Swift Kick Central

Stop Making Parents the Punchline and Include Them in the EdTech Conversation

Digitally ignorant parents find themselves once again the punchline of a new website dutifully called MyParentsJoinedFacebook.com. The site was created by a daughter after her dad joined Facebook and his social networking activity quickly became obnoxious to her. With a swift gain in popularity, MyParentsJoinedFacebook.com joins others in exploiting (right or wrong) parents' naivete as a way to add a few laughs and clicks. 

Between the easy laughs and "Dateline" fear mongering, I can understand why a 2008 MacArthur Foundation supported study showed that parents tend to be in the dark about what their kids are doing online and 66% consider "the internet" as dangerous as drunk driving.

We need to stop scaring, laughing at, or excluding parents and instead start having real conversations. As James P. Steyer, CEO of Common Sense Media, said:

“Technology is a major part of our kids’ worlds, and that is not going to change. Parents need to know what their kids are doing in their digital lives, and they have to be well informed about issues like privacy, ethical behavior, digital literacy, and cyberbullying. When parents understand these potential pitfalls and communicate with their kids, the internet can be an educational, entertaining, and safe environment.”

Not surprisingly, research shows that the more educated and engaged a parent is in their child's online activity, the more positively they see the internet's potential.

Having said all this, we at Swift Kick are launching several new educational offerings geared toward parents and grandparents.

To kick off, this Saturday we're partnering with the world-renounwed education group QLN to host our first, parent/grandparent only, training in San Diego. If you are in the area, sign up today to reserve your seat.

Then, over the next month, we'll begin announcing a series of regional parent/grandparent programs, webinars, and an ongoing Web Coaching Program.

After 5 years and 300+ trainings with 10,000s of students and educators we know we've progressed the technology conversation further past the doom and gloom. Now it's time to work with parents as a critical third player.

We are bringing to parents the same level of quality and research that's awarded us the title as the #1 Campus Trainers for 2007, 2008, and 2009 by member schools of the Association for the Promotion of Campus Activities.

There are champions already promoting great work like Common Sense Media, iSafe, Digital Dialog, Cable in the Classroom, Radical Parenting, The Online Mom, and BJ Fogg that we'll parter with to help dispel the myths and promote positive, effective technology use.

These are just a few and we don't like to move slow, so if you're connected to parents and would like to partner, either leave a comment below or contact us.

Here's to parents, we got your digital back ;-) 

What's Wrong With the College Speaking Market

There's one name all college speakers know.

That "brand awareness" is a great testament to his ability to market himself and his own products. Not surprising, then, that marketing is what he teaches.

People say he's very successful and that's great.

I'm sure he helps some college speakers with their marketing.

The problem in the college speaking market today, in my opinion, is that there is too much focus on marketing and not enough on meaning.

The marketing message, one of the hundreds of emails we've received from this marketing trainer, has this header:

It addresses a pain of many aspiring and even moderately successful speakers - they are financially stressed. I get it.

It also appeals to our lowest instincts and produces speakers who do the same.

Money is not bad. I'm not against being rich or getting rich.

I simply believe that if you have decided to go into education, in any form, you have to be in it to help first. If you help well, by all means, you are free to make money. If you put money first, however, you won't help much.

Take one minute to watch a segment of this video by Barry Schwartz at TED - start at 12:35

At every conference there are legions of new speakers that will come and go. They will flood the colleges with their postcards and phone calls. They will, in short, market.

But they won't last.

If Barry's morality plea is too squishy for you, Jim Collins will give you 300 odd pages of case studies showing putting money first is simply bad business.

Find your meaning in helping. Do this first.

