Symbolic Leadership

As I continue to contemplate the interview with the owner of the print media I realize that she best portrays leadership through the symbolic frame.

First she describes her job as a balance where she is responsible for making her staff know and feel great pride in their work and at the same time help them understand that just because they had a good year that they should not be content, that they can’t get too confident.

She shows passion for the work as she describes what they do at the company, which each and every other staff person we interviewed felt, by saying “journalism can be a source to defeat the modern thinking, that sense of alienation.” She sees the real power of the media and wants to be that paper that provides entertainment and at the same time meaningful information.

She is sensitive to the history and culture as she was asked to lead the paper when it was created. The vision of the paper was to be a progressive, liberal voice. She didn’t want it to be just preaching to the choir but more where the feeling of Santa Barbara comes from the paper. This tradition continues to drive the paper today.

And although the sense of what to expect from the paper continues, she also wants to not be content and welcomes change. A big change or something new happened with the paper when the community experienced a series of serious fires at the same time that the local daily paper was going through trouble times with their employees. The paper wanted to stay a weekly paper but they expanded their on-line presence with daily reporting of the fire. The community responded to this new addition positively and was thankful for on-going coverage of what was going on. She is currently looking to move the paper into a new direction by creating more space for news.

Finally, as for using dramatic symbols to get people excited, this the paper excels at! Their first addition as the paper was the local heroes edition and to this day they continue the tradition. They have also started regular yearly additions for weddings, back to school, non-profit work, and a few other yearly features. As a staff, they have bagel Wednesday; if the paper exceeds 100 pages they get lunch on Thursdays, a St. Patrick’s Day stroll (instead of a parade as you need a permit for that), and numerous other moral and fun events. For the community they established the best of section for the community to vote on, the Foodie awards for the restaurants, and the Indies for local theater.

The owner is one of those leaders that through her experience in the business over the years, she worked for the New York Times, Forbes, Rolling Stones, and the Village Voice, she paid attention to the type of environment that she liked working in best and what she felt created an environment to produce the best work from talented people. This is what she brought to the paper and it has worked for the paper for over 23 years!

Meeting with the owner!

Today Monica and I met with the owner of the print media we are observing. It was a fascinating interview! Interviewing the boss last worked for us as it solidified much of what we were expecting after interviewing and observing several of the staff members.

"Is this good for the COMPANY"is a quote for the movie office space and it hangs on a banner in large letters in the production office over Megan and Sarah's desks. The owner seemed to resemble this statement as she talked about supporting staff taking time off to take advantage of professional opportunities (the CFO, who I also call the suit, calls this a benefit), how she doesn't care about the hours of the staff, they can come and go as they please as long as the work is done and excellent, and she encourages the staff to bring in their children and dogs. She recognized as the paper was getting bigger that she should no longer be the center of control and what was best for the company was for her to have them take responsibility of their own sections.

I shared with her that the interviews of her staff, which she notes that she considers them staff versus employees (the CFO calls them employees) that they express loyalty and pride for the product. She wasn't surprised and indicated that this is what she expects.

She was certainly a woman of experience and wisdom. She worked for Forbes and the New York Times in her early career only to move to The Rolling Stones and then the Village Voice where she was a managing editor that reported directly to the owners. She came to Santa Barbara with a philosophy and work ethic that she developed by paying attention to how things worked and what she felt worked best, including how the work place ran. She noticed that a rigid work week was not conducive to a creative environment and her goal was to create a progressively liberal paper.

Now it's time to sift through all my notes, come up with common themes and work with Monica to make sense of it all visually!

Chevrolet

"A genuine leaders is not a searcher for consensus but a molder of consensus." Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

I found this quote on the inside of Ebony magazine. It was placed as a a tribute to the opening of the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Memorial in Washington D.C. this August by the company Chevrolet.

The quote caught my attention for a couple of reasons. First, it reminds me of the idea of leadership where you walk your talk and are congruent with your mission, values, and beliefs. It should not be my goal as a leader of OSL to seek consensus on how the organization should be lead and challenges met. Instead I should have an idea of how to address issues and mange the organization based on what I know, learn, and want the organization to be. This is accomplished through paying attention to the culture of the organization and the needs and desires of the constituents, the UCSB students and administration. I then need to influence support and build consensus to accomplish the said mission. Dr. Matin Luther King Jr. is an excellent example of a person who knew how to harness and build support for a mission.

