How to make a bad decision.

It started with a humour book (or humor book for those who don't spell correctly).

I've recently discovered A.J.Jacobs' new book - The Guinea Pig Diaries - My Life as an Experiment. In the book, the author performs some absolutely inane experiments on himself, and then writes about it.

Let me provide an excerpt from Amazon's description:

"In the Guinea Pig Diaries, Jacobs goes undercover as a beautiful woman. He outsources everything in his life to India, from answering his emails to arguing with his wife. He spends two months saying whatever is on his mind. He lives like George Washington. Plus several other life-changing experiments—one of which involves public nudity."

Now tell me honestly you aren't intrigued.

This man had me laughing out loud several times - until near the end of the book - where he got my brain spinning around the concept of cognitive biases.


According to Wikipedia, (the website we don't allow our students to reference):

"A cognitive bias describes a replicable pattern in perceptual distortion, inaccurate judgment, illogical interpretation, or what is broadly called irrationality. They are the result of distortions in the human mind that always lead to the same pattern of poor judgment, often triggered by a particular situation."

I then scanned the long list of biases in the article and realized that I've applied a few of them over the years. I've even written about one of them in my post: We are Our Own Worst Enemy.

It became very apparent that every leader should be aware that these biases can (and likely do) affect their decision making. Being forewarned is forearmed, and as such let me present a few of your new enemies.

Homogeneous is Good for Milk, Bad for Schools

We want to be the best.

Who doesn't?

If we just wanted to be good, my organization doesn't need a strategic IT leader, it could get by with a manager.

Someone who delivers IT services at the lowest possible cost.

Nothing new, nothing exciting, nothing differentiating.

Safe.

Predictable.

Easily managed.

(Sound like much of IT delivered now, doesn't it?)

And one of the key tools of Safe IT leadership, is the concept of standardization, or homogeneity.

Homogeneity is the state of conformity. Milk from various sources is mixed together to become homogeneous so that every sip will taste consistent.

Now before you jump down to the comment section and furiously type what's going through your mind right now, I'm not against standards... but the concept of universal application of technology to the lowest common denominator so that everyone gets the same level of service, or everyone has the same equipment.

This works well with milk because everyone who consumes milk has pretty much the same requirement from the stuff.  Not so with technology.

My Latest, Favourite Learning Technology



Image via: denablizzard.brinkster.net

Something happened recently at our school that thrilled me to no end.

We introduced some new technology into the classroom that supercharged the energy in the room, got the kids up out of their seats, and had them excited about the lesson - which happened to be economics.

I don't know about you, but when I was in high school, an economics lesson wasn't exactly where I'd go for excitement.  I would put it right up along licking the paint off a house in terms of the wow factor.

So what exactly was the new technology? And what does a picture of a toddler drawing on the wall have to do with this post?

Read on, dear reader to find out.

Renting a Motorhome, and Other Bad Vacation Ideas

When you think of a family vacation in a motor home, what comes to mind?

Joyous cruising with happy children playing board games, with lots of leg room and a fully stocked fridge close at hand?

That's the image we had envisioned when we rented a motor home a few years back to take our family camping (yes I know... a motor home isn't exactly roughing it) in Near-Northern Ontario, about 5 hours north of Toronto, Ontario Canada. (Can you tell I'm getting more International readers?)

Image: WeDiscoverCanada.ca - Who we SHOULD
have consulted before renting.

We rented a big one, since our older kids were joining us, paid the deposit and waited for the big day. We were told we could pick up the beast at 9 in the morning.

Here's a very important bit of advice...  If you are going to rent a motor home, do it from a large reputable firm, or one that was recommended to you by someone you trust.  The company we rented from did not fit into either category.



When we showed up to get our vehicle, it wasn't there.

The owner's son had given it to a group of his friends to take to Daytona.

That is Daytona. As in races. And week-long parties. And kegs of beer.

The friends had promised to have it back in time.

I suppose drinking all that beer made them bad at keeping promises.

They were late.

They pulled in at around 1 pm.

