A little-known technology change will make video streaming cheaper and pave the way for higher quality

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(Appeared in Yahoo News, August 19, 2020)

A new format for compressing video, called Versatile Video Coding (H.266/VVC), at first glance might not seem to be the most exciting or profound change to influence humanity. But in a world where 4.57 billion people identify as active internet users, 3.5 billion regularly use a smartphone, 80% of global internet traffic is compressed video data and 500 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute, data is more than binary numbers. Data – and video specifically – is now part of humanity’s collective nervous system.

COVID-19 has greatly increased internet usage around the world. It now has the dual purpose of keeping parents and kids connected for both work and school through video conferencing. Further, families are now regular users of a growing array of streaming providers like Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, Prime Video, Peacock and HBOMax.

A 50% reduction in video file size is a big deal for humanity’s collective knowledge in our new digital economy. And size reduction of video files is just one win associated with switching.

Paywalls block scientific progress. Research should be open to everyone

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(Appeared in The Guardian, March 28, 2019)

Academic and scientific research needs to be accessible to all. The world’s most pressing problems like clean water or food security deserve to have as many people as possible solving their complexities. Yet our current academic research system has no interest in harnessing our collective intelligence. Scientific progress is currently thwarted by one thing: paywalls.

Paywalls, which restrict access to content without a paid subscription, represent a common practice used by academic publishers to block access to scientific research for those who have not paid. This keeps £19.6bn flowing from higher education and science into for-profit publisher bank accounts. My recent documentary, Paywall: The Business of Scholarship, uncovered that the largest academic publisher, Elsevier, regularly has a profit margin between 35-40%, which is greater than Google’s. With financial capacity comes power, lobbyists, and the ability to manipulate markets for strategic advantages – things that underfunded universities and libraries in poorer countries do not have.

For-Profit Publishing, Plan S, and Pulling the Band-Aid Right Off

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(Appeared on Eurodoc: The European Council for Doctoral Candidates and Junior Researchers, October 23, 2018)

I’ve spent the last two years traveling 45,000 miles around the world interviewing leading researchers, academics, librarians, and philanthropists about the current publishing climate for my newly released documentary Paywall: The Business of Scholarship. During all of these conversations, not one person referenced the current publishing system, whose aim is to serve humanity and act as a catalyst for our planet’s progress, as healthy, effective, or equitable.

If you watch Paywall, what you will see is a uniform clarity that distinguishes itself very quickly: scholars and the global community need Open Access (OA) to research and data in the future; however, when that will occur is still, unfortunately, to be determined. I’ve heard numerous times that the classification system revolving around our current push toward OA is more akin to a Tiffany’s jewellery display rather than an easy to discern way forward: there are, for instance, ‘platinum’, ‘diamond’, ‘gold’, and ‘green’ models, each bringing unique attributes and concessions. All these methods take some unpacking and a certain cognitive affinity to understand.

Why For-Profit Academic Publishers Are Laughing All the Way to the Bank

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(Appeared on BoingBoing September 18, 2018) 

If you’re not an academic or scientist, then you probably have no idea how off kilter research scholarship has become.

For the past two years, I’ve focused on this misalignment, traveling around the world to document this issue, and just released my documentary, “Paywall: The Business of Scholarship,” this month. It focuses on why the world needs open access to research and science, questions the rationale behind the $25.2 billion a year that flows into for-profit academic publishers, examines the 35-40% profit margin associated with the top academic publisher Elsevier and looks at how that profit margin is often greater than some of the most profitable tech companies like Apple, Facebook and Google.

After traveling 45,000 miles and interviewing over 70 key leaders in all facets of academics and research, I can wholeheartedly say:  you don’t want to have scholars negotiating business contracts for you. My crew and I uncovered that public funds, which come out of taxpayers’ pockets and are earmarked to fund important scientific research, are often locked behind paywalls (which require subscribers to pay for access). This makes this information inaccessible to the general public while, at the same time, generates an unfathomable revenue stream for for-profit publishing companies. As I learned about these issues, I was struck by the global energy and enthusiasm toward open access and the strong resistance to this movement by many of the world’s top publishers.


Asia Advances Open Access Research

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(Appeared in the March 30, 2017 edition of The Huffington Post)

Over 75% of Taiwanese universities have officially boycotted Elsevier’s prestigious research journals. This signals either Taiwan’s disinterested stance toward funding prominent research journal access or a new method of obtaining access to scholarship.  Whatever the rationale is behind the subscription lapse, the scientific world has taken notice and is waiting to see what happens next.

Taiwan’s shift away from a reliance on Elsevier research journals is important by itself and more poignant as other countries like Peru and Germany have also rallied behind similar actions.  Couple these scholarly revolts with the Netherlands’ 2016 Elsevier boycott and it appears that the future direction of scholarship is tilting in favor of lower cost opportunities to research represented through the growing open access movement.

