This Week's Favorite Things..
From the front-lines of a peripatetic mind…
Each of these twinklers is one of the earliest galaxies ever seen — ca. 350 million years post-big bang. Reminder — on average there are 100 billion stars per galaxy!! Wow. (via JWST)
What the heck, CU (University of Colorado)? I commented last week that the University’s $40 million (including $9 mill to the just-fired ) football coach commitment isn’t strategic and won’t work. Prime’s deal is $30 million for five years. Stanford’s new coach will make one-third that amount… AND … this week CU announces that they are delaying the new CU Denver 72k square foot engineering building as they cannot afford the cost overruns. The total budget was ca. $70 million as of two months ago. So …. CU can’t find another $10/ $15 mill while at the same moment committing $40 mill for football coaches?!? C’mon…
Stanford’s Nick Bloom is among the best at tracking and interpreting the new world of work-from-home. His latest analysis indicates that flexibility on WFH reduces quit-rates by 35%. He’s also working with a start-up called Radspace — who wouldn’t want to show up for work in place like this? Side-note — they should use mass timber, which is a big new Colorado opportunity (more on that in the future) .
Two pieces out this week are relevant for all states and regions. New York City published a new action plan, ‘Making New York Work for Everyone’. Critically, “Goal 1: Reimagine New York’s Business Districts as Vibrant 24/7 Destinations.” Denver desperately needs one of these…
And the Harvard Biz School published a report pointing out that every region needs an industry/post secondary partnership at scale . Lifelong pathways that provide the training and education for family-sustaining careers are proliferating positively (and alliteratively). Regions and states that create long-term industry/post-secondary career connections will win. Colorado has great energy and initiatives — and they’re all fragmented and sub-scale. Governor Polis could be a national hero by focusing on this for his second term and calling it out in January’s state-of-the-state.
Which brings me back to CU! Completing the new engineering building is vital to Denver’s recovery as a place to live, work and play in the new work-from-home world;
“CU Denver's College of Engineering, Design and Computing is Denver's engine for innovation. We're developing the interdisciplinary engineers and conducting impactful research that drives industries and society forward.”
And, the timing matters as Colorado competes in the next few weeks for new national innovation hub investments. $80 billion on the line! Let’s get this done. (Yes, I’m agitated…)
Interested in what the affordable college of the future could be? An MIT group and the founding President of Olin College just published this white paper.
We generalize the concept of majors and minors by turning the degree into a series of microcredentials which are “stacked.”
Broken record; CU Denver’s Engineering, Design and Computing school is very much this…
I’ll have more to say about the implications of ChatGPT down the line , but natural language — and image processing — are clearly passing the pivot point. Gen Z’s kids’ college essays will be … really different. Here’s a great Stanford round-up on the state of AI at the end of the year.
And finally, treat yourself to some Tossedpopcorn. These two 25-ish year-olds have been reviewing the AFI Top 100 American films of all time. The pod is hilarious, historical, and happy-making. Have fun!
