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09.10

By Terrance Malkinson

Boy Scouts of America (www.scouting.org)  is one of the largest values-based youth development organizations in the United States. Scouting provides a program for young people that builds character, educates in the responsibilities of participative citizenship, and develops personal fitness. Incorporated in 1910, this year, the organization is celebrating its 100^th anniversary in America. (www.scouting.org/100years/100years/). On 31 July 2010, the entire Scouting family took part in a historic nationwide broadcast, "A Shining Light Across America," from the 100th Anniversary National Jamboree in Fort AP Hill, Virginia.

As published on the scouting website many distinguished Americans are alumni of scouting programs:

• 57.4% of the NASA astronauts

• 35.5% of the United States Military Academy cadets

• 30.5% of United States Air Force Academy cadets

• 25% of United States Naval Academy midshipmen

• 211 members of the 111^th Congress participated in Scouting as a youth and/or adult leader

In 2009, 36,653,936 hours of voluntary community service projects were engaged in by more than 2.8 million youth members and more than 1.1 million volunteers. Some of these included: food collection and distribution, litter cleanup/community beautification, conservation projects, serving food at shelters, and military support/appreciation.

The mission of the Boy Scouts of America is to prepare young people to make ethical and moral choices over their lifetimes by instilling in them the values of the Scout Oath and Scout Law.

Scout Oath

On my honor I will do my best
to do my duty to God and my country
and to obey the Scout Law;
to help other people at all times;
to keep myself physically strong,
mentally awake, and morally straight.

 Scout Law

A Scout is trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent.

Robert Stephenson Smyth Baden-Powell, founded the scouting movement and was the subject of an earlier World Bytes article. Beginning in 1907 with an experimental camp for 22 boys in Dorset, England, the movement expanded throughout the British Commonwealth, and then quickly spread throughout most of the world.

Congratulations to the Boy Scouts of America on their 100th anniversary of service to the betterment of America and the world.

Other Bytes

Here are some of the things going on in and around the community:

• The 2010 Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) was released on 15 August 2010 [www.arwu.org] by the Centre for World-Class Universities of Shanghai Jiao Tong University. Started in 2003 and based on a set of transparent globally sound objective indicators and third-party data ARWU is recognized as one of the most influential lists of university rankings. The United States dominates the 2010 list with 8 universities in the top 10 and 54 universities in the top 100. Ranked in first place was Harvard University followed by the University of California, Berkley and in third place Stanford University.

• IEEE Spectrum published a special report “Water vs. Energy” in its June 2010 issue [47(6):22-74]. This in-depth 50+ page report provides valuable insights into the competing global demands for the estimated 1.39 billion cubic kilometers of water on our planet. A major focus of the article relates to our increasing demand for energy which utilizes large amounts of water. The authors believe that only radical new ideas will help us resolve the conflicting demands on this natural resource.

• “Wearable Technology” is the focus of a series of articles and the cover story of IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Societies Magazine [29(3):19-76, May/June 2010]. Wearable technology refers to clothing and accessories incorporating computer and advanced electronic technologies. The five authoritative articles provide information on a variety of applied applications of wearable technology as a solution to providing aspects of health care to a growing world population.

• Managers in consumer businesses are always interested in social, economic, and technological trends however they often do not consider trends that may seem to be unrelated to their core markets. In “Are You Ignoring Trends That Could Shake Up Your Business” [Harvard Business Review. 88(7/8):124-131, July/August 2010, www.hbr.org], Elie Ofek and Luc Wathieu discuss the issue and present a process for identifying these trends and provide strategies for leveraging trends to create new value propositions.

• With the current economic uncertainty personal branding using social media can be used to promote oneself to employers or customers. Josh Hyatt, in “Building Your Brand (and keeping your job)” [FORTUNE, 162(3):70-76, 16 August 2010, www.fortune.com], examines the concept of personal branding in career development, providing case studies that illustrate the advantages and disadvantages of personal branding, as well as strategies for success when building your own brand.

• Ten predictions for social learning are provided by Jeanne Meister and Karie Willyerd in Training & Development [64(7):34-41, July 2010, www.astd.org/TD]. These predictions are the result of three years of futuristic research and provide insights on where the future is headed so that you can prepare accordingly. Continuing on in the same issue Pat Galagan in her article “Burp, Chatter, Tweet: New Sounds in the Classroom” [pp. 26-29] discusses multitasking behaviours in the classroom that are disruptive to learning, and provide classroom management strategies to mitigate the disruptive technologies.

• Vijay Govindarajan and Chris Trimble provide strategies that will prevent tensions between innovation teams and other business operations from disrupting the organizations growth initiatives in: “Stop the Innovation Wars” [Harvard Business Review, 88(7/8):76-83, July/August 2010].  Innovators are often seen as “undisciplined upstarts” and operations people as “bureaucratic dinosaurs.” Important for success is having an innovation leader who can collaborate well throughout the organization and senior executive support the innovation enterprise.

Terrance Malkinson is a communications specialist, business analyst and futurist. He is Vice-Chair of the IEEE-USA Communications Committee, an international correspondent for IEEE-USA Today's Engineer , editor-in-chief of IEEE-USA Today's Engineer Digest, associate editor for IEEE Canadian Review, and a member of the editorial advisory board of IEEE The Institute.  He was an elected Senator of the University of Calgary and an elected Governor of the IEEE Engineering Management Society as well as an elected Administrative Committee member of the IEEE Professional Communication Society. He has been the editor of several IEEE conference proceedings, and past editor of IEEE Engineering Management. He is the author of more than 400 publications, and is an accomplished triathlete. His career path includes being an accomplished technical supervisor and medical researcher at the University of Calgary a business proposal manager for the General Electric Company, an associate for Sears Canada Inc. and research administrator with the School of Health and Public Safety/Applied Research and Innovation Services at SAIT Polytechnic in Calgary Canada.

The author is grateful to the professional support of the Haskayne School of Business Library at the University of Calgary. He can be reached at todaysengineer@ieee.org.