more than a core part of the company’s business. It is becoming part of the company’s Business Philosophy and its Social Contract.

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The Governmental Mandate of Shared Value Creation

Sunday, March 6th, 2011

My February 6 blog (Shared Value Creation: The Next Evolution of Corporate Social Responsibility and of Capitalism) explained the many benefits that corporations can achieve through a new, more business-aligned approach to corporate philanthropy. This approach, which is called Shared Value Creation, consists of “policies and practices that enhance the competitiveness of a company while simultaneously advancing the social and economic conditions of the communities in which it operates,” It is a concept, which as Harvard Business School professor Michael Porter explains, is becoming more than a corporate opportunity—it is practically becoming a corporate mandate: a form of “self-interested behavior” that creates economic value for the company, by the very process of creating societal value.

As Porter described in his January 2011 Harvard Business Review article, when applied effectively, shared value creation can burnish a company’s brand, attract new customers and help a company recruit employees and improve employee commitment to the organization. This, however, is only the tip of a value proposition that can go much deeper. It can directly help the company enter new markets, improve economies in existing markets and create totally new business opportunities—generating cost savings, as well as revenue gains.

While the HBR article and my February 6 blog focused on the opportunities for corporations to benefit from Shared Value Creation, a January 2011 Accenture study, New Waves of Growth: Unlocking Opportunity in the Multi-Polar World, effectively suggests ways in which shared value creation can help communities and countries, as well as companies.

Capitalizing on the Four Waves of Growth

According to the Accenture report, governments that hope to create significant growth in GDP and jobs over the next decade must capitalize on what it identifies as four major waves of growth. These waves are based on opportunities being created around:

  • The “silver” economy. The graying of the population, as through initiatives in areas including connected health, health and welfare products and services, lifelong finance and new products that are optimized for older people;
  • The resource economy. The providing of more reliable and cleaner sources of energy and other types of increasingly scarce resources (land, water, food, minerals, etc.), including the need to build and manage intelligent infrastructures and processes (as for energy, buildings, water and land management and so forth);
  • A multi-technology future. The rapid adoption and increasingly integrated roles that new technologies (such as superfast broadband, cloud computing, sensors, analytics, mobility and security) will play across all industries and processes and as integrated with traditionally distinct disciplines to create new fields such as bio-informatics, micropayments and manu-services;
  • The emerging-markets surge. The rise of a multi-polar world in which economic activity and resources are increasingly gravitating toward emerging economies and rapidly growing urban centers and creating new opportunities for all types of low-cost goods and services, citizen services and smart infrastructures.

Countries that effectively capitalize on these waves can, according to an Oxford Economics’ analysis commissioned by Accenture, gain huge benefits. The U.S., for example, could add 0.7 percentage points to its otherwise anticipated 3.1% average annual GDP growth and create 9.7 million additional jobs by 2020—a level of economic output and job growth equivalent to the current size of the entire U.S. auto industry. Other countries could achieve correspondingly similar gains. Germany, for example, could boost average GDP growth by 32% and employment by an additional 3 million, United Kingdom by 24% and 2.6 million and India by about 9% and 37.5 million jobs.

The Government Mandate

Although Accenture paints an encouraging picture for countries and societies that can effectively ride these waves of growth, accomplishing these results will take years of hard work. Strategies must be developed, smart infrastructures built, business environments enhanced and most critically, millions of people must be educated, trained and retrained to create and effectively utilize new capabilities.

This leads to the biggest challenge and the biggest opportunity of all. For better or worse, no single company, government or sector of society has the resources, the skills or the reach required to define comprehensive national strategies for, much less create the foundations for capitalizing on these waves. Positioning a country to capitalize will require entirely new levels of cooperation and coordination among all types of businesses, all layers of government and many different non-profit organizations (especially schools and universities).

This is a challenge in that so few countries have seriously attempted to foster this type of cooperation (and in that many attempts to do so have failed). It is an opportunity in that there has never before been such an urgent need to do so. Emerging countries must do so to address the rapidly growing aspirations (not to speak of the expectations and demands) of their citizens. Developed countries must find ways of compensating for relative declines in economic power and security and especially for preparing their citizens to compete and thrive in an increasingly global workforce.

The good news is that there are a growing number of examples in which corporations, schools, foundations and government entities are cooperating to address common needs. These, as discussed in my last two years of blogs and reports, include Microsoft’s Partners in Learning Program, IBM’s Academic Initiative, Intel’s Teach and Entrepreneurship programs, General Electric’s Ecomagination program (see my forthcoming March blogs and report) and IBM’s Smarter Planet and Cisco’s Smart+Connected Communities initiatives (see my forthcoming April blogs). Not to speak of Accenture’s own Skills to Succeed program.

But as effective as some of these and other industry efforts have been, and as promising as some of their prospects, most address only specific, often local elements of huge, multi-faceted national problems. Large-scale success will require thousands of such initiatives and increasingly formal coordination among them.

There is, however, precious little evidence that most countries are prepared for such efforts. The U.S., in particular, has a fundamental and very vocal disagreement as to whether such efforts will indeed help or harm the country. But disagreement notwithstanding, President Obama is intent on creating foundations for such cooperation. He has, for example, engaged foundations in his effort to enhance community college curricula and graduation rates and has recently enlisted two high-profile business executives to chair groups that are intended to align public and private-sector efforts around initiatives to prepare the nation for the future (and incidentally, to capitalize on Accenture’s waves).