2008 Swift Kick Program Calendar

As we close the door on 2008, here's a look back at who we worked with:

01/02/08 APCA Advisors Institute
01/03/08 APCA Advisors Institute
01/04/08 APCA Advisors Institute
01/04/08 Shepherd U
01/19/08 Potsdam U
01/30/08 Emporia State
02/01/08 U. Of Alaska
02/08/08 Western State College
02/10/08 Wesley College
02/12/08 Boise State
02/15/08 27th Annual FYE Conference
02/16/08 27th Annual FYE Conference
02/17/08 27th Annual FYE Conference
02/18/08 27th Annual FYE Conference
02/19/08 27th Annual FYE Conference
02/23/08 SUNY Cobleskill
02/26/08 U. of Missouri
02/26/08 Lake Forest College
02/27/08 Darton College
02/28/08 Bossier Parish
02/29/08 Baker U.
03/11/08 SUNY Rockland
03/12/08 Hudson Valley CC
03/12/08 APCA Nationals
03/13/08 APCA Nationals
03/14/08 APCA Nationals
03/15/08 APCA Nationals
03/26/08 U of San Diego
03/28/08 APCA Northeast
03/29/08 APCA Northeast
03/30/08 APCA Northeast
04/05/08 SUNY Cobleskill
04/15/08 Everett CC
04/16/08 East Carolina U
04/17/08 U of Washington Tacoma
04/18/08 Big Bend CC
05/02/08 San Antonio College
05/06/08 Snow College
05/07/08 Snow College
05/08/08 Snow College
05/12/08 Texas State San Marcos
05/13/08 Texas State San Marcos
05/14/08 Texas State San Marcos
05/15/08 Texas A&M International
06/03/08 ICCSAA Conference
06/04/08 Dakota Association For College Admissions Conference
06/06/08 Norfolk Navy Base
08/08/08 Army Boss Conference
08/12/08 Xavier University
08/13/08 Weber State University
08/18/08 UW Madison
08/19/08 University of Akron Ohio
08/20/08 San Antonio College
08/21/08 Penn State Lehigh
08/22/08 Utah Valley State
08/23/08 Penn State Erie
08/24/08 Schreiner University
08/28/08 University of Mary
08/30/08 Bridgewater
08/31/08 Graceland University
08/31/08 Rivier College
09/06/08 Shepherd College
09/08/08 Johnson and Wales - Denver
09/10/08 US Navy Norfolk
09/11/08 US Navy Norfolk
09/12/08 Winthrop University
09/13/08 Winthrop University
09/14/08 Winthrop University
09/16/08 Southeastern Louisiana
09/17/08 Georgia Southwestern State
09/19/08 Weber State University
09/20/08 Darton College
09/24/08 Clarkson College
09/25/08 ASGA National Conference
09/26/08 Howard Community College
09/26/08 Fulton-Montgomery
10/02/08 Parkland College
10/03/08 Rock Valley College
10/04/08 Coastal Georgia College
10/07/08 Palm Beach Community College
10/07/08 Reading Area
10/08/08 Lynn University
10/10/08 San Antonio College
10/15/08 Mohawk Valley
10/21/08 Pasco-Hernando Community College
10/25/08 ASGA Chicago Conference
11/08/08 Houston Community College
11/10/08 APCA Iowa Conference
11/11/08 APCA Iowa Conference
11/12/08 APCA Iowa Conference
11/14/08 Lord Fairfax Community College
11/15/08 Lord Fairfax Community College
11/17/08 APCA Verona Conference
11/18/08 APCA Verona Conference
11/19/08 APCA Verona Conference
12/04/08 Baton Rouge Community College


Check out our 2007 Program Calendar
Check out our 2006 Program Calendar

The Tale of Two Grateful Dead Shirts and My Passion for Red Rover

Last week I spoke at U. Penn Erie's freshmen orientation in a huge room filled with 1200 freshman. The orientation leaders were scattered around the room directing the students to fill the seats closest to the front. In my normal approach, I planted myself by the front door with a few orientation leaders and became the informal welcoming crew.

The students filled in as we greeted them with smiles and good morning wishes. I usually comment on cool or unique clothing I see as a way to personalize the greeting and make the students feel more welcome.

