Insights

The recent increase in value of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin have led to continued speculations about its stability, and the extent to which its recent meteoric price increases reflect speculation vs. its role as a transactional currency. In a one month period leading up to this publication, Bitcoin dropped 25% in value then increased 50%. Over the same period, Dogecoin, originally invented as a joke, was caught up in price fluctuations that also impacted stock prices. But over recent years companies have adopted cryptocurrency for uses beyond speculative investment.

The year 2020 will be remembered as a year of massive change for companies and individuals. In this post, we discuss what we as a company learned from the past year and how these lessons can be applied to work moving forward.

Stay at home orders due to COVID-19 have forced humanity to depend on the internet like never before. But for billions of people around the world, partially in developing countries, internet access remains elusive, starving those in need of its resources and opportunities. For those fortunate enough to have access, slow broadband and cybersecurity threats have diminished the promise of the internet. In this insight, Program Director for Van Allen Strategies, Namita Duggal and Business Development Strategist, Jake Hannigan, discuss how the US can improve access to broadband and increase cyber security.

As the world continues to change at a breakneck speed, those who thrive in the 21st century are those who are able quickly adapt to changing and unpredictable circumstances. In this insight, Education Services Manager, Jake Hannigan discusses how community colleges are uniquely suited to be a cornerstone to economic recovery and future workforce development.

It has been many months since COVID-19 spread across the world and taken hold of our lives. How much longer the pandemic will linger continues to be an open question. While it is clear that the world will be forever changed, it is unclear how that change will manifest itself. So what is the world to do when the ‘new normal’ is prolonged uncertainty? In this insight, we explore ways for individuals and organizations to continue living and growing in a time of uncertainty.

In this Insight, Agile veteran Tim Streightiff offers lessons, experience, and advice for transitioning teams from traditional Waterfall software development approaches to Agile. Tim discusses how to not only establish the right metrics in the context of this transition, but also inspire and empower a team to thrive in an Agile environment.

We know that Spring 2020 led to frustration with the shift to online courses. What would be the student experience if Agile practices had been implemented and were in place when the pandemic hit? Agile methodology has spread from software development to all types of organizations. This blog post further explores the application of Agile methodology in managing change for higher education.

In the first of a three-part series on sales strategy, guest author Chuck Coveleski discusses adapting your sales strategy to current times. In this post, Chuck talks about the value of a healthy sales culture and how to create a sustainable one within your company.

The disruption of 2020 has been extreme enough to expose giant fissures in some of our major institutions, including higher education. Traditional colleges and universities - in which most courses were taught face-to-face - were forced to go online, and this abrupt change resulted in frustration or confusion for students, and anger for parents who had dished out thousands of dollars in tuition. If we think about how colleges and universities work, we can begin to see the fissures and the fixes.

Colleges and universities have spent millions of dollars investing in their campuses. With students and faculty no longer able to come together, millions of dollars of investments lay unused. Now institutions are scrambling to move their services online in preparation for the fall 2020 semester. Such changes require significant investment in infrastructure, faculty training, and course development.

While technology has become omnipresent across education institutions, it has always been viewed simply as a tool. Traditional educators have been slow to incorporate technology into their classes, choosing instead to keep to traditional methods. But recently, a pandemic has caused hundreds of millions to stay home. COVID-19 has forced educators to move their entire curriculum online, sometimes overnight.

While the transition to telecommuting has been underway for over a decade, the recent pandemic has accelerated the trend by forcing hundreds of millions to stay home. Remote working is no longer about flexibility. It is how we slow transmission of COVID-19 and keeping the public safe. This article explores recent trends in remote work and offers best practices for keeping remote works engaged, healthy, and happy.

The COVID-19 pandemic has presented an unprecedented crisis to higher education, affecting more than 1.525 billion learners across the world. In this insight we discuss how educational institutions have responded, and what opportunities lay ahead for lasting innovation.

In this week’s post education industry expert Karen Yoshino discusses how the COVID-19 crisis disrupted higher education and how educational institutions should adapt. She assesses the changes around people, process, and technology that have become necessary for higher education to adapt. Finally, Karen discusses the application of not only strategy work but also improvements in project management required to bring strategy to life.

The COVID-19 crisis brought telehealth to headlines and accelerated the trend of providing medical care remotely where possible. As medical practices restart more elective care, the industry is looking at how it will incorporate telehealth longer term. In this insight we explore current trends and consider how medical practices will incorporate increased telehealth in the coming years.

"Black lives matter" is a call to action. While we are a small business, we know that every company can make a difference, and every company should try.

As businesses reflect on the last few months and plan for recovery, business continuity is top of mind. Many are identifying what policies to adopt for recovery and to be prepared for the next disruptive event, but existing Agile frameworks in many organizations are easily adapted for broader business continuity outside of software development. The need of the hour is to bring the two together in such a way that there is a balance, achieving the right level of resiliency and maintaining higher levels of efficiency and effectiveness.

Hi-touch to no-touch. Smart devices that allow guests’ freedom from tactile engagement with many touch surfaces in hotels is one of the answers to keeping guests safer in the future. Verbal commands within a voice activated device take out the middleman when it comes to switches, levers, and remote controls. Technology gives guests different comfort levels by driving down the interaction points and the ‘touch frequency’ opportunity of guests within their hotel room.