In January 20011, he named General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt as chairman of his new Council on Jobs and Competitiveness (whose mission is described by its name) and Steve Case as chairman of Startup America (whose goal is to promote entrepreneurism and high-growth startups). Both are likely to enlist other executives into their efforts and coordinate their efforts with other business constituencies. Immelt is likely to draw members and ideas from groups to which he belongs, such as the Business Roundtable and the Business Council. Startup America, meanwhile, has already won support of and about $400 million in funding from IBM, Intel and Hewlett-Packard. Both groups will at least formalize private sector inputs into critical government decisions. Ideally they will do more, such as usher in an era of cooperation among public, private and non-profit sectors.

After all, as Accenture explains, no one segment of the economy controls all of the levers required to mobilize all the country’s efforts. “Coordination among the three sectors—business, government and non-profit—will no longer be a bonus, but a necessity.”

Posted in 21st Century Careers, Corporate Social Responsibility, Technology's Impact on Job Skills | No Responses »
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Shared Value Creation: The Next Evolution of Corporate Social Responsibility and of Capitalism

Sunday, February 6th, 2011

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) and corporate philanthropy (CP) used to be managed separately from the business. They consisted largely of cash contributions that companies viewed, at best, as an effort to give back to the communities in which they operated and their employees lived. At worst, they were seen as a subtle form as extortion that companies had to pay to appease and demonstrate their “commitments” to their communities.

This is changing. A growing number of companies now recognize that:

  • CSR and CP initiatives can deliver big business benefits to their organizations; and that
  • They can often deliver much greater value to society by contributing technology and expertise than they can by contributing just money.

Many companies, for example, now recognize that reputations for social responsibility can burnish the company’s brand, attract new customers, aid in recruiting employees and improve employee commitment to the organization. Some even claim that their CSR and CP activities have increased their share prices by attracting incremental new investments from the growing number of Social Investment Funds.

This, however, is only the tip of a value proposition that can go much deeper—a value proposition that can directly help the corporation enter new markets, improve economies in existing markets and create totally new business opportunities. In fact, Michael Porter and Mark Kramer, in their January 2011 Harvard Business Review article, argue that companies must recast narrowly defined CSR and CP programs around a proposition for creating shared value—an approach designed to deliver as much value to the company as to society. They insist that a structured approach to Shared Value Creation (the latest non-intuitive buzzword for efforts intended to deliver both business and societal value) can, for example, yield:

  • Big cost savings, as in the $250 million savings (a $2.71 return on every dollar it spent on these programs from 2002 through 2008) that Johnson & Johnson attributed to its employee wellness programs (not to speak of demonstrated improvements in employee attendance and productivity);
  • Big revenue gains, as in the $18 billion that General Electric derived from the sale of Ecomagination products in 2009, a category of offerings that is expected to grow at twice the rate of total company revenues over the next five years (an issue that I will discussed in my February 20th blog on GE’s Smart Grid strategy); and
  • Big improvements to employee leadership development and retention, as with IBM’s Corporate Service Corps (as I examined in my January 23 blog and accompanying report), which deploys teams of high-potential employees on 30-day projects to help emerging countries address some of their most pressing societal needs.

Porter and Kramer, in fact, go further, much further. Not only do they view Shared Value Creation as the next evolution of CSR and CP, they also view it as the next evolution of capitalism—a more sophisticated form of capitalism that “arises not out of charity but of a deeper understanding of competition and economic value creation.” It is a form of “self-interested behavior” that creates economic value to the company, by the very process of creating societal value. A form of behavior that will also help mend badly frayed corporate and capitalist reputations and facilitate a more productive relationship between business and governments.

This “Harvard School” view of Shared Value Creation appears diametrically opposed to the “Chicago School” view in which Milton Friedman famously equated the spending of shareholders’ money for any purpose other than to advance the interests of the business as a form of “theft.”

Perhaps, however, these views are not as philosophically opposed as they may appear. After all, even Friedman was not opposed to all corporate giving. He admitted that corporate philanthropy could be justified if it served a business objective, such as increasing customer loyalty, improving employee teamwork and motivation or strengthening the marketing of a company’s brand.

But whichever side of the supposed philosophical divide on which one may fall, the issue is becoming increasingly moot. A rapidly growing number of very large, and very influential corporations (including virtually all of the largest technology companies) have instituted large CSR and CP programs and most have conceived and are managing these programs in way that is intended to create shared value. And this does not include the hundreds of small companies that have built their entire business models around addressing societal needs or the growing number of social entrepreneurs who are creating hybrid organizations that blur the line between for-profit and non-profit organizations.

In other words, regardless of whether you consider social value creation to be a new generation of capitalism, or just a new generation of corporate social responsibility, one thing is clear. More and more companies—and especially technology companies—are becoming convinced that they can, do quote another well-known economic philosopher, Benjamin Franklin, “do well by doing good.”

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IBM Corporate Service Corps: Integrating Business Objectives and CSR

Sunday, January 23rd, 2011

This is a summary of my January 2011 report “IBM Corporate Service Corps: Integrating Business Objectives and CSR”. For more information on this report or to purchase it for $995, click here.

IBM has one of the strongest talent development programs and one of the strongest corporate social responsibility (CSR) programs in the technology industry. What do you get when you combine them? IBM’s Corporate Service Corps (CSC)—a great example of how companies can do well by doing good (see my May 2010 report for a view of another IBM initiative, this one or integrating its university CSR and internal talent development initiatives.)

IBM’s Corporate Service Corps is a leadership development program, inspired by the U.S. Peace Corps. It is intended to put IBM’s most valuable resource—its people—in places that can most benefit from their expertise, and provide these employees with experiences from which they can gain broad leadership and cross-cultural experience. It provides select, high-potential employees with intense experience in working with global teams on short-duration, high-intensity projects in emerging countries. It is also a big expansion of IBM’s CSR efforts that turns social volunteerism into a life learning experience.