Second, the quote makes me feel good about the company Chevrolet. Advertising works when meaning is made for the viewer and it positively influences the potential buyer to feel good about the product. Chevrolet is kicking butt with their advertising right now in my opinion with this advertisement and the one they debuted during the Superbowl (I really only watched the commercials and half-time show) where they uplift the town of Detroit where their cars are made. It made me believe in American made products and feel good about building back up a city our country abandoned as manufacturing moved to other counties, like China.

Our second visit

Our second visit to the print organization was just as great as the first. It started a bit wearily, just like the first time as Robby forgot to let Tanya, the face of the organization, but she quickly warmed up to the idea as we introduced ourselves and he (Robby) came out to say sorry and asked if she didn't mind giving us a tour.

She was spunky, spicy, cheeky, sassy, and for sure in charge. She walked us through out the building introducing us to people and showing us the important parts - and she accompanied the parts with good stories.

We spoke extensively with one of the production artists who managed the design of the advertisements. We were throughly fascinated by her wall covered with interesting pictures that represented good times at the paper. We met the woman she works closely with (Sarah) and Sarah's dog - what a cute dog!

The other person we spend a good amount of time interviewing with Matt, the managing editor. He has written for other print organizations and is well known for his work. He doesn't particularly like to manage, but he does really like the freedom and is incredibly proud of the paper. He is down to earth and I really appreciated the time he took - even though I knew he was really busy. He too graduated from UCSB and knew a bit about my organization.

The last person we interviewed was Todd, the CFO, the person we started with through email that wasn't as inviting as we hoped. I asked Tanya at the end of our extensive tour about him and said that we should probably at least say hello (and I noticed he was the one person's office we didn't see). She says to me "Okay, you asked for it!" I said that we didn't have to if she didn't think it was a good idea, but she said "it was too late now." So, we walked into his cave and he really was the odd man compared to the rest of the employees. Megan, the production designer wore incredible jewlrey that she designed and dressed in a hip comfortable style. Matt wore a simple shirt and jeans. Most people looked comfortable and some even stylish comfortable. Todd wore a suite - he stuck out like a sore thumb.

He said yes, that we could ask a few questions. I was lost for words - everyone else was so easy to talk with, but with him, I didn't know where to start. I noticed (his office was full of stuff and quite messy) a box on the floor that said 401's. So, I asked about the benefit of working there and why he stayed for so long (20ish years).  He rattled off the benefits (401K, medical, dental, vacation, sick leave, and even sabbaticals). He then said why he stayed so long was because of the opportunity to do his trade, accounting, at a well known organization instead of doing taxes for people his whole like. He seemed to lack the passion and respect for the paper that the other employees had about the place. I wasn't sure if he was really just like Eeyore and constantly gloomy by nature or not.

Our next step is to check in with Kate and get her feedback and suggestions and then we hope to interview the owner, Marianne. We may not be able to make that happen, but that would be okay as we got a lot of stuff from our two visits.

A Whole Other World!

As Monica and I entered into the world of print media I found myself outside of my comfortable daily life at the university. Although we begun the journey with a rough introduction, the experience turned out to be  fun, interesting, and dare I say educational (as we were to avoid any business that focuses on education, but education should be embedded in any business, right?).

Our first point of contact was with my husband vetting the idea of us visiting through the CFO and a follow-up email from Monica and I. The CFO's response was terse and vague. He set-up two interviews for us but cancelled due to sickness our first the night before we expected to visit. My husband was encouraging and said we should go anyway and see what happens. He does computer work for this organization and knows the staff.

We entered the building nervous and worried about our reception. The woman at the front was temporary and I was talking with her discovering this and wondering what we should do next my husband found staff he felt comfortable introducing us to and set-up interviews for us. The next thing we knew we were in our first interview with one of the sales people.

Mark was incredibly friendly and informative. We learned that most employees were long term, he was one of the newest as of one year. He shared how he was trained and the philosophy of the sales/business department. There are two sides of the house in this world of print media. The business side and the creative/writing side. In many of organizations like these there is actually tension between the two sides of the house. This organization seems not have this problem as they know their places and respect the work of each other. Mark feels good about working at this establishment and has no trouble selling add space because of the strong reputation of this paper.

