Hey I made it to Allentown PA

Made it to Allentown. Nice city. Got through the airports and made it to the hotel Got to go and have a run and then got down to business.





Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

When one is in a hotel it is important to check out the wifi. Very small band width capacity when the hotel is full. I had a hard time getting stuff done as I was kicked off all the time.

Procrastination. Bites me in the butt. Ah well Tomorrow will be fine.

Going to be a keynote

Sitting on a United Skywest Filght to Chicago and the having a working layover of 5 hours until a flight to Allentown Pa has finally given me time to write a little. I have been hard at work over the last 6 weeks trying to get the school year done and complete a Keynote Address for the CIU20 in Pennsylvania.

Exciting and scary at the same time. The amount of year end tasks that pile up like a bad disorganized wood pile. Oddly enough I just pushed them aside and got down to business writing a Keynote.

This was the difficult part. When it come to the pedagogical applications of using technology in the classroom I can crank off an hour without thinking. Good thing for me the nice people in Pennsylvania want 4 of those sessions.

I will show how to start using the tools of the trade. How to set up blogs and wiki’s to hook student engagement and harness the social networking jugernaught already in their classroom.

I will give a couple of sessions on E-portfolios and Unprojects. These are my favorite subjects and I will show my audience large or small the benefits of “Releasing the Hounds”.

The Keynote is based on Marshall Mchlluans “The Medium is the Message”. Mchluhan was a brilliant Canadian academic that took the communication world by storm in the late 1960’s and 70’s. His fame really occurred when he started talking about the changes that television was making in the world. His statement ”The Medium is the Message” talks about 2 things Medium and Message.

A medium is anything that we create from inventions to innovations. TV was a radically new beast at the end of the 60’s and was rapidly shrinking the world. A medium is also an extension of ourselves. Like a hammer in our hand or a wheel under our feet. Technology is a medium. Mchluhan had no idea about the internet but everything he described about television can be applied to the Internet and how it has revolutionized communication.

Mchluhan’s message is the change brought about by the medium. “McLuhan tells us that a "message" is, "the change of scale or pace or pattern" that a new invention or innovation "introduces into human affairs."

Never having done a keynote before I started creating the slides that would take this Mchluhan idea and make it relevant to education. I made the slides alright. All 100 of them. Whether this is too many or if I am going to run out of time is not known at this moment. I have practiced for the past 3 days and am under the 60 minutes given to me.

On the upside Darren came by and showed me some of the great bells and whistles include in Keynote software. My presentations look sharper and more appealing.. Taking this new found information I reworked the other 4 presentations from K12 last year to make them more eye appealing.

I was going to ustream the keynote but it is too much of a risk. I do not want to blow up this Macbook and have the presentation fall apart around me. I will be recording the audio and then making a slidecast of the presentation. Uploading the 100 slides to slideshare should be interesting.

Time for a break before landing in Chicago.

bye.

I found It

During the Microsoft Innovative Teachers Conference in Winnipeg a few of us went and had an UNsession and ustreamed most of the session. Until now I thought that I had lost the recording. Surprise. I have found it and am proud to let you all in of the great discussion we had about the classroom of the future, innovation in education and more.

Broadcast by Ustream.TV

Hmm New Sir Ken

Thanks Alice for pointing me in this direction. New Sir Ken Robinson talking about creativity. Similar message but new takes on some of his great ideas.

What would you add to this classroom

What am I missing? Help

Microsoft Innovative Teachers Conference Keynote Day 2

Arnold Wasserman Keynote Day 2



Here is the only video I know of the informal chat we had at the end of day 1

Microsoft Teachers Conference 2008 Day 1

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Innovated Hotel Chain

Fairmont Hotels

• Innovation with Human Resources
• Fairmont was created in 1907 in San Francisco. (can anyone say James Brolin!!)
• Fairmont was bought by the CP hotel chain.
• Canadian Pacific needed a way to survive the chaos that was the industry in the late 80’s and 90’s.
• For CP to go global there would be a problem. When they bought the Fairmont Chain this allowed them to go global. Fairmont now has hotels in Russia, China and the UAE. The explosion in growth now are due to changes they created in the 1990’s.
• The strength of Canadian Pacific has been put into the Fairmont Chain.
  

How is this chain Innovative?
How about an environmental Policy. This sets the Fairmont apart from the rest of the hotels in the industry. Fairmont is on the thin edge of the market share or has a niche market. The clients of the chain were early adopters of the environmental movement. The hotel is chemical free. They have a very thorough environmental policy.

The hotels are different in Canada and the United States. They have 1000’s of employees and Human Resources are important. You need to get the right person right off the bat. They have created a specific interview that provides a good picture of the employee they want to hire. Whether that person be a front desk employee or a executive board member there is a specific interview for you. These interviews have been a success because of the lack of turnover in staff. Many of the entry level employees move up the ladder to be life long employees. The upskill benefit is more important than the short term gain of hiring the wrong person. There are hue benefits of having a stable staff.

One of the features of the Fairmont is guest name recognition. 10000 clients go through the Fairmont Winnipeg each year. 84% of the visitors will have their name said 4 times a visit. This personalizes the experience. Keeps their niche market happy.

Fairmont Fit is another innovative idea at the Fairmont. At one resort the head pro and the rep from Taylor Made. In the last 5 years Taylor made has provided for clients of the Urban hotels rental clubs of high quality. At the resorts the clubs were not as necessary.

Also at the hotels there is a deal with Adidas. They have provided running shoes and gear for people to use at the hotel. No longer do you have to bring your own kit with you. When you show up your Fairmont Kit is on your bed.

Emi provides MP3 players for all guests to use and with changeable playlists.

BMW is providing bikes for clients. Everything is about the guest. The service industry at its best.


The Fairmont has a web based microsite
The site is used to do brain storming of as the Fairmont reps like to call it Brandstorming. Ideas are put on to a website where they are seen by all. There are 5 parts to this service.

1. Big Sky Thinking Take a risk, No limits, What ifs...
2. Evaluate the ideas Feasibility and impact
3. Segmentation Plotting out the ideas Lets get this moving... Hey we can do it.
4. Authentic is it relevant to the customer of Fairmont? Does this idea have legs?
5. Share your idea Creative ideas that have been used are a pillow menu and Venus Fly Traps.
   

It is important to have ideas to personalize the stay of the clients. You can go to the site to find solutions for interesting problems. this is more than a message board.

More local ideas
My Winnipeg Podcast that will include experiences of local employees to suggest to their guests.
Uniforms have a local aspect to them. Perhaps i the future the doormen will have voyager outfits on!!
Menus will be made with a 20 mile diet. But be of a quality that is needed for the clients.
Eco Innovations. The hotel chain gives away “waste” (shampoo, soap etc) to charities. They also give away furniture and cutlery to needy organizations.
The culture of the Fairmont is to share. They share ideas and methods to make their clients stay meaningful and brings them back again.


Educational applications you bet. Try brandstorming you ideas and see what happens.