IMAGINATION, CREATIVITY AND INNOVATION

“Nothing succeeds like success” We all know this old proverb - originally coined by Sir Arthur Helps in his 1868 book Realmah . He implies that success leads to opportunities for more and greater successes.   But what does success look like?   In particular, what does a successful customer relationship look like? What does a successful employee experience look like? What does successful stakeholder involvement look like? Let’s start with the customer. What is it that will make a customer satisfied and what will make them a repeat customer?   For me, it’s about trust.   If the customer trusts you to deliver what they need and what you said you can deliver then you are most of the way there.   But real trust comes when you deliver more than a customer thinks they need or deliver it faster or more efficiently than they were expecting.   So we can look at trust like this:   TRUST = RESPONSIBILITY + DELIGHT ...

--> 26% of Australian students – more than 1 in 4 – fail to complete year 12 at school or a vocational equivalent, according to the Educational Opportunity in Australia2015 report by the Mitchell Institute.   And the numbers are worse for those from socio-economically disadvantaged areas and worse again for Australian Indigenous students. Is this a failure rate that a business would put up with?   What if your business lost 1 of every 4 of your customers a year?   Every year?   Wouldn’t your business be in crisis mode?   So where is the panic from government?   Why aren’t the customers of our education system – the students and their parents and guardians – up in arms?   And the ultimate end-users – the businesses that need bright, creative new employees – why aren’t they screaming for change? How did we become so complacent about failing the next generation of employees and employers, of entrepreneurs and innovators? In poor...

I’m acutely aware that I work in an industry filled with creative people.   People who have a talent for interpreting a syllabus, for understanding teacher and student needs and for fashioning and developing a product or a service that meets those needs.   I’m also aware that this is an industry with a conscience.   That we believe in what we do and that it makes a difference. Educational publishing has an opportunity to use its creativity, experience and social conscience to explore how technology can improve what we do and how we do it so that modern school needs can be better met. Here is a phrase that gets bandied about a lot.   “School is broken.”   But is it? In 1899, William T. Harris, the US commissioner of education, celebrated the fact that US schools had developed the “appearance of a machine,” one that teaches the student “to behave in an orderly manner, to stay in his own place, and not get in the way of others.” ...

--> Adapted from Reynolds, R   The Future of Learning Content 2012 Is content still king in schools?   The learning process is evolving because of technology.   The shift from analogue content to digital content is causing a number of changes. 1.      Tethered learning has become mobile.   Students are no longer tied to their classroom or their bulky textbook.   They can study anywhere and at any time on a laptop, tablet or smartphone.   Study materials have become tactile – we can touch, feel and interact with content in ways that we previously couldn’t.   Content can be presented in a variety of ways – useful video and animation complement text and flat illustrations. Example - http://dynamicscience.cambridge.edu.au 2.      In the ‘traditional’ chalk and talk classroom information was broadcast to students all at once.   Whether the students were listening to the teacher -...

Not the president, or the person with the most distinguished title, but the role model. Not the highest paid person in the group, but the risk taker. Not the person with the largest car or the biggest home, but the servant. Not the person who promotes himself or herself, but the promoter of others. Not the taker, but the giver. Not the talker, but the listener. C W Pollard (1996). The Leader Who Serves. In F Hesselbeing, M Goldsmith and R Beckard, The Leader of the Future (P. 241) New York: Drucker Foundation

The buzzwords in education circles recently are ‘Adaptive Learning’.  Computers are to analyze how a student responds to different presentation styles and serve up more of what works best. 'Adaptive learning is an educational method which uses computers as interactive teaching devices. Computers adapt the presentation of educational material according to students' learning needs, as indicated by their responses to questions and tasks.'   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adaptive_learning Sounds good so far. This should mean that students will learn more efficiently and presumably at their own pace. The argument goes that the learning gaps between higher and lower achievers will close and that students will have increased confidence. Still sounds good. But is this all there is to learning? Is successful learning what happens when presentation of content is absorbed and the student can complete some practice exercises? A P-P-P MODEL The teacher ...

'If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.'     Abraham Maslow, The Psychology of Science , 1966. A ‘Birmingham screwdriver’ is the one tool used by the lazy for all purposes – i.e. it is a hammer!   You are not a leader if you apply the same concept, methodology or technology to all problems.   In fact, if all you see is problems then you are not seeing opportunities.   Leaders see opportunities everywhere, even in the problems they face.    Leaders have many tools in their box of tricks, not just a Birmingham screwdriver.   The non-leader will look for anything that looks like a nail so they can hammer it down – crossing off ‘solved’ problems, usually internal, from their to do list so that they ‘achieve’ more than others. A leader looks for opportunities to solve others’ problems, usually external, so that people – customers and staff – feel appreciated. They ‘do’ with people, not to people. Beware...