Author Archive

Everything I Know About Business I Learned From MONOPOLY: Successful Executives Reveal Strategic Lessons From the World’s Greatest Board Game by Alan Axelrod

Monday, May 11th, 2020

Everything I Know About Business I Learned From MONOPOLY: Successful Executives Reveal Strategic Lessons From the World’s Greatest Board Game by Alan Axelrod is a handbook on how to use the world’s most popular board game to think about, explore, and rethink the nature of business and the doing of business. It offers insight and provocation, which is a good starting place. If you are finding more time for board games, be sure to dust of your MONOPOLY board after you read this book.

Introduction

Parker Brothers introduced MONOPOLY in 1935 and within one year it became the best seller in the US. This was in the heart of the great depression when business wasn’t working too well. Then a game that modeled capitalism struck a chord. It allowed people to experience success and failure in their own living rooms. The game is just complicated enough to be realistic and fun. It was developed from business school simulations for the general public by Charles Darrow who was turned down the first time it offered it to Parker Bros. He kept selling it himself and Parker Brothers got wind of his success. Ask any business person what got them interested in business and they are likely to say MONOPOLY. Like the rest of the book, this chapter contains quotes from famous business people.

Part I: There Are Rules – 1.The Object of the Game

The objective of MONOPOLY is to become the wealthiest player through buying, renting, and selling property. You need to be aggressive when it comes to acquiring property. Being cautious might keep you in the game longer before you go bankrupt. Caution is not a winning strategy.

2. All Things Being Equal

Unlike the real world, each MONOPOLY player starts with the same amount of money ($1,500) at the same place. Beyond that things are unequal based on each player’s abilities. In real life, there are great disparities regarding where we start. A combination of innate ability, ambition, parental wealth and parenting skills, and luck determine where we end up. Like the real world, luck is also a factor in MONOPOLY via the roll of the dice and the luck of the draw (Community Chest and Chance cards).

3. A Roll of the Dice

Luck implies some controlling power. Chance implies randomness. Confident people anticipate success. If you feel like a winner, you will behave like a winner, you will make moves that winners make, you will, therefore, improve your luck. It’s your attitude and self-confidence that will predispose you to make your own luck. Our lives are full of familiar events mingled with a few surprises. In MONOPOLY there is a lot of familiar territory accompanied by chance. You can’t control the dice, but it’s good to know the odds. Out of 36 possible combinations. Six give you a seven. Five give a six or an eight. Four give you a five or a nine. Three give you a four or a ten. Two give you a three or an eleven, and only one gives you a two or a twelve.

4. Passing GO

Passing Go and collecting $200 is like working and collecting a salary. Ideally, you make enough to meet your needs and maybe enough to save some. In MONOPOLY you can’t live on your salary alone and you have to put the money you take in at risk. Unless you pull the go-to jail card, collecting your GO salary should be part of your strategy.

5. The Rule of Opportunity

The big idea here is unless you have a positive, purposeful, affirmative reason to say NO, say Yes to every opportunity that presents itself. In MONOPOLY you need a very good reason not to buy an unowned property you land on. The rules state that if you don’t choose to purchase an unowned property you land on, the Banker is supposed to sell it at auction. Many people don’t follow this rule, but you should as it makes the game much more dynamic.

6. Facing Reality and Paying Your Debts

The key point is not to learn to avoid risk but to accept risk as necessary to success. Having accepted the necessity of risk the object becomes making a choice of what risks to take and how far to take them. Accepting a risk should not require abandoning fiscal responsibility. Putting all your chips on a single number is a risk, but not a wisely calculated risk. Stretching intelligently but aggressively to the edge of your means is often necessary to win. Aggressive but intelligent risk is part of living, working, doing business, and making deals. In a sense, MONOPOLY is a kind of financial flight simulator that lets you try out the lessons of value, responsibility, and prudence.

7. Mortgaging the Future

Your only credit option in MONOPOLY is to mortgage properties you own. Doing so you collect half their listed value from the Bank and can no longer collect rent. Ideally, you would mortgage single properties to develop a monopoly you own. Unlike real mortgages, there are no regular payments and you can un-mortgage a property any time by paying back the loan with 10% interest. Don’t do this until you have at least three houses on all of your monopolies. Mortgage single properties first followed by utilities and railroads as the latter command higher rent.

