The saying "reduce, reuse, or recycle" is in that order for a reason. One should try and first reduce usage, then reuse it, and lastly recycle. When it comes to paper consumption I'm probably 95% paper free. When others use paper, I opt not to or use a digital alternative. I try in my daily life to reduce my usage of paper, but one place I'm surrendering my righteousness is the napkins flight attendants hand out with drinks. I've tried several times to say I don't need a napkin, but every time ends in a humorous "who's on first" scene... Continue reading

The Backstory Kevin and I started The Student Affairs Collaborative in 2005 to test our hypothesis that a decentralized, open system of peer-to-peer learning built around shared interests would increase engagement and retention. We wanted to create a community in which everyone was a teacher at some level, and everyone supported each other to become more involved. In the beginning, 100% of the content was written by me, Kevin, and our speaker friend Del Suggs. We then bribed our student affairs friends with cookies to help us write content, and slowly, over time, the site gained a readership.The SA Collaborative... Continue reading

The much hyped and anticipated movie about the US educational system, Waiting For Superman, opened nationwide about a week ago and has already sparked a lot of great conversations. If you haven't gone yet, go! But before you buy your tickets, make it a Win-Win-Win experience by following the steps below: Win #1 Purchase your $15 tickets at Fandango or MovieTickets.com and receive a $15 gift card to make a donation to the classroom of your choice via DonorsChoose.org. Win #2 Go enjoy Waiting for Superman and know that 100% of your ticket price is going to teachers who need... Continue reading

View from the front of our house. View from our backyard balcony. Continue reading

Today I worked with Howard Community College. It's our third year working with them. Every time I go back I remember the unique environment in which the training happens. It takes place in a large open area with people passing by on all sides. Kinda like a fishbowl without the walls (see image below). My first year there I asked the advisor about the room and she said it is meant to build transparency into the programming so random people walking by can get interested and join in. Not the easiest place for a training, but makes sense to me.... Continue reading

In my EO class today, the facilitator told a story about a group of runners who would give each other a bag of their running equipment at the end of each run. Each person was then responsible for showing up the following week, because if they didn't, both themselves and the person who's bag of running equipment they held for the week wouldn't be able to run. Wow! Thinking about how I can apply this idea of accountability to other situations. Continue reading

It's an exciting time at Red Rover, you can feel the momentum as all the pieces inch closer to each other. The team, the sales/marketing strategy, the development, the user support systems, the market, and the philosophy. Today we held a town hall meeting with all the new team members. We walked through the back story of Red Rover, where we are now including guiding principles, and where we want to be in 12 months. It's fun. It's exciting. Kevin told the back story this time and it's fun for me to sit back and hear him walk through how... Continue reading

The Red Rover team is in the process of transitioning into a team room at MMC, but due to remodeling, it won't be ready for another week. In the mean time, we're occupying a collection of cubicles among the full time employees of MMC. After only a couple days, I quickly realized how allergic I am to the cubical life. Instead of focusing on what I don't like about cubicles, I'm instead going to focus on what I value in a work environment, and from there you'll see why cubicles aren't a good fit for me. Work Values: Collaboration Shared... Continue reading

This morning I attended my first EO event in NY. It was an entrepreneur panel discussion at the Bloomberg main offices which, by the way, are pretty ridiculous (see images below). From the moment I walked in and heard the conversation and types of questioning like "what's the best advice you've learned about hiring?" or "how did you keep going when your business wasn't?" I knew I was in the right spot and these people were speaking my language. And best of all, unlike other meetups I attended in NYC, to be a member of EO, you already have to... Continue reading

On the train home today I witnessed a seated lady pass a hand written post-it-note to a lady who just got up to exit the train. On the note it read, "Jesus Loves You." Based on the facial expressions and body language of the exiting lady, it was clear they didn't know each other. It's not the first time I've experienced religion evangelized in public, but it was the nature of this incident that threw me. The exiting lady was wearing a hijab and, by all accounts, I suspected she was Muslim. My question is if the post-it-note lady does... Continue reading

I accompanied Annie to her ingrual NYC softball game today. Partly to support her, and partly to meet the team. I also got to play, and we won by a lot. In Chicago we built up an entire friend base through playing sports, and figured the same should work in NY, so we joined a bunch of teams. Long term friends don't happen overnight though. Friendship quality is proportional to the number of shared positive emotional experiences. Knowing this, all the people we've met so far are great and we are super excited to hang with them, but are realistic... Continue reading

