John Templeton Foundation: Capabilities Report

This annual report, celebrating the 25th anniversary of the foundation, includes letters from its leaders, a history of the foundation, details of current grantmaking and other activities, financial statements, and lists of trustees

ESD Summer Reading Lists 2003–2011

Back in 2003, when ESD was a toddler of about 41⁄2, we were preparing for our spring semester offsite traditionally held at the end of the academic year in late May or early June. I had the idea of preparing a short list of books with relevance to the ESD mission—the study of complex sociotechnical systems—and presented that idea to the then (and founding) ESD director Prof. Daniel Roos. He agreed it would be worthwhile as an experiment, and so I did create the first ESD Summer Faculty Reading List. A “summer” reading list carries the suggestion of books you can take to “the beach”. So no “text books” were included. The books were treatments of critical contemporary issues that the world faces, important methods and perspectives germane to these issues and the complex sociotechnical systems in general, and relevant history. In retrospect, the beach would likely be too distracting a venue for many of these books

ESD Summer Reading Lists 2003–2013

Back in 2003, when ESD was a toddler of about 4 1⁄2, we were preparing for our spring semester offsite traditionally held at the end of the academic year in late May or early June. I had the idea of preparing a short list of books with relevance to the ESD mission-the study of complex sociotechnical systems-and presented that idea to the then (and founding) ESD director Prof. Daniel Roos. He agreed it would be worthwhile as an experiment, and so I did create the first ESD Summer Faculty Reading List. A “summer” reading list carries the suggestion of books you can take to “the beach”. So no “text books” were included. The books were treatments of critical contemporary issues that the world faces, important methods and perspectives germane to these issues and the complex sociotechnical systems in general, and relevant history. In retrospect, the beach would likely be too distracting a venue for many of these books! I got some “attaboys” on the 2003 list. A number of my colleagues said it was nice to take a look at my ideas about what books might be interesting reading. So with that positive feedback, I began to do this ESD Faculty Summer Reading List each year. When I did it the second year, I noted that this had now become a “tradition” and with an organization as young as ESD, we needed all the traditions we could get. You can see where it has gone from here. The tradition has continued to the present day, with now eleven years of history for this reading list. In the early days, the commentary on the books was largely my own. As years wore on we would include materials that others-the publisher or book reviewers-had prepared with some supplementary comments from me. And in later years my comments became less and less prevalent and even non-existent. Another thing we did regularly was to include books that had been published during that current academic year by ESD faculty, so this served as a mechanism for highlighting the scholarly work of my ESD colleagues and in 2012, the four books in the MIT Press Engineering Systems book series were all included. In any case, we have these reading lists encompassing books over this eleven-year period and thought it would be helpful to publish it as an ESD working paper to give our colleagues at MIT and outside the Institute access in one document to this eclectic potpourri of books. You may even find something you want to read that you missed the first time around. We hope the reader finds this compendium to be useful and we look forward to any feedback that you may have including suggestions for 2014 and forward

Proceedings of Mathsport international 2017 conference

Proceedings of MathSport International 2017 Conference, held in the Botanical Garden of the University of Padua, June 26-28, 2017. MathSport International organizes biennial conferences dedicated to all topics where mathematics and sport meet. Topics include: performance measures, optimization of sports performance, statistics and probability models, mathematical and physical models in sports, competitive strategies, statistics and probability match outcome models, optimal tournament design and scheduling, decision support systems, analysis of rules and adjudication, econometrics in sport, analysis of sporting technologies, financial valuation in sport, e-sports (gaming), betting and sports

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

Valuing Intellectual Property: An Experiment

In this article we report on the results of an experiment we performed to determine whether transactions in intellectual property (IP) are subject to the valuation anomalies commonly referred to as “endowment effects”. Traditional conceptions of the value of IP rely on assumptions about human rationality derived from classical economics. The law assumes that when people make decisions about buying, selling, and licensing IP they do so with fixed, context-independent preferences. Over the past several decades, this rational actor model of classical economics has come under attack by behavioral data showing that people do not always make strictly rational decisions. Perhaps the most important research in this field is that related to the “endowment effect” – the discovery that, contrary to economic predictions, people value the same object more when they own it than when they do not. To date, the endowment effect has been observed for a variety of goods including mugs, lottery tickets, and hunting permits. Our experiment establishes a substantial valuation asymmetry between authors of poems and potential purchasers of them. As we explain in detail in the article, we constructed a market for the poems that was modeled on a market for licensing IP. The observed differences in valuation indicate that IP licensing markets may be substantially less efficient that previously believed. Our results suggest that (1) the preferences of IP creators, owners, and purchasers are unstable and dependent on the initial distribution of property rights in creative works, and (2) large gaps arise between purchasers’ willingness to pay and sellers’ willingness to accept even though the poems are non-rival property and the contemplated alienation of the property is therefore only partial. Our findings suggest that private transactions in creative goods may face significant transaction costs arising from cognitive biases that drive the price that creators and owners of IP are likely to demand for transfers considerably higher than what buyers will, on average, be willing to pay. This does not mean, of course, that transactions in IP will not take place – we see such transactions happening out in the world every day. Our research suggests, however, that IP transactions may occur at a level that is significantly suboptimal, and that the baleful effect of cognitive and affective biases is likely to be more serious for transactions in works of relatively low commercial value, or for which no well-established custom or pattern helps to inform valuation. These results have considerable implications for the structuring of IP rights, IP formalities, IP licensing, and fair use