CSC Objectives

The program, which was launched in 2008, deploys small, 8-12-person multi-disciplinary teams to provide pro bono consulting—helping emerging country government, nonprofit and non-governmental organizations develop specific plans for addressing some of their most pressing societal needs. These can range from upgrading a government agency’s IT environment and processes, to developing a supply-chain management process for getting agricultural products to market, to improving the quality of a community’s public water supply. While each project is different, each is intended to result in practical blueprints for solving problems that are limiting a country or a community’s growth and their peoples’ ability to contribute to that growth.

Although CSC is absolutely intended to deliver broad societal benefits to emerging countries, it is first and foremost a corporate leadership development program. Its goal, however, is not so much to teach specific business skills as it is to instill the qualities individuals require to become leaders in a globally integrated business. Participants are given deep, intensive exposure to emerging markets and diverse cultures and experience in forming and working in multi-cultural, multi-disciplinary teams. They are expected to return with improved cultural literacy, better appreciation for the strengths and limitations of different cultures and work styles, and especially greater adaptability and global teaming skills.

Although the program entails a lot of additional work (30-day in-country assignments plus extensive preparation and post-return requirements) in addition to the employee’s day job, participation is seen as both a privilege and a reward. It is a validation of one’s accomplishments in the company and as a steppingstone to advancement within the company. This makes the program extremely popular and selective—attracting about 10,000 applicants for the first 400 positions.

CSC Results

Although there is certainly plenty of anecdotal evidence to validate the program. IBM, being IBM, requires more formal evidence that its goals are being met. Harvard Business School assistant professor Christopher Marquis designed and conducted a formal survey of participants and recipients and evaluated the results as part of a case study on the program. His findings: CSC is “effective and executing on its goals and mission” (of providing a unique—and highly scalable and cost-effective—leadership development experience, societal benefits to emerging countries and improving employee’s perception of and commitment to IBM). IBM claims the program also delivers some additional side benefits, as in improving IBM’s brand in new and emerging markets and even in creating some new sales opportunities for the company.

In some ways, there is little that is really new in CSC. It combines two relatively common corporate practices—the use of overseas postings as an executive development tool, and encouraging and funding employees to perform volunteer work. The big difference is that IBM has integrated them into a fundamentally new form that delivers these experiences to far more executive candidates than would be previously possible, and does it in a cost-effective way that delivers additional benefits to the company.

CSC Futures

IBM will absolutely continue, and modestly extend the program. Its ultimate value, however, is likely to transcend IBM. Some of IBM’s customers, including Novartis, Federal Express and Dow Corning are already learning from and have begun to implement similar programs. Meanwhile, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding with IBM to create the Alliance for International Corporate Volunteerism (ICV). The alliance will expand upon the CSC model to facilitate participation by many other companies and create corporate responsibility networks that integrate activities of corporations, governments, international organizations, foundations and other participants. USAID will also serve as a delivery coordinator for some of these projects, thereby increasing the chances that CSC’s consulting recommendations will deliver their intended value.

Posted in Corporate Social Responsibility, IBM, IT Industry Role in Education, IT Industry Trends, Skills Requirements, Workforce Trends | No Responses »
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Partnering Strategies for a Smarter Planet: Developing Win-Win Partnerships with IBM

Sunday, January 9th, 2011

This is a summary of my new January 2011 report “Partnering Strategies for a Smarter Planet: Developing Win-Win Partnerships with IBM”. For more information on this report or to purchase it for $995, click here.

IBM’s Smarter Planet initiative is the foundation of what, if successful, may represent one of the most fundamental corporate transformations of all time—transforming IBM from a provider of IT solutions into an architect of solutions to some of the world’s biggest, most pressing needs.

IBM intends for its application of IT tools to real-world “where digital meets physical” needs to enable it to leverage its strong position in the maturing, “relatively small” IT market into an entirely new role—that of being the primary digital enabler (and, in some cases, the centerpiece) of solutions for dozens of other much bigger markets, from healthcare to energy and transportation to government. The company’s contributions to solutions to some of the world’s most pressing problems could also provide very nice side benefits, including enhancing the company’s already strong brand image.

The benefits of IBM’s Smarter Planet focus, however, are likely to transcend society and the IBM Corporation—they are also likely to benefit a number of IBM’s partners. Maximizing these benefits, however, can require some careful balancing.

Smarter Planet Ecosystem Benefits

IBM bases its entire Smarter Planet vision on an obvious (at least to those of us in the IT industry) proposition—traditional real-world infrastructures and processes can be made much more effective and efficient by making them more:

  • Instrumented, as through the use of sensors;
  • Interconnected, as by the Internet; and
  • Intelligent, through the use of analytics.

Since all these of these capabilities are already available, IBM and its partners have opportunities to begin providing real value around them today. And since all of these capabilities will be ubiquitous in the future, these markets will grow rapidly into huge opportunities. Companies that develop, tune and develop proof points around their current offerings have the potential of establishing themselves as leaders in these markets of the future. And, oh yes, their solutions also have the potential of providing big societal benefits in the normal course of doing business.

But how can companies achieve the market traction required to establish themselves in such new markets? Individual ISVs typically lack the visibility and the scale; large physical market vendors (like Eaton and General Electric) have little experience with sensors, Internet enablement or analytics; and IT system vendors (including IBM) lack the experience, not to speak of the brand permission and customer relationships, required to build smart buildings and power grids.

The solution, of course, is to build an ecosystem that seamlessly integrates the products, expertise and brands of thousands of complementary companies into compelling solutions to pressing needs. And while a number of vendors are building their own ecosystems around specific classes of solutions today, IBM’s Smarter Planet is, by far, the broadest (encompassing 25 different initiatives), the biggest (consisting of thousands of partners) and the most highly visible (with 35-40% customer recognition).