Today we moved the Red Rover team to the 43rd floor at MMC (our corporate client). It's the second highest floor at MMC and a far cry from the 23rd floor with the interns and other randoms that sat in our area. The game and vision are bigger on the 43rd. The view is also amazing (see pictures below). I've always known that the best thing I can do for myself is to keep revolving closer to people who are higher up than I am because I know I will keep playing to the level of the game that is... Continue reading

While speaking at UMSL, I got the chance to hear another speaking go after me. He spoke on Ethics, Character, and Integrity. He did a wonderful job at weaving stories throughout his speech to make each point and keep the audience engaged the full 90 minutes. (Side Note - I want to keep getting better at story telling as it's such an amazing tool to be good at.) One story he shared was about how Lacrosse players will dive head first when a ball goes out of bounds because the rule is the stick closest to the ball gets to... Continue reading

via SwissMiss Continue reading

"When you learn to be a referee, they tell you to keep your whistle at your waist. So when you see a foul, you have at least one second to contemplate whether you are actually going to call it or not while you bring your whistle from your waist to your mouth. And for a new ref, that one second can be terrifying. Anybody can memorize the rules of the game. What a referee does is decide based on the context of the game whether something should really be called. It is in that one second where you prove whether... Continue reading

Today I was working with the student leaders at Alvernia University for their first ever leadership retreat. The setup for the training wasn't that great; low turnout, huge room, early morning, and on campus. As I said before, I've had good and not-so-good trainings and suspected this one was going to be a bit rough. But quickly I was proven wrong. For whatever reason, the training rocked. The small group was a blast to work with. I was on fire with connecting all the content together, and they were on fire with getting it. In highschool, I used to run... Continue reading

Today I was working on an excel doc that I should have just given to Megan, but I didn't. Afterwards I felt like I do when I eat a greasy pizza or candy bar. I know I shouldn't do it, but I did it anyways and I get a 'blah' feeling in my stomach. I used to not get this feeling with such tasks, but rather would get a sense of accomplishment, so I see it as actually a good thing. I'm learning that working at the executive level is about buffering your time as much as possible to focus... Continue reading

Spending the weekend home in Chicago was nice, especially since my mom has upgraded me to special son status. Special son status means when I come and visit, it's a special treat for her since we don't get to see each other very often. It also means I'm exempt from doing any extra work while home. I didn't really understand what this meant until we were all sitting in our living room and my mom asked my brother to open the windows. All is fine with that request until I point out that my brother was sitting on the opposite... Continue reading

I created this deck to frame the conversation as to how Red Rover can support alumni departments with their goals. It's cross posted over at the Swift Kick/Red Rover blog. The slide show can also be viewed and downloaded here. Continue reading

via Alltop Continue reading

Today my brother told me about a friend of ours who was brutality beaten in an ally by four unknown men. They smashed his face and legs and left him in a pool of blood only to be found later and brought to the hospital where he barley recovered. He won't be able to work for four-six months and won't be able to go with his band on their upcoming European tour. Such destruction for no apparent reason except to steal his iPhone and $50 out of his wallet. The four men are still at large and probably won't be... Continue reading

Continue reading

Doing a training in the morning is always tough, doing a training in the morning on a Saturday is even tougher. That was my set up for 100 student leaders from UMSL this morning. Dance Floor Theory is a well tested kick ass program, so it has a base line level of success with just about any crowd, any day, any time. But some programs just kick more ass than others, and I've realized it has to do a lot with the attitude of the participants. Today while setting up, I over heard one of the student leaders, Aleshia Patterson,... Continue reading

He may be on the other side of the world, but with a crystal clear reception, I was able to chat with my dad today about his trip to China, his new novel that was just published, and his upcoming talk about being a student of Adorno in Germany. Continue reading

For six years I worked from home and thought it was perfect to be able to stroll from the kitchen to "work" with my oatmeal in hand. For the past ten months I've been working, for the first time in my life, out of an office and now I know I'll never go back to working from home. It's not that working from home doesn't have its positives, it's just that I didn't realize how much the negatives actually out weigh the positives until I wasn't working from home. The biggest advantage I've discovered in "office life" is the separation... Continue reading