If this group of young gentlemen had been a group of grannies, we could have likely topped up the tank, got in and driven off in a spic and span coach.

Instead, what drove up could only be described as a portable frat house that had just been to Daytona for a week.

Faced with the prospect of losing our holiday, or waiting till they cleaned up the unit enough for us to take it, we opted for the latter. This holiday was important to us.  I sent my wife on ahead in the car, and my sons and I decided to wait.

Ninety minutes later, it was mostly done, with one small issue.

These monster motor homes have very large tanks that hold "grey water" until you can get the vehicle to a dumping station.  For those of you who missed my post Grandma's House, Hockey and Sh*t Disturbers, "grey water" is what is produced when you flush the toilet.

Given the volume of beer consumed on the Daytona trip, the toilets had been flushed. A lot.

The grey water tanks were full and it would take at least an hour to get them drained.

We could take the unit as is, and they would give us a discount for our troubles.

Given that we had already chewed through most of the first day of our holiday, we elected to take this option.

What this meant is that we started our vacation inheriting a motor home tired and abused, shined up but still dirty, and full of someone else's sh*t.

Much like the situation new leaders can find themselves in when they move into a new organization.

You Don't Whack a Gnat with a Bat!

Every summer, the air vents in our office do something particularly strange...

They act as a superhighway for hoards of extremely tiny flies, which make up for their diminutive size by stretching the boundaries of annoying to a whole new level.

MUCH bigger than life Gnat Image: Wikipedia

They are gnats, and I found a picture of one on Wikipedia in order to see what one really looked like.  In reality, they are much like small specks that suddenly appear in your peripheral vision screaming "I'm about to fly up your nose!!"

I don't know about you, but I have trouble ignoring a kamikaze bug, no matter how small.

Dealing with these flying vermin typically involves one of two methods... the one handed scrunch (it works better if you are a trained Ninja), or the two handed clap of death. (if you don't kill them, at least they're now deaf).  To an observer on the other side of the room, either of these methods make you look like someone who has lost their collective marbles... waving your hands wildly in the air and clapping at nothing.

If there are enough gnats, then one can be tempted to use something more lethal than bare hands... like a baseball bat.  I would personally not recommend it.  Not only would the gnats get off undamaged (unlike the furniture in your office), the person watching from across the room would likely call the authorities.

A baseball bat you see, is an overly complex and highly inefficient solution to the problem.

Much like much of the technology solutions IT departments tend to implement.

Work / Life Balance - and other Fallacies

There is much information available today on work / life balance.  I've tried for years to achieve it, and came to the conclusion that sitting in the middle of this continuum is a grand exercise in futility.

The problem for me is that there are so many more facets who I am and what I do than what I do at my work and what I do when I'm not at work.

So being the introvert who over-processes most every conundrum that comes my way, I've come up with a model for a balanced life that has worked for me for a number of years.

I got the idea from a fun, but very unreliable automobile.

Years ago, I acquired an Austin Mini (not the new sexy ones made by BMW, but the original Mr. Bean variety).  The car was affordable, but came with a particular temperament that required me to be under the hood (or bonnet) on a regular basis.

Not my Mini, but you get the idea...

It was a very simple car, and so my marginal mechanical skills were sufficient to keep it going. It was also the most poorly designed car from the point of view that the distributor (the part of the engine that decided which spark plug would fire when) worked best when dry and sheltered from the elements.  The engineers must not have been thinking well that day since this bit of the engine was positioned pointing out to the front, right where all the rain would come through the radiator grill.

It was a mystery to me why a car would be designed this way, especially when it came from a country where it rained more than it didn't.  This design of the engine ensured that when it was raining, the engine misfired terribly, and sometimes I would limp home running on two of the four cylinders.

When the distributor was dry and all the cylinders were firing, the little engine ran as smooth as silk. Which gets me to the point of this post.

Feeding your inner geekness. You are welcome.

Occasionally, my geekness escapes.  I'm normally good at containing it, but when I see something like the interactive web site below I just can't help it.

