August MBA Newsletter

Cheryl Conner Leads Health Care Forum Thursday, August 19

“Cooperative Whole Health Care: Can Windham County Be a Pilot Project?” will be explored this Thursday, here at the Grad School. The event is being sponsored by our MBA in Managing for Sustainability and our Health Care Administration program. You’re invited to join the conversation with health care providers and fellow community members who care about holistic approaches to learn how a community can empower itself to create its own health care delivery system.

This event will be the first in a series of forums that explore cooperative models for delivering health care in a local community. The new federal health care bill offers funding for creating health care coops.

Leading the discussion will be our own MBA faculty member, Cheryl Conner. Cheryl is a lawyer, economist and change-agent, who teaches about alternative business models and cooperative approaches to a social economy.

First, she will report on the Health Care Law for those who 1) use natural health and integrative or mind-body-medicine; or 2) dislike the legal mandate to buy commercial health insurance or pay civil penalties.

Next, Cheryl will outline the opportunities in the legislation to create health and wellness coops and health ministries which can reflect unique community preferences. Currently, Cheryl is working with a team to help communities come together to develop their own community-supported health and wellness models that are an alternative to “business as usual.”

Third, Richard Davis and Paul Kervick, Vermonters both active in promoting universal access to health care and committed to community based and compassionate health delivery will share their thoughts on the Health and Wellness coop proposal.

The conversation will then be opened to everyone present.

The session will be hosted here from 5:30 to 7:30 in Room 2 East.

Malawi Trip: “The Last Tree Standing”

Students and faculty from our MBA program are now in Malawi at Toleza Farms to develop a reforestation and community education project to counteract the rapid deforestation affecting agriculture, wildlife, indigenous medicines and human health. Toleza, with 4000 acres and 500 employees, will provide seedlings and firewood access in exchange for communities committing to grow wood for their needs and shift from a wood-dependent lifestyle. Our team is working with citizens, tribal chiefs and teachers to calculate wood needs, identify survival issues, and understand cultural values to develop community education for this project.  We envision this becoming the model that we jointly offer other communities, enabling Toleza’s forest to become a wildlife preserve.

As part of the project, members of the group are also developing a 10 to 20 minute short-subject film, “The Last Tree Standing.”

Through photos, voice-overs and video interviews, the goal is to touch the hearts and minds of viewers by:

- hearing from Malawians about what they and their ancestors valued and held sacred prior to these challenging times that may be clues to a past sustainable life; and

- experiencing village life through the eyes and voices of our team – what were the hardships, joys, and realities, and what has been triggered in us about this project and how it pertains to life in the US.

Ultimately, we hope the film will motivate audiences to help keep the last tree standing – in Malawi and in the US.

Cheryl Eaton Joins MBA Faculty

We’re doubly proud to announce that Cheryl Eaton will be joining our faculty because she brings not only an outstanding background to the job but also because she is a superlative recent graduate of our Managing with Sustainability program.

Cheryl will be teaching our marketing course, “Needs and Wants in a Sustainable Society,” and her extensive experience as a top-level marketing executive will be invaluable in giving our students the latest “real-world” knowledge and skills.

She is a Partner and the Director of Strategy at Kelliher Samets Volk, a marketing firm with offices in Burlington, Boston, and New York. Cheryl has been building sharp marketing, branding and communications strategies and efforts for organizations for more than a decade.  She particularly enjoys leveraging brand strategy to inspire business innovation inside organizations, and unleashing the “genius” inside of people and teams.  She has helped do this for clients like New Balance, Seventh Generation, Efficiency Vermont, National Grid, and Time Warner.  Cheryl is particularly inspired by microfinance, systems thinking, how gender relates to issues of sustainability, and tapping into all of our many dimensions as humans to unleash innovative solutions.

We all are lucky to have you as part of our already exceptional faculty, Cheryl, and we are delighted that you remain part of our community.

You’re Invited

Our students and faculty will be back from Malawi and will be reporting on their trip during our September MBA “Intensive.”  You’re invited to join us for the presentation and to experience our MBA program first-hand.

The September “Intensive” will be on the 17th and 18th.

You can meet faculty members and current students, learn about our programs in-depth, get your personal questions answered and tour the Grad School.

