Know-How Exchange : Advertising/PR

Are you looking for a conference title that relates to 'breaking out of the box' but because of the Provincial directive you must stick within the concept and speaking notes of 'Continuous Improvement Framework'? Your question is not exactly clear to me (and perhaps not clear to others)

Hi, I'm Darcy, and I'm located right here in Regina, Saskatchewan. Yes, a Marketing Profs expert right here in SASKATCHEWAN! I confess, I'm a local boy, but if you look at my standings (in the top ten experts - Overall), I think you'll find that I have a history of thinking outside the box (and you have no idea how thankful I am for doing so).

For a long time I've been saying that other than Wheat and Oil, our other major export of the past 60 years from Sask has been our Youth. Of my graduating class, I think there is myself and perhaps five other folks left here. We have exported our best and our brightest for far too long, and its time it stopped.

As you point out, you are stuck with experts who deal with the three R's (Reading, Writing and 'rithmatic'). Well, that's too bad, because many of those experts can' find their @ss with both hands at high noon. The real issue is our Provincial Government set up the school system in Saskatchewan to fail. The Unions did a terrible job of skewing the tenur system to reward longevity for teachers, filling the 'corporate' ladder with long timers who rode out their working years for fat pensions, forcing the young teachers who gave a damn about teaching and learning to seek careers in other provinces. Now that Saskatchewan has had a change of government (yeah!) and we have begun to capitalize on our natural resources (oil, gas, potash, wheat, innovation and entreprenuership), now its time to hang out the welcome mat to many of those young teachers who were forced to begin their careers elsewhere. Well, now that those teachers have established roots in other communities, begun their own families, and have begun to set down roots so they can have a career and a stable family too....now you expect these folks to uproot themselves and return to Saskatchewan?!! In a word: WHY?

Why would anyone want to come back and start at the bottom? Why would anyone want to come back to an already full corporate ladder and slowly work thier way to the top? There is a lot of WHY questions out there, which is why I created a web site designed to gather answeres to all those questions.

Check out www.SaskatchewanViews.com

This web site is a tool designed to gather answers to what drove our youth away, what it would take to bring them back, IF in fact some will come back. It also offers opportunity to gather data why people won't come back, and what keeps them staying where they are. If you want, I could build one for you to use and gather data from your folks. Wouldn't you love to know what it would take to bring great teachers to Saskatchewan? Wouldn't you like to know why teachers stay where they do? Wouldn't it be interesting to ask many of the same questions of the teachers who chose to stay here, and why? I think you might find some VERY interesting answers to such questions, and give you a much firmer base on which to build a case FOR Saskatchewan as resource to come back to, or stay with.

I'd like to speak to the concept of thinking outside the box. We need that in Saskatchewan, but we also have to admit that for far too long folks who thought outside the box were tall nails, and everyone was looking for a hammer to knock those tall nails down. Why the sudden interest in thinking outside the box? Is it because you FINALLY realize that Saskatchewan has to COMPETE for skill and talent? I hope so, because such thinking is about 62 years too late for Sask.

My son was one of those students who slipped through the school system cracks. Again, the same old thinking was only making the situation worse. Eventually, we removed our son from school and sent him next door to Calgary to a school that REALLY thinks out of the box. I highly recommend the non-linear thinking of Steve Trusch and is Reading Foundation. His system breaks down learning into boot camp like fundamentals and then builds the student up. My son picked up three grade levels of reading in six weeks and saved his education. My son know has a decent chance to make it through the Saskatchewan school system and have a decent shot at life (and no thanks to your present system in South Sask). I would hope that if you are looking for speakers who are VERY out of the box and can re-invigorate the 3R's, think of Steve and his Reading Foundation. I think you'd receive an eye opening headful of 'out of the box education thinking' from this man. (Go ahead, I DARE you!)

Ah yes, good old Saskatchewan, hard to spell, easy to draw. We are firmly entrenched in yesterday, but I hope we can change. I chose to stay here and fight for the change that is needed to get Saskatchewan going again. Its ironic that here on Marketing Profs, the place that has allowed me to live a life beyond the borders of Sask and real market test ideas that my local market would not allow/could not accomodate, and kept my business competitive mind sharp and free beyond the rectangular borders that 'constrain us', is now a resource for the teachers of our promise of tomorrow to turn to for advice.

