by A. Michael Noll [Posted with the permission of the author.] The United States has been predominately a service economy for the past decades. Manufacturing is dead. The assembly lines of the past are mostly gone, with automated machines and robots having replaced humans. Yet, some politicians are promoting manufacturing, even using tariffs to try … Continue reading Manufacturing: Trapped in the Past
Socio-technical Systems
Ukraine’s Networked Resilience
I have just finished an online discussion at Mariupol State University. It was an American-Ukrainian panel discussion on the development of public studies [public communication in the US] in Ukrainian higher educational institutions (HEIs). In addition to myself, it involved faculty from the Cambridge Judge Business School, Mariupol State University, the MIT-Ukraine Program at the … Continue reading Ukraine’s Networked Resilience
Courtney Bower Joins the Ukraine Case Studies
The Ukraine Case Studies Team is delighted to be joined by Courtney Bower, a Ph.D. candidate in regional science at Cornell University and a Senior Fellow at the Portulans Institute. Courtney’s research examines technological resilience and regional innovation systems. Related topics of his research include the circular economy, post-war reconstruction, infrastructure policy, and Black Sea … Continue reading Courtney Bower Joins the Ukraine Case Studies
A New Way to Video Conference – Badly
Initially I thought I was witnessing an unusual practice. Individuals with whom I was speaking were simultaneously involved in other conversations. Then, when I was part of a team planning and organising an event online – a video conferenced workshop, the organisers set up a social media account for us to communicate with each other … Continue reading A New Way to Video Conference – Badly
Back to the Future of Academic Conferences
Is the end of hybrid conferences arriving just as they have been invented? I assumed that in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic and the shifts to more people working remotely and from home, that academic conferences would not think twice about embracing hybrid forms of meeting even as academics begin to travel again. Well, … Continue reading Back to the Future of Academic Conferences
Riyadh’s Global Cybersecurity Forum
Delighted to have participated in the 2023 Global Cybersecurity Forum, 1-2 Nov, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia #GCF2023. It provided me with a jam-packed two days of activities. I did interviews and a podcast, but my main contributions were: First, a talk on cybersecurity capacity building, moderated by Alexandra Topalian, a truly helpful moderator and speaker … Continue reading Riyadh’s Global Cybersecurity Forum
The Societal Costs of Attention Deficits
The attention of a goldfish?
Cognitive Politics
In the preface to Harold D. Lasswell’s (1936: v) book entitled Politics, he famously defined politics as the study of ‘who gets what, when, and how’ – also the subtitle of his book. He went on to argue that influence is central to politics and that “[c]oncepts for the study of influence must be changed … Continue reading Cognitive Politics
Cyber Insecurity
If I tell friends and colleagues that I am working on a ‘cybersecurity project’, I can see them mentally move along to other topics. In sounds technical and only technical. Arguably, most internet users and ordinary people generally see cybersecurity as a technical field – one that is likely to be impenetrable or uninteresting … Continue reading Cyber Insecurity
Technology is Catching Up with Seminal Thinkers in Education
I read with interest today that some leading computer scientists believe that AI innovations might well transform basic educational practices, such as what goes on in the classroom. While I agree and believe these changes are most likely to be quite positive, let me suggest that the sequence is somewhat the opposite of what the … Continue reading Technology is Catching Up with Seminal Thinkers in Education