It’s easy to arrange a personal visit. Just call Joe Heslin, our Director of Graduate Admissions, toll free at 888-258-5665 ext 209 or email him at jheslin@gradschool.marlboro.edu.

The presentation on the Malawi trip will take place on Friday evening at 5:30 here at the Grad School.

Of course, if these dates won’t work for you, give us a call and we’ll do what we can to set up another time for you to visit.

We look forward to seeing you.

Coming to an Area Near You

Would like to pay us a visit but your schedule just won’t allow it now?  Don’t despair.  Representatives of our MBA in Managing with Sustainability will be at the following graduate school fairs this fall.

Please feel free to stop by our booth. You’ll be warmly welcomed in the style that our program is known for. This will be a great way for you to personally get to know us, learn more about our program and have your questions answered.

We look forward to seeing you.

In the New York City area:

September 16, 2010, 5:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.
Metropolitan Pavilion, North and South Pavilion, 1st Floor
125 West 18th Street, New York, NY

In Rhode Island:
Monday September 20, 2010, 5:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.
Brown University, Alumni Hall, Main Auditorium, First Floor
194 Meeting Street, Providence, RI

Greater Boston:
September 21, 2010, 5:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.
Boston University, George Sherman Union, Metcalf Ballroom, 2nd Floor
775 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, MA

http://www.idealist.org/gradfairs

iPhone 4 video, shot and edited on the phone!

The iPhone on a speed rail during the making of "Apple of My Eye"

I’ve made a post over at my personal blog about the new iPhone 4′s ability to shoot HD video, and EDIT it on the phone in iMovie. Michael Koerbel has made a great short movie called “Apple of My Eye,” including behind the scenes shots of how he did it.

This has huge implications for educational technology. More phones like this are coming, which means we can soon quickly produce informational videos, interviews with subject matter experts, etc. and post them from the field. It also means schools and non-profits can produce simple videos very cheaply and upload them to places like YouStream for hosting, from the phone.

But, what’s new is also old. The real trick to making good video on ANY camera/editor is learning basic skills that enable you to capture good images in terms of lighting, audio, and composition. Here’s a mini lesson I did on video lighting, audio and composition for teachers if you’re interested.

Online Learning cons, sort of…

The research on Online Learning is continuing to emerge. And, as one would expect of any new technology or technique changing the way we do something as old as teaching, it’s going to be a bumpy road. We’ve got a long way to go before best practices in online learning are solidified, and then only slowly evolve.

What I feel will not change is that the biggest variable in student learning will continue to be the teacher and the quality of their tools and training. Passion, subject knowledge, technology skill, and ability to engage students, will always be paramount. One may have different levels of those attributes, but they will need to have a bit of all and a lot of one or two to be a great online teacher.

The Chronicle is reporting on a paper by David Figlio at Northweswestern U. that found that students, especially hispanic, male and low achieving students, learned less from watching a video recording of a lecture on the Internet, versus a live lecture. But “watching” a lecture is different a participating in a synchronous, interactive live Web lecture, where everyone is online at the same time and can communicate with each other and ask questions, interrupt, etc.

The paper’s conclusion states that

“At the least, our findings indicate that much more experimentation is necessary before one can credibly declare that online education is peer to traditional live classroom instruction, let alone superior to live instruction.”

This is a dangerous implicit linking of “online instruction” with passive, non-interactive, media such as the video of a lecture. Good online learning needs to be MORE interactive then in-person, to compensate for the etherial nature of the Web in general. Live “Webinar” type lectures with a good teachers need to be researched and my hunch is that they would perform well if students were all encouraged to ask at least one question or interact with the class in some way.

And by the way, I found the FULL TEXT on Google Scholar, so don’t pay the $5 this abstract site says!

• Paper: Full Text PDF: “Is it Live or is it Internet? Experimental Estimates of the Effects of Online Instruction on Student Learning”
• Paper abstract: Is it Live or is it Internet? Experimental Estimates of the Effects of Online Instruction on Student Learning
• Article about paper at chronicle.com: Online Learning May Slightly Hurt Student Performance. June 21, 2010, 03:50 PM ET.

Screenshot of Paper's Abstract

By Sophia Li

Opensim

Screenshot of a room in Open Simulator with an avatar raising their hand

Just a note that I’m hearing rumblings about Second Life being a bit of a walled garden, and some folks becoming interested in Open Simulator as a platform in academia anyway. I’m sniffing around their site myself.

