Tag Archives: connections

From bird to sky – a social media switch

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For about a year and a half now I’ve been ‘transmitting’ my blog to not just Twitter, but also to Threads and Blue Sky. I use the term ‘transmit’ because I haven’t engaged much on these platforms, I just post my blog post and leave. However, I have more engagement, and conversations on LinkedIn and my blog’s Facebook page.

But I’m starting to see a move to Blue Sky. For me, it means moving from over 12,000 connections on Twitter to under 100 on Blue Sky, but I’m ok with that. I think the community will grow, and for me Twitter was amazing even at 450 connections. The bigger question is weather I’ll actually go back to spending time there or if I’ll just continue to transmit?

For now, LinkedIn seems to be the place I converse more, engage more, and even learn from more. And my Facebook page following is small, but a wonderful community. As I watch people leave Twitter and move to Blue Sky, I wonder if I’ll get a taste of what old Twitter was like pulling me in to this new(ish) site, or if it’s just one more place I post and ignore? Do I need another place to engage, or is LinkedIn and Facebook more than enough already? I’ll figure it out soon enough, but if you are on Blue Sky, let’s connect.

Breaking bread

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I’ve had a few opportunities to have lunch with, to break bread with, colleagues in the past several weeks. Having a meal together, outside of the usual staffroom with its comfortable banter is a treat. It is a good reminder of the fact that we all have lives outside of this thing called work.

I find that my connections to people can become fixed in a place-based kind of experience, and we all play the roles we are supposed to play… to leave that environment and break bread is an opportunity to find new connections, to be ourselves and not just our roles.

Meeting face-to-face

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Today I’m headed to Surrey to meet with other principals in charge of Provincial Online Learning Schools. My commute is less than an hour, some of my counterparts from around the province had to fly or drive in last night to get to the meeting on time this morning. We will be meeting with a representative from the Ministry of Education in the morning, and also have a full agenda for the rest of the day.

In many ways I have more in common with these colleagues from other school districts than I do with most colleagues in my own district. Being a principal of an online school has very unique demands, policies, and challenges which make our jobs unique. We don’t fit in the box of a traditional school principals, and often when I come across a challenging situation it is these distant colleagues that I turn to for support or clarification.

When we meet as a group it is usually online. But today we connect face-to-face. I can’t express the value it has provided to connect with these principals in person. Over the years I’ve made some valuable friends, and gotten to know some amazing educators thanks to these meetings. I’ve built relationships that would have been much harder to make if we only ever met through a screen.

There is a lot of power in physically getting together for a meeting rather than just doing so online. As a principal of an online school, that’s an important thing to remember and reflect on.

Information abundance requires pattern recognition

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What a fantastic quote by Adam Grant,

“The hallmark of expertise is no longer how much you know. It’s how well you synthesize.

Information scarcity rewarded knowledge acquisition. Information abundance requires pattern recognition.

It’s not enough to collect facts. The future belongs to those who connect dots.”

Pattern recognition and synthesis are the path to innovation, ingenuity, and invention. The collection of knowledge is not enough. Wisdom comes from recognizing how to make connections across different fields, how to make meaning out of relationships that not everyone sees.

Artificial Intelligence can give us the knowledge we seek. It can dumb down the ideas to our level of understanding, and even teach us with relevant examples when we are stuck. More information won’t be what we seek. Instead we will seek new connections, patterns, and relationships.

The desired experts of tomorrow are probably not the siloed experts we once sought. Instead they will be information generalists who understand how to take information from different fields, identify relationships others don’t see, and synthesize information such that they can tell a story others won’t know to tell.

How are we preparing the next generation of learners for this new future? How will schools need to change to help students prepare for the future in a world of abundant and easily accessible information? It certainly won’t be by feeding them content. Instead, the future of education lies in creating challenges where students need to synthesize information and recognize connections and patterns across different fields of study.

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Related: My ‘Transforming Our Learning Metaphors’ Ignite Presentation from almost a decade ago.