Yet, recent financial statistics might tell another story.  

Creativity In The Digital Era: OK Go’s Damian Kulash Schools the Next Generation

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(Appeared in the January 13, 2017 edition of The Huffington Post)

OK Go walks the fine line between musicianship and avant-garde spectacle with a couple dashes of brand promotion thrown over their shoulder for good measure. And I feel confident in saying that OK Go would recommend using Morton Salt for all your throwing-salt-over-your-shoulder good luck needs.

There is a common dominator for all the revolutionary video content this band produces: it is captivating as all get out. And, beyond the excitement and 400 million video views, there are lessons to be learned that go beyond the typical music success story. Understanding OK Go as a phenomenon is a key to understanding the digital era that privileges creativity and the don’t-follow-the-leader mentality.

College 101: What Musk and Zuckerberg can teach future leaders

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(Appeared in the November 11, 2016 edition of The Huffington Post)

Shooting clay pigeons with a shotgun for the first time is an interesting afternoon endeavor and one that doesn’t seem directly applicable as a metaphor for career advice for my college students. “It is extremely difficult to miss, in this game, by being in front,” says James Ross, chief shooting instructor at Orvis Sandanona in Millbrook, NY. After listening to Ross, it becomes readily apparent that the hardest part of learning the clay pigeon sport is not the stance, shooting the shotgun, or the speed of the clay pigeon (which usually cruises at around 45 mph). Success, instead, lies within the ability of the shooter to see the clay pigeon, develop a swing in their stance equivalent to the speed of the target—and, then, lead the target. If you aim directly at the clay pigeon you will never hit a single one. By the time the shot from the shotgun arrives at its location, the clay pigeon is gone. It’s a moving target. Leading is the only way for success.

Why Hundreds Of Asian Students Are Flocking To This Boutique Online University

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(appeared in the October 31 edition of Forbes-Asia)

The market of online education is heavily influenced by large scale massive open online course (MOOC) players like Coursera, which directs 22 million learners, and edX, which leads 9.3 million in the pursuit of education. But boutique education providers are emerging, tailoring their online education to fill niches and address individualized needs.

And not unlike the confrontations between small stores and large big box retailers, these new online education platforms need to compete on cost and relevancy while carving out a way to differentiate themselves in the growing marketplace.

The Philippines And Other Developing Countries Ramp Up Online Education Culture

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(appeared in the August 25 edition of Forbes-Asia)

Akshay Kulkarni wasn’t winning any awards as an undergraduate engineering student at Chaitanya Bharathi Institute of Technology (CBIT) in Hyderabad, India. All he had to show for his effort was a mediocre grade point average and growing skepticism focused on how his college degree would eventually help his future aspirations.

“Out of 400,000 seats available for engineers at colleges in my state,” says Kulkarni, “there were only 200,000 people even trying to get into those seats.” Although it was extremely easy to get an opportunity to earn an engineering degree in India, Kulkarni knew that landing a good engineering job was actually increasingly difficult.

Kulkarni understood that there had to be a way to differentiate himself from the thousands of other minnows floundering in the job market. Frustrated by the overall climate and structure of his undergraduate experience, he sought out a different avenue toward his future career: Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs).

Facebook Schools MOOCs on Engagement

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(appeared in the May 19, 2015 edition of EdSurge)

If MOOCs want to build student engagement, they may want to take a lesson from Facebook.

That’s the takeaway from a recent study by researchers at Pennsylvania State University and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, who found students favor using Facebook groups over MOOC forums in part because they have more positive interactions on the social media site and feel a stronger sense of community there. Trust plays a role; on Facebook the students tended to use their “real” names and could see one another’s profiles.

Researchers at Pennsylvania State University and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory analyzed data on student use of forums for three MOOCs from Coursera and course-related Facebook groups, and interviewed instructors and a dozen students. The research was presented at the ACM conference on Learning at Scale.

The upshot: “Although there were more people enrolled and more posts shared in Coursera relative to the smaller group of people who joined the Facebook groups, when it comes to user engagement, Facebook was a more attractive place for them to stay actively and longer,” the authors report. Interviews with students suggested that Facebook groups were more convenient to use, fostered greater collaboration, and made them feel closer to their instructors.

On MOOC forums, “they feel they don’t get attention, don’t get replies,” says Saijing Zheng, lead researcher of the study and now a research scientist at Microsoft. Some students introduced themselves on the forums only to hit a wall of silence.

Mortar is Messy: Online Tech Fills in the Higher Ed Brick Walls

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(appeared in the April 4, 2016 edition of The Huffington Post)

Morgan Richards, a 31-year-old mother of three, is a trendsetter in her pursuit of a university degree. Richards stumbled upon the Global Freshman Academy, a mash-up between Arizona State University (ASU) and edX, which is one of the massive open online content (MOOC) providers. Her interest piqued when she discovered she could take her whole freshman year of university credit on the platform, pay for the courses only after successfully passing them at $200 a credit hour, and transfer all accredited course hours to ASU. In other words: she could get one year of her undergraduate degree at a bargain basement price from any location on the planet without any sacrifices.