May Newsletter

Come for a Visit
Before beaches and barbecues fill your summer days, early June is the time to come for a visit. We’ll be delighted to have you experience the program first-hand during our upcoming “Intensive.” You can meet faculty members and current students, learn about our programs in-depth, get your personal questions answered and tour the Grad School.

It’s easy to arrange a personal visit. Just call Joe Heslin, our Director of Graduate Admissions, toll free at 888-258-5665 ext 209 or email him at jheslin@marlboro.edu.

The June “Intensive” will be on the 11^th and 12th.

Also, on Friday evening, June 11^th, please join us at 5:30 p.m.. to hear our Featured Speaker, Chuck Bennett, talk on “Aveda Earth & Community Care: A 30-Year Journey in Green Leadership.”

Of course, if these dates won’t work for you, give us a call and we’ll do what we can to set up another time for you to visit.

We look forward to seeing you.

June Featured Speaker: Charles J. (Chuck) Bennett, PhD
VP, Aveda Earth & Community Care

This has been an outstanding year for featured speakers, and that will continue in June when Chuck Bennett talks with our students about “Aveda Earth & Community Care: A 30-Year Journey in Green Leadership.

Aveda has been a values-based, mission-focused brand since it’s inception in 1978. Translating values and mission into business reality is both an opportunity and a challenge. Meeting the challenges and realizing the opportunities are what managing for sustainability are all about.

In this role at Aveda since early 2007, Chuck is responsible for leading the company’s environmental and community outreach. He guides the company and its affiliated network of salons and retail outlets in taking the Aveda mission to new levels of success globally. He also works closely with parent-company Estée-Lauder’s broader development of sustainability and corporate responsibility commitments.

Most recently prior to his role at Aveda, Dr. Bennett served as Senior Research Associate at The Conference Board, the foremost independent not-for-profit business research organization in the United States. Beginning in 2001, he contributed significantly to the Board’s development of sustainability and corporate citizenship, authoring and co-authoring numerous publications on these topics as well as energy and climate change issues.

Prior to The Conference Board, Dr. Bennett served as Director of Environmental Affairs for Adolph Coors Company from 1988 to 1993, where he led the development of the company’s environmental strategy and management systems and helped create environmental policy for the state of Colorado through appointments and public-private partnerships. This led to his role as Senior Environmental and Safety Director for Nabisco from 1993 to 2001, where he led the development of environmental and safety management systems for the brand globally.

A graduate of Middlebury College and former Peace Corps volunteer, Dr. Bennett completed graduate degrees in geography at Syracuse University, taught at several colleges, and served on the faculty of the State University of New York at Geneseo.

The event will take place at 5:30 p.m on Friday, June 11, here at the Graduate School, and you are welcome to join us.

International Trip to Malawi, Africa
August 7 – 22, 2010

Grounded in our belief that sustainability is a global issue – and our commitment to expanding our students’ awareness of practices well-beyond our Vermont border – this year MBA students and faculty will be heading to Malawi.

The personal connections that the MBA program has in Malawi will provide a “once in a lifetime” opportunity for our students.

For starters, while in Malwai, our group has been invited to live at Toleza Farm, a 4500 acre sustainable farm that employs 600-800 people.  It has been in operation for 3 years.  And to put the icing on that experience, they will be personally hosted by Mr. Clive Stanbrook , the owner of Toleza Farms, He is an African-born, English lawyer and social entrepreneur, and he has played a leading role in breaking the tobacco and cotton cartels in Malawi.

That, however, is just the beginning.  The itinerary is filled with extraordinary events including:

• Mr. Stanbrook opening his books, and providing strategy and implementation briefings on various aspects of the farm, which also includes a “Maize Bank”, a micro-credit operation that insures that local farmers get the highest prices for their maize.  He would like to engage our students in a critique of current operations and a brainstorming of future possibilities.  He’s potentially amenable to a few capstones if the students feel so inclined.
• Meeting and being personally briefed by the Chief Justice of the Malawi Supreme Court, Mr. Lovemore Mundo, concerning the national economic, political and social issues of Malawi.
• Meeting with the local tribal chiefs near Toleza Farms to fully experience local culture and learn the local economic, political and social issues of the region.
• Visiting the local school to understand the experience of the school children, and perhaps provide resources (books, time etc.) to the school as part of the visit.
• A 3 day canoe trip or other wildlife excursion along the Zambezi River based on the students’ interest.

