Ben's Blog

Agentic AI is defined by Gartner [1] as an approach to building AI solutions based on the use of one or multiple software entities that are classified, completely or at least partially, as AI agents. AI agents are autonomous or semiautonomous software entities that use AI techniques to perceive, make decisions, take actions and achieve goals in their digital or physical environments. The Chronicle article [2] simplifies this in describing Agentic AI as “us[ing] a series of tools to complete a task on behalf of a user.” For this blog, the focus will be on the decision-making and action-taking components and a question being asked in education (and the title of the article being reviewed, which is: Can Educators Counter ‘Agentic AI’? When I first read the article title, I was initially concerned this was an article focused on ensuring AI is not used in education, but as I read the subtitle and the article, it became clear that the reason for the question being asked was not that, rather ...

To be a chameleon is to be someone who is highly adaptable, able to modify their behavior or approach to fit in and operate in a scenario or environment. Is this a good characteristic or a bad characteristic? Opinions can change based on factors such as additional information, changing beliefs, and many other input factors. Having a point of view is an important base for building consensus, driving change, and providing value as an individual. Mun Choi is the president of the University of Missouri, and is known for showing up to every event, knowing everyone's name, and generally being very active in his role, according to the article in The Chronical by Kate Bellows. Whether it be students on campus, politicians in Jefferson City, or somewhere in between, Choi focuses on how issues affect the university. Bellows states that "What frustrates some Mizzou student activists isn't that they feel that Choi is opposed to what they stand for, but that they aren't sure he sta...

Funding is essential to the operation of any business, higher education included. Similar to any budgeting process, an analysis of money in and money out highlights areas where changes are required for a balanced budget. Federal funding is an input that some colleges and universities are deciding to not include in their calculations. As Jesse calls out, “there are no grants from the National Institute of Health, no Pell Grants, no Covid-relief funds, no federally backed student loans.” And he continues, “There’s also no federal oversight.” This seems like a sound strategy in a politically uncertain time, but the challenges come in that this funding is often significant, making strategies to replace it difficult. At Mount Liberty College, in Utah, they started the college with no federal funding due to opposition of what is required by the Federal Government, relying instead on founders, donors, and other local financial inputs. Jennifer Jansen of Mount Liberty Collage, said “Ours has b...

University towns bring a diverse population that include citizens that reside permanently and students that are more transient based on the class calendar. In Baltimore, Johns Hopkins is considered a beacon of hope, as Carlson explains, some for the medical miracles for family members in need of care, and others for the investments made in the community such as with HopkinsLocal, an economic development program that has invested more than $1 billion in the local community. Additionally, Johns Hopkins is an employer of 40,000 people and an indirect employer of another 50,000 people, which makes them the largest employer in the city. When changes in investments are made, they are not limited to the university, rather they impact the community as a whole. With the defunding of USAID, Johns Hopkins lost $800 million in federal funding, which they need to either wind down programs or seek to cover that funding through other means. Carlson shares a saying, “As goes Baltimore, so goes Johns H...

Enrollment is a foundational measure for institutions impacting everything from financials to course planning. At Lourdes University in Sylvania, OH, focus on growing enrollment came in the form of building their athletic programs. Sports is a common connection point of alumni to the universities and colleges they once attended and can be an effective method to bring students to the school. Lourdes saw success with their efforts with student athlete counts tripling in a ten-year period. But the hidden metric was that their non-student athlete population fell over that same period. While an increase is an increase, Kelderman points out that athletic programs are expensive and funneling money to run them can lead to a reduction in course offerings, which can continue to erode the academic offerings. In addition, if you later look to cut a sport, it becomes an impactful decision because the athletes in that sport likely translate to student losses overall. Decisions in any setting come wi...