Dancing with Elephants

While IBM is building both standards and go-to-market ecosystems around each of its 25 Smarter Planet initiatives, those for Smarter Buildings and Cities are currently the most developed, followed by those around Energy and Sustainability. But even within these, IBM’s own offerings, much less its brand and customer relationships are limited. This leaves plenty of white space for partners.

Consider, for example, Smarter Buildings. While all partners must, at a minimum, provide products and services that contribute to an end-to-end solution, IBM particularly values partners that can deliver additional capabilities. Partners like Honeywell, Schneider and Eaton, for example, have established relationships with real estate developers and construction companies and can provide IBM (and other ecosystem partners) with the brand permission and deep customer relationships required to play in areas like smart building design and operations. They also have deep expertise in areas such as HVAC and lighting and may often offer performance-based energy contracts (which IBM does not). IBM not only encourages, but depends on such partners to take the lead in many accounts.

IBM, in turn, also provides considerable value to these companies. First, as mentioned, the Smarter Planet brand provides considerable market recognition and an established base of partners. IBM, of course, is also more likely to have IT and C-level contacts among companies looking to build new buildings and retrofit older buildings and can bring partners into Smart Data Center contracts. It has the IT skills required to integrate all building systems into a seamless network, the digital dashboards required to monitor and manage them and the analytics software to optimize performance and anticipate and prevent disruptions. Just as importantly, it has a huge, established ISV program with well defined processes and a library of Industry Frameworks that greatly reduce ISV’s work in building applications.

IBM certainly provides partners with new opportunities to expand into new and vastly larger markets than most could hope to enter alone or with their own smaller ecosystems. Meanwhile, its extensive technical and market development assistance programs can proactively help its partners capitalize on these opportunities.

But while all participants can value from participation in Smarter Planet ecosystems, such relationships are not without friction. There are risks to dancing with IBM, as there are with any giant. Although the company has relatively few products that compete directly with those of its ecosystem partners, IBM has huge technical, consulting and outsourcing services organizations and it values account control at least as much as any other company.

Partners, therefore, must tread carefully. On one hand, in order to gain the greatest value from the relationship, they must understand the types of value they can provide that will make them most valuable to IBM at different stages of the market and of specific customer engagements. On the other hand, they must simultaneously ensure that their brand, their value adds and their customer relationships are not subsumed by or eventually subjugated to those of IBM.

The bad news is that uncertainly and jockeying for position is inherent in all new markets. Maneuvering is always difficult and sometimes imposes great stress in the relationship. The good news is that as markets grow (and those for Smarter Planet solutions inevitably will) relative roles always seem to sort out, go-to-market relationships are solidified and coordination processes are formalized. Partners will increasingly recognize and agree on when and how they can work together, and when they will not. These relationships have become so common in the IT industry that a word has been coined to describe them. The word is “coopetition.”

Posted in Business Trends, Corporate Social Responsibility, IBM, IT Industry Trends, Smart Infrastructure, Societal Forces, Technology's Impact on Job Skills | No Responses »
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Accenture Contributes Its Professional Development Skills to Non-Employees

Sunday, October 3rd, 2010

Accenture has always considered professional development to be one of its core competencies. It recruits tens of thousands of new employees each year, puts them through intense training programs and follows up with ongoing, career-spanning, personalized professional development and mentoring regimes. In 2009 alone, it dedicated nearly $800 million to these efforts.

The company is now extending its commitment to and skills in training and professional development beyond the walls of its own company to thousands of people—250,000 by 2015 to be exact—who do not, and probably never will work for Accenture. Its newly announced Skills to Succeed initiative is intended to help disadvantaged people from all around the world to develop the skills they will require to get good jobs or to start and build their own businesses (and thereby create jobs for themselves and others).

Accenture, both itself and through its foundations, is funding this initiative through a commitment of more than $100 million in cash, in-kind donations and employee time, over a three-year period. It considers this effort to be so important that it has developed a global operating model to align all aspects of the company and foundations’ corporate citizenship efforts around Skills to Succeed. In fact, it has established a goal that 80% of all the company’s corporate citizenship activities will be aligned around this initiative by the end of 2010.

However, while Accenture itself manages and delivers training to its own employees, Skills to Succeed training will be delivered almost exclusively through independent non-profit partners that have proven skills in and share Accenture’s commitment to skills training, and that can “drive change and achieve scale” across multiple countries and continents.

Building the Skills to Succeed Initiative

Accenture launched the first stages of this program in mid-2009, with a $48.3 million contribution—primarily of in-kind skills (such as consulting, hardware, software and office space), secondarily cash and, to a small extent, pro bono contributions of employees’ time (as in teaching, mentoring and so forth). It aligned its efforts around three primary objectives:

  • Employment Building, which is the initiative’s primary focus and is intended to train and prepare disadvantaged people for secure jobs that pay well above local average salaries. It begins by providing training in skills required for these jobs to employment-ready individuals (generally, from high-school juniors and community college students to unemployed workers who are looking to be retrained for new jobs and industries). While much of this training focuses on IT skills (an area in which many NGOs have current programs and skills), Accenture plans to address many types of skills that are “at the intersection of business and technology”. These may include IT operations, programming, engineering drafting and accounting/finance. The program also helps prepare these trainees for actual jobs (such as by placing them in part-time jobs or internships while they are still in school) and actually capture new jobs (as by helping them develop resumes, plan job-search campaigns and secure and prepare for interviews).
  • Business Building, which is intended to help entrepreneurs create new employment opportunities such as by helping them strengthen their leadership skills, develop business plans and strengthen capabilities including financial operations, hiring and customer service; and
  • Market Building, in which Accenture helps governments, NGOs and companies build access to markets where current market infrastructures are not sufficient. Examples include a partnership with the U.S. Agency for International Development to improve rural farmers’ access to information on agricultural and marketing practices.

