Category Archives: Blog Post

On the challenge of @reyjunco, I’ll explain how I use social media.

1) I use twitter and my blog to test ideas and think things out. A sounding board, if you will.

2) to loosely paraphrase Jason Whitlock, judge my actual work in real life, be entertained and challenged by my tweets.

I think some other folks would echo me here, but I think we take social media too seriously.  It’s a tool, a thing to be used, not to be afraid of.  I’d certainly never advocate truly being foolish, but you can be yourself.

Enjoy your life.  Learn something and laugh once in awhile.  That’s my two cents, can’t wait to hear yours.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/30/the-most-profitable-colle_n_802810.html?ref=tw#s217317&title=University%20of%20Texas

Thanks to the Huffington Post for actually sharing the Department of Education Data on athletic spending and equity.  However, thanks to the Department of Education for not knowing what athletic division your schools play in!  Nice work!  NJCAA school Chipola College, is not Division 1, just for the record.  So, rather than this being simple, I had to come up with my own way to chop this data.

1. Any school under 5,000 FTE was gone.
2. Any for profit or 2 year institution was cut.  It seemed like these were all correct.  If they don’t know this information, we’re all completely screwed.
3. Then I only kept schools with revenue above St. Johns University – the highest revenue non-football school that I could find (at least to my knowledge).  The next school up was UCF, which just won a major bowl game and has revenue of about $35.5 million

In that sample size, the average enrollment is 20,150 with an athletics revenue of $67.5 million and average expenses of $62.3 million, making for an average operating profit of $5.2 million.  Gotta say – this doesn’t really mesh up with previous numbers I’ve seen.

One thing that jumps out quickly is that twenty of ninety schools list the operating revenue and expense the same TO THE DOLLAR.  I