Ready for Tomorrow: Demand-Side Emerging Skills for the 21st Century

As part of the Ready for the Job demand-side skill assessment, the Heldrich Center explored emerging work skills that will affect New Jersey's workforce in the next three to five years. The Heldrich Center identified five specific areas likely to generate new skill demands: biotechnology, security, e-learning, e-commerce, and food/agribusiness. This report explores the study's findings and offers recommendations for improving education and training in New Jersey

Architecture of Social Learning and Knowing: Using Social Learning and Knowing Perspectives and Design Thinking to Frame and Create Change in a Workplace Redesign Project

There is a consensus among many theorists and practitioners from the fields of architecture, learning, and organizations that the ability to orchestrate learning and knowledge practices in the workplace creates potential for new and valuable ideas to emerge. However, due to the changing nature of the learning and knowing landscape in the knowledge economy, the role of the physical space pertaining to learning and knowing practices needs to be reexamined. To do so, and to make theories of learning and knowledge relevant to the physical space, this research study (1) uses a strand of theories and perspectives emerged in the past 30 years that frames learning and knowing as social and situated processes as opposed to strictly cognitive functions; and (2) complements the aforementioned theories and perspectives with architects’ and environmental design researchers’ normative views and empirical findings about the physicality of places that are supportive of learning and knowing practices. This theoretical and practical plug-and-play between the two realms of knowledge resulted in the dissertation’s research question: Can we impact boundary mechanisms, as practices or artifacts that can be the source of continuity across various social unites in an organization, through ‘physical space’ and the process of ‘making the physical space’? To address the research question, this dissertation proposes ‘architecture of social learning and knowing’ as a trinary solution comprised of (1) design thinking methodology as a form of action research, rooted in the neo-pragmatic philosophy, for cultivating sustainable change in an organization’s learning and knowledge practices or producing new ones from scratch; (2) a toolset that combines people-space analytics, ethnographic research methods, and ethnographic thick description to not only map and record the change in users’ work practices, but also encourage their engagement as a way of generating insights; and (3) a theoretical lens inspired by social theories of learning and knowing for framing and understanding the change in the organization. This study was conducted in the Milwaukee office of a national architecture firm where the redesign of the workplace was framed as an opportunity to rethink the way work happens. A total of 63 people participated in different phases of a design thinking process to re-imagine their workplace of the future. During the earlier phases of the process, a series of empathy-building exercises and workshops were conducted to generate insights for participatory ideation. After studying the options generated during ideation, a full-scale prototype or mock-up of the new workplace was designed and built in an area as large as 8000 sqf inside the office. Using a combination of sensor-network technology and location tracking, participants’ social networks and spatial behavior were mapped before and after installing the mock-up to study the potential change in the quantity and quality of the organization’s boundary mechanisms. Results from the mapping study showed a significant increase in the employees’ brokering behavior and space utilization as well as change in certain groups of users’ spatial behavior after installing the mock-up. These results were then shared and discussed with a smaller group of participants to make sense of the changes captured during the mapping study. Eventually, the thick description revealed the emergence of four types of peripheral participation as different forms of boundary mechanisms. The first set of findings showed that workplace redesign project had had an impact on participants’ types of interactions and not the quantity of their interactions. In other words, after installing the mock-up, the quantity of interactions did not increase, yet more people manifested brokering behavior. The second set of findings indicated that in cultivating new learning and knowledge practices, the impact of making-process preceded the impact of product. The study showed that some new learning and knowing practices were often negotiated and created during the participatory and emancipatory process of ‘making’ the physical space. It was during this phase that users were empowered to challenge existing practices and were equipped to imagine different ways of conducing work. Consequently, on the methodological level, design thinking was discussed as a refined version of action research with a focus on the neo-pragmatic human inquiry and producing new systems from scratch. Finally, in addition to the framing of the architecture of social learning and knowing, this research advances the social theories of learning and knowing by introducing new constructs, expands the action research method by incorporating the element of design into its framing, and contributes to the literature on the planning and design of work environments by introducing a shift from network view to community view in understanding workplace important outcomes

Paradigm shift: a case study of transnational collaboration for a high-profile design competition in Shanghai, China

This conference is organised in conjunction with the Design and Construction Management Students Day and Competition (Organised in collaboration with BuHU, CIB TG53 and CIB W104), Design and Construction Management Industry Day (Organised in collaboration with BOSS RE&H students society)The topic of this paper centers on the paradigm shift in transnational design collaboration for high-profile design competitions which are fiercely contested in major Chinese cities. In view of the fact that most writings on design competitions prefer some successful stories rather than the equally instructive ones telling why others fail, this paper will look at the issues from a different perspective by providing an unusual case of collaboration. The intention is to offer some original insights into understanding the emerging situation which probably constitutes one of the future trends in design competitions. By reviewing the current performance of design competitions which greatly influence the development of collaboration paradigm, this paper investigates a collaboration case with an emerging form, a controversial process and mixed outcomes. Questionnaire survey and case study are used in this study. Despite a single case investigation, there are strong reasons to believe that it serves as a precursor of a major shift over the coming decades in the evolution of transnational collaboration in high-profile design competitions in China.postprintThe International Conference on Changing Roles, New Roles; New Challenge, Rotterdam, The Netherlands, 5-9 October 2009. In CRO9 International Conference on Changing Roles, New Roles; New Challenges, 2009, p. 131-14

Mobile Phone:The Past,The Present and The Future

Since the introduction of cellular analogue phone in 1985 (first generation mobile phone), there has been a continuous improvement from the first generation to digital secondgeneration to 2.5 generation and now the third-generation. The ground is also being prepared for the fourth-generation mobile phone. Mobile technology has transformed our lives in ways that might have seemed unimaginable some years ago and yet we are still witnessing more transformations and many more are yet to come. This paper examines the concept of cellular communication, the development of mobile phones, the features in the past, the current trends and what to the future holds in general and specifically for Nigeria. The cost implications of the various generations over the previous ones to the end users are also discusse

Reforming HEIs for through-life sustainability of construction professionals

BELLCURVE research project aims to promote the concept of ‘lifelong university’ in modernising Higher Education Institutes to be more responsive to labour market skills needs by continuously improving the skills and knowledge of the construction professionals. This paper briefly explains improving such responsiveness of HEIs through governance reform. Initial conceptual framework and the research methodology are illustrated. In responding to labour market skills requirements, the need for sector and context specific skills and knowledge to the construction professionals is emphasised. Lifelong learning on Disaster Management and Quantity Surveying sectors are considered as proposed case study areas