What if you could put everything (well a lot of things) in the universe next to each other to see the relative size of things... from Quantum foam (the smallest) to the measurable Universe (the largest)?

Carey and Michael Huang have figured out an elegant way to do so.

Here's the YouTube video showing their creation in action:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=uaGEjrADGPA 

Here's a link to the full interactive version:
http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/589217

Visit Carey and Michael's site www.htwins.net for more of these wonderful tools.

Here's to your inner geek!

Blowing Up the IT Department.

U.S. Navy photo by Photographer’s Mate 2nd Class Aaron Peterson.
[Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

It's not everyday you get the opportunity to blow up your organization.  Metaphorically anyway.

At an offsite strategy meeting recently, I was given such an opportunity.

The opportunity didn't come out of the blue.  It was a long time in the making.

But everyone in the room knew it had to happen.

We'd spent the better part of the year imagining great and wondrous things that we wanted to do.

We set some lofty objectives.

We knew the things that needed to happen in order for us to accomplish them.

But one thing was very clear.

IT needed to change.

And I wasn't upset in the least... in fact, I was thrilled.

Gramma's House, Hockey and Sh*t Disturbers

When I was a kid, i loved visiting my Grandma, up to a point.

My grandmother fit every stereotypical thing you could say about Grammas. There was lots of love, us kids were the most important thing in the world, there was a ton of food, and she had lived in her house for ever.

Now in those days, the idea of modernizing houses (especially in rural areas) didn't mean a 70" LCD with satellite.  It meant indoor plumbing... as in toilets.  My grandmother's house was of the vintage where things like electricity, running water, and toilets weren't available as options when it was built.

Which meant for a number of visits, when nature called, it called you out to the little house in the backyard, best known for being cold, dark, and odorous... just the kind of place where Shelob, the giant spider from Lord of the Rings would hide out waiting for prey, or at least a million or so of her smaller (but just as deadly) relations.

To my imaginative over active 8 year old mind, this meant that I would do ANYTHING (or in this case refrain from doing anything) that would require me to visit Shelob's house of horrors.


You can imagine my relief when my grandmother's house finally got modernized.

Perhaps your grandmother lived in a town or a city (or you are too young to share this childhood trauma), but you suffered the same trepidation when you went to the cottage or camping.  To those of us in the survivors of childhood outhouse trauma support group I say "God Bless indoor plumbing!"

Which gets me to my next point.

Canadian schools behind in online learning. Should we care?

I'm a news junkie.

When the news is about technology enabled education, I take notice.

Last week, the Globe and Mail published an article entitled "Canadian schools falling behind in online learning, report says".  It described the loss of leadership in online learning, web enabled learning and distance education.

Kate Hammer's article laid out a lot of facts, but it had a significant gap... To me, it seemed to describe the delivery of education using technology as a separate and distinct process from the classroom delivered experience.

I just had to comment.

I suggest you read the article (link is here), then read the comment I submitted (which earned 15 likes and 4 replies).

Some people disagreed with me, but that's fine with me. I don't claim to have the right opinion, but I certainly have an opinion, and love the dialog.

Building the Perfect Computer for Today's Student.

It's that time again.

We get to buy several hundred computers for our school.

At our school we are in the enviable position of having a pen-based tablet computer for every student and teacher.  It's been like this for 12 years.

Image: MS Office Imagebank

The students use the computers to get their assignments, do their assignments, and submit their assignments.

They work them harder than any business person I've ever met. When one manufacturer told us they simulate extreme use by opening and closing the lid 30 times a day, we laughed.

That typically happens by noon for our students.

The machines starts at 7:00 am when the student checks their messages for the day, and is shoved into their backpack several times, and generally is shut off after homework (or Facebook if we are being honest) after 10:00 pm.

In cowboy terminology "They's rode hard, and put away wet!".

Ours are leased on a two year cycle.  Even with accidental breakage warranty, on-site warranty repair, and a cupboard full of loaners, the computers are OLD at the end of the two years.

