Planning and managing water resources at the river-basin level: emergence and evolution of a concept

River basin development / Legislation / Environmental effects / Water resource management / Watersheds

Rockefeller Foundation - 1999 Annual Report

Contains statement of mission and vision, president's message, program information, grants list, financial statements, and list of board members and staff

Vanishing Borders: Protecting the Planet in the Age of Globalization--Ch. 7-10

As the twenty-first century dawns, goods, money, people, ideas, and pollution are traveling around the world with unprecedented speed and scale, producing transnational environmental problems, from climate change to the soaring trade in commodities like timber and shrimp. In Vanishing Borders, author Hilary French provides people concerned about the future of the planet with a clear plan of action for ensuring environmental stability in the wake of globalization. French argues for integrating ecological considerations into the still-nascent rules of global commerce by reforming international treaties and institutions. She shows that new communications technologies are making it possible for nongovernmental organizations to mobilize powerful coalitions of private citizens to force government and corporate decision-makers to take global environmental issues into account. She finds that some forward-thinking businesses have begun to support environmental codes of conduct and other international standards that international institutions, nongovernmental organizations, and the business community are forging innovative partnerships to reverse ecological decline

Spaces of innovation : 21st century technopoles

Thesis (M.C.P.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, 2004.Page 129 blank.Includes bibliographical references (p. 121-128).Public authorities and private developers around the world are attempting to create and sustain hubs within the innovation-based economy by fostering successful urban environments. These large-scale developments succeed an earlier generation of post-industrial "technopoles" named after the French word popularized by Castells and Hall in Technopoles of the World (1994). In the 1990s, most planned technopoles resembled suburban office environments with generous landscaping, wide roads, and automobile-focused circulation systems. In contrast, today's economic development experts are increasingly emphasizing the need for interaction and cross-fertilization among companies and institutions in an attempt to foster innovation, from which successful communities are assumed to derive their competitive edge in an information- based economy. Parallel shifts in live-work patterns among creative talent groups are being documented in social science and anecdotal observations. These trends have heightened competition for qualified individuals and initiated a talent war among cities globally. And these individuals are living footloose lifestyles supported by mobile devices and wireless connectivity. Entrepreneurial public agencies and private developers have recognized the potential for reconceiving live-work environments as economic hubs. These holistic projects are identified as 21st century technopoles because they directly address and capitalize on the socio-economic shifts described above leading to vastly different ideal urban configurations. The thesis asks how urban form is expected to contribute to innovation; and, how urban form is being reconceptualized in turn at the neighborhood scale.(cont.) Four case studies provide a rich narrative that begins to sketch the range of proposed urban developments: Cyberjaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; Digital Media City, Seoul, Korea; one-north, Singapore; Lower Manhattan, New York. A narrative ties the four cases together providing "thick descriptions" as a base-line study for a new mode of technopole development. The analysis reaches from (1) "hardware" or the urban built environment and (2) "wiring" or the embedded and supported technologies to (3) "software" or the actors involved. The case studies indicate several emergent themes that are rescripting our urban environments. Dense urban zones with a high level of sensory diversity are being proposed for emerging technopoles that capitalize on the city as a metaphor for human interaction and exchange. Real estate value in this system is measured by the number of serendipitous encounters it facilitates. The dichotomous relationship between spaces of places and spaces of flows set forth by Castells seems inapplicable within the boundaries of these zones that are at once core and periphery, local and global. Finally, these developments are living laboratories for the technologies that support new live-work preferences and shifting lifestyles. Several contradictions become apparent in delving more deeply into the examples, which are still under development. In the promotional materials, diversity - demographic and physical - is embraced, but it is not clear how it will contribute to innovation. More generally, the projects plan for often unpredictable "knowledge accidents." ...by Susanne Seitinger.M.C.P

Annual Meeting, October 24, 1994, Boston, Massachusetts

https://egrove.olemiss.edu/aicpa_assoc/1984/thumbnail.jp

Legal Education: A New Growth Vision: Part II—The Groundwork: Building a Customer Satisfying Innovation Ecosystem

Financial sustainability awaits agile, future-focused legal education programs that deliver students with market-valued, cost-effective, and omnichannel knowledge and skills development solutions. Shifting from an atom-based, traditional law school mindset to a platform-based, human-artificial intelligence (AI) integrated education system requires vision, planning, and drive. Bold and determined leaders will invent the future of legal education. To do this, they will (1) edit the law school’s DNA to focus on delivering customer satisfactions, (2) build vibrant multidisciplinary ecosystems focused on cultivating modern education services, (3) embrace emerging digital technologies, and (4) seize new marketplace opportunities to diversify revenue streams—thereby enhancing program solvency and relevance. I. Introduction: Satisfied Customers Key to Sustainable Growth II. Assessing the Law School Landscape III. Getting Back to the Basics ... A. Customer-Focused Program Reinvention ... 1. What Is Your Business? ... 2. Who Are Your Customers? … 3. What Do Your Customers Want? ... 4. What Is Value and How Do You Add Value? ... B. Physical and Digital Convergence of Education ... C. Friction Audits and Resolving “Pain Points” ... 1. Friction Audit: Students ... 2. Friction Audit: Employers, Practitioners, and Community Professionals ... D. Modernizing Legal Education to Deliver Customer Satisfactions IV. Building an Innovation Ecosystem ... A. Ecosystems: An Explainer ... B. Theories of Innovation ... 1. Recombinant (Combinatorial) Innovation ... 2. Disruptive Innovation ... 3. Value Innovation ... 4. Open Innovation ... 5. Breakthrough/Revolutionary versus Incremental/Evolutionary Innovations ... C. Innovation in the Digital Age ... 1. Bits, Atoms, and Moore’s Law ... 2. Information Over Instinct ... 3. Agile and Lean Startup Methodologies ... 4. Basic Tools: Prototypes and Minimum Viable Products (MVPs) ... D. Resistance to Innovation ... E. Innovation Triumvirate: Visionary, Thinker-planner, and Driver V. Conclusion

The Transient Collaboration Model: Theory Building, Structural Formation, And Operationalization

This thesis seeks to describe the Transient Collaboration Model as a business model, its underlying theoretical principles, its empirical evidence, and its types of possible collaboration structures. The research seeks to determine how companies may build sustained competitive advantages through the structural design of their collaboration associations as a strategic option. Companies\u27 ability to retain long-term competitive advantages is limited in more unpredictable environments. Companies could not afford to internally build and hold all the possible varieties and quantities of resources and capabilities to build future competitive advantages. Collaboration can provide companies with access to multiple partners with diverse resources and capabilities. The full potential of companies to configure collaborations to match resources and capabilities to requirements is achievable through the goal-based transient collaboration model. The thesis extends Structural Contingency Theory to the network-level to study inter-organizational structures and contingencies. It develops novel propositions to explain the links between these structures and contingencies with focus on innovation research networks. Through a case study, the thesis verifies or partially verifies four of these theoretical principles by comparing these with the transient collaboration practices of companies in the field. Next, the thesis creates and analyses simulations of transient collaborations to provide understanding of how collaboration structures affect both company and network-level performances. The contribution of the thesis is to extend the academic literature with the theoretical principles of transient collaborative associations, to acquire empirical evidence for such collaborations, to improve understanding of collaboration structures formations, and to lay the foundation for additional research undertakings in the area. This thesis uses the term transient collaboration meta-organization as a specific reference to a group of companies engaged in transient collaborations with one another, and the term network as a more general reference to collections, associations or congregations of companies