Dr John Kao was in Singapore as CGL’s Senior Visiting Fellow from 12 – 14 February 2008. In addition to a highly subscribed public lecture on his newly published book, Innovation Nation, Dr Kao shared his insights and expertise on innovation strategy and talent attraction with our public sector agencies.

Dr Kao served as a faculty member of the Harvard Business School from 1982-1996, where he developed courses on innovation and entrepreneurship. He was a Visiting Professor at the MIT Media Lab, taught at Yale College and the University of Copenhagen, and served as a Distinguished Visiting Professor of Innovation at the the US Naval Postgraduate School.

Born in Chicago, Illinois, Dr Kao was trained in philosophy (Yale College), psychiatry (Yale Medical School, Harvard Medical School) and business (Harvard Business School). An Honorary Vice-President of Arts and Business in the UK as well as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Art, Dr Kao was recently appointed as a Senior Visiting Fellow to the Civil Service College, Singapore.

The Centre was pleased to welcome its Senior Visiting Fellow, Dr Gary Klein, back for another four-day visit programme. From 4 to 7 August 2008, Dr Klein was involved in workshops on Management by Discovery, and discussions with relevant public sector agencies. Dr Klein also conducted a successful second run of his Naturalistic Decision-Making workshop, which was attended by 60 officers from across the Service.

Dr Klein is Chief Scientist of Klein Associates, a group he formed in 1978 to better understand how to improve decision-making in individuals and teams. The Klein Associates Division (now part of Applied Research Associates, Inc.) has more than 50 employees working on projects for government and commercial clients. Dr Klein is one of the founders of the field of Naturalistic Decision-Making. His work on recognitional decision-making has influenced the design of new systems and interfaces, and decision training programs. He has extended his work on decision making to describe problem detection, option generation, sensemaking, planning and replanning. In order to perform research on decision-making in field settings, Dr Klein and his colleagues have developed new methods of Cognitive Task Analysis.

Dr Klein received his Ph.D. in experimental psychology from the University of Pittsburgh in 1969. He was an Associate Professor of Psychology at Oakland University (1970-1974) and worked as a research psychologist for the U.S. Air Force (1974-1978). He has written more than 70 papers and has authored three books: Sources of Power: How People Make Decisions (MIT Press, 1998); The Power of Intuition (A Currency Book/Doubleday, 2004); and Working Minds: A Practitioner's Guide to Cognitive Task Analysis (Crandall, Klein and Hoffman; MIT Press, 2006).

Professor Jack Knetsch was in Singapore as CGL's Senior Visiting Fellow in March 2008. As part of his 8-day programme, Prof Knetsch delivered a well-received introductory lecture on “Behavioural Economics and Public Policy” [See Lecture Notes] and a four-day in-depth workshop. He also met and held discussions with public sector leaders and selected agencies.

Professor Knetsch is an eminent economist who has contributed extensively to the field of behavioural economics. His works have appeared regularly in premier internationally refereed journals, such as the American Economic Review and the Journal of Political Economy.His international consultancy projects have brought him to Argentina, Thailand, Lebanon and Italy. Prof Knetsch's consultancy projects in Malaysia included the Penang-Butterworth Bridge cost-benefit analysis and the palm oil pollution impact analysis. He has published two books - Property Rights and Compensation and The Economics of Outdoor Recreation.

Prof Knetsch is currently Emeritus Professor of Economics at Simon Fraser University and concurrently Professor of Resource and Environmental Management. He has held Professorships and Fellowships at Oxford University, Cambridge University, the University of Toronto, the University of London and the University of British Columbia.

CGL was pleased to host Mr Dave Snowden from 20 to 23 May 2008. In Singapore as CGL's Senior Visiting Fellow, Mr Snowden's programme included workshops on Complexity and the Cynefin framework, and meetings with selected public sector agencies. See Notes on Workshop