Look, our borders do not constrain us, nor are thay a border that constricts us. Our borders USED to be a way to define us, but today is a whole new world. I've prepared for 20 years for the days we have today. Let's work together to make these borders 'OPEN' to any to all as a renewed land of opportunity. We are a Land of Living Skies, be prepared to receive what you asked for, because I feel Saskatchewan's best days are coming, and coming real real soon!

Darcy Moen
Customer Loyalty Network
Proud Saskatchewanian (and related to Carol)
Contact me via my profile (if you want)

There is nothing in Continuous Improvement that means it needs to be incremental, just that it needs to be genuine measurable improvements (eg the Frosbury Flop for high jump)

But it sounds like everyone sees this as a more-of-the-same treadmill, inching up standards. So I'd go for something like

"Reaching the next level - making step-change improvements"
"High performance improvements - stepping outside the comfort zone"
"Jumping higher by working smarter"
"Desiring to be the best, motivating and inspiring top performance"
"Stop digging and start working"
"What really makes a difference"

A simple suggestion would be "The ABCs of Breaking The Box" or "1,2,3 ... Break The Box" to allude to writing or mathematics.

Alternatively: "Improving Education By Leaps and Bounds"

Cheryl, I've been working with one of the private schools and have built the frame work for not only a complete online learning school (grades 9 - 12), but I've also made it transportable so the school fits on a thumb drive.

Yes, the thumb drive IS a web server that plugs into a desktop. A school on a key chain if you will. This was designed to be a learning resource for remote areas of Africa and morphed into a tool to reach student virually anywhere, and all stages of life (adult learning). Want to see it? Better yet, want some for our province? I'd be happy to show you.

In fact, here is a link to an online learning resource I built for a client in the USA. He sells Customer Service Representative training to dry cleaners via the web site: https://www.testmycsr.com Owners of dry cleaning shops purchase seats in the online 'classroom' for their staff. The owner receives and assigns an employee a user name and a password to enter a particular lesson or block of lessons. Once the student has reviewed the training resources, they are then directed to an exam. Once the student has completed the exam, the web system grades the answers and emails results to the business owner. Yes, this online learning system GRADES its own students exams WITHOUT need of a human reviewing the answers! Student with Passing grades receive a certificate via email later. I prefer to see this online learning tool not as a system that replaces a teacher, but frees up aand EXTENDS a valued staff memebr to work in other areas while the online learning system is available to students world wide 24/7/365 at the students convenience. If need be, I can transfer this entire online learning system onto a thumbdrive and make the online learning system transportable. Have I blown your mind yet?

I don't think you are hemmed in by the mantra, its only a frame work. Take a real close look at what breaking out of the box means, the first word is 'breaking'. I'd encourage you to BREAK the freaking rules and just go all out. I don't mind telling you that for a long long time I've been either a social and business outcast for my person beliefs in this province, but since discovering a few hundred thousand folks here on Marketing Profs who not only agree with me, but reward me with points
(and the occasional job offer and consulting gig), I can tell you there are worlds of opportunity after BREAKING the rules.

Darcy Moen
Customer Loyalty Network (dot com)
Willing to travel (hint)

I don't believe that you need to break the box :)) This radical view will not be accepted within the mandate given.

Therefore, don't break it, just expand it :))

CIF means 'Framework'. Frameworks don't have to be made of steel, they could be made of a more modern material like polyethelene - something stretchable and flexible yet resilient and hard to break.

In this case, it is not a BOX, it is a FRAMEWORK which definitely leaves room for new thinking.

You wnat new thinking, so take the lead. Stop talking about 'thinking outside the box' which in itself is cliche and very old hat and start coming up with some creative thinking of your own that will satisfy the needs of the older slightly more rigid generation and still address the creative and new needs of the younger generation. In the end, government lives on compromise so be prepared to compromise a little.

Think stretching, think resilience, think expansion, think including all points of view. Don't try to 'break' anything :) just work with what you have got now to mold it into something new. :)))

Good luck,

Matthew

PS: there is nothing wrong with the three rrr's per se, They are the foundation of creativity. maybe we just need a new approach to how they are applied. In my opinion, there is far too much emphasis in education on 'Knowledge' and far too little on teaching students 'how to think'.

In case you thought that we are in the knowledge age - :)) THink again. The knowledge age passed 5 years ago, we are now in the 'intelligence age' intelligence is the new currency of the future and those who have it will win. THose who lack it will remain poor.

Access to knowledge is feely available via the internet for all, what we cannot get for free is 'intelligence' so develop it, it is gold.