One of the first and largest efforts was in Brazil, where Accenture partnered with two local agencies (Rede Cidada and the Committee for the Democratization of Information) to establish Conexão (the local membership organization of Youth Business International), which provides free technology training to unemployed people and free consulting to small, promising entrepreneurs. The program was a huge success, training 13,500 young people (3,500 of whom have already been hired) and supporting 124 entrepreneurs.

This success led to more than 80 additional programs so far, with more than 15 NGO partners in both developed and developing countries. Examples include:

  • United States, where Accenture is working with Genesys Works to train inner-city high school students in skills including IT, engineering drafting and accounting and is placing them in part-time jobs during their senior years. Accenture executives also teach business preparedness skills to students in community colleges;
  • United Kingdom, with Youth Business International, to help disadvantaged young people find and get appropriate educations or occupational training and mentor them on skills required to become successful entrepreneurs;
  • India, with the Dr. Reddy’s Foundation, to train disadvantaged young people in business process outsourcing and technology skills;
  • Philippines and Cambodia, partnering with Passerelles Numériques to help underprivileged students build the skills they need to obtain IT jobs; and
  • Several countries in Africa, where it is working with Enablis to build the skills of young entrepreneurs.

Accenture’s Objectives and Methods

The concept for Skills to Succeed was born about 18 months ago during a full-scale assessment of the company’s corporate philanthropy efforts. It was looking for a single unifying effort that addressed a critical, global societal need; that reflected the company’s values, culture and character; and in which Accenture had skills that would enable it to contribute unique skills and expertise, in addition to money.

Its initial efforts in partnering and launching the program, combined with the successes it achieved and the lessons it learned, validated its commitment to the initiative and prompted it to set an ambitious goal—that of training and preparing 250,000 disadvantaged people (anyone from high school juniors to older people who need retraining for or who hope to create their own sustainable, well-paying jobs). Although Accenture is open to all types of NGO partnerships and skills training programs, it assesses each opportunity in terms of its ability to:

  1. Cost-efficiently achieve significant, sustainable, demonstrable and measurable results;
  2. Harness the energies of Accenture and the enthusiasm of its people; and
  3. Be scaled to train large numbers of people and leveraged across multiple states and countries.

But while Accenture is open to examining many different types of programs and partnerships, one thing is not negotiable—its objective. Accenture and its executive committee are fully committed to Skills to Succeed. The company is wrapping virtually all of its corporate philanthropy programs and contributions into this program and is committing all levels of Accenture employees to actively contribute to these efforts. It is also beginning to engage customers and partners in this program, as by working with them to place interns and program graduates.

But for all of Accenture’s commitments and efforts, the company understands that that achieving its 250,000-person objective within five years is a big challenge. It is committed to investing $100 million or more of its resources and the capabilities of its people to the program and is rapidly scaling its efforts. It has, for example, already added 80 new initiatives and is actively evaluating others. The means of accomplishing its goals are flexible. The objective, of preparing a quarter of a million people for rewarding jobs, is not.

Posted in 21st Century Careers, Accenture, Community/Other Colleges, Corporate Social Responsibility, Education System and Institutions, IT Company Strategies, IT Industry and Companies, IT Industry Role in Education, IT Industry's Role, Skills Requirements, STEM Careers | 2 Responses »
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How IBM is Helping Entrepreneurs Build a Smarter Planet

Sunday, May 9th, 2010

IBM, like all other large IT vendors, has many types of programs to help small software companies build solutions atop the vendor’s infrastructure. These programs range from:

  • Huge “breadth programs”, such as Software Group’s PartnerWorld ISV & Developer Relations program, which provides technical and marketing support to thousands of ISVs of all shapes and sizes; to
  • Highly-focused “depth programs”, such as that of its Venture Capital Group, which builds strategic partnerships to help VCs identify and nurture portfolio companies that can deliver particular value to the IBM ecosystem.

The company’s new Global Entrepreneur Initiative is intended to combine benefits of both. The initiative, which was announced in Bangalore at IBM’s annual Venture Partnering Symposium, is intended to “help entrepreneurs gain the skills they need to bring new ideas to market faster using IBM technology to accelerate industry transformation and fuel innovation.”

This effort casts a wide net to identify particularly promising start-ups that, while not having hit VC’s radar screens, have the potential of significantly advancing IBM’s Smarter Planet initiatives in specific segments. Once it identifies these companies, it will provide them with a broad range of the type of deep support capabilities intended to accelerate their development and deepen their relationships with IBM. But while this initiative is different from those of the above mentioned efforts, it is linked directly to both. It, for example, was launched by IBM’s Venture Capital Group and is intended to bring promising start-ups to the attention of the company’s VC partners. Much of the support, meanwhile, will be provided by IBM’s ISV & Developer Relations Group.

Looking for a Few Good Smarter Planet Entrepreneurs

The criteria for participation in the initiative are broad. Candidates must:

  • Be privately-held;
  • Have been in business less than three years;
  • Be actively developing software aligned to IBM’s Smarter Planet focus areas; and
  • Develop their solution on the IBM software platform.

Qualification for admittance, however, is rigorous and selective. The solution, for example, must not simply be “aligned” with, but must offer “transformative opportunities” around Smarter Planet. The company must be judged to have a “competitive opportunity to survive in the market” and its solution must have the potential to “provide real value to customers”.