Stay tuned for more details in our future newsletters.

Bicycles Don’t Grow on Trees, or Do They?

They will if John Fabel has his way.

John teaches “The Ecology & Art of Entrepreneurship” in our MBA program, and he’s just the person for the job. As an entrepreneur, John has started numerous companies, including the sustainable biofuels company Qteros, and the Ecotrek company, which in the mid 1990’s pioneered the use of sustainable materials in technical outdoor products. John’s design work is held in the permanent collection of several museums, including the Smithsonian, and has been the featured in such media outlets as the New York Times, NPR, Discovery Channel, Popular Science, and Popular Mechanics.

Now, as a co-founder of Sylvan Cycles, John is putting his genius, and his dedication to renewable sources, to work again. Sylvan Cycles crafts innovative, beautiful, high-performance bicycles and accessories that tap the benefits of sustainable wood composite materials and stainless steel. Sylvan recently made headlines at the North American Handbuilt Bicycle show.

The company is also exploring other applications for its biomaterial technology and is collaborating with the Massachusetts Woodlands Cooperative on a USDA grant to develop value-added markets for sustainably harvested forest products.
Learn more about John and his bicycle at the Sylvan Cycles website

Marlboro MBA in the News: Forbes and CT Mirror

MBA program director Ralph Meima’s interview with 3BL Media during last week’s CERES conference in Boston was linked from Aman Singh’s CSR blog on Forbes.com. The subject of the article was whether corporate citizenship was a factor for jobseekers.

Ralph was also interviewed by the Connecticut Mirror for the article, Global Warming Concerns For Local Environmental Trade-offs.

Google Maps/Street view lesson plan for K-12

A recent lesson plan I made for Dummerston Middle School where I do technology integration

Summary

• Use Google Maps to explore geography, terrain, cities, towns, and photographs from the street (and even snowmobile) view from around the globe.
• Students take photos using only a Web browser and computer (No camera!) to explore and document cultures around the world, including what they wear, drive, eat, buy, drive, landmarks, cultural icons, businesses, historic buildings, etc.
• Parents, community members, and students who have lived around the world give visual tours of their home towns

Tools Needed: Web browser. High Speed Internet connection

New 3D views

Short Street View Overview

Teacher Prep

Google Maps is a Web site that uses the same information as Google Earth. Unlike Google Earth, Google Maps does not require downloading software. Google has worked out deals with the world’s governments and industries to access their map information for street, typography, weather, distance, and satellite photos into one interface on the Web.

Lets start with a peak at Street View, then we’ll get into all the aspects of Maps

• Go to union square in New York City
• Go Skiing!

Google has hired cars, people and even snowmobiles to drive around the world taking photos with special 360 degree cameras. They started with cities and are now into smaller and smaller towns. Here’s a Photo of Google Camera Car and Also See the Wikipedia entry on Street View for current mapped places,.

Whenever you’re in Google maps you can drag the “little man icon” above the zoom bar on the left over to any map. If streets turn blue, you can use street view. Your view will change to a photo from the street. Click the photo, then double click, drag, and use the arrow keys to explore.

Ok, now lets start to go through the various other parts of Google Maps

Go To: http://maps.google.com/

1. Type in “Brattleboro VT”
2. Explore the tools you see on the screen by clicking on everything you can FEARLESSLY for a few minutes.
3. Click on “Maps”, “Terrain” and “Satellite”
4. Click on the left slider bar to zoom in and out. Click and drag the map
5. Find some town landmarks, your house, school, work.
6. Try “more” and all the buttons and imagine what government/business data sources Google is accessing
7. Explore “by walking” “by car” near “directions”
8. Do the “directions from you house to your school and notice it has the distance and you can drag the blue line to change the path and distance.

Lesson ideas

Foreigner Visit

Foreign parents/students/guests: Teacher uses a projector with Google Maps to “drive” while the guest talks to students about where they are from, went to school, lived, etc. while the teacher shows on the big screen. The teacher uses the projector because that way they can controls things while the guest talks and the guest doesn’t have to know how to use Google Maps at all.