Cinema! : a proposition on how to design and position the game in the digital boardgame market

This master thesis evaluates the potential of a new product, a Digital Boardgame named Cinema!. The main objective of this study is to design and position the game in the Digital Boardgame market. The dissertation defines Cinema! relevant market, presents its main competitors, specifies its competitive advantages, proposes a segmentation and targeting strategies and, finally, suggests a go-to-market plan. The methodology included the development of interviews and an online questionnaire, the testing of the game prototype and Cinema!’s competitors with three focus groups, as well as, an analysis of the product development costs. Cinema! intends to be an original party game to play with friends and family. The game is the result of the founder’s passion for cinema and combines the best of the traditional boardgame and the digital markets. The long term vision is to go beyond cinema and extend this innovative digital boardgame to other areas, such as, sports and cooking. The size of the business opportunity is estimated to be 41,5 million potential users, in a market for game Apps valued at $1,629 billion (2016) and with an annual growth rate of 6,275The success of Cinema! depends on two key activies: product development and marketing. The prototype gameplay tests showed Cinema! has a great potential, presenting a challenging game mechanics and an appealing game design. However, every day 500 new Apps are launched, making it difiicult to stand out in such a competitive environment. Thus, the importance of the strategic marketing positioning developed in this thesis.A presente tese avalia o potencial de um novo produto, um Digital Boardgame - Cinema!. O objetivo da dissertação é sugerir uma forma de desenvolver o design e posicionar o jogo no mercado Digital Boardgame. O estudo define o mercado relevante do Cinema!, apresenta os seus concorrentes, especifica as suas vantagens competitivas, propõe uma estratégia de segmentação e targeting e sugere um go-to-market plan. A metodologia compreendeu o desenvolvimento de entrevistas e de um questionário online. Incluiu também o teste do protótipo do jogo e dos concorrentes com três focus groups, bem como uma análise dos custos de desenvolvimento do jogo. Cinema! é um party game para jogar com amigos e familiares. O jogo é o resultado da paixão do fundador por cinema e combina o melhor do mercado tradicional dos jogos de tabuleiro e do mundo digital. A visão de longo prazo é ir para além do cinema e estender a outras áreas de interesse, como o desporto. O potencial de utilizadores está estimado em 41,5 milhões, num mercado de game Apps avaliado em$1,43 biliões (2016), com uma taxa de crescimento de 6,275%. O sucesso do jogo depende de duas actividades chave: desenvolvimento do produto e marketing. A experimentação do protótipo mostrou que o Cinema! tem um grande potencial, apresentando uma mecânica de jogo desafiante e um game design apelativo. Contudo, cerca de 500 Apps são lançadas diariamente, fazendo com que seja dificil destacar-se da concorrência. Daí a importância da estratégia de posicionamento de mercado desenvolvida nesta tese

ESD Summer Reading Lists 2003–2012

Back in 2003, when ESD was a toddler of about 4 1⁄2, we were preparing for our spring semester offsite traditionally held at the end of the academic year in late May or early June. I had the idea of preparing a short list of books with relevance to the ESD mission-the study of complex sociotechnical systems-and presented that idea to the then (and founding) ESD director Prof. Daniel Roos. He agreed it would be worthwhile as an experiment, and so I did create the first ESD Summer Faculty Reading List. A “summer” reading list carries the suggestion of books you can take to “the beach”. So no “text books” were included. The books were treatments of critical contemporary issues that the world faces, important methods and perspectives germane to these issues and the complex sociotechnical systems in general, and relevant history. In retrospect, the beach would likely be too distracting a venue for many of these books! I got some “attaboys” on the 2003 list. A number of my colleagues said it was nice to take a look at my ideas about what books might be interesting reading. So with that positive feedback, I began to do this ESD Faculty Summer Reading List each year. When I did it the second year, I noted that this had now become a “tradition” and with an organization as young as ESD, we needed all the traditions we could get. You can see where it has gone from here. The tradition has continued to the present day, with now ten years of history for this reading list. In the early days, the commentary on the books was largely my own. As years wore on we would include materials that others-the publisher or book reviewers-had prepared with some supplementary comments from me. And in later years my comments became less and less prevalent and even non-existent. Another thing we did regularly was to include books that had been published during that current academic year by ESD faculty, so this served as a mechanism for highlighting the scholarly work of my ESD colleagues and in 2012, the four books in the MIT Press Engineering Systems book series were all included. In any case, we have these reading lists encompassing books over this ten-year period and thought it would be helpful to publish it as an ESD working paper to give our colleagues at MIT and outside the Institute access in one document to this eclectic potpourri of books. You may even find something you want to read that you missed the first time around. We hope the reader finds this compendium to be useful and we look forward to any feedback that you may have including suggestions for 2013 and forward

A Political Science Manifesto for the Age of Populism

Modern capitalism, via creative destruction, produces economic winners and losers. The US needs political thought focused not only on efficiency, but also community. If creativity continues - as with driverless cars and 3-D printing - its social effects must be mitigated to avoid electoral backlashes into the undemocratic politics of populism. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core