Our next interview was with Nick. He is an icon of this paper - well known and extremely respected. He has been with this organization since its beginning. He shared with us the nature of his business, dropped the F bomb a few times and continued to sprinkle his speech with colorful language. He spoke of some of the politics around a competitor in town and the transformation of this paper as the politics were heating up of the other paper and there were some majors events happening in SB - the fires. This paper then went on-line and started to provided much desired coverage of important events in Santa Barbara daily instead of just weekly. It was a perfect storm of events for this paper - one paper going through tough political stuff, disasters happening in town, and a new medium that added value was launched.

Our last interview of the day was with a manger of multi-media sales. Robby was talkative and shared many stories about the organization. He opened the organization to us for full disclosure and became our priestes. He came to this organization via a professional organization where he met the owner and editors and they swayed him to relocate. His office is full of artifacts such as buttons, memorabilia and pieces that represent how they once put together the paper. He was animated about sharing with us how they used to wax everything - he had a special shirt he would wear the day they put the paper together, and showed us how it was done.

We left that first day in awe and full of information. We saw chaos in offices with paper layered on desks, walls pasted with pictures, buttons of all kinds, dogs in offices who came over for a pet as we walked by, casual dress, and happy faces with smiles.

The trip began for us with some fear and regret and it ended with my headed spinning from the experience of viewing a new work environment as well as learning a new language and craft.

We will be going back again on Friday to get a tour and meet some more people!

Getting ready to jump in!

I have been thinking about what it will look like to visit the organization we, Monica and I, will be observing. We have made the first step by having my husband contact one of the managers (he does computer work for this company - but is not a full fledge employee) to see if it would be okay to visit, observe, and interview. The manager said that would be fine but wanted more information. Monica and composed an email to the manager and sent it today. Our plan is to do an initial visit Tuesday morning. We plan to have questions all ready to go by the end of the class tomorrow.

As I read this weeks articles on Organizational Intervention I am thinking about the questions that we may want to ask the staff. As most of the articles listed in the syllabus were not accessible, I did a Google Search and am reading articles that pop up.

One such article is Human Resource Tips - How to Initiate Organizational Intervention by Benjamin Nash editor-in-chief of DailyHRTips.comfound that I found at EZine@rticles. His tips are:

1. Are You Ready to Rumble? In order to create change there needs to be a readiness and openness to change. There needs to be a general dissatisfaction within the organization for employees to have the desire and willingness to want change.

2. Do you have the tools needed? If change is desired but the leadership does not have the skill to lead the change, or understand the change, then it can be a disastrous move. They need to make sure that there is someone who is knowledgeable and willing to see the change to the end.

3. What is the Back-up Plan?
Be aware that plans may need amending or even scrapped. Have a back-up plan. This reminds me of the book we are reading "Whatever it Takes" where the authors recognize that a plan for change may have challenges and that it is important to be flexible and work through the challenges, even if it is about starting over. This is how you lead a learning organization.

4. Culture Matters.
He says to make sure that any change initiated accounts for cultural values of the organization and the people who work there. Without accounting for culture change will to happen. This reminds me of what we have discussed in this class - to pay attention to the culture of the organization that we observe!

I am getting both anxious and excited to begin this journey!

How to observe an organization - my current thoughts and reactions

I am thinking that after tonight's class as afterwards we should be going out and starting our observations of an organization. After reading the material and talking about what to look for in class I am more intimidated about the process than I would have if I had gone blindly. I think I am nervous about the process because now I know how much I don't know!

So, what have I learned so far? What are some of the things I should look for?

Lewin's leadership styles, field thoery, and whole picture
Think about how he says that one cannot understand an organization unless you try to change it - I so get this now as I have made changes in my organization!

Schon's learning systems - double loop and organizational leraning and refelction action to professional activiity.

Cooperrider's appreciative inquiry as presented by Bushe in his article about changing social sytems.

Schein's organizational culture.

And all that has been discussed in class:
Look for technology, values, behaviors, beliefs and value of what is important (unspoken norms)
Shared meaning
Symbols, rituals, ceremonies, stories, routines

AND how it ties in with our other class about leading a learning organization!

