Economic Resilience Zone:    Resources    Mega-Maps (under development)

Events:

11 August 2011, The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel MD:  “EMP: Threat and Opportunity”

8 June 2011, The Tower Club, Tyson's Corner, VA:  “It doesn’t do you any good if you’re open for business and your customers and suppliers aren’t”

Events (archive):

Recommended reading:

Supporting a Non-Profit Educational Foundation in Helping Teachers Share Strategies for Classroom Success

Situation: After offering some thoughts about how their informational website for teachers could be enhanced to better fulfill its purpose of sharing success strategies, we were retained by this foundation to assist them in their work with teachers across a densely populated state.  Their mission is to “[transform the state’s] public schools, where only 7 in 10 students graduate every year, from a one-size-fits-all education system into schools where respect for the individual is paramount, and every child is considered “college material.”  Despite their best efforts, they were unable to transfer knowledge effectively through meetings and a website intended to capture lessons-learned.  This shortcoming prevented the 400 teachers already enrolled in the educator’s network from benefiting as much as they needed to and did little to encourage the remaining 800 teachers to sign up.

Actions: After interviewing several foundation members and teachers as well as assessing the website’s functionality, we determined that it took too many steps to convey the essence of ideas and advice that the teachers wanted and the foundation intended to provide.  We recommended that the most accessible level of the site should be a story synopsis that included these elements – situation, hindrances/challenges present or encountered, actions taken, results of those actions, and an evaluation of the effort’s pros and cons.  We also developed a two-level training process for facilitators and participants in this storytelling format to enable network members to speak the same language and effectively share information. 

Results:  The foundation adopted our recommendations, and we rolled out the initial training to 30 facilitators and 150 participants over two days.  The impacts were immediate, ranging from participant appreciation for having a consistent, meaningful way to share success strategies, to an increase in stories loaded on to the site and site usage, to an increase in the number of participating teachers.  More importantly, the process and the value it creates are sustainable.  The message is clear – getting out of the “same ol,’ same ol’” of repeating mistakes and re-inventing the wheel can be accomplished by breaking down a story into a compact synopsis which others can quickly absorb, act and build upon.

©2009 Applied Knowledge Sciences, Inc. All rights reserved.

Copyright © 2010 Appliied Knowledge Sciences, Inc.  info@aksciences.com

Boyce, VA USA;  Manama, Bahrain

Last modified: 07/19/11