With the room about half full a student walked in wearing a torn Grateful Dead shirt, but I couldn't see his face to make eye contact and say hello because his head was drooped to his chest. His shoulders hung low and his feet barley lifted off the ground as he moved past. All his non verbals said he wasn't excited to be there and he hadn't made any friends yet. As he passed me in our greeting line, I pointed to his shirt and said, "Nice shirt." He looked up and smiled quickly and went on to his seat off to the side by himself.

Ten minutes passed and with the room nearly full, another student walked in with a similar torn Grateful Dead shirt and body language. As he passed me in the greeting line, I pointed at his shirt and said, "Nice shirt." He looked up and smiled. I continued,  "There's another guy who came in with almost the exact same shirt. He's seated somewhere over there." I pointed and the student's eyes lit up for a moment as he looked over the crowd of people. But with 1200 freshman in one room, it was nearly impossible to find that one student again.

I held out hope that maybe they'd run into each other throughout the rest of the day and make a connection because they were the only two people wearing Grateful Dead shirts. But the realistic side of me knew that the odds were extremely low and that made me sad because that one little connection could have completely changed their college experience.

The National Resource Center for The First-Year Experience and Student in Transition says,

"If we don't engage a student within the first two weeks of school, we essentially loose them for the full 2 or 4 years."

That's my fear of leaving the connection up to chance or through some randomly paired ice breaker. We might loose them for the full 2 or 4 years. I know there is a fantasy about meeting interesting people in college by chance, but we shouldn't stop there.

This leads to the passion I have for what we are doing with Red Rover. It's not just a technology solution or assessment tool, it really can change lives and I believe that 100%. It's why we've put so much into it already and continue to do so. When I talk about Red Rover, I don't want to talk about it as just a technology solution, but rather I want to talk about it in terms of changing students' lives, because that's what it does. For the two students at U. Penn Erie, it could have potentially helped them have a better first day at college, a better four years at college, and ultimately a better life.

Thoughts on Thoughts on Thoughts

Our ideas come from a collection of conversations, books, articles, blogs, and videos among many other sources. We are active participants in what is coined the Read/Write Web in which someone takes a little content to produce a little content. We are both consumers and produces at the same time.

It's very gratifying to receive an email weeks after a training in which I can tell the person was mulling over our content and now has produced some content of their own in the email. Last week I received this type of email from Larry Androes of Bossier Parish Community College.

Thank you Larry for your thoughts on our thoughts so I can have more thoughts. Larry makes many great points so with his permission, here is his email in full:

Hi Tom!

I attended the talk you gave at Bossier Parish Community College about two weeks ago. I was one of the two students who stayed to talk with you (I would have thought everyone would be wildly exited by these ideas). I was the guy with grey hair and a cane, and I talked with you about the exponential curve of all this information.

I definitely want to be included in the information you are getting through the del.icio.us site. Hopefully, my email is enough for this connection.

But I also wanted to take a moment to express how important I think what you are doing is. On one level, it is certainly about advising students to be careful about their online identity and using it to pursue future goals.

…Yet on another level, you are part of a wave nudging young people toward a paradigm shift in how they conceive personal identity, moving from physical to digital. This cultural shift might be the biggest change since one of our ancestors picked up a rock and used it to crack a nut.

So, at a deeper level, you are teaching kids to change their inner software – outmoded beliefs about who they are (physical, local, separated) – toward a new dimension of global digital identity that is supported by our expanding technology.

I am reminded of two current streams of thought. One is by Peter Russell, who talks about different revolutions in our history – agricultural, technological, information, and consciousness. Each is exponential, but they differ in the rate that information/knowledge doubles. If I remember correctly, the information revolution doubles every six years and began in the early 1900’s, and the consciousness revolution doubles every three years and began in the 60’s. So we are now seeing huge changes in who we are and how we know the world.

I also think about the Spiral Dynamics ideas, in which portions of humanity are opening to new memes, or ways of interacting with the world. The turquoise and coral spirals are about global consciousness and new neurological capabilities.

