Every time you interact with a customer, you’re engaging in marketing. Doesn’t matter if you’re instituting a policy, gaining some data, delivering an invoice… it’s a marketing interaction.
… When you yell at a classroom full of kids because one kid misbehaved, that’s a marketing decision.
from Seth Godin, What’s the point of this interaction?
From Simon Evans:
Do not confine your children to your own learning, for they were born in a different time. – Hebrew proverb
From Greg Farr:
It is important that students bring a certain ragamuffin, barefoot irreverence to their studies; they are not here to worship what is known, but to question it. – Jacob Bronowski
From Richard Florida:
In the US, there are nine cities with more than 1m inhabitants. In China, there are 49. You can be travelling across China, arrive in a city that is twice the size of Houston, and think: I’ve never even heard of this place. – Rob Gifford
From Wikinomics (p.
47):
[T]his is the first time in human history when children are
authorities on something really important.
Think about that for a minute, because the implications are huge. The authors go on
to remind us that
Today young people are authorities on the digital revolution that is
changing every institution in society. . . . While their parents were passive
consumers of media, youth today are active creators of media content and hungry
for interaction.
Is it already July 3? Way back on June 20 I had the pleasure of talking with Chris Craft about online learning for a class he’s taking. The focus was mainly on higher education but much of our conversation was relevant to the K-12 world as well. Chris posted our discussion as a podcast in case you’d like to hear it:
I’ll tell you something I’ve noticed from visiting a lot of American
schools: the more traditional the teacher, the grimmer the mood. These
classrooms don’t always resemble Dickensian factories, mind you, but if
you watch the kids’ faces (or the teachers’), the phrase ‘joy of
discovery’ probably won’t leap to mind. And here’s the interesting
part: the people who defend the Old School usually don’t deny that this
is true, and they don’t even seem to mind. Sometimes they actually take
a perverse pride in presiding over (or sending their kids to) this
bleak house because for them that constitutes proof that real education
is happening. No pain, no gain.
– Alfie Kohn, The Schools Our Children Deserve, p. 108
[from http://tinyurl.com/bkbtk]
No one jumps a 20 foot chasm in two 10 foot jumps.
– Miguel Guhlin (comment at Remote Access)
Some quotes that I’ve used on this blog in the past…
They say, “Sure, we need change.”
I say we need revolution
now.They say, “We can’t handle this much change.”
I say, “Your job and career
are in jeopardy; what other options do you have?”They say, “Times are changing.”
I say, “Everything has already changed.
Tomorrow is the first day of your revolution . . . or you’re toast.”They say I’m extreme.
I say I’m a realist.– Seth Godin, The
Big Moo, pp. 49-50
One step is easy. One step isn’t enough.
Two steps is tempting. Two steps means that everyone understands
what you’re up to when you pitch an idea to them.Three steps changes the game. Organizations that think three steps
ahead are the groundbreakers and the pathfinders. They’re the ones inventing the
next generation, the people who are undoing the very foundations that your
organization depends on.Three steps is difficult. It’s difficult to sell, even more difficult to
build, and almost impossible to get your mother-in-law (or your boss) to
understand. Three steps – that’s what’s worth building.– Seth Godin, The
Big Moo, pp. 41–42
Most organizations are paralyzed, stuck in a rut, staring at the growth paradox. On one hand, they understand all the good things that will come with growth. On the other, they’re afraid, petrified that growth means change, change means risk . . . Nobody wants to screw up and ruin a good thing, so the organization just sits there, motionless.
– Seth Godin, The Big Moo, p. xv
and
Panicking when something really bad happens is counterproductive. . . . Taking action today on a long-term problem is easier, cheaper, more effective, and far less time consuming than waiting for it to become an emergency. The time to panic . . . is today. Why not start panicking in advance? Why not start taking emergency measures while there’s still a chance that those emergency measures will actually accomplish something? Every organization that gets into trouble falters because it waited too long to do the stuff that should have been done a long time ago. Panic early, not late, and your fire drills will actually pay off.
– Seth Godin, The Big Moo, pp. 30–31
and
Anxiety is the false fear that corrupts your life. Anxiety is what happens when you imagine possible negative outcomes instead of embracing the reality of now. Anxiety is also the reason that organizations overstudy opportunities – and then hesitate to take action until it’s too late.
– Seth Godin, The Big Moo, p. 51
Measure just about anything, and the distribution . . . almost always comes out as a perfect bell curve. . . . [The bell curve] even applies to the energy and creativity of entire organizations. . . . The most fascinating thing about the bell curve is that some people and some organizations naturally gravitate to a certain section. . . . The trick, then, is not to wait for your [world] to change before changing where you are on the curve. The trick is to change your organization’s instinctual location on the curve. if you get used to being exceptional, you’ll probably stay there.
– Seth Godin, The Big Moo, pp. 49-50