Extreme Damage

For most of them, they are like the ax that has been in your family for five generations... it's only had 2 new heads and 5 new handles (but it's the same ax).

The point is... when you implement a 1:1 computer program in a school, and if you expect them to actually use them, then these things will break.

After all, even with the rigorous use, it is still kids using them.  Kids can be, well, a bit goofy - particularly 14 year old boys.

We've seen computers kicked by horses, computers that have been retrieved from the bottom of a pool, computers that have had all the keys removed (purposely), computers with strange liquids and food stuff inside, computers used as baseball bats, and in the case of the picture above, a computer that argued with an SUV, and lost.  The bag was left in the driveway.  Why you ask?  Before you get too judgmental, remember how your brain was working in your teenage years.

If you put computers in your classroom, you need to make the commitment to keeping them running. One of the most important things you can do is get the student back to class as quickly as possible when their computer breaks.  In our model, no computer = inability to participate in class or do homework.

What's on my Bookshelf? (Part 1)

All readers are not leaders, but all effective leaders are readers.

If you are in a position of leadership, you should have a bookshelf.  It shows you are open to new ideas, to learning, and to input from others.

Your bookshelf says a lot about who you are... and want to be.

So... I thought I'd take you on a tour of my bookshelf... one snapshot at a time.

Once I'm done with the physical books (which I am still a rabid consumer of), I'll post a screen shot of my eBook libraries.

Here goes with picture #1...

Don't Confuse BYOT and iTextbooks with Student Engagement

Some days I get up, look in the mirror and say "You sir, are a closet Luddite!"

Image: Frame Breaking 1812 Wikimedia Commons

It's not that I don't like progress, (as some mistakenly think Luddites do... for the actual explanation of Luddite, go to my previous post - Beware! Lest you turn into a new Luddite!".)

What I'm having issues with is the propensity of press that describe BYOT (Bring Your Own Technology) as THE solution to technology assisted education.  What better way to offer choice? Get technology in the classroom? (And if we are honest) Offload the technology costs to the parents of our students?

Schools without technology see this as a way to get technology into the classroom, and we all  (I'm doing air quotes) "know" that technology in the hands of the student means an engaged student. Right?

On a related note, Apple Computer just made a "breakthrough" announcement for the education sector.  They are getting textbooks out of the 16th Century metaphor (Bound Books) and making them more interactive, more "engaging" and more affordable... (as long as you have an iPad to read them on).

Now both of these concepts delight me... I'm the world's biggest proponent of how technology can be leveraged to do things never dreamed possible... that with educational technology properly implemented, teachers can squeeze more into a 45 minute class than they ever could before, or what student or school board hasn't winced at the price we pay currently for textbooks... but at the same time I can't help but feel we are sending the wrong message when we promote BYOT,  or now... iTextbooks.

How to avoid becoming IT road kill.

I had the delightful experience today of being interviewed for an upcoming article in CIO Canada magazine.  The topic of the interview was about hiring and recruiting for IT, including the skills I was looking for, the expectations of today's hires vs. 5 years ago, and most interestingly what a new employee could do in their first year that would make me excited.

I can't give away my full response here, but there is one area in my response that has been rolling around in my ponderbox since getting off the phone.  (You DO have a ponderbox, don't you?  It's the place in your mind where things roll around until you come up with an answer, or are distracted by something more perplexing.)

The question dealt with the changing career path of IT employees.

I'm not sure the interviewer expected the answer I gave him.

I fell off the planet... and survived.

The holidays have come and gone.

While I had a thoroughly enjoyable time eating, visiting family, eating, skiing, hosting family, eating, playing games, finally fixing all the little things around the house that have been loose, burnt out, broken or just plain annoying, eating, hiking, visiting friends... and did I mention food (there were 2 turkey dinners)?

Image: MS Office Imagebank

The one thing that didn't happen, despite all my best intentions, is to get the time to add much to this blog.

It's like I fell off the blogosphere, and was banished from the Twitterverse.

Did anything interesting happen while I was gone?

I'm back in the office now, and the frenetic pace we all love has started up again, and surprisingly, so is the flow of ideas that gave muse to all my other postings.