8 Vigilance

The key rule here is “The owner may not collect the rent if he/she fails to ask for it before the second player following throws the dice.” You have no obligation to remind someone that you have just landed on their property and you shouldn’t. Part of the success in this game is being vigilant throughout. This includes keeping track of who owns what as property deeds need to be clearly displayed in front of each player. Being vigilant for other players doesn’t help them learn vigilance.

9. The Random Walk

Moves around the MONOPOLY board may seem random, but they are not. Thanks to the probability of rolling different die combinations the moves are just complex. You can consult The MONOPOLY Companion by Philip Orbanes for details. Here you will find a list of the chance of landing on each type of property each trip around the board, and there is a surprising range. The fact that Jail is the most common starting place for a move is part of the reason. The key idea is that knowledge itself is useless unless it is applied.

Share this:

Posted in Book Summaries, Business Books | Comments Off on Everything I Know About Business I Learned From MONOPOLY: Successful Executives Reveal Strategic Lessons From the World’s Greatest Board Game by Alan Axelrod

College Majors You Can Complete Online by Craig Middleton

Saturday, May 9th, 2020

Online College
College Majors You Can Complete Online by Craig Middleton offers suggestions regarding degrees you can get entirely or mostly online. With colleges closed this approach may be the best option for high school graduates and people looking to change careers.

Introduction

Deciding to get a college degree can be a major decision. It’s an especially tough choice if you are considering changing careers later in life, or are going back to school after some time off. If you currently have a job, a family, or other obligations that would make attending a physical college difficult, consider taking classes online. Many quality degrees that will lead to a lucrative career can be completed from the comfort of your own home.

Backup Power

Since the Internet will feature heavily in your ability to complete your classes on time and do the necessary work, you must make sure that you have access to a stable Internet connection. There can occasionally be power outages or glitches that would lead to disconnection, so you will want to have a backup power source. This will give you a few moments to save your work if your signal is lost suddenly. Electrical circuits have a disconnect switch that can sometimes be tripped by accident. They are a safety measure to eliminate the danger of electrocution during maintenance. Having a backup will prevent any loss of work from sudden outages and save you a lot of frustration while completing your coursework.

Business

A business degree is always a good choice and has many variations that you can choose from. You can get into business in almost any major industry, so this is a flexible and lucrative choice. There are many different aspects of business that you can look into. Accounting involves keeping the books for a business. Administration oversees all aspects of how to run a business. Marketing will teach you how to draw customers in and promote products and services. Or, you could focus on human resources where you manage the personnel that are needed to keep the business functioning.

Computer Science

Another popular area of online study is computer science. You may choose to do IT work, software development, programming, or even repair. These are all good options and can lead to steady careers since computers are such an important part of daily life and used in almost all businesses. This is a stable career option that is sure to continue growing and provide many opportunities.

Health Industry

The health industry is a highly sought after career. Within this industry, you can seek an online degree in administration and learn how to run anything from a doctor’s office to a large hospital. You can also work to become a home health aide or even a nurse. The base classes can all be taken online but most programs will require a hands-on training period with a knowledgeable professional in a medical setting to complete your degree.

Education

Education is another solid option to do at home. Education degrees allow you to specialize in almost any subject area of interest, or you can work to become a principal or even to get your master’s degree. Many education degrees will require a final semester of student teaching where you work in a school setting, but the majority of the work can be done online.

Art

If you are a more creative person, you can consider a career in art. Popular options that involve a lot of computer work, and would be ideal to take online, are animation or graphic design. /li>
There are many high-quality online degree programs that offer personalized instruction and can help you reach your career goals. If you are considering going back to school or changing your career, you may want to look into taking some online classes. They provide a flexible option for working towards a degree that will allow you to keep your current job and look after your family while you do it. You can choose to take a full-time course load or start with just a few classes in your available free time. Online schooling is a great opportunity to advance your career or pursue a new path in life.

Craig Middleton

Craig is a New York City-based retired business consultant, who is an expert in education and cultural trends. He has a Masters of Business Administration and a Masters in Education from St. Johns and loves sharing his knowledge on the side through his writing. If you have any questions or comments you can direct them to Craig at craigmiddleton18@gmail.com.