This, however, is only the first cut. Those start-ups who qualify are invited to participate in one of what IBM expects to be a minimum of seven SmartCamps that will be held in different countries over the next six months. These camps are networking and mentoring events that bring start-ups together with appropriate IBMers, VC and university partners and differing combinations of 19 global industry and technology associations in the host country. These associations include TiE Silicon Valley and the Mass Tech Leadership Council in the U.S.; the National Consortium of University Entrepreneurs and SE Business Innovation & Growth and Enterprise UK in the United Kingdom; The Israeli Venture Association and SvoiBiz in Israel; TiE, and the Indian Angel Network in India and Journees de L’entrepreneur and ADEN in France.

While IBM and partner representatives will help all participating start-ups assess and tune their messages and business plans, they will also serve as judges for the next stage of the qualification process—a competition in which each of roughly 20 to 30 qualifying start-ups presents its Smarter Planet value proposition and business plan. While each SmartCamp will produce a single winner, all finalists will be admitted to the program.

Although thousands of start-ups will apply for the program, IBM expects that no more than 10-20% will be admitted. The total is likely to consist of “a couple of hundred companies, not a couple of thousand”.

Membership Has its Privileges

Those who qualify enter a three-month mentorship program in which IBM will help them build their business plans, optimize their architectures and develop joint value propositions. Each start-up will have access to a custom-designed package that combines:

  • Free access to IBM’s software portfolio and relevant industry frameworks (such as for Smarter Water, Smarter Buildings and Smarter Health Care) through a cloud computing environment;
  • Technical architecture support through access to IBM software engineers and scientists, product development assistance from dedicated IBM project managers and access to the 8 million developers in IBM’s developerWorks program;
  • Business plan mentoring, industry insight, marketing support and go-to-market assistance, both directly from IBM and its full network of partners, including academics, industry experts and government leaders;
  • Improved visibility among, access to and potential for funding from IBM’s VC partners; and
  • Credibility among and IBM’s help in accessing IBM customers.

Much of this assistance will be coordinated by IBM’s ISV & Developer Relations Group, and delivered though its global Innovation Center network. The company’s new Global Entrepreneur partners, however, will have access to more personalized, programmatic and deeper access to more services than are available through other IBM’s other developer programs.

It is too soon to assess the number of partners IBM’s new Global Entrepreneur program will ultimately produce, and how many of these companies will yield the type of transformative Smart Planet business that IBM seeks. The program, however, is generating interest, with more than 200 applicants in the first 30 days since the program was announced.

Posted in Corporate Social Responsibility, Creating the 21st Century Workforce, IBM, Innovation/Entrepeneur, IT Company Strategies, IT Industry and Companies, IT Industry Trends, Job and Career Opportunities | No Responses »
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IBM’s Plan to Transform University IT Education And Spur Student Enthusiasm in the Process—Summary

Sunday, May 2nd, 2010

This week’s blog is an overview of the findings of my new report, “IBM’s Plan to Transform University IT Education: And Spur Student Enthusiasm in the Process” in which I examine how IBM’s university alliances have evolved to emphasize education in areas that transcend IT skills, and the long-term benefits that IBM is likely to derive from this approach.

IBM started its Academic Initiative in the 1950s when it helped universities create Information Science programs. It extended this program around specific IT and engineering skills and then, in 2003 added a Service Science, Management and Engineering (SSME) initiative.

This SSME initiative went way beyond the university efforts of IBM—as well as most other vendors—that traditionally focused on “hard” science and technology skills, such as around programming, database design, electrical engineering and physics. SSME, in contrast, emphasizes the needs for universities to encourage multi-disciplinary education and the need to develop T-shaped skills, which combine deep skills in one or more fields, plus a high-level understanding across many others. IBM worked with universities to help professors expand the focus of their own courses and departmental curricula and, most importantly, to coordinate curricula across multiple schools within a university.

It, for example, encouraged and helped schools refocus engineering education around real-world problems and train engineers to work in multi-disciplinary teams. It also challenged business schools to evolve their traditional focus on management of manufacturing companies (which now accounts for less than 20% of developed-country economies) to developing a similarly rigorous management science around services (which already account for about 60%). Some 40 universities have are going further, creating truly integrated curricula that cross traditionally sacrosanct boundaries—integrating courses across schools including management, information science, engineering and social science. A few have even begun offering new cross-school degree programs around SSME-related themes.

Smarter Planet—Using SSME to Change the World

IBM’s huge, corporate-wide Smarter Planet initiative is, in many ways, the application of SSME to critical, real-world problems. SSME, after all, is an effort to create a science around decomposing and recomposing service-based processes, optimizing service supply chains and value chains and creating interdisciplinary research centers to design and optimize complex “service systems”—combinations of people, organizational networks and technologies that are aligned around a specific objective, such as designing and managing more livable cities, more effective healthcare systems and more efficient energy networks.

This effectively transforms SSME from an academic discipline into an instrument for addressing societal needs. It provides universities with the tools required to create education tracks and, eventually, degree programs around social goals—thereby attracting and making it easier for students who want to “change the world”. Moreover, IBM’s efforts to help shape educational curricula across Smarter Planet initiatives now transcends traditional information science, engineering and business schools to reach into areas including mathematics, architecture, healthcare management, public service, urban studies, and others.

Although such programs may not attract those students who are driven to become hedge fund managers or musicians, they do have the potential of attracting and providing “employment-ready” educations for millions of other students with similarly strong drives in other fields.

Engineering a Path to an IBM Job

Virtually all corporate university education programs share a common goal—to facilitate the education of students with the skills and perspective required to address the talent needs of the sponsor corporation, its customers and its partners. It’s easy to see the direct benefit that IBM can gain from programs that teach System z mainframe skills, that Intel can gain from multi-core architecture design programs or that Wal-Mart can derive from the University of Arkansas’ supply-chain optimization program.