For me, the writing is an instrument that allows me to organize my world.  I'm really beginning to see that now.

Blogging is part of my survival in the fast pace of "getting much done".

Start At The End

The best advice I ever received when I was looking to start a consulting business was this... "To guarantee success... find a need, and fill it."

There is no value in creating products or services for which there is no need.  On occasion, an organization will come up with a game changing product and redefine a whole industry (think RIM in the early days - replacing pagers with email anywhere, Apple with its iPhone and iPad - bringing smart devices to the masses), but for the most part, the businesses that thrive are those who have found their version of finding a need a filling it.

It seems they excel at anticipating what their customers would need, and when.  It seems they have almost put themselves in the place of the user, and walked through what a successful experience would be.

Interacting with these organizations is eerily intuitive.  The website is informative, expectations are clearly defined, there are no unpleasant surprises, and if it is a product, you could likely hand it to a child and they would be able to figure out how to get started.

I used to have superpowers.

When I was young, I could fly.

I could teleport myself across space and time.

I could beat up any bad guys that got in my way, no matter how big they were.

Image: MS Office Imagebank

In reality, I really couldn't do these things, but in my imagination everything was possible.

In reality,and sadly, children who hung out in the imagination part of their brain didn't do too well in school.

The alternate universe of imagination was an exciting, creative place to be. But it conflicted with the 'real world'.

"Imagineers" had trouble staying on task.  Trouble staying in their chairs. Trouble doing tasks that didn't engage their imagination.

I was one of them.

But in order to ever hope to get out of school, I had to conform.

It meant doing things their way.

Laying aside the superpowers.  Hanging up the cape.

It meant conforming to whatever everybody else was doing.

Skip ahead a few years.

iPads in our School? Not Quite Yet... (Repost)

There have been many questions lately about the role of the new "slate" style tablets in our school.  The most famous of these is the iPad, but also include the collection of other devices in my office including the Fujitsu Q550 and the Lenovo Thinkpad Android powered tablet.

As such, I thought a reposting of this musing would be in order.

Image: Apple.com

Everyone seems to be excited about iPads and other tablet computers (with the possible exception of HP). They are a great personal extension to the internet.   I was recently forwarded the results of a survey done by Staples who (surprise) found people are thrilled with tablets and one of the benefits of having a tablet is that it allowed a number of the survey respondents to have a better work/life balance.

Coincidentally, Staples happens to sell tablets. I am sure the survey results were unbiased. :)

So what about tablets in education?

A Field Trip to the Garbage Dump?

Imagine if your child came home from school with a permission slip to go on a field trip...

... to the garbage dump.

Image: MS Office Imagebank

"Um..." you say since you don't really understand "modern" education.

So you read further.

"We will be dropping your kids off at the front gate of the dump, with the objective of finding something of value buried in all the trash.  There will be no adult supervision on this field trip".

Would you sign?

If you answered yes, then I will be contacting the local Children's Services agency in your area.

You would be foolish to agree to this kind of field trip.

But when we put computers in the hands of our students and give them access to the Internet with no guidelines, objectives, or training, we are essentially agreeing to do this very thing.

Why School Libraries are More Important Than Ever

Kids today have it easy.

Aside from not having to walk 2 miles (uphill) each way to school through waist deep snow, they have the Internet to provide a rich source of knowledge and information, and don't have to rely on the school library to get this information.

Source: MS Office Imagebank

Back in the palaeolithic age when I went to high school, the school library served 2 useful functions... It was a place where you could hang out with your friends (as long as you had a book in front of you and didn't actually make any noise - an extremely difficult task for a goofy adolescent boy), and it held a collection of books (usually 2 per course) that you needed to actually do your assignments.  These were special books that could not leave the premises, so it was always a competition to get your hands on them during your study period, or you may have to actually come in after school -- a fate worse than death to a teenager.