I thought of a couple of ideas – there are probably already five dozen web sites I don’t know about yet (that’s the way it is with exponential curves):

1. For our physical identity we generally use a mirror; we look at a mirror for feedback about who we are physically. We need the equivalent of a mirror online for our digital identity –something like a ‘digitalme.com’ – where we could click and see a view of our current digital presence (a Google list just doesn’t do a striking reflection). I am thinking of a page that would look something like kartOO.com.
2. Parents need to start at the beginning with the idea of digital identity. We need something like a ‘firstdigitalfootprint.com’. “Hey! Flipoo was born yesterday. Google him – check out his website and profile.”
3. I’d also like to see a page one could pull up – oneself as a circle in the center, with online contacts as circles connected to that one (kind of like a mind map). And if you clicked on a connected person’s circle, you could see all of their connections – and so on outward. It would be a fun way to explore how many degrees of separation existed between you and any other person on the internet (What is the shortest path between you and the Dalai Lama?).
   

Thanks for stimulating some new ideas!
Larry Androes

College Speaker of The Year - 2008

Each year student activities departments from around the country vote for their favorite speaker of the year. Last week, in Atlanta, we were honored as the 2008 College Speaker of the Year. To add to the honor, it's our second year in a row winning the award.

Last year we spoke at 60 schools, went to 15 conferences, and spent around 210 days on the road. In short, we work hard and it's nice to be recognized for the work we do. Thank you to all the advisors, students, schools, staff, administrators, educators, and other folk who supported us in 2007. Stay tuned as we have lots planned for 2008 and it's your input, support, and feedback that allows us to do what we do.

Video Blog From Baker University

Bosie State Newspaper Article About Swift Kick Training

It's nice for us to connect with school newspaper reporters during our on site trainings. It allows the message of the training to go out beyond just those who attended.

Colby Stream of the Boise State Arbiter, wrote a follow up to our Myspace/Facebook training at their school. Colby did a great job in capturing many of the main points. We often forget to mention these articles, so here's a full reprint. Thanks Colby!

It's all about harnessing the power of the Internet. More specifically, the networking capabilities of the Internet.

Tom Krieglstein, co-founder of Swift Kick, gave a lecture last Tuesday sponsored by the Boise State Student Programs Board (SPB), which discussed how students can use MySpace, Facebook and other online resources to make job-seeking and money-making an easier task.

According to Krieglstein, the Internet creates a megaphone effect. This means that everything a person does on the Internet can be potentially spread everywhere, all over the world.

Krieglstein describes it as living in a glass house.

"Everyone's looking in to see what you're doing," he said.

This can be good or bad, depending on what you're showing the world.

Krieglstein pointed out that 60 percent of employers now search the Internet to find out more information about potential job candidates. Pictures, comments and blogs are up for grabs for these employers to see.

One mission of Swift Kick is to help students portray the image these people find desirable.

"The good behavior is what you want amplified out," Krieglstein said.

The company was co-founded about four years ago by Krieglstein and his partner, Kevin Prentiss. They were both in business at the time and felt like the businesses they were with only wanted to make money. After meeting each other, Krieglstein and Prentiss decided to start Swift Kick.

Today the company is totally virtual; it has no physical location. The team doesn't even live together. They are spread all over the United States in places like Chicago and San Francisco.

But why target college students?

"The strength of America depends on its educational system," Krieglstein said.

The mission of the company is not just to help students portray a positive image. It's also to help students increase their engagement on and off campus.

"College is the one time in your life when you should try as much as possible," Krieglstein said. Only then can a student fail and still have safeguards, he explained.

Krieglstein is the perfect model of an ambitious student. In college, he set up a text book selling business which generated around $1.5 million in sales in a single year. He also won a speaking competition, which opened up his eyes to the money-making opportunities in speaking.

