Switzerland has often topped the Global Innovation Index and prides
itself for an environment that allows innovative minds to flourish − at
least when it comes to technological and scientific innovation. Social
Innovation has taken a backseat, with stakeholders only recently
discovering potentials.
Switzerland has often topped the Global Innovation Index and prides itself for an environment that allows innovative minds to flourish − at least when it comes to technological and scientific innovation. Social Innovation has taken a backseat, with stakeholders only recently discovering potentials.
Rigor and relevance are fundamental criteria for quality modeling of complex systems. This piece is a plea for more qualified practice of professional modeling. Suggestions are made for fostering and spreading professional competency of high-quality model-building. Best modeling practices and best testing practices ultimately are one. The prerequisites for such practices, conceptual and technical, can be trained. The article makes suggestions for education to achieve modeling excellence. This contribution part of a scientific discourse following John Sterman’s “System dynamics at sixty: the path forward”, published in: System Dynamics Review, Vol. 34(1-2):5-47.
The US reality television show The Bachelorette is one of the most successful productions in its genre. It only recently featured its first African American lead, a long-expected departure from the show’s dominantly white cast. By analysing how the show discusses race, this article sheds light on how reality television sensationalizes racism. Racism in reality television is not, as the production wants to make viewers believe, the result of individual cases of prejudice, but a problem of those responsible in the control room and, arguably, of those tuning in.
Watching The Bachelorette is one of those guilty pleasures that we do not list in our CV―unless we end up writing a scholarly article about it, as I did for the recent issue of the Canadian Review of American Studies. Yes, reality TV shows are frivolous, often formulaic, and yet we cannot completely disregard them. Millions of people tune into these shows, including many a student, as political scientist David R. Dreyer observed: “Regardless of how many academic books and journal articles are assigned in an undergraduate class in a given semester, some students will likely spend more time watching reality television than reading.”
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