You could always tell when a class received a new assignment when a small horde of students descended on the shelves, each hoping to be one of the two people that actually got a book.  The smart kids actually came in early and moved the books far away from where Mr. Dewey (of the infamous Decimal system) said it should be. While the other kids were frantically looking in the Canadian History section, they calmly walked over to the Biography section and retrieved the treasured tome.

But all of this is foreign to kids today. There is no need to fight over books since everything you need is on the Internet.

Are school libraries even needed today?

Who Gets to Pick the Technology?

It's 3 am.

A critical component in your IT infrastructure breaks. (It NEVER breaks during office hours).

Who gets out of bed to drive in and fix it?

Photo Credit: Michael O'Connell, Oakville, ON

I'll give you a hint.

It's not me.

Rocks in the river

While I have been known to do some high risk activities (like introducing significant change into an organization) there are some activities for which I choose to do vicariously through other people.

White water kayaking is high on that list.

Image: MS Office Imagebank

Now if you are someone who likes to put on a skin tight wet-suit, then squeeze yourself into a Kleenex-thin fiberglass shell that has a particularly annoying habit of preferring an inverted position, and then put said shell at the mercy of a raging river full of bus sized objects, then good for you. But not me.

That's not to say that I don't admire the athletic prowess and skill required. Or that we can't learn a leadership lesson.

The Missing Link in Educational Technology

Contrary to popular belief, effective implementation of educational technology (or EdTech for short) actually has very little to do with technology.

The problem is, we keep acting like it does... and it will be our demise.

Charles Darwin Image: MS Office Imagebank

In my career I've had the blessing (or the curse) to have worked in implementing technology in a number of industries from consulting, to commercial software development, to telecommunications, to transportation, to manufacturing, to universities, to large colleges, and medical schools. All of this has culminated in my latest mission - to define and execute the model to support the delivery of an education experience that equips our students to be successful in this world we are sending them into upon graduation.

Let me reach back into my curriculum vitae and pull out my medical school experience, for I feel it is here that we can draw some learnings for the model we need in the educational sector.

What are you fighting for?

What are you fighting for?

It is most appropriate today to ask this question.  In Canada, today is the day we remember the commitment and sacrifice of those who serve our country in times of peace and war. While we may have differing viewpoints on the value or necessity of war and conflict, we can all be thankful that there are those willing to serve on our behalf.

When I was a kid in grade school, instead of the lock-down drill that is unfortunately so necessary in today's world, we used to have nuclear alert tests, where on signal all of us children immediately ducked under our desks. (I really have to wonder what that desk was made of, that would protect a child from the effects of a nuclear blast.)

We were in the 'Cold War', and technology and science were going to help us keep our country safe from the perceived enemy. We needed to put a man on the moon first, we needed to have a strong healthy economy so we could show the world how much better democracy was for its citizens.

We all had a common enemy.

It kept us focused.

Putting Tech in Today's Classroom

Let me start this post from two quotes from Dr. John Medina's book Brain Rules:

At the end of the introduction, he writes,
“If you wanted to create an education environment that was directly opposed to what the brain was good at doing, you probably would design something like a classroom (p. 5).”

Near the end of the final chapter, he writes:
"If you could step back in time to one of the first real Western-style universities, say, the University of Bologna, and visit its biology labs, you would laugh out loud. I would join you. By today’s standards, biological science in the 11th century was a joke… But if you went down the hall and peered inside Bologna’s standard lecture room, you wouldn’t feel as if you were in a museum. You would feel at home. There is a lectern for the teacher to hold forth, surrounded by chairs where students absorb whatever is being held forth. Minus perhaps an overhead or two, it looks remarkably similar to today's classrooms. Could it be time for a change? (p 278)"

The book itself is a fascinating read, and as a brain researcher, Dr. Medina draws on the lessons learned by studying the behaviour of this most fascinating of the bits and pieces in our bodies, particularly where it applies to learning and remembering.

Dr. Medina's research has shown that the traditional classroom design, very much in use today, is probably one of the most inefficient environments for learning.  We learn best when we can move around, when we can focus, when we are well rested, when things are presented visually.