Share this:

Posted in Guest Posts | Comments Off on College Majors You Can Complete Online by Craig Middleton

Reprogramming the American Dream: From Rural America to Silicon Valley – Making AI Serve Us All by Kevin Scott

Monday, April 27th, 2020

Reprogramming the American Dream: From Rural America to Silicon Valley – Making AI Serve Us All by Kevin Scott finds a balance between “the robots are coming for our jobs” and “AI is great, nothing to worry about.” Like Kevin, I believe that all citizens need to educate themselves regarding the promises and perils of AI. That is clearly the purpose of this book. It won’t make you an expert in AI, but it will give you many clues. In addition to citizens, AI experts, policymakers, and executives are also Kevin’s intended audiences.

Introduction

There are two prevailing stories about AI. For low and middle-skill workers, we hear a grim tale of steadily increasing job destruction. For knowledge workers, we hear an idyllic tale of enhanced productivity and convenience. But neither captures the whole story. The story we need is AI’s potential to create abundance and opportunity for everyone as it helps solve the world’s most vexing problems. Kevin’s story is based on his upbringing in rural Virginia and his life as executive vice president and chief technology officer for Microsoft.
We know AI will radically impact economics and employment and we are already seeing it perform very specific, narrow tasks like selecting the ads you see, turning speech to text, and translating languages. He sees a future where workers at all skill levels are served. While AI was invented in the US, China’s goal is to become the leader and thus dictate policy regarding this technology. In order to have a voice in the debate you need to be informed, which is the goal of this book.

PartI: Where We’ve Been – 1. When Our Jobs First Went Away

Kevin returns to his rural home and visits old friends who are using simple versions of AI to harvest sod, monitor nursing home patients, and manufacture specialized plastic parts. The latter demonstrates how technology is allowing some manufacturing jobs to return to the US. In the case of the sod farmer, drones using AI are saving human jobs. In essence, AI can empower people rather than replacing them. He also visits a large Microsoft data center that replaced an obsolete prison. The local college even started a program to train workers. The challenge is to convince high school graduates that there is a better future in a technology job than in oil and gas jobs which might pay $60,000 to start, but are heavy labor jobs that over time, pay little more than the initial offer.

2. The Career Choice I Made

This chapter is largely autobiographical. Kevin tells his story from home to college to a small engineering company in Lynchburg, VA, to graduate school at the Univerity of Virginia where he met his future wife. When she was accepted to a PhD program in Götingen, Germany he was able to get a job there too. From there he went from Google to AdMob, to Google, to LinkedIn. LinkedIn was acquired by Google in 2016 and ultimately he was chosen by Saya Nadella the CEO to be Microsoft’s chief technology officer (CTO).
Along the way Keven stresses the importance of his supportive family and community in rural Virginia. While they were not rich he never lacked for food or housing and hand mentors and role models that supplemented his education. He didn’t have health care until he got to Google but never got sick either. While he doesn’t think you should base all of your career decisions on income, you should consider the economics of the choices you make. Get as much data and good advice as you can and reflect prior to making important life choices. For companies, he stresses the importance of stories. They need to be stories that employees can make their own and they need to be connected to how their work can somehow make the world a better place.

3. Stories of Revival

The stories here focus on rural life and opportunities. In 2016 75% of venture funding went to Silicon Valley, New York, and Boston. Kevin tells the success story of Memphis that now has the world’s largest cargo airport. AI is making inroads in agriculture with robots that do precision irrigation and drones that apply fertilizer and pesticides in just the right quantities and locations. Kevin offers some ideas of how the government can incentivize rural entrepreneurship. His big idea is to have an Apollo type program for AI. The Apollo program only cost $200 billion in the 1960s to get to the moon so it should be possible to do the same for AI.
We need a system to make rural people better at tech so they can run and debug drones, robots, and other high tech farm equipment. There is some effort in this direction. We also need to break down the stereotypes that urban and rural people have of each other. The media that people currently consume is part of the problem as many people binge on unhealthy information. He switched his consumption to 75% refereed journals like Science and Nature, 25$ to learning something new and different not related to his job, and 5% for everything else. Doing so made him less anxious, irritated, and much better informed.

