T-shape Perspectives

August 2014

Tsummit.org

Basics

Researcher

Depth

Breadth

Employers

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ProblemSolving

Communications

Government Priorities:Entrepreneurial Researchers

Researcher

Researcher

Entrepreneurial

Academic Priorities:Liberal Arts + STEM

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STEM

Liberal Arts

Design Thinking:Customer Empathy + Problem Solving

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ProblemSolving

CustomerEmpathy

Expertise Theory:Interactional + Contributory

Researcher

Contributory

Interactional

Need for T-Shaped Professionals: ICT-enabled deep expert-thinking and broad complex-communications

Science and Engineering

Math and Operations Research

Computer Science & Info. Systems

Industrial and Systems Engineering

Business and Management

Economics and Social Sciences

Business Anthropology and Design

Organizational Change & Learning

Broad

Deep

Broad across many…

Deep in at least one…

Changing Nature of Work: Increasing demand for expert thinking and complex communication

ICT tools augment human performance in these two key areas

Levy, F, & Murnane, R. J. (2004). The New Division of Labor:How Computers Are Creating the Next Job Market. Princeton University Press.

Based on U.S. Department of Labor’ Dictionary of Occupational Titles (DOT)

Expert Thinking

Complex Communication

Routine Manual

Non-routine Manual

Routine Cognitive

Increasing usage of descriptive terms

T-Shaped Professionals

Many disciplines Many systems

Deep in at least one discipline

Deep in at least one system

Many projects, award winning in at least one(challenge: improve a real-world system)

ICT augments human performance: problem solving (deep) and communication (broad)

© 2005 IBM CorporationService Research and Innovation | Almaden Research Center © 2007 IBM Corporation

SSMED – T-shaped professionals are adaptive innovators

Social Science (People)

Management(Business)

Engineering (Technology)

ExpertThinking

Complex Communications Across Fields

Tower of Babel“Biggest problem in businessis people don’t know how to talk to other people in the

language they understand.” Charles Holliday, CEO Dupont

Based on slides by Jean Paul Jacob, IBM

Across industriesAcross culturesAcross functions

Across disciplines=

More experiencedMore adaptive

More collaborative

Designed together