Vision and Strategy

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School Innovation Trajectories: Steep Curves or a Quantum Step?

Hitting a moving target is all about aim, velocity, and trajectory.  When NASA fires off a satellite to intersect with an asteroid, they need to accurately calculate where that little rock will be a few years from now. If they are wrong in those calculations, and if the satellite has booster rockets, they can make [...]

Why Tesla REALLY Matters For School Leaders

Tesla took orders totaling more than $14 billion for their new car model...in one week. There are a number of other electric and hybrid cars on the market and coming soon, and some with arguably better range and price point.  The analogy to Apple computers should be lost on no one. What Elon Musk did [...]

What is the Purpose of a Job?, via Jordan Greenhall

I met Jordan Greenhall last night; he has a remarkable background in technology companies and I was immediately impressed with his thinking about connected learning and social systems. This short video outlines some of his thinking about "why we have jobs" and what social and economic benefits they provide in a post-industrial economy.  This is [...]

By | 2016-03-31T17:47:22+00:00 March 31st, 2016|Innovation in Education, Vision and Strategy|0 Comments

My Vodcast Series with “Project 2051”

I have been recording a series of short (10 minutes or so) conversations with Garth Nichols and Justin Medved, two educators in Toronto, as they and their interscholastic group of colleagues, and the Canadian Association of Independent Schools, use #EdJourney as one guide in their conversations around changing schools.  If you are looking for a [...]

The Battle Between Trust and Fear

In a battle of fear and trust, trust needs a great hand to win. This morning's always-provocative #satchatwc, hosted by Shelley Burgess, on the nature of trust, generated a rapid and steady stream of great, targeted, and pithy advice about how leaders can build trust in their organizations.  There were powerful quotes from Stephen Covey and [...]

Do We See the Waterfall Ahead?

When we benchmark against other schools, are we focusing on the river or on the banks? Assessing how well an organization is meeting its mission is a difficult job. Most organizations compare themselves against other similar organizations with similar missions following the logic that measuring against an "average" or a "best in class", tells us how [...]

Another View of Strategic Design in Schools

Strategic design is the term I have coined for an inclusive, transparent, imaginative, and transformative process that builds real capacity for innovation and change in schools. Have another glance, this time at The Bolles School in Florida. Sure, the video is a bit of a sales pitch for the school, but imagine this kind of [...]

How Does TIME Support Innovation at Schools?

I was honored to guest host the very popular #SatChatWC this morning (Saturday mornings, 7:30 am Pacific Time; hosted by Shelley Burgess and Dave Burgess of Teach Like a Pirate fame). It is a "west coast" chat, but always seems to have great representation from educators from pretty much every US and Canadian time zone.  My [...]

What is Your School’s “Extra Chunky”?

Does your school have the courage to invest in the extraordinary? That was the thesis question posed by independent thought and practice leader, Tim Fish of McDonogh School last week at the NAIS conference. I have known Tim for more than ten years, but had never seen him present. It was so succinct, so precise, and [...]

Vodcast: How We Can Reimagine “Time” in Schools

In my ongoing conversation with Canadian schools on how they can best change to meet the needs of the future, here is my second weekly vodcast with Garth Nichols and Justin Medved.  We talked about how schools view "time", and how they can re-imagine use of time to better meet their learning goals. Follow along [...]