Share this:

Posted in Book Summaries, Business Books, Leadership Books | Comments Off on Reprogramming the American Dream: From Rural America to Silicon Valley – Making AI Serve Us All by Kevin Scott

The Knowledge GAP: The Hidden Cause of America’s Broken Education System and How to Fix It by Natalie Wexler

Monday, April 13th, 2020

The Knowledge GAP: The Hidden Cause of America’s Broken Education System and How to Fix It by Natalie Wexler confronts the difference between content-rich and skills-based ELA curricula and makes a strong case for the former. She argues that students need a strong knowledge base in their long-term memories in order to comprehend complex text and to think critically. They also need systematic phonics instruction to learn how to decode words as they gain knowledge beyond their personal sphere. She sees a shift away from a focus on skills and leveled readers slowly taking place.

Part One – The Way We Teach Now: All You Need Is Skills – 1. The Water They’ve Been Swimming In

The main point here is that all over the country, the focus in elementary schools is on teaching reading skills using texts that shun any meaningful history or science content. Math is also given a lot of attention as it is the other subject that shows up on federally mandated tests and test prep takes up a significant amount of time in most schools. Meanwhile, the achievement gap, which is really a test-gap, has not budged in twenty-five years. History and science are shunned in the early grades as they are widely considered to be not developmentally appropriate.

2. A Problem Hiding in Plain Sight

An experiment from 1987 demonstrates the importance of prior knowledge when it comes to comprehension. It involved presenting students with texts that involved the play by play of a baseball game. It showed that bad readers who knew a lot about baseball outperformed good readers who didn’t. The idea is that real knowledge from social studies and science should be embedded in all reading lessons. This implies that the gaps we see on tests are more likely to be knowledge gaps than skills gaps.
History is a series of stories and kids love stories. The same is true for science topics. It’s ironic that abstract concepts like captions and symbols are considered appropriate for six-year-olds while information from history, science, and the arts are not. Teaching disconnected comprehension skills boosts neither comprehension nor reading scores. They are analogous to empty calories.

Next Natalie explains why poor kids don’t generally do as well in school. At home, they are exposed to less conversation and less complex vocabulary. They also engage in less turn-taking conversation and debate with parents. Parents read more to them and introduce them to more knowledge about the real world. This knowledge gap only widens over time as students who start out with more learn more. By using texts light in knowledge to teach skills, schools are the problem handing in plain sight. You can’t think critically if you don’t have a knowledge base to think with. Students also need to write about what they are learning.

3. Everything Was Surprising and Novel

The focus here is on the work of Daniel Willingham. The two basic components of reading are decoding and comprehension. They are treated as one subject, but factors leading to success in each are fundamentally different. Instruction in phonics can teach decoding. As for comprehension, it depends on how much vocabulary and background knowledge the student has. It can be achieved naturally if you have enough information. Relying on teaching strategies to teach comprehension can explain the disastrous results we have seen. Teaching content is teaching reading. Reading tests are really knowledge tests in disguise as they draw on it to assess comprehension.
Much of the problem can be laid at the feet of the schools of education. They spend little or no time on practicalities like classroom management. They seem to think that the more removed they are from ordinary concerns the more prestige they will garner. They aren’t big on exposing students to the findings of science. Most are also responsible for teaching that you should use strategies and skills for teaching comprehension and not using them much to teach decoding.
Another reason some avoid testing content is that anything can be easily looked up on the Internet. What they miss is if you have to spend an inordinate amount of time looking things up, you will interrupt the flow of understanding that comprehension depends on. Retrieving information from long-term memory serves to reinforce it. You also might look up the wrong meaning of a word with multiple definitions.