Boleman and Deal's four frames: structural, human resource, political, and symbolic. Also, how making the organization as simple as possible, but no simpler. Key characteristics: organizations are complex, surprising, deceptive, and ambiguous!

Peter Senge's definition of a learning organzation - these organziations are flexible, adaptive, and productive. They will excel during rapid change.

Oh boy, I guess it is time to jump in!

"Learning is more effective when it is an active rather than a passive process." Kurt Lewin (1890-1947)

I am fascinated by Kurt Lewin's work. I have been feeling when the subject of dissertation topic is discussed and need some help focusing. I am inspired by Lewin's concept of social psychology, as he is known to be the father of the field, and may want to use his concepts to help shape whatever it is I select to hone in on for my topic. "To understand and explain how the thoughts, feelings, and behavior of individuals are influenced by the actual, imagined, or implied presence of other human beings," Gordan Allport. 

I am interested in how first year students feel, interact with, and deal with students different from themselves, especially heterosexual White students with students of color and students who identify as part of the LGBT community as they begin their higher education career at UCSB.  It seems to me that social psychology is a perfect fit to use to study these first year students as it focuses on situations and employs scientific methods and empirical study of social phenomena. This discipline looks at the impact that social the social environment and interaction has on attitudes and behaviors. 

In addition to the potential of Lewin helping me shape the study of my dissertation, I believe he provides excellent insight on how to approach our class project of observing an organization. First, the observance of the type of leadership that plays out in the organization is important - is it authoritative, democratic, or Laissez-Faire? Is it different amongst departments supervisors, teams?

Lewin makes the case to look at the whole by investigating the conditions and forces which bring about change or resist changing groups. His field theory that the "proposition that human behavior is the function of both the person and the environment." This can be expressed in symbolistic terms: B = f (P,E). This means that one's behavior relates to both one's personal characteristics and to the social situation in which one finds one self. So, when we are looking at an organization, we need to be thinking  about why a person believes and acts the way he or she does - what are the influences and how does this person fit into the whole picture and how do we figure that out?

Edgar Schein writes that he believes Lewin correct in how to approach consulting work from a clinical perspective. It starts with the assumption that everything done with a client system is an intervention, and, unless one intervenes, there is no learning of some of the essential dynamics of the systems really are. One needs to be cognizant that the interview itself can change the system and the nature of that change will provide some important data about how the system works, as stated by Schein.

Schein's concept of process consultation is a mode of inquiry to help learn enough about the system to understand where it needs help. It is a philosophy that acknowledges that the consultant is not an expert on anything - operating from a place of ignorance. This helps the interviewer pave the way to ask enough questions to genuinely understand what is going on (or the problem) to make recommendations, which is beyond the scope of our assignment.

Lewin states that "One cannot understand an organization without trying to change it." I think our role as observers will be to push at change by asking questions and seeing how the interviewees react. We are not looking to interfere with operations, but now I understand how we can intervene by simply being there.

Forming/Storming/Norming/Performing & The Culture of Admissions compared to Office of Student Life

I teach a leadership course in the Education with two colleagues titled Introduction to Leadership (ED 173). We incorporate theory with experiential activity. The students participate in a group project and are required to write a final paper reflecting on the theory they are introduced to in relation to their experiences with their group. One lecture I present is on group development and I focus on Tuckman's theory of Group Development. I think because of the simplicity of the theory and the ease of applying the components this theory tends to be one of the more popular students refer to in their papers. I plan to replace one of the readings for ED 173 with the one we were required to read. In addition to that reading, the article about managing groups is meaningful to the work we do in ED 173 and although I think we already do a good job with setting up the groups for class and incorporate many of the concepts the article suggests, there are some additional things I read about that I plan to use as well - specifically the What to Do Before Putting Groups Together.

Edward H. Schein introduces culture as customs, rights, values, norms, behaviors, patterns, rituals, and traditions of an organization. The fully understand the idea of the culture of organizations I thought about the differences of the culture in the works places I am most familiar with - Office of Admissions where I spent 17 years and the Office of Student Life where I am in the middle of my third year.