But what benefits will IBM gain from encouraging universities to launch broad, non-vendor specific programs like SSME, healthcare management and transportation system design? The company’s logo isn’t on or necessarily associated with these programs, nor is IBM the first place most newly-minted graduates would look for a job to solve world hunger—unless, perhaps, you know about IBM’s Smarter Food program and its projects to increase agricultural yields, improve sustainability, reduce waste through the optimization of supply chains and improve food inspection processes.

That’s where some of IBM’s multiple university outreach programs fit in. The company has 4,000 University Ambassadors, typically IBM domain experts, who volunteer to work with universities to engage with faculty members, develop classes around real-world problems, deliver guest lectures, participate in seminars and otherwise engage with professors and students. The company also provides education tools, such as its INNOV8 Business Process Modeling (BPM) simulation game and is adapting many of its other courses to new learning methods, as through support of community portals and wikis, discussion forums, blogs, and Facebook and Twitter communities.

It also has an active university research program through which it funds professors and graduate students to conduct specialized research and all types of fellowship and internship programs in which it works with professors to identify high-potential students. It also partners with universities on IBM’s annual Battle of the Brains competition, the most recent of which attracted more than 28,000 students from 2,000 universities worldwide. These competitions engage interdisciplinary teams to tackle real world problems. The theme of these competitions? Would you guess they are typically aligned around one of IBM’s 21 (and growing) Smarter Planet themes?

IBM will certainly not attract or hire all of the graduates from SSME and Smarter Planet-theme programs. Nor does it want to. Although it hopes, and is positioning itself to identify and recruit some of the most talented graduates, its ultimate objective is to seed the world—its businesses, governments, NGOs and universities—with people who think about the world’s needs (and solutions) in much the same way that IBM does, who have been touched by IBM Ambassadors and programs, who understand IBM products, and who recognize that IBM is dedicated to addressing the same types of needs as are they.

This all leaves me with two questions. When will other corporations recognize the long-term payoffs of this broader approach to partnering with universities? And, how will they reach professors and students in the myriad fields that will be increasingly reshaped and redefined by IT?

Posted in 21st Century Careers, Business Trends, Corporate Social Responsibility, Creating the 21st Century Workforce, Education System and Institutions, Globalization, Immigration and Offshoring, IBM, IT Company Strategies, IT Industry and Companies, IT Industry Role in Education, Job and Career Opportunities, Skills Requirements, STEM Careers, Technology's Impact on Job Skills, Universities and Grad Schools, Workforce Trends | No Responses »
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Intel Teach Objectives and Successes

Sunday, April 25th, 2010

Intel Teach (described in last week’s blog), is the centerpiece of Intel’s K-12 educational philanthropic efforts. The program’s goal is to provide educators with the capabilities to effectively use IT in their instruction and to change the classroom learning paradigm in a way that will better prepare students for the demands of the 21st century knowledge economy. (See my January 11 blog, IT Companies as Catalysts in Creating the 21st Century Workforce, for an overview of these requirements and the roles that IT companies can play in addressing them.)

The Intel program, which has offered professional development to over 7 million teachers since its 1998 launch, applies a collaborative approach in which Intel works with government organizations to co-fund the training and ensure that the schools have the support they need to implement program approaches with students. Unlike the educational programs of many other IT companies, Intel Teach focuses almost exclusively on providing schools with the tools and the training required for educators to integrate technology using research- proven approaches.

Program Objectives

Intel is a technology company. It provides enabling tools, not business solutions. It approaches its education mission in much the same way, focusing its efforts exclusively on teacher enablement, They train educators to develop new teaching methodologies that align to a local governments curriculum standards. Intel does not attempt to create, or even judge the value of specific standards, nor does it attempt to proscribe the types of schools (such as whether to focus on elementary or high schools) or courses (such as social studies or math) in which these methods should be applied. It presents opportunities to the appropriate government bodies, and lets them decide where and how these capabilities can be most effectively applied.

Intel takes a similarly hands-off approach to student curriculum, specifically deciding not to get involved in creating teaching materials or even in evaluating, promoting or marketing the courseware. It confines its efforts to working with educational agencies to create training that takes an educator from basic ICT (information and communication technology) literacy to advanced training on using ICT in schools.

The company encourages teachers to share their experiences and teaching ideas with other educators. They have consciously decided not to create a formal process for reviewing third-party courseware, or even a database into which developers can expose their materials to others. The reason: Intel believes education is locally driven and content has to align to local curriculum standards to add the most value to student learning. It invests in the creation of exemplary unit plans that align to local country standards so that teachers can see relevant examples that are practical to implement in their classrooms. These project ideas also serve to guide educators in the development of their own projects. Examples of these ideas are provided at http://educate.intel.com/en/projectdesign.

Program Successes

Although Intel has taken a relatively hands-off approach to the development and assessment of teachers’ projects, it does closely monitor the results of its enablement efforts. As mentioned, through the use of partners, the company has trained more than 7 million teachers. This means that 7 million teachers have completed at least one level of instruction in any one of Intel’s multiple Teach programs.

Although the company does not actively monitor how many courses each teacher takes, or how they intend to apply what they have learned, it does follow-up within 18 months to determine whether teachers have changed their behavior as a result of the program. It uses three primary metrics for assessing success:

  1. Do the teachers use computers more extensively for their own use?
  2. Do they use computers more frequently and more effectively in teaching?
  3. Has the Intel program helped change their teaching methods?

Intel has found that after completing at least one course of Intel Teach:

  1. Over 90% of the teachers use computers much more extensively for their own use, such as in learning new content and getting ideas for lessons and professional development.
  2. 80% of them use computers more frequently in teaching, such as in teaching concepts and in applying more relevant student assessment tools.
  3. About 50% of the teachers claim that the course has helped them ask more open-ended questions, explore new methods of teaching content and use new rubrics for assessment.