4. The Reading Wars

Here we get some history regarding Rudolph Flesch’s 1950’s studies and his conclusion that the systematic teaching of phonics was necessary to help students learn how to decode text. His book Why Johnny Can’t Read was a big sensation. This was the beginning of the Reading Wars. On the other side was the “whole language” movement. This turned somewhat political as teaching whole words was considered progressive and was largely adopted by the left who didn’t trust academics has they had never taught in an elementary classroom. Unfortunately, the Reading Wars aren’t over, they have only gone underground.
What Flesch and his opponents missed was that unless you build knowledge and vocabulary, the ability to decode or recognize whole words wouldn’t count for much. Large adoptions of whole language programs largely failed. A phonics-based program called Reading First showed promise, but congress defunded it in 2008. It also treated reading as a self-contained subject, which leads to a decrease in subjects that could build knowledge and vocabulary. It’s also hard to change the beliefs of teachers when you don’t explain the underlying ideas.

Share this:

Posted in Book Summaries, Education Books, Leadership Books | Comments Off on The Knowledge GAP: The Hidden Cause of America’s Broken Education System and How to Fix It by Natalie Wexler

Tips for Homeschooling Your Children in 2020 by Lindsay Patterson

Thursday, April 9th, 2020

$Math Games$
Tips for Homeschooling Your Children in 2020 by Lindsay Patterson offers good advice for people considering homeschooling. With most schools closed, many parents find themselves involved in homeschooling. Some are also wondering if continuing homeschooling after schools reopen might be a good idea. Either way, this will give you something to think about.

Introduction

Over the years, homeschooling has increased in popularity for a number of reasons. Not only can homeschooling provide an opportunity for you to gain a closer connection with your children, but it can also allow you to have more control over their education as well. Homeschooling, however, may seem like a daunting task for some. While it may seem like a lot to deal with, the reality is that homeschooling can be simple and straightforward to do. If you’re looking for some guidance when it comes to homeschooling, here are a few things to consider.

Make Things Fun With Games

Just because you choose to homeschool, doesn’t mean that you have to do everything by the book. Switching up the activities your children do can be a fun way to help them learn and maintain their attention at the same time. When it comes to the kinds of educational games you choose, there are a variety of options, from Ken Ken to educational bingo to maybe even a game that you invent yourself. There are no limits to the kinds of educational games and activities you can use. (Doug: I’m a big Ken Ken fan. It’s a math/logic game.)

Have a Routine

One thing that can contribute greatly to creating an environment that supports education and growth is stability. Children often thrive on routine and have an easier time focusing when they are familiar with the schedule. Having a regular process can also be beneficial for you, and help you to stay organized as you plan lessons for your children. Being properly organized can not only help your days to go more smoothly, but it can also help you to be better prepared for unexpected situations so you can get yourself back on track.

Learn To Go With the Flow

While learning to go with the flow may seem to contradict the notion of having a routine, learning to adjust to changing situations can save you a lot of stress in the long run. As many who have children may know, things with kids may not always go as planned. In fact, there may be times when things rarely go as planned. Although having a sense of routine and stability is important, it may not always be possible to stick to your plans completely. Because of this, learning to take things as they come and adjusting to changing situations can help to take some stress off and accept that it’s okay if things don’t always go exactly as planned.

Let Your Kids Have Some Say

One of the benefits of homeschooling is that you can have more control over your children’s education. Another benefit is that it can allow your child to have more control over their education as well. While it may not be feasible to let your child plan the whole day, giving them some say when you can may be a good way to help tailor their education to their interests. By letting your child help decide what subjects they want to focus on, and what order they like to do them in, you can help to get a better understanding of your child’s interests and learning style. It will also let you find ways to teach them that will be the most beneficial for them and their unique learning style.

Don’t Sweat It

While some homeschoolers may stress over details like curriculum and lesson planning, others may worry that they simply aren’t achieving what they should when it comes to teaching their children. Homeschooling can feel challenging enough without having to manage your doubts about how homeschooling is going, so it’s okay to go easy on yourself and learn that it’s fine to take things one step at a time.

The Final Word

Whether you’ve always wanted to homeschool your children, or unexpected events made it necessary to begin homeschooling, it can be a great way to connect with your children and take charge of their education. While homeschooling may seem like a daunting task to some at first, the reality is that it can be easier than you think to provide your children with a quality education.

Lindsey Patterson

Lindsey is a freelance writer for articles on parenting. She currently lives in Riverton, Utah with her husband and son.

Share this:

Posted in Guest Posts | Comments Off on Tips for Homeschooling Your Children in 2020 by Lindsay Patterson