I have thought about the differences between the two office  an interesting exercise to practice the idea of organizational culture. This is what I discovered:

Admissions - larger staff, several levels of authority, communication top down, 8 - 5 norm, more isolated from campus as a whole, focus on perspective students, and more resistance to change

Office of Student Life - suite of offices with different focuses, not always knowing what office neighbor working on, more integrated into campus, work closely with enrolled students, deals with change regularly, and work schedules vary.

Future of Education website

It was difficult for me to focus on reading and writing during the last couple of days due to me catching an annoying head cold. I was, however, able to play around with a free web hosting/making site to create our "one pager" for our multimedia project. After some loosing of my stuff a few times, some swearing, and lots of nose blowing, I managed to create a product that all though not perfect, I am please with. I learned to copy and paste photos, which wasn't as easy as I hoped, to drop in text, and to move images around to make a visually pleasing layout. Although it was not working on the IMovie, I still felt like I was learning some new technology!

check it out:
http://futureofeducation.webstarts.com/index.html

The Future of the Internet

Umm, so what will the internet look like in 2020? I did a bit of googling and reading myself and this is what I found:

Google won’t make us stupid

Reading, writing, and the rendering of knowledge will be improved

Innovation will continue to catch us by surprise

information will flow relatively freely online, though there will be 

flashpoints over control of the internet

Anonymous online activity will be challenged

This is based on an online survey of 895 technology stakeholders’ and critics’ expectations of social, political  

and economic change by 2020, fielded by the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life  

Project and Elon University’s Imagining the Internet Center.

http://www.pewinternet.org/Presentations/2010/Feb/~/media/Files/Reports/2010/Future%20of%20internet%202010%20-%20AAAS%20paper.pdf

Another youtube about the future
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q41HJTsCoI4

On the “next” Google

Susan Crawford, former member of President Obama’s National Economic Council, now on the law faculty at the University of Michigan is “optimistic that Google will get smarter by 2020 or will be replaced by a utility that is far better than Google.” Others surveyed described new ways of searching (perhaps without realizing that’s what they were doing). Rich Osborne, Web Innovation Officer, University of Exeter, for instance, predicted that “it will become commonplace to be able to overlay reviews of a product simply by pointing a screen at it, or check the weather forecast by pointing your phone at the sky.” (And you can do some of that now with products like Google Goggles and Shaazam.)

http://searchengineland.com/the-future-of-the-internet-search-looks-bright-36585

December 22nd, 2009 by Arley McBlain

OK Internet, let’s call a truce for a minute or two.

As anyone who has spent time on a site’s comment section knows, the Internet can be a cruel place. Articles with the word "Prediction" in the title can invite some pretty terrible and/or amusing flame wars, but I want this article to be just friendly enough that you, the reader, are feeling comfortable enough to jump in with some predictions of your own! There are no wrong answers in a brainstorm. 

1. Audio web surfing

2. We surf on any device

3. Input revisited

4. Mobile networking

5. The end of .com domination

6. IE6 stops being used

http://sixrevisions.com/web-technology/6-predictions-for-the-future-of-the-internet/

EDUCAUSE: Reflections on Play, Pedagogy, and World of Warcraft

I just ran across an article that talks about Warcraft - which is interesting to me as I speak about how my children played Warcraft in my previous post.

Link to the article: http://www.educause.edu/EDUCAUSE+Quarterly/EDUCAUSEQuarterlyMagazineVolum/ReflectionsonPlayPedagogyandWo/213663

Warcraft and Toontown taught my kids a heck of a lot

Okay, so I was one of those moms, and still am I suppose, that doesn't particularly monitor my kids with time watching TV or while on the computer. I found that just when I would be at the point where I'd start to worry about how much time they spend in front of a screen, they then mellowed out all by themselves - or got bored or moved on - without me fighting with them about it. Well, I guess video games and the X-box have been the big influences of their time over the years. Warcraft was first, then Toontown, on to World of Warcraft (WOW) and then Halo - with a short stint of rock band (my favorite). I have to say that my kids learned a ton from playing (obsessing about) these games.

Strategy, collaboration, and accuracy was learned and practiced as they built armies and spoke online with their teams. And, they learned to type might fast as they learned their way around a keyboard at a young age.

