Abhi's Principles Of Management: July 2012

What is it??

The Khan Academy is a non-profit educational organization, created in 2006 by Bangladeshi American educator Salman Khan, who after earning three degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (a BS in mathematics, a BS in electrical engineering and computer science, and an MS in electrical engineering and computer science), he pursued an MBA from Harvard Business School. In late 2004, Khan began tutoring his cousin Nadia in mathematics using Yahoo!'s Doodle notepad. When other relatives and friends sought similar help, he decided it would be more practical to distribute the tutorials on YouTube viz. Video .

What is its Mission??

To provide a high quality education to anyone, anywhere.

What is its Vision??

Khan's long-term goal is to provide "tens of thousands of videos in pretty much every subject" and to create "the world's first free, world-class virtual school where anyone can learn anything."

What it does??

The website supplies a free online collection of more than 3,200 micro lectures via video tutorials stored on YouTube teaching mathematics, history, healthcare and medicine, finance, physics, chemistry, biology, astronomy, economics, cosmology, organic chemistry, American civics, art history, macroeconomics and microeconomics, and computer science.

Business Revenue Model

The project is funded by donations. Khan Academy is a not-for-profit organization now with significant backing from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Google. Several people have made US$10,000 contributions; Ann and John Doerr gave $100,000; total revenue is about $150,000 in donations. Additionally, it also earned $2,000 a month from ads on the Web site in 2010, until Khan Academy ceased to accept advertising. In 2010, Google announced it would give the Khan Academy $2 million for creating more courses and for translating the core library into the world’s most widely spoken languages, as part of their Project 10100.

Khan Academy has eclipsed MIT's OpenCourseWare (OCW) in terms of videos viewed—its YouTube channel has over 150 million total views, compared to MIT's 38 million. It also has twice as many subscribers, at more than 320,000.

The theory X & Y Assumption Application

The idea here is that the students here will learn at their own pace without much interference and questioning by teachers, who can in fact keep a track of where the student is getting struck again and again and to analyse if he really requires any additional help there. Thus in this case the students are not under constant observation will behave as analogous to good employees and the teacher as most of the issues are being taken care automatically will behave analogous to good manger leading to optimum output i.e.’ best quality education for their students.

Innovative new generation organizations

The above mentioned application of “the theory X & Y Assumption Application” will result in a new generation organisations like school where the students are self motivated and interested in further honing their skills in school and teachers know that the kids are doing well and want t improve further. Clearly an example of creative problem solving , prompt and accurate decision making, Hence leading to great hike in productivity.

Technical - human - conceptual skills

The Khan Academy started with Khan remotely tutoring one of his cousins interactively using Yahoo Doodle images. Based on feedback from his cousin, additional cousins began to take advantage of the interactive, remote tutoring. In order to make better use of his and their time, Khan transitioned to making YouTube video tutorials. Drawings are now made with a Wacom tablet and the free natural drawing application SmoothDraw 3, and recorded with screen capture software from Camtasia Studio. Khan's audio narratives are recorded with a Samson C03U USB Multi-Pattern Condenser Microphone with a miniature desk tripod.

Strategy of Khan foundation

While all videos continue to be hosted on Khan Academy's YouTube channel, they also are available through Khan Academy's own website, which also contains many other features such as progress tracking, practice exercises, and a variety of tools for teachers in public schools. Logging into the site can be done via a Google or a Facebook account for those who don't want to create a separate Khan Academy account.

Khan chose to avoid the standard format of a person standing by a whiteboard, deciding instead to present the learning concepts as if "popping out of a darkened universe and into one's mind with a voice out of nowhere" in a way akin to sitting next to someone and working out a problem on a sheet of paper: "If you're watching a guy do a problem [while] thinking out loud, I think people find that more valuable and not as daunting." Offline versions of the videos have been distributed by not-for-profit groups to rural areas in Asia, Latin America, and Africa. While the current content is mainly concerned with pre-college mathematics and physics, Khan Academy also provides a web-based exercise system that generates problems for students based on skill level and performance. This software is available as open source under the MIT license. Khan believes his academy points an opportunity to overhaul the traditional classroom by using software to create tests, grade assignments, highlight the challenges of certain students, and encourage those doing well to help struggling classmates. The tutorials are touted as helpful because, among other factors, they can be paused by students, while a classroom lecture cannot be.

The success of his low-tech, conversational tutorials—Khan's face never appears, and viewers see only his unadorned step-by-step doodles and diagrams on an electronic blackboard—suggests an educational transformation that de-emphasizes classrooms, campus and administrative infrastructure, and even brand-name instructors.

Abhishek Kumar

IM - 19 Batch Sec- A

NITIE Mumbai

Lecture 3 and 4

Again its reasonable late to write at this hour or may be this is a new beginning, a day starting as early as 4 Am. Again am very thankful to Dr. Mandi for putting the deadline as 6AM as in the marathon of many awake nights of MBA this being the first one and I indeed needed this strength since a long time.

The Theory

There are basically two theory about the managers.

1. The X-theory Managers

He or she is the one who believes employees are lazy and they should be kept under very high supervision.

2. The Y-Theory Managers

He or she is the one who believes employees are good and keep motivating/appreciating them on regular basis.

Also there are two types of employees.

a. The lazy employee

b. The good employee

Now based on the above mentioned theories and types, there arise four type of cases in an organisation. These cases and their impact is mentioned below.

i. X- theory Manager & Lazy Employee

This is the worst case. In principle the employee is lazy and manager knows he is lazy. As an effect the manger will put higher control over the employee which will further decrease employee’s interest in work and thus productivity will be reduced

ii. X-theory Manager & Good Employee

The manger thinks employee is lazy but employee likes the work. The steps taken in this case will put higher control over the employee which will decrease employee’s interest in work and thus productivity will be reduced

iii. X- theory Manager & Lazy Employee

The employee is lazy but manager believes him/her to be good employee so he will keep appreciating the employee and resultantly soon the employee will get motivated and thus will contribute towards better productivity.

iv. X-theory Manager & Good Employee

The employee is self-motivated and loves the work assigned to him, on top of it hi/her manager makes it a point to appreciate his /her work to him/her as well as higher authorities. This is the best possible case in an organisation and will surely boost the productivity greatly.

The Understanding

The productivity of an organisation largely depends upon the belief with which a manager is leading his/her employees and as seen in the different cases explained above a manager with a good faith I his employees will definitely lead to higher productivity. its absolutely inline with the Pygmalion Belief which put life in a stone sculpture.

Truly a positive belief can do wonders.