Even if you aren't in education, this is a fascinating read.

You Can't Cover Your Butt with a Flagpole

If you ask my wife, I have two emotional speeds... On. And off.

Now keep in mind that emotions are much different than passions - If you've ever been buttonholed by me talking about the exciting things going on in technology leadership you will know I'm pretty passionate.

But in the emotional arena, I would have to agree with my wife. For the most part, there isn't much that fazes me. I can generally overlook a number of things to focus on the objective.

On rare occasion I do get irked.

I know I shouldn't, but I do.

There is one type of behavior that finds, then "pushes my button" repeatedly.

Nasty but Necessary

I'm a huge proponent of strengths based leadership.

Let me explain.

Strengths are not necessarily what you are good at, but doing activities that engage your strengths bring fire to your belly, a sparkle in your eye, and time flies by so quickly it seems like you just started.

For example, based on a StrengthsFinder assessment, one of my top strengths is "Analytical".  I love gathering data, then seeing the patterns that form.  I love solving problems and puzzles.  On a day that has challenges, I am truly happy.

But I'm not talking about the things that bring you energy. I'm talking about the activities that you find soul sucking, uncomfortable, or perhaps just boring.

Kinda like the stack of dirty dishes after a big meal.

Now the interesting thing is that the list of soul sucking activities is different for every person.

Some people hate budgets while others love "the story the numbers tell you". (I am not making this up, I actually heard someone say this.)

Some hate interacting with people, others love it to the point of not getting any work done.

Some hate persuading others to see their point of view (otherwise known as sales, politics, or executive leadership) while others thrive in this area.

Some people thrive on change, while others love consistency.

But that doesn't mean you get to choose to do only the things that energize you.

The Last Bastion: Changing our Schools

I was a terrible high school student.

Not terrible in the sense that I got bad marks, but terrible in the sense that I hated school and couldn't wait to get out of the system.

I was disengaged in most of my classes.

I didn't see the relevance in what I was being taught.

I was in a place where quiet, compliant, memorizers of information did well.

Original thought was not encouraged.

High school was something to be tolerated until I graduated.

So it's a surprise to many that I now have a career in education.

A "Perfect" Disruptive Storm

I'm in Orlando this week at Gartner's Symposium/ITxpo.  It is one of those long day, drink-from-a-firehose events where I'm together with over 10,000 people like me.

Scary thought.

But there's an even scarier thought brought out by Peter Sondergaard, SVP of Research at Gartner Inc.

Peter Sondergaard Photo: C/Net

There's a perfect storm of disruption coming, and since IT supports so much of the business of the world, the storm is coming to IT.

We can't do things the same way anymore. CIOs need to be out front, leading the change.

We need to re-Imagine IT.

Think like a Tugboat

Image: Wikipedia

Almost twenty years ago, my family and I lived in paradise.

Imagine a place where you could go skiing, sailing and golfing... all in the same day.

Imagine a place of friendly people, stellar mountains, blue oceans, and lush green forests... where it rained 300 days a year, but when the sun shone, everything could seem right in the world.

Of course I'm talking about Vancouver British Columbia.

There were things you could see in Vancouver you would never see in other parts of the country (including 6 inch long crawling slugs but I digress... You can tell I don't work for BC tourism).  

Vancouver is a port city, and as such the never ending business of a port provides a delightful cacophony of activity.

If you've been to Vancouver, you will be familiar with Lions Gate bridge - which looks a lot like San Francisco's Golden Gate bridge. It is a Canadian historic site, but is also a major traffic artery between the cities of Vancouver and North Vancouver.

On occasion, the US Navy would bring one of their aircraft carriers into the port.  This was a big deal for the locals since we didn't often get a chance to see a craft that big (the Canadian Navy IS jealous) and secondly, the highest part of the ship's antennas were just a few metres lower than the maximum clearance afforded by the Lions Gate bridge.  It had to happen at the lowest tide, with favourable conditions (you notice my spelling is very Canadian today), with the bridge cleared of traffic and was much like threading a needle with an incredibly large object.