Tootown is where they learned about meeting strangers online and begun social networking - years before Facebook took over that function. They created their toon (profile) and while mastering different tricks they met up with people in different rooms.

My youngest graduated to World of Warcraft and continued to build armies and meeting online friends and about this time my oldest became a member of the YMCA and focused on soccer - leaving the gaming world behind with only a few stints of FIFA Soccer when a friend came over. Not to worry though, he is now in-tune with his Facebook account.

And then came Halo (which I admit was a bit too violent for me) and Guitar Hero - my youngest got so good at Guitar Hero that he started taking drum lessons. He was already playing the violin so he knew how to read music, but his drum teacher was impressed on how quick he learned the drumming techniques (Guitar Hero isn't suppose to be anything like actually playing the drums, but I do believe it at least helped create the passion to learn how to play correctly). He has now found his bike and at 13 is extremely social as he runs around with this pack of friends - with only occasional X-box challenges as part of their activities.

So, I believe that video gaming provides valuable opportunities for learning. Kids love to play video games (as do many big kids, aka adults) and if playing a game online or with a console motivates a person to learn math, strategy, team building skills, and or a new language, then let the games begin! My kids are comfortable with the computer, new software, and use it as a tool for school daily. And so, I may have not been such a bad mom for letting my kids have unlimited amount of time on the computer after all - well, maybe I don't have to feel quite so guilty anyways!

What about the co-curricular activities?

Maybe because I view students participating in co-curricular activities as a valuable component of university life, or perhaps because co-curricular activities is my profession, I wonder how students will still be able participate in all the things that happen on a campus outside of the classroom once colleges go predominately online. As I have come to grips of the fact that online education will no longer be a choice, but a reality, and as I read the literature that describes the future of higher education, I have been thinking about how students can still be exposed to some of the same learning and social opportunities that they are today. I am referring to living in a dorm, joining a Greek organization or club, running for student government, sitting on committees with faculty, and participating in intramural sports or even NCAA sports. And so, even when I get excited about learning and thinking about the possibilities of distance learning, I find myself stuck on the co-curricular and extra-curricular aspects of campus life. Ernest L.Boyer in his book Campus Life: In Search of Community (1990) lists 6 Principles of Community that include Purposeful, Open, Just, Disciplined, Caring, and Celebrative. How can distance learning support community?

Okay, so I need to think creatively. Perhaps instead of being on a school athletic team, cities or communities have club teams, maybe Greek communities are locally based along with other clubs. Maybe there are learning bases or communities where students meet to study or have discussions no matter what online college from which they are taking classes. Mark Baulein, in his article Literary Learning in the Hyperdigital Age in the World Futurist Society Magazine, articulates that nondigital space will still be needed to learn classic writing – a balance will need to be made between digital and nondigital outlooks that create a productive tension between technology and the conventional approach to writing. Perhaps online colleges and universities will contract with such centers that offer particular courses like writing and then enable community to be created around opportunities that were once available on the traditional campus. In the name of student development theory and my profession as a dean of students I need to be thinking outside of the box and dreaming of the possibilities to engage students where they are challenged with social, civic,  athletic, and pre-professional opportunities to facilitate the growth for students to become productive and global citizens. 

Digital Natives

Watching Julie Evans from Project Tomorrow - NetDay at the EDUCAUSE 2007 was interesting and relevant to the research I have been doing for the ED 400 project as my group is working on question 2 - higher ed goes completely online. Julie Evans shares some great stuff that gets me thinking about what to expect in 2020 - and I also notice that the talk is already about out of date. I mean, who uses Myspace anymore? Facebook is a better buzz word when talking about social networking - everyone knows that MySpace is best for music, not so much for socializing. Julie Evans introduced to me the term digital natives. She shared that it will be 5 to 7 years, probably more like 5 now since the talk is three years old, until we who work in higher ed will feel the true impact of the digital natives. Our students currently in college didn't have as much technology in elementary school as the kids do now in those grades. This fits with what I have been finding in the research about the students will soon expect, heck, demand, more flexibility with when they want to learn and how. I think of my 17 year old who a couple of years ago was in a math class that utilized an online math tutoring program. He could go to a website and he could listen to instruction on how to tackle a math program that was part of his homework assignment. Believe me, this was helpful as I was a Sociology major and could be of no help! I think Spencer is on the brink of that digital native and that my 13 year old will be right in there with being ready and wanting more use of technology in the classroom - or having class outside the traditional classroom. This is big news that our brick (UCSB) better thinking about the click! My now 13 year old was making friends online as early at 8 years old as he played online games - and only just left the computer where he loyally played World of WarCraft (WOW) and had many online friends for his bike - a new found freedom of roaming the neighborhood. Even though he has traded WOW for the face to face social life and his bike, he is jumping on to Facebook when he gets home and meets the expectation of the typical teenager by averaging over 2,000 text messages a month (thank goodness for the unlimited text message option with Verizon!). As Julie Evans labels us "older" folks - we are digital immigrants! I'm paying attention to my kids and what they are doing in hopes this will help me navigate what to expect in my future work with college students!