Richards tells me, “I see friends that are drowning in student debt and these 18 and 19-year-olds-they just don’t think about that. I think students need to consider this type of option because it gives them the flexibility to be able to work or enjoy their life and travel without the massive amounts of student debt and they are still getting the same classes.”

Higher Ed Gen Ed Misled?

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(appeared in the March 1, 2016 edition of The Huffington Post)

We’ve been hit by the digital plague. Abandoning higher education’s traditional mantra is scary. We were nurtured by the very industrialized curriculum that has shown itself to be sweepingly inefficient. “Education may be the only thing people still believe in in the United States. To question education is really dangerous. It is the absolute taboo. It’s like telling the world there’s no Santa Claus,” says renowned entrepreneur Peter Thiel. Likewise, it is hard to pull the plug on our old bloat filled friend, the traditional college education, even when we read Goldman Sachs’ December 2015 Emerging Theme Radar stating, “graduates from the bottom 25% of colleges earn less, on average, than high school graduates.”

But I’ve lived through this all before. I worked at Atlantic Records in 2000 when Napster — with the help of Shawn Fanning and Sean Parker — destroyed the music industry business model and took away our holiday spirit. The sentiment shift that started with music quickly bled into motion pictures, magazines, books, and the list goes on. Robert Tercek, writing in his 2015 book Vaporized, says, “Any part of a business or product that can be replaced by pure digital information almost certainly will be.” Tercek says, “That’s why we are seeing so many companies’ crater and collapse completely, undone by nimbler rivals who use digital media to undermine their old-school counterparts.”

Five Career Essentials Not Taught in College

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(appeared in the January 11, 2016 edition of The Huffington Post)

There are 5,000 minnows just like you swimming in your career pond. Your minnow doppelgangers have the same degrees from similar institutions around the world, similar career aspirations, similar credentials, and similar generic responses that fall into the “I am organized, efficient, and do not need excess supervision” camp. All of this sameness fills rows and rows of Times New Roman on boring resumes that flood recipient’s inboxes like litter. Entering or climbing up the work force requires separating yourself from the masses at every turn.

Although the following isn’t guaranteed to land every opportunity you dream up — these tips definitely move the advantage into your court and help to diversify you from the other 5,000 minnows.

1. Hack email addresses

Hype It Up: How Video Built the New Product Launch

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(appeared in the January 8, 2016 edition of The Huffington Post)

If the brand new 2016 American Girl doll Lea Clark were to be driving in a 2016 Ford Focus RS — my household would explode. We couldn’t handle that sort of energy. My seven-year-old daughter wants the new 2016 American Girl doll so bad she can hardly speak about it. Likewise, I want the new 2016 Ford Focus RS so bad I spend my evenings on the forums discussing actual release dates, features, and allotment numbers to dealers. My channeling of enthusiasm is nerdy enough I shouldn’t speak about it.

The point of the prior is that in our house a seven-year-old and a 39-year-old are both potential customers who underwent the enthusiastic viewing of a series of captivating product launch videos, released sequentially, which cultivated us both into diehard supporters.

My daughter spent the entirety of last week captivated by the newest American Girl 2016 video launch sequence. Every morning was the same: She woke up and asked to watch a video providing the latest clues (on the American Girl site) which helped her to figure out who, what, when and where the new doll Lea Clark’s history would be situated. We purchased Lea Clark at 1:04AM EST on January 1st — four minutes after it was available. The video perhaps wasn’t an essential for a die-hard 7-year-old customer — but it kept the idea, and more importantly the brand — at the forefront of our household conversations. 

Can’t Disrupt This: Elsevier and the 25.2 Billion Dollar A Year Academic Publishing Business

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Twenty years ago (December 18, 1995), Forbes predicted academic publisher Elsevier’s relevancy and life in the digital age to be short lived. In an article entitled “The internet’s first victim,” journalist John Hayes highlights the technological imperative coming toward the academic publisher’s profit margin with the growing internet culture and said, “Cost-cutting librarians and computer-literate professors are bypassing academic journals — bad news for Elsevier.” After publication of the article, investors seemed to heed Hayes’s rationale for Elsevier’s impeding demise. Elsevier stock fell 7% in two days to $26 a share.

As the smoke settles twenty years later, one of the clear winners on this longitudinal timeline of innovation is the very firm that investors, journalists, and forecasters wrote off early as a casualty to digital evolution: Elsevier. Perhaps to the chagrin of many academics, the publisher has actually not been bruised nor battered. In fact, the publisher’s health is stronger than ever. As of 2015, the academic publishing market that Elsevier leads has an annual revenue of $25.2 billion. According to its 2013 financialsElsevier had a higher percentage of profit than Apple, Inc.