Vicki Bigham and I did a show with Larry Jacobs on Education Talk Radio this morning about EdNET. We had some fun bantering about the conference and trends in the industry. I got a chance to brag on the Packers and shared that I own an actual stinking badge (see below).
Enjoy:
stinking_badge
We Are Teachers has a bitter sweet post up about the funny things people say to teachers – with appropriate responses.
Here is a sample:
The comment: “Johnny NEVER misbehaves/has trouble paying attention/hits other kids/acts out at home. I wonder what you’re doing in the classroom to make that happen.”
UPDATE: For those who took offense at this graphic know that as I saw it the teachers’ drinking was a result of the cycle, not the cause. I interpreted this graphic as a slag on parents (myself included). If you are a teacher and were offended please accept my apology. If you are a parent and were offended – go volunteer in your local school. Regular readers will know that I have nothing but the highest respect for teachers.
One simple graphic from the always brilliant Jessica Hagy untangles the whole complicated mess.
Nuff said.
Numbered lists on blogs are all the rage, particularly at the turn of a new year.
Since mid December my RSS feed has been stuffed with 10 best if 2011, 20 ways to do that, and 12 things to look for in the new year. Oh February please come soon.
If you find yourself falling for this brand of year-end-birdbrainery consider the following 5 points.
There are bad ideas that become iconic for every era because they were popular fads. Pet Rocks, the Pacer, Supply Side Economics, and .com groceries all come to mind.
Looking back we all scratch our heads and wonder – why?
Gamification, ripping the reward and recognition systems out of video games and applying them to behavioral modification is likely to stand in for our current times in the future.
I just got back from two weeks off, really off as in “I read 6 books” off.* The whole family sat on a chilly island in the Northwest and just let the old mazooma roll in. I highly recommend it.
My time away generated the germ of a couple of meta posts about publishing in the era of social media. But, before we get to that I saw the worst use of social media on on my flight out. If there were social media police these guys would be doing hard time.
I use an off-site parking lot when I travel. They get all the fundamentals exactly right – there is always space, you are always picked up within 1-2 minutes, they are clean, drivers are pleasant etc. etc. They normally bring their A game to everything they do.
Is the Internet making us dumber or are we just using our brains in new ways? The BBC posted a great overview of a new study which makes the case for a neat trick the brain is pulling now that we have 24/7 access to the web.
The article notes:
“When participants knew that facts would be available on a computer later, they had poor recall of answers but enhanced recall of where they were stored.
There is a profitability model for companies promoting themselves on Facebook and Twitter. There a lot of people making good coin from the incessant flogging of companies and organizations in social media. It just isn’t the companies themselves who are profiting.
Here is how it works in four easy steps:
This whole scenario is so wrong on so many levels it makes my teeth hurt. Here are some thoughts to help reframe this approach that map back to each stage of the process above.
Email marketing is pretty simple – as much as possible communicate with people who want to hear from you. But a subset of these folks just don’t get it.
If I go to the trouble of clicking “unsubscribe” please do not send me ANOTHER FRICKING EMAIL CONFIRMING I NO LONGER WANT EMAIL FROM YOU.
It insures that I move from the “mildly annoyed” column to “actively pissed off at your company” status.
Social media mirrors the dynamic features of a natural ecosystem. Which niche you are going to fill? Here are four examples with loving snarkitude – feel free to add more in comments.
Hamsters constantly post small updates on every aspect of their life. Favorite habitats are Twitter and Facebook. They eat any small scrap of feedback up. Want to know what they had for dinner or what their kids did this afternoon? They will be spinning along on their wheel of self-absorption assuming the whole world is fascinated. If you are a dear friend or a family member I might be interested in this – in small doses. If you are an acquaintance – not so much.
Owls save their powder for long blog posts on their theory of life – posting infrequently but weighing down your RSS reader with dense prose. Favorite habitats are Blogger or their own bespoke blog. They eat spam comments by the barrel and sustain themselves on the infrequent genuine comment that validates their sense of importance. They sit on the Internet’s roof and hoot out who, how, and why? But really – why?
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