You can’t make old friends

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In the past couple weeks I’ve spent time with a friend I met on the first day of university, a friend I met in a class at the start of high school, and (via social media) the brother of one of my first friends when I moved to Canada. I’ve known these guys for 38, 41, and 47 years respectively. Add to that the only other friend I’ve spent time with recently, and he’s someone I started my career with 26 years ago. And just over a month ago I got to connect with some lifelong friends I hadn’t seen in a while. A commenter on my post about this said, “You can’t make old friends.”

It has made me realize how the bond of friendship transcends time. It takes a while to make a good friend, and then they last a lifetime. It makes me think of the good friends I’ve lost touch with, or don’t get in touch enough with. They are too valuable to let go.

I’m going to reflect on this a bit and try to reconnect with some people whom I’ve really valued over the years… friends and family I don’t see or talk to enough. It’s hard to make old friends at my age, so I need to take care of those long term friendships I already have.

Lifelong friends

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I’m back in Ontario and I was invited to my friend’s cottage. He specifically invited friends that I’ve known for years. Most of them I met in 1986, one of them I met back in ‘83. One I hadn’t seen in over 25 years, another one I’d last seen close to a decade ago.

Every one of the boys, in the photo I’ve shared, I’ve played water polo with. All of them have also coached. There was a lot of reminiscing today. A lot of teasing, and a lot of mutual respect and admiration.

There is something so special about lifelong friends whom you can have long breaks from and still easily connect with. The time we spend with them is priceless!

Fully Present

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To be fully present is challenging. To keep focus and not let attention sway. To listen without worrying about what to say next. To not let the mind drift to the next task, or any other task. To quiet distracting thoughts, and to be singularly engaged.

A child at play, an engrossed artist, an athlete in the zone, a writer in a stream of consciousness, an inspired entrepreneur, a reader enthralled in a good book… all moments of focus… all hints of what we are capable of, when we are fully present.

In everyday living it is elusive. Distractions reign, and partial presence prevails. But oh, how special those fully present moments are… they are moments when you are living your full potential.

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Related: “You have my divided attention”

Time in cars and with friends

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Yesterday I drove 40 minutes each way to spend just over an hour and a half with friends. They were visiting from Ontario and I saw them Saturday, but it was a short visit and so I wanted to connect again.

I ended up chatting with a cousin the whole drive there, and I listened to a book on the way back. Time well spent in the car.

But more importantly, I got to chat with my friends. We had a coffee, went for a walk, bought some pastries… and we talked. We spent time some wonderful, albeit short together. I spent about 15 more minutes with them than I did in the car. It couldn’t be longer because they had to pack up, check out of the Airbnb and catch a plane. But it was long enough. It was a wonderful reconnection.

Later, my wife and I went to wish her sister a happy birthday. That was about 45 minutes in the car for an hour and a half visit. Again, well worth the drive.

Ive got a full tank, when are we meeting next? 😜

You have my divided attention

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There is no such thing as ‘full attention’. Our minds don’t work that way. The questions to ask yourself are how much attention am I truly giving? And, am I sustaining that attention?

A perfect example is listening to someone telling you a story. You can tune out distractions and be mostly paying attention, but if you are listening carefully you will also be creating visuals to go with the story, thinking of what’s happening, what’s unsaid, asking questions in your head… and making connections to your own experience. None of this is truly full attention. Even if it’s related or connected, the things you think are distractions.

There are moments of clarity, focus and determination, but those are internal moments. The moment someone else enters the equation, attention is divided.

So, you have my divided attention, but I will do my best to give you as much of it as I can. Some days you can get quite a bit, other days the hamster wheel in my mind is spinning too fast, and you won’t get as much of it.

This isn’t an apology, it’s an observation. You never get someone else’s full attention.

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Inspired by Joe Truss.

Surprise gathering

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I’m on a ferry heading to Nanaimo to surprise my father-in-law for his 91st birthday. My wife is already there but he has no idea that his two other children and 7 more family members are also joining him today.

Moments like this are golden. We can get lost in the bustle of day to day things and opportunities to come together can be rare. Today my father-in-law is going to be delighted, and so will the rest of us.

Call someone you love and don’t see often today, and maybe plan the next get-together… or better yet, pay them a surprise visit! 💜