Tallahassee

I used my phone this morning, but not to make a call, instead I thought I would take a moment to find out who the Minnesota Vikings selected in the NFL draft. It literally took me less than 30 seconds to discover the names and associated biographies of every one of the obscure college athletes that were selected by my team. By the way those 30 seconds seemed like an eternity, I couldn't believe how slow the information was to pop on my screen so I had to multi-task and pour my cornflakes at the same time...

The first bite of my breakfast while watching my son search for friends on Skype had me reminiscing about the old days. I remember an NFL draft from 1994, Shannon and I were living in a one bedroom cabin in Ontario and I desperately wanted to find out who was selected in the draft, but I had no way to access the information until 3 months later when a pre-season magazine was published. Those are the kinds of stories that my children just can't believe - in their generation information is immediate and it's only how you use it that matters.

In the words of a famous graduation speech by an eighth grade student from the USA, "the importance of memorizing the capital of Florida became irrelevant the day my cell phone knew the answer".

Still there are times when I wonder if my children know anything at all, so from time to time I pull the parental card like I did Friday night and buy the family a copy of one of the greatest books every written, "The Diary of a Young Girl" penned by Anne Frank (a Montessori student of course). It is on those occasions that my faith is more than restored as my son pauses from his DS to ask me four or five incredibly thoughtful questions about Anne Frank, WWII, Nazi Germany and Peace. He is quite articulate that man of ours and I'm sure that he will store away the conversation we had and it will come back out one day at exactly the right time to make a connection far more eloquently than I ever could.

Back to school tomorrow after a lovely 2 week break, can't wait to get back to the action. There are several things that Australian's do extremely well and school break is definitely one of them. So far the list for me also includes Anzac cookies, mangoes and their varied uses of avocado.

Out

Unreal

Is there any topic that cannot be made into a reality show. So you think you can floss..Laundry with the Stars...surely somewhere a tv producer is cyber stalking my blog saying hmmm maybe...

Reality TV is the ultimate disruptive innovation. Take a market, create a low cost, low quality product that is easily accessible and watch supply create the demand. As a business concept it is actually quite brilliant.

Then there are those of us that work in industries that can't take short cuts, we must make small incremental gains and take a careful approach to change. It's like that in schools, 2400 years after Aristotle there is still no royal route to Algebra and in the words of that famous educator Diana Ross...you can't hurry love.

Speaking of love, it's back to my roots this weekend at the Highland Gathering in Bundanoon. Mackenzie is dancing and I'm feeling a caber toss coming on...let the games begin!