Waiting for "Superman"

I just got home from the theater and my head is spinning. I'm pissed off, I''m frustrated, I'm sad, and now I'm motivated. I went into the theater after spending a few hours reading about NCLB, the ESEA re-authorization, and Race to the Top trying to understand what it was all about. Waiting for Superman helped me get to the simple truth about education - it is broken and needs to be fixed! The bureaucracy of funding and policy from the federal level to the state level and then the district and school board levels is enough to complicate any school system. Teachers are not valued, or teachers continue to teach but do not value kids and only think of themselves. My head hurts and my heart aches. And yes, I am now motivated to make a difference and have more clarity - paper, here I come!

Personal Growth Goal

My personal growth goal is to continue my journey of thinking differently. Thinking differently for me is approaching challenges from a leadership perspective, not just as a practitioner's perspective, and to push myself to look at my work through the lens of a person who has the ability to facilitate change.

I was introduced to a new technique using multimedia this summer that was so simple but worked brilliantly. My colleague, Don Lubach, is a technology junkie, much like my instructor, Patrick Faverty. Don turned me on to the concept of using a PowerPoint presentation with a speech (we both had to act the part of deans at Orientation sessions this summer by presenting a deans address that was packed with information and was also serious) where only a few words or a picture was shown on each slide and was timed with our speech. There were about 25 slides for the 10 minute presentation with some that had a word, or a sentence, or a picture that illustrated or brought home the concept or seriousness of the message. Don learned this technique from Lessig.org. Lawrence Lessig is known for his book Code and other Laws of Cyberspace.
I was nervous about doing these presentations, not feeling like I was dean enough, but using this method I felt like it gave the audience, the presentations were in Campbell Hall in front of about 600 people, something to pay attention to as I read along (there was no way I could have memorized this speech - it was too serious and the message was one that needed to be thorough, not told from the hip. Reading Mayer and Moreno's paper on cognitive theory of multimedia made me think that not only did using this technique during my serious dean talk help me get through it, but perhaps the audience retained more of the information then they would have if I just simple read it to them because they got to see something visual to support the message that was being delivered verbally.

Parents educate their children naturally outside of the classroom...

Thinking about how our children are taught in schools and imaging how teaching  can be approached differently I began to think about how parents teach their children. Children learn tons from their parents, and the setting is usually (even for the home schooled) not in the traditional classroom setting behind a desk and in front of a chalk board. Some of the most interesting conversations I have had with my boys have been in the car driving to soccer games and talking or listening to music, in the grocery store looking at ingredients, walking downtown and seeing a homeless person or a kid getting arrested or watching a movie and them asking me questions about is going on. Interacting with real life as it is happening and through the use of technology my children are learning - outside of a traditional classroom.

I am an emotional being or better yet, creature...

This statement reminds me of one of my favorite Tedtalks by the amazing Eve Ensler. I was fortunate enough to see her perform her famous Vagina Monologues in Campbell Hall 8 years ago and again perform her newest work that is shown in this video at last year's Governor's Woman's Conference hosted by Maria Shriver.
The passion she exudes as she talks about her work and others saving girls from mutilation, prostitution, and abuse is moving. I am inspired by her spirit and love. I too am passionate about my work, at the university, with non-profits, and with my children. Monday night's class was the first time in awhile that I felt inspired and intrigued about school - almost passionate even. I am an emotional creature and I love leading with my soul!