While these results themselves are sufficient for Intel to deem its program a success, the company is particularly gratified that many teachers have begun to use computers for things that Intel has not taught. Intel believes this result validates its view that familiarity breeds experimentation—exactly the type of transformational change that Intel is attempting to spur.

Posted in 21st Century Careers, Business Trends, Corporate Social Responsibility, Creating the 21st Century Workforce, Education System and Institutions, Intel, IT Company Strategies, IT Industry and Companies, IT Industry Role in Education, K-12, Skills Requirements, Technology's Impact on Job Skills | No Responses »
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Intel’s K-12 Education Programs

Sunday, April 18th, 2010

Although microprocessors are certainly Intel’s most important product, education is, by far, its most important charitable endeavor. Intel directly contributes approximately $70 million per year to funding a broad range of educational endeavors—and this number does not even include the roughly $30 million of grants provided by the Intel Foundation.

These educational programs, all of which are managed primarily through Intel’s Corporate Affairs Department, are divided into three broad buckets:

  • The Intel World Ahead Program is Intel’s comprehensive program for supporting global education markets with it’s products, services and philanthropic programs. This program dedicates resources to connecting the next billion people, in all corners of the world, to technology tools. Although it entails a broad range of efforts, including providing access to IT and communications tools and the providing of localized content and services, education is a primary component. The educational objectives of this program include—and leverage—the same resources as the company’s Higher Education and K-12 programs.
  • The Intel Higher Education Program focuses primarily on developing and promoting specialized technical curricula, research, and competitions in areas including microelectronic, multi-core and mobile technology design, and parallel computing architectures. It also partners with the University of California Berkeley’s Haas School of Business to encourage and prepare today’s students to become technology entrepreneurs. Both efforts are intended to encourage and develop the type of talent pipeline required by Intel, its partners and its customers.
  • The K-12 Education Program focuses on helping schools and teachers to use IT to transform education, to encourage students to study and excel in math and science and, more generally, to facilitate the type of critical thinking and the analytical and collaborative skills required in a knowledge economy. These efforts include a range of project-based learning approaches, online education tools, and the Intel Teach professional development program. They are supported by a number of complementary community-based programs, such as the Intel Computer Clubhouse Network, the Intel Learn Program and the Intel Science Talent Search that allows children to access IT-based schools and develop new skills and interests outside classroom settings.

The Foundations of Intel Teach

Intel Teach is the centerpiece of Intel’s K-12 educational efforts. Teach is a professional development program that provides educators with the type of online tools and training that will allow them to effectively employ technology to transform their lesson plans and grading methodologies, develop professional learning communities and expose their learnings to their peers. The program is intended to facilitate the use of project-based approaches to help students learn high-order,  21st-century skills in areas including problem solving, critical thinking and communications.

Although Intel, like many other IT companies, began its educational program by donating hardware and software to schools, it soon recognized that transforming established educational paradigms and teaching models requires much more than products. It requires a comprehensive enablement program though which teachers learn to effectively use technology to improve their own productivity and to integrate it through their teaching and assessment processes.

This led creation of Intel’s ACE (Applying Computers in Education) program, under which Intel trains teachers on the effective use of computers and on computer-enabled learning methods. Although the program ramped from training 300 teachers in 1997 to training 2,500 in 1998, then-CEO Craig Barrett was not impressed. He set a goal of training a minimum of 100,000 teachers and backed that commitment with a big investment.

In response to this challenge, the Corporate Affairs Department transformed ACE into its new Intel Teach program. This program, which was launched in the U.S. and rapidly spread it to other (initially English-speaking) countries, consisted of a number of modules (Essentials, Elements, Thinking with Technology, and so forth) among which educators could choose one or many.

Between 1998 and 2002 Intel trained a total of 1 million teachers in 25 countries. Although the tech industry crash slowed momentum, Intel Teach is now offered in more than 50 countries and has trained over 7 million teachers.

Although the Intel Teach program is created and managed centrally, Intel recognizes that one size does not fit all. The program is, therefore, managed locally and implementations are tailored to the very different needs and requirements of individual states and countries, Intel conducts conferences for state education policy leaders and helps them understand how technology can help them address their specific objectives. It can then assist these government organizations identify the types of efforts best suited to their needs and help them select districts and schools in with which these efforts can most effectively be developed.

Intel does not work directly with schools or train individual teachers. Instead, it recruits and trains NGOs and professional educational content developers, who then apply Intel Teach methodologies and tools to the training of individual teachers. It also works to assure that its objectives and approaches are aligned with groups such as the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE), that promote the role of technology in education.

Intel also coordinates some of its Teach efforts with the education programs of some of its IT vendor partners—especially Microsoft and Cisco—to develop best-in-class models for deploying technology in education. Although the partners’ objectives and approaches sometimes diverge (such as in Intel’s covering of MacOS and Linux, in addition to Windows), their efforts, technology focuses and capabilities are still quite complementary. (See, for example, my March 28 and April 4 blogs of Microsoft’s Partners in Learning program.) Intel, for example, provides basic Word and Excel training and positions Microsoft’s peer mentoring courses as follow-ons to its own Essentials and Elements courses.

I’ll discuss the objectives and results of Intel’s Teach program in next week’s blog.

Posted in 21st Century Careers, Business Trends, Corporate Social Responsibility, Creating the 21st Century Workforce, Education System and Institutions, Intel, IT Company Strategies, IT Industry and Companies, IT Industry Role in Education, Job and Career Opportunities, K-12, Skills Requirements, Societal Forces, Technology's Impact on Job Skills | No Responses »
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