Judith talks about the great Hartford Circus Fire

The Great Hartford Circus Fire

Judith talks about growing up in rural dairy farming Bloomfield Ct, her neighbors, and even Mr. Webster the local butcher.

Judith Survived The Circus Fire

"One of America's greatest fire disasters occurred on July 6, 1944 in Hartford, Connecticut" 

She talks about surviving the great Hartford circus fire including her rescue and the aftermath (starting at the 00:08:23 mark). Judith considers herself to be the "girl in the little yellow pinafore dress" written about by Henry S. Cohn. (The Great Hartford Circus Fire: Creative Settlement of Mass Disasters Yale University Press, 1991).

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Mike Linksvayer, Creative Commons and Free Society

Mike talks about the economic value of information and why the freedom of information should be valued by a free society. Mike talks with Harry Hawk about his previous role as the CTO and VP at The Creative Commons. 

Edited Interview (00:28:37)

Raw & Uncut Interview (01:26:46)

Background:

I've known Mike for about 20+ years... and have followed his transformation from technology hacker to a hacker of society... trying to create a more free world by freeing some of the worlds most important information.

I talk to Mike for about 28 minutes and we cover some of his work story and try to understand some of the critical aspects of the creative commons licenses.

Raw & Uncut:

My entire conversation with Mike took over an hour and forty-five minutes. Click here to hear the entire discussison from start to finish, raw, and uncut.

Links:

Creative Commons

Mike's Web Site  |  Mike's Blog  | @mLinksSVA

Wikipedia Entry for Mike

About the DMCA

Peer Review Comes to Wikipedia

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#FollowTheLeader with Dan Zaiontz

Best Practices

Dan talks about several educational leaders he admires, like Santa J. Ono (@prezono) from UC, and Paul LeBlanc (@snhuprez) from SNHU. I'm a particular fan of Dr. LeBlanc for many reasons including that I am an SNHU alumni. Being a leader on social media doesn't mean filling their Twitter streams with lofty quotes; often it means reaching out to rank and file members of the community and being simply accessible to students.

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College/University Presidents Learn Social Media

Dan Zaiontz, a faculty member of Seneca College, started researching senior academic usage of social media while completing his Master's degree in Communications (MCM). That research is now part of a book called #FollowTheLeader, which is being published by M. Stoner; January 20, 2015 is the publication date.

Methodology:

While Dan says he reached out to as many as 150 individuals, all of the folks in the book were initially contacted via Twitter. College and University presidents who use Twitter are not only setting the pace for their institution and their community, but also making themselves role models for all types of enterprises including businesses and non-profits.

Warmly yours, Harry Hawk (@hhawk)

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Talking About Competency Based Education at College For America with College for America with Chief Learning Architect Yvonne Simon

Learning without grades: Education in America is focused on how many days you spend in the classroom, and the grades you are assessed. Education in America rarely focuses on mastering new skills and quantified evidence of learning. If you show up for every class and you get a passing grade, you have passed the course, even if you haven't mastered everything covered in the course.

Gaming Education

Students who wish to complete a course or a degree don't have to really strive -- they just have to figure out how to pass a few tests, and how to impress the teacher enough to get a passing grade; students have been known to beg, cry or even cheat their way to a better grade. Students learn that the emphasis of their studies should be focused on jumping through the right hoops, at the right time, and cramming for tests. Sure there are some students who really try for deep learning and put all their effort into their studies, but the vast majority are there to do just the most minimum effort.

Master The Skills

College for America (CFA) at Southern New Hampshire University has designed a new approach to higher education, and theirs is the first program accredited by the US Dept. of Education based authorizing funding/payment based skills learned vs. time spent in the class (contact hours). Students do not get letter grades, and they are not subjected to the vagueness of Pass/Fail; there is no teacher to beg for a better grade. Students are assessed with either Not Yet or Mastery. They need to fully master 120 skills to graduate from the associate's degree program. Students can move through the course at their own pace. They negotiate the length of time they will spend on assignments (projects); they even get to pick their own graduation date. Miss a date? No problem, they are learning through their own "failure".

Blue Vs. Purple

Students at CFA have to complete about 20-50 unique projects. Smaller projects that are easier "to eat" are called Blue Projects. Purple projects are more complex. Every student needs to complete at least 3 Purple projects, in addition to a few group projects in order to graduate. However, all students have to finish and complete the same 120 competencies no matter which projects (blue or purple) they select. 

No Grades - Self Paced & NO Teachers??

Typically only a few students get As and that means everyone else has failed to grasp all of the material. How can that be the gold standard? Everyone learns differently and the online, self paced projects offered by CFA compel students to master each of the skills not 60% or 70% but 100%. The educational coaches at CFA, and the structure of the Blue & Purple projects, and even the negotiation over the time limits for the assignments "force" students to not only learn, but to think about how they learn, and to learn enough about themselves to master their own educational journey. "Coaches never help out with the academics, but rather [help] the learning process."

Famous Partners

Today CFA is open to students whose employers are partnered with College for America. This includes many famous companies like McDonald's, Dunkin Donuts, The Gap, The Cumberland Gulf Group, and ConAgra. They have also been cited by the White House and President Obama as one of the examples of how American education needs to transform. One of the benefits that will appeal to both students and employers is the Associate and Bachelor's degree cost $2,500 per year. Finish the associate's degree in under a year and $2,500 is the total bill -- often paid by the employer through their tuition assistance program. CFA also offers a BA in in communications and healthcare management (with more on the way); students need to complete the Associate degree first. The same rules apply to the BA; the faster your finish the cheaper it is.

CLA Yvonne Simon 

In this episode of Talking About Everything, I discuss education theory and the practical implications for this new style of education with CFA's Chief Learning Architect (CLA) Yvonne Simon. Yvonne is the former CEO of the SNHU Online education program and was the co-founder and VP at Six Red Marbles.

A Lead Learning Coach

In this episode I also speak with Deo Mwano who is a lead learning coach at CFA. His personal journey is remarkable but no more so than the 100s or even 1000s of educational journeys that he and his team help CFA students accomplish.

"Deo Mwano joined College for America at Southern New Hampshire University in January of 2013 as a Learning Coach and was part of the original pilot program launch. The coaching team and he developed the coaching model with a focus on the student experience. His focus was on helping students adapt and succeed in a personalized online competency program. He learned how to work with a diverse group of students and had some of the first graduates. 

Today, Deo is a Team Lead Learning Coach. He develops student success skills through coaching and training other coaches and partners. He oversees coaching development strategies by researching and conducting studies on other effective coaching methods. Deo works closely with employer partners to customize the coaching support to the students’ environment.  His experience with College for America has strengthened his ability to help a wide range of people achieve their personal goals."

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The Power Of Mobile Gaming

Seriously Casual Gaming:

An old friend of mine, Raymond Cromwell, made a post on Google+ talking about serious gamers vs. casual gamers. He pointed out that serious gamers buy expensive consoles and buy games than run $50 to $60... which isn't surprising since some games can cost 1/2 Billion (USD) to develop.. much like some large budget movies. Casual gamers play more affordable games on many devices including mobile phones and tablets. Consoles are powerful, but mobile gaming has a far more interesting feature for any brand exploring digital marketing & entanglement: Better Ecosystem Integration (EI) & Geo-Fenced Ecosystem Integration (GFEI).

Mobile Gaming Can Connect Consumers and Brands:

When a consumer visits a store, mall, or even a town or resort there are many ways that brands and gamers can share and benefit from that visit with real time GFEI (geo-fenced ecosystem integration) with permission, transparency, and honesty.

1. Unlock levels and abilities (special levels for Universal Studios or Six Flags)
2. Award special tools: guns, potions, cars, birds or what have you (Think: Sears, Walmart, Brookstone & Dicks Sporting Goods)
3. Award special badges within the game or present them via social networks 
   (awarded by the brand but co-branded with the game)
4. Reveal custom leaderboards (based on location, social graph, etc.)
5. Rewards in RL (real life): free products, samples, and discounts (good for every merchant, as well as theme parks, airlines, and transit companies).
6. Support Entanglement: rewards, bonuses and other gifts for starting game play long before consumers arrive at a location, and long after they leave.
• All of the unlocked and awarded elements can be set to work only when at the location (Starbucks or Dunkin Donuts), or they can be set to remain active for a limited time (encouraging repeat visits).
• Using time-outs to force re-visits may seem appealing, I believe it is wrong in general to give and then take away something from a consumer within a narrow slice of time; your millage may vary.
• Awarded elements, levels, etc. should stay active as long as the consumer remains active within the game and connected to the brand. This is an excellent measure of entanglement.

What is Ecosystem Integration (EI):

Mobile and console games can integrate into home media systems. Mobile and fixed gaming can certainly share information and data with a social media network, or make use of Cloud storage. It is technically possible to link console game play to mobile game play -- allowing rewards, benefits and bonuses to flow from one system to the other. It is also possible to link a user's geographic movements to a game so that game play, rewards, points and payoffs can be based on where, when or how users travel.

Real Time Mobile EI & GFEI:

Mobile gaming offers a real difference with real time EI and Geo-Fenced EI (GFEI) opportunities for casual gamers and the brands they like and admire. Digital Marketing is about building 1:1 relationships between brands and consumers. Consumers who enjoy games (casually or seriously) present an amazing way to build upon that relationship when trusted brands offer EI with transparency and honesty.

Brands & Games:

Brands are always looking for ways to reward existing customers and entice new customers. GFEI, Geo-Fenced Ecosystem Integration will allow game play to be altered based on where a gamer is or has been... or where the data suggests they might go. The advantage of mobile gaming is that game play can happen in real time while a gamer is visiting or near a physical location.

Written by: Harry Hawk

Please let me know what you think about this topic. Is your brand ready for Game EI? Talk to me @hhawk.

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The Naked Rowers

Everyone know that sex and sexy sells. Example: decades of posters, calendars and advertising have often included photos and illustrations of younger, attractive often busty women. Learn how Angus Malcolm and the Naked Rowers have used nudity and social media to engage, influence, and tell a very unique story about sports and inclusion while raising "nearly £100,000". Listen to my Interview with Angus from July 2014; this is "raw and uncut edition."

My interview with Angus Malcolm

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Naked Men? Yes.

The male, mostly straight rowing crew at the University of Warwick have turned this traditional on it's head. First to raise funds to keep their "cash strapped" club afloat, but now to increasingly raise money to fight off homophobia in sports. The first time Angus Malcolm uploaded images from one of their shoots "within 24 hours it generated over 36k downloads." A "making of" trailer from their 2014 effort generated more millions of downloads from at least "1.5 million unique viewers." Angus is the photographer on all of the Warwick Rowers photos below.

Angus Malcolm, the producer of the Naked Rowers Calendar notes, "The tradition of the naked college calendar" does exist in the United Kingdom. A quick Google search turned up a mix of naked men, women and coed charity calendars from Universities in Oxford, Bristol, Nottingham, Sheffield, Liverpool, Kingston, Exeter, Aberdeen, Birmingham, and Cardiff. Sheffield Hallam University's Men's Rugby Union has produced naked charity calendars since 2001 yet has a Twitter page with 858 followers. In contrast the Naked Rowershave nearly 22k followers and 15k Likes on Facebook.

The Warwick Rowers Prove Organic Reach Works

Six Calendar Years

Now in it's 6th year, Mr. Malcolm who has a long history working with non-profits as a professional communicator, attributes the success of the Naked Rowers calendar to many factors including:

• "Give people what they want"
• "Produce high quality content"
• "Be relevant to the people who support you"
• "Openness of the mostly straight rowers who are comfortable being naked [for a cause]"
• The power of organic reach: "we don't pay for promotion"
• "The project is student run but it isn't amateur"

the 2015 "crowd funder" has just kicked off (July 2014). Watch the 2015 Trailer.

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PUT is Down - America's changing relationship with Television

So in America more and more homes only have high speed internet -- that means no cable TV subscription. This was written about in MediaPost.com by Wayne Friedman in an article called Broadband-Only Home Accellerate Cable TV declines.

PUT???

PUT is the acronym for People Using Television. Since Nielsen started counting broadband only homes in 2013, the broadband only category has grown to be "2.7% of the sample size."That's not a huge number but it is growing and it's bigger when they look at younger viewers where it's down about 7%.

Local TV Should Be Free!!

Let's face it, the old ad driven model of TV was fairly reasonable. You watched TV and you watched Ads; now you pay to get cable and you STILL have to watch Ads. That the FCC allows TV stations to charge cable companies for local TV doesn't harm their ad revenue -- since it keeps people watching their shows, stations are paid by their advertisers and they get to do FCC Approved Double-Dip.

Stop: FCC Approved Double-Dib

The good news is that you don't need an act of Congress to stop this double-dip. Just get a $50 or less digital antenna; it is a one time cost and once again your local TV will be free. Then use Hulu, Netflix or Amazon Prime, Apple iTunes or Google Play to get all the other shows you want; or watch them on YouTube, or the networks web sites.

Back to the Fireplace

Of course if you don't want to spend any money you can go back to the good old days and start watching your food cook by the fireside.

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Rant - Smashing Burgers 001

My Love Affair with Burgers: Starting To Flip I've helped sell more than 100, 000 burgers and I've cooked them 5x at the James Beard House. I also won the 2008 Burger Battle of the Boroughs. This is my story about my love affair with the hamburger. I've decided to start to tell this story because on Jan 17th 2015 I'll be cooking a burger pop-up in Brooklyn. If you are reading this before that date, you can buy some tickets and taste my burgers --> Jan 17, 2015 Tickets. You can visit the Schnack Web Site which is still online, or check out the Blog.

I mention the Gowanus Yacht Club in this episode, learn more here.

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A Juicy well cooked, medium rare slider burger (a Schnackie) on a NY Handmade Breads Brioche bun.

This "Slide" ran at the local Clearview movie theater promoting Schnack burgers and meals.

A view inside of Schnack designed by James Mamary the most amazing restaurant designer I've ever met.

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Test Episode - Our test guest Ken X Ruan

Talking About Everything hangs out with Ken X Ruan.

I was joined by Ken to talk about society and marketing; topics we also blog about (here). This was a test of how well we could record together over Skype, testing out Ken's Microphone, and of course getting used to speaking to each other while recording everything we said. This is episode is the edited copy which has a running time of about 27 minutes.

We talked about our person biases, what Ken might look for in a wife, a few of Shelly Turkle's books, Ken's affinity for getting random strangers to make a "selfie video" with him (on the mean streets of NYC), and we talk about technology,  antipositism, and politics: Libertarianism, Communitarianism, Neoliberalism and my meeting 20 years ago with Machinery of Freedom author David Friedman and his son Patri (picture).

Here is a picture of Ken X Ruan

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Coming Soon!

Talking About Everything with Harry Hawk

In a few weeks..

I will be launching several podcasts... each with a narrow focus.. Now for something rather different.

TalkingAboutEverything.com will be a master collection of all of the audio interviews, reports and commentaries that I make... As well as original reports and interviews created specifically for TAEP (Talking About Everything Podcast).

Totally Episodic:
Most episodes will feature a 15-20 minute Interview, Report or Commentary; where possible each of these "shorts" will be accompanied by the "full length", "raw" and (nearly) un-edited "live to tape" master.

What do you mean Raw & Uncut?
Of course like any devotee of Truthiness.. what I really mean is, "slightly edited and mildly processed." Basically I'll take out some of the noise and anything that might get me sued or be insulting to my guest(s)... 

Ummm, but.... You Know... 
I'll remove some of those as well.. and anything else that I wouldn't want my mother (or my students) to hear.

The Truth -- Just Admit It!I just did.. let's face it, "Full Length, Raw and Uncut" is a much better sound bite than "mildly edited for content and reputation, and processed, EQ'd, and compressed for noise reduction, to meet the -16 LUFS standard and silence removal".

Rain or Shine
Every Thursday -- yes, you should be expecting a new podcast to be posted every Thursday.. with exceptions for the USA arrival of space aliens, 200 Million people buying the same winning ticket for a Powerball(tm) drawing with a prize of $50 Million, and the Vingean Singularity; please note that the arrival of a techno rapture is not an acceptable substitute for a Vingean Singularity, do not pass Go, nano nano (not!). Honestly, I didn't expect you to read this far... (EOL).

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