Why do you go to college? A common response is to get a job, which is a desired by-product of the knowledge you expect to learn. In Carlson’s article [1] , he discusses how a new leader at Muskingum University in Concord, OH, with previous experience in industry, thought about the benefits of hiring the students at the school to analyze and drive efficiencies in the university, like how consulting companies might do with a private company. This would provide benefits in all directions, including providing the students with opportunities to build skills that they could use in the marketplace. Carlson refers to this as a hidden job market. The concept of a hidden job market is a market that perhaps has a different entrance door than traditional job searching (career sites, job boards), or is untapped opportunities such as this one. Federal work-study programs have been a mechanism used to support students working within the university but are often work not related to students’ interests...

AI is a topic that we hear about in every aspect of our lives. In the article ‘Is Education Just An Illusion? AI and the new crisis of purpose’ [1]  in   The Chronicle , Sarofian-Butin shares his experience as a professor who feels he is in a battle with AI, pushing everyone to look at AI as a supplement to our work rather than a replacement of our work. He has run across examples of students writing papers with ChatGPT and professors writing feedback on those papers with ChatGPT. A reference to the WWE (World Wrestling Federation), which is well known as entertainment that everyone involved knows is not real, but pretends that it is real, is made with the question posed of whether education is headed in this direction. AI is supercharging disinterest amongst students in learning, Sarofian-Butin says, giving AI such as ChatGPT the ability to collapse the entire process of teaching and learning into an “instantaneous polished transaction,” with no learning occurring. Curriculum...

Career advancement is as much cyclical as it is moving forward. Some of us are new to our current role. Some of us have been in our roles for years. One of my favorite stories that helps us understand where we are in our careers and how we can focus on growth is a story that Healthcare IT leader Dick Flanigan has told for years called "The Orange Juice Story" [1] . I had the opportunity to hear him tell this story again last week. and every time I hear the story it reminds me of the actions I can take everyday that help me grow. Check out the story here . What will you take ownership of today? References : [1]  https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-coach-ownership-get-results-orange-juice-story-dick-flanigan

Why are innovation days important?  They are important because they provide the blank slate to play around with those cool ideas in your head without the rules and regulations that come with typical projects.  I am not saying that typical projects aren't filled with innovative ideas that each of bring to the table (because they definitely are!), rather that project goals, timelines, and budgets provide a lot of guardrails that limit the room available for completely those blockbuster innovations that really change the game. "If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses." - Henry Ford "The electric light did not come from the continuous improvement of candles." - Oren Harari Henry Ford's quote is one many of you may have heard before, and obviously refers to the innovation known as the automobile.  This quote explains his thoughts on how the idea of the car is not one you would get from asking stakeholders what they want, r...

There were four people named Everybody, Somebody, Anybody, and Nobody. There was an important job to be done and Everybody was sure that Somebody would do it. Anybody could have done it, but Nobody did it. Somebody got angry about that because it was Everybody's job. Everybody thought that Anybody could do it, but Nobody realized that Everybody wouldn't do it. It ended up that Everybody blamed Somebody when Nobody did what Anybody could have done.  - Anon. You are the owner of the work you do, own it.

Being wrong is... embarrassing.  Being wrong can lead to many other emotions and reactions.  Watch Wylie realizing when he makes a mistake .  When does he fall off the cliff?  It isn't when he runs off the cliff, it is after he realizes he is no longer on the ground.  Although the minute he runs off the cliff, he has made a wrong decision, the impact of that wrong decision is when he looks down and realizes he is no longer on solid ground. When he becomes aware of it, and the reality of a wrong decision becomes real.  Think about a situation you were in when you made a wrong decision, and the realization and feelings about it did not occur until later when you became aware. Being wrong will happen.  The sooner you know you are wrong the better, and that requires being open to the possibility you are wrong. Including accepting feedback from others. Kathryn Schulz talks about admitting and embracing being wrong in her TED talk . How will you react next t...

It isn't magic in the sense of the top hat and the rabbit, but it might be considered magic in terms of the power potential. We all hear the terms AI and ML a lot these days, and some of us have used technology that fits into these tech areas. First, some definitions [1] : Artificial intelligence  (AI) is a science like mathematics or biology. It studies ways to build intelligent programs and machines that can creatively solve problems, which has always been considered a human prerogative. Machine learning  (ML) is a subset of artificial intelligence that provides systems the ability to automatically learn and improve from experience without being explicitly programmed. In ML, there are different algorithms (e.g. neural networks) that help to solve problems. Deep learning , or deep neural learning, is a subset of machine learning, which uses the neural networks to analyze different factors with a structure that is similar to the human neural system. Machine learning is the pie...