Today, he travels all over the United States giving lectures. At other times, he goes to conferences for student leaders. It is at these conferences that schools hire the company.

One such conference is where Boise State SPB got wind of the company.

"We get a nice little taste of what they're about," Jill Krenecki, director of Student Programs Board, said about the conference.

SPB hoped that the lecture would help to "solve the problem of student apathy," Krenecki said.

The Myspace/Facebook lecture is just one of many events SPB brings to the Boise State campus. Other events include movies, shown every Thursday night at 7 p.m. in the Student Union Building, and the Rock Star 101 concerts. But SPB doesn't want to make up all the events by itself.

"We're always open for suggestions," Krenecki said, stressing that student involvement is critical to the success of SPB events.

Any students who wish to submit ideas can visit SPB's Myspace page by searching "BSU SPB."

2007 Swift Kick Program Calendar

As we close the door on 2007, here's a look back at who we worked with.

01/02/07 APCA Las Vegas Advisors Summit
01/03/07 APCA Las Vegas Advisors Summit
01/04/07 APCA Las Vegas Advisors Summit
01/23/07 Valencia CC
01/27/07 University of Alabama - Birmingham
01/27/07 Nazareth College
02/11/07 Lees-McRae College
02/17/07 NACA Nationals
02/18/07 NACA Nationals
02/19/07 NACA Nationals
02/20/07 NACA Nationals
02/21/07 NACA Nationals
02/27/07 US Army International Conference
03/01/07 APCA Nationals
03/02/07 APCA Nationals
03/03/07 APCA Nationals
03/04/07 APCA Nationals
03/07/07 John Hopkins University
03/20/07 Wesley College
03/23/07 APCA Northeast
03/24/07 APCA Northeast
03/25/07 APCA Northeast
03/24/07 Southeastern Louisiana University
04/09/07 Columbia Basin College
04/12-15/07 NACA Northern Plains
04/25/07 Fordham University - Rose Hill
05/01/07 US Army Boss Program
05/16/07 Texas State Univeristy
06/02/07 Miami Dade College
06/23/07 Valencia Community College
07/08/07 APCA FL Advisor Institute
07/09/07 APCA FL Advisor Institute
07/10/07 APCA FL Advisor Institute
07/27/07 APCA Chicago Leadership Conference
07/28/07 APCA Chicago Leadership Conference
07/29/07 APCA Chicago Leadership Conference
08/05/07 APCA NY Leadership Conference
08/06/07 APCA NY Leadership Conference
08/07/07 APCA NY Leadership Conference
08/19/07 Schreiner College
08/20/07 De Sales University
08/20/07 College of Dupage
08/21/07 University of Akron Ohio
08/21/07 Sam Houston State University
08/22/07 Texas A & M International
08/23/07 Penn State - Shenango
08/23/07 Penn State - Lehigh Valley
08/24/07 Queens College
08/24/07 Saint Mary’s University
08/25/07 Penn State - Erie
08/26/07 Kutztown
09/07/07 Howard Comm College
09/12/07 University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee
09/13/07 Greensboro College
09/15/07 Winthrop University
09/17/07 Morningside College
09/18/07 Coe College
09/19/07 Drake Unviersity
09/20/07 Iowa Wesleyan
09/21/07 APCA Midwest
09/22/07 APCA Midwest
09/23/07 APCA Midwest
09/21/07 Berry College
09/24/07 LACUSPA
09/25/07 Society of Success
09/26/07 Chippewa Valley Tech
09/26/07 St. Paul College
09/27/07 WITC
09/29/07 University of Wisconsin - Green Bay
10/05/07 Lord Fairfax CC
10/06/07 Lord Fairfax CC
10/05/07 Coastal Georgia CC
10/06/07 Hunter College
10/09/07 College of Dupage
10/09/07 Augustana College
10/10/07 U. of Minnesota Crookston
10/11/07 North Dakota State U.
10/12/07 APCA Verona
10/13/07 APCA Verona
10/14/07 APCA Verona
10/14/07 Manhattenville College
10/19/07 ACUI Regional Conference
10/20/07 ACUI Regional Conference
10/20/07 ASGA Mid America
10/21/07 ASGA Mid America
10/24/07 Hunter College
10/27/07 Kean College
10/30/07 Valencia CC
10/31/07 Valencia CC
11/02/07 APCA South Central
11/03/07 APCA South Central
11/04/07 APCA South Central
11/05/07 APCA South Central
11/08/07 NACA West
11/09/07 NACA West
11/10/07 NACA West
11/11/07 NACA West
11/09/07 Bridgewater College
11/10/07 Wesley College
11/13/07 U. of WI - Milwaukee
11/13/07 Fordham University
11/15/07 Mott CC