After the short tour of the visitor’s home, students get their laptops out and find their home, and try and figure out when the photo was taken, how far they are from school exactly, etc.

Map Quest

Students use Street View to shoot photos as if they had traveled in person with a camera.

Teacher:

• Show students Street View of something exciting like Tokyo Japan
• Show students the cars that take the photos so they understand that the photos are not of everything, only where the cars have driven so far.

Teach them to take a screenshot of anything they see on their screen

• PC: Windows 7, use the “Snipping Tool” which can be found in the Start Menu/All Programs/Accessories. Or use the key “Print Screen”, then open the Accessory “Paint” and “Paste” then Save to hard drive.

• MAC: Press Shift + Command and the number 4. The cursor changes to a cross. Drag the cross down and the left, let go, and the screenshot will be on your desktop.
  

Quest ideas

1. Find famous landmarks and take photos
2. Find your house and take a satellite photo
3. What time of day and year the photo was taken, by the shadows and weather.
4. How was are the satellite photos taken, who took it? Where did they take it from?
5. What year? can you tell by any landmarks?
6. Where’s north?

Other resources

• Oregon Trail Google Maps: http://fg.ed.pacificu.edu/sweb/singer/teacherpage.html
• Google Street View Home

Wii Remote makes $50 whiteboard for schools

Johnny Lee demos at TED how $50 of hardware can make a functional whiteboard for schools with his free software.

Whom do you trust? Oaths and honor in the “green” MBA space

Article presented at:

New England Board of Higher Education Conference

“A Climate Change on Campus: New England Sustainability Summit 2010”

Worcester, Massachusetts
April 23, 2010

Panel Topic:

Preparing Transformative Leaders: Professional Degrees with a Green Streak

—

Whom do you trust?  Oaths and honor in the “green” MBA space

Good afternoon!

• Thank you!
  • To Scott for the introduction
  • To the NEBHE for organizing this event
  • To you, the audience, for joining this session

I will spend the next ten or so minutes…

• reflecting on the deep moral crisis in our business culture
• exploring how no sustainability can flourish without addressing the moral courage and social contexts of leaders
• speaking about ways to foster this in MBA programs.

I will suggest that “green streaks” provide little help.  Moral courage and community need to mean something entirely different from what they mean to most people in our businesses today.

My purpose is to

-  Inform

-  Promote

-  Provoke

# # #

In 2001, after the tech bust, I was at a meeting of the Northern Virginia Tech Council.  People were glum.  An entrepreneur said:  “Six months ago, if I had gone to a potential investor and said, I’m over 40, my company’s been in business for ten years, and every year sales have grown by 10-15%, I would have been laughed out of the room.  Today, when I say, I’m over 40, we’ve been in business for ten years, and every year sales have grown by 10-15%, they say, ‘How much do you want?’

By 2003, investors might have swung to the former attitude of scorn.  Today, you would be more likely to hear the latter again.  Business performance and managerial skill, in the conventional sense, can look good or bad, depending on one’s vantage point, and one’s vantage point has a lot to do with how fast those around you are getting richer or poorer, especially if it’s through little effort of their own.  Fear and greed!

Attitudes change as conditions change.  Many of us become highly motivated by the possibility of short-term gains or losses.

What is the purpose of graduate business education?  Is it about preparing practitioners to accelerate their careers with the upswings, reign triumphant at the peaks, dodge the falling masonry during the downturns, and cope during the slumps?  To privatize the gains and socialize the losses?

Despite some exceptional persons and programs, conventional business education is dominated by opportunism and the short-term.  It invokes justifications with moral overtones: rational markets, creative destruction, the Invisible Hand.

In this view, market actors and asset managers must be focused on the profitable exploitation of usually short-term opportunities.  Maximization of shareholder value in high-velocity markets has increasingly been the sole focus of managerial expertise in recent decades.

“Greed, for lack of a better word, is good, “ said Gordon Gekko in the 1987 movie Wall Street (the year I started my MBA):

Greed is right. Greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms–greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge–has marked the upward surge of mankind. And greed–you mark my words–will not only save Teldar Paper, but that other malfunctioning corporation called the USA.

Has the most recent cycle of fear and greed affected the culture of MBA programs, source of the new lifeblood of so many larger corporations?  Are they ready to embrace sustainability – the possibility that life for humans and other living things can flourish on Earth forever?

The business school students have started swearing a morality oath.  Thunderbird students launched one in 2006.  Harvard Business School MBA students launched one year ago.  As of last night, 2,193 MBA students from around the world had sworn. Here’s an excerpt:

•  I will manage my enterprise with loyalty and care, and will not advance my personal interests at the expense of my enterprise or society.

•  I will refrain from corruption, unfair competition, or business practices harmful to society.

•  I will protect the right of future generations to advance their standard of living and enjoy a healthy planet.

•  I will invest in developing myself and others, helping the management profession continue to advance and create sustainable and inclusive prosperity

This oath I make freely, and upon my honor

Well, it’s about time.

If the business schools will not transform themselves to truly embody these principles, at least the students can simply choose to live them.

“Just do the right thing.”

Although, how can the management profession continue to advance and create sustainable and inclusive prosperity?  Doesn’t it need to start, first?

Anyway, what use is an oath?

Said Brutus,

…[B]ut do not stain the even virtue of our enterprise, nor th’insuppressive mettle of our spirits, to think that – or our cause – or our performance – did need an oath.

But let’s assume it will make some difference.

Are the new sustainability-oriented and “green” MBA programs we’re now seeing across the country redundant, now that high-octane MBA grads are repentant, swearing oaths?

Many of these innovative programs are start-ups, newcomers to business education, without the history, corporate support, heavy research capacity, or powerful brand names:

-  Bainbridge Graduate Institute’s MBA in Sustainable Enterprise

-  Presidio Graduate School’s MBA in Sustainable Management

-  Dominican University’s Green MBA

-  Antioch University New England’s Green MBA

-  The Brandeis Global Green MBA

-  Clark University’s MBA in Social Change

-  And, of course, my own program, the Marlboro MBA in Managing for Sustainability – the startup and first three years of which I have directed.

These are some of the attempts to fundamentally redesign and re-orient MBA education that have emerged since 2002, when pioneer Bainbridge was founded.

There is understandably skepticism about what we stand for, or at least, about our claims to be engaged in a distinct form of graduate management education.

Having just marveled openly about the MBA Student Oath, am I mistaken in thinking that the claims of the “green” MBA programs are any more genuine?

Whom do you trust more?

I trust what I have seen of the open, questioning intentionality of our kind of MBA program.

I trust the deep commitment to building authentic, inclusive, caring community, and to always being present as a whole individual.

I trust the turning away from impersonal, objectifying, manipulative corporate behavior, and toward the socially responsible businesses and social enterprises where the lessons are about health, about aligning with right values, and about honoring the dignity of all human beings.

I trust the interest in replacing extractive, exploitive industries with regeneration and resilience.

I trust the faith in the genius of place, and of the enthusiasm for local businesses and the relocalization of economies.

I trust the questioning of unconstrained corporate personhood, and the interest in for example beneficial corporations, employee ownership, and co-ops.

I trust the skepticism of hyperinstitutionalized academia, of the dominance of disciplines, of the rarified culture of academic publication.

I trust learning that thoroughly exercises the more immediate, practical skills of business while giving the momentous facts of our times the attention they deserve:

-  climate change,

-  peaking fossil fuel supplies

-  human domination of the biosphere

-  the crisis of our health and in our health care system

-  the corruption among elected officials

-  the concentration of wealth

-  the erosion of the middle class

-  our uncertain democracy.

I trust the hunger for deep ecological literacy and systems wisdom.

I trust the strong desire to learn from Nature as mentor.

I trust the absence of oaths.

If we are not managing for sustainability, then what are we managing for?  Less unsustainability?  Opportunistic gains?  Domination?  A share of what’s left?

END

Apple, Army, Usability

From Army's article.

The military is, and has been, a leading innovator and champion of educational technology and training.

This recent sentance from a  post on the Army’s main blog that I saw on a post by Boing Boing)  caught my eye. My bold:

“Apple technologies offer unique and proven solutions with intuitive designs that allow users to learn quickly without a training manual,” said Ron Szymanski, CERDEC’s lead computer scientist on the project. “The Army would like to leverage Apple’s experience when designing military applications.”

Politics aside, it underscores the value of user centric design and testing, testing, testing in this technical world. Stuff that works, and is easy to use, is valuable.