FedEx's founder announced he was stepping down as CEO in June 2022. This news resurfaces the infamous story that in FedEx's early days, the company was running out of money and was on the verge of not being able to pay its fuel bill. Fred Smith took an unconventional approach and took the last $5,000 to Las Vegas to play blackjack to turn that $5,000 into the $27,000 he needed. That money paid the fuel bill for the week and was leveraged to convince potential investors to invest more in the company. Obviously the bet paid off, but   yeesh . Bold actions are often the key to advancement, and are typically referred to calculated risks. And although dropping the last $5,000 on a blackjack game is not a calculation that works out in most scenarios, it did for FedEx. Risks are often talked about as things that are not going well or in some cases bad things. When projects have risks, we highlight those as areas of concern. I look at it as we are bringing them up to rally all of us ar...

Public speaking can be fear and anxiety inducing for many. During a standup routine, Jerry Seinfeld said: “According to most studies, people's number one fear is public speaking. Number two is death. Death is number two. Does that sound right? This means to the average person, if you go to a funeral, you're better off in the casket than doing the eulogy.” Whether is be a crowd of 10,000 people or a meeting of 25 people, it can be scary to speak in front of a crowd even when you are an expert on the topic. I used to get very nervous about standing in front of others and although I have worked on improving my internal management of it, my nerves still tingle when I have to present. Although practice helps built confidence, there are also many tools to help you manage your nervousness and anxiety. Here is a LinkedIn Learning course that is the worth the watch if you are looking to improve in this area:  How will you become more comfortable in something you do regularly? Referenc...

Reading is a powerful way to learn. From my book recommendations , 'Subscribed' is written by Tien Tzuo, the co-founder and CEO of Zuora, a company that is a leading player in subscription management software. I read the book to build my knowledge of the subscription economy concept and the radical changes occurring across almost all industries, and I wanted to share some thoughts. NEW SUBSCRIPTION ECONOMY The foundational business school concepts of building and selling widgets needs to change. At the core of the product versus services discussion, consider your credit card statement each month. It is a set of services used versus items owned. The services that you use are a combination of services that are recurring and services that are used one-time or intermittently. When it comes to the concept of digital transformation, most business leaders indicate they know the term, but few understand the concept and more importantly what the concept means in terms of change. There a...

How important is customer service? I It is the absolute most important component of your job.  Whether you interact with our clients in a traditional support role, work behind the scenes that impacts our clients, or face our clients directly to solicit feedback, you have the opportunity to be part of the solution (or part of the problem). Sam Walton said, "The goal as a company is to have customer service that is not just the best but legendary." Bill Gates said, "Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning." Steve Jobs said, "Get closer than ever to your customers. So close that you tell them what they need well before they realize it themselves." Mahatma Gandhi said, "A customer is the most important visitor on our premises, he is not dependent on us. We are dependent on him. He is not an interruption in our work. He is the purpose of it. He is not an outsider in our business. He is part of it. We are not doing him a favo...

An email alert flashed across my screen and the subject line was 'Your Water Bill is Here!'.  Outside of the improper use of an explanation point for such a mundane email, I opened it to find that the bill was about fives times the typical amount. So of course I dropped everything and launched a full scale investigation. In doing some quick math, I determined that this bill indicated I had used 41,000 gallons of water in a two month period. That is a lot of water. And since any well run investigation includes myriad of statistics, the average adult in the United States uses about 50 gallons of water per day, and this bill indicated I used about 680 gallons per day during this billing period. I called customer service and was connected with a rep who was actually very willing to talk with me about my scenario (and my newly launched investigation). We talked a bit about possible causes and ruled those out.  And then the conversation seemingly came to a close with her comment of ...