Check out our 2006 Program Calendar

The Application of Dance Floor Theory (Green Bay!)

One of my last presentations on the latest tour was at Wisconsin Green Bay.  It was three hours or so, DFT 1, 2, and some technology blended in from the Secrets Behind Myspace and Facebook.   

A student came up afterwards and said that she had been discussing the day at their table and that they definitely "got it".  They got segmentation of engagement and meeting people where they are at and spatulas and blenders and megaphones and relationships facilitating engagement . . .  but . . .she wanted to know:

"Does it really work?"

"It sounds good and all, but what do we actually do now?"

So she got all the concepts.  She got the big picture, now she wanted the instruction manual.

DFT is big picture. It is a context piece, an experience that sets the various challenges and goals of educational engagement in a cohesive metaphor.  This metaphor "frames" the possible actions - giving them clear relationships to each other. 

In short, it's "How to think about it." 

"What do I do now?" is applied learning.  It's where all the deep learning takes place.  Deep learning feels hard, because it is going from concept to action (opposed to shallow learning, which is action without concept: i.e. Teacher: "Do this." Student: "O.K.")  Shallow learning feels easy, because thinking and experimenting aren't necessary.  Plus, and this is important, in shallow learning, if it doesn't work, it's the teacher's fault.  This protects the student from fear of failure, which prevents students from feeling the joy and power of getting over that fear.

So.  What now, indeed: 

A note to the Green Bay Max U foks:

I know that excitement without any traction on where to start quickly leads to frustration and this can lead to no action at all.  That would be bad.  In the interest of avoiding this, I'll throw out a few application ideas and then all of you can weigh in with your ideas that will probably be better (because your excitement is what will actually get them done). Here's a starter list:

1) Create a new group on campus that is responsible for doing 12 different blender activities.  This would be a cross-group group, meaning it would collaborate and coordinate with many other groups to pull off the bigger events. 

Start with name tag day.  Then come up with a running list.  Use google docs to collaboratively make plans with dates. 



2) All the RA's / community reps get together for a one hour work session to answer the big question: How can we introduce our folk to each other around common positive interests. 

Discussions, in rounds:

a) What are the common interest categories? (i.e. TV shows (simple one), Board Games, Outdoor activities, Community Activities, etc.

b) How could we find out who likes what?

c) How could we help them organize themselves?  How can we empower leaders of these topic interest groups?  (Mozes.com would be an example of a way to empower the leader with a tool.)

d) How can we work with the flash mob people to get our interest leader folk to get involved in those when they come up?

3) For student government.  Can we designate a couple of folks to be technology leaders to help the other students set up Facebook mobile to get pictures of student activities out into the Green Bay news feed?

4) Make it a ritual to have a quick meeting of leader folks attending / organizing events right at the beginning to coordinate spatula activities to help build relationships outside of normal cliques.  (And help the neutrals who may not even have a clique yet.)

That's the warm up - priming the pump - so to speak.  Now it's your turn Green Bay.  Leave comments, how will you apply it?  What action items do you want to play with?

P.S.  Amazing job on setting up the Facebook Group so fast Mike!!  That is a very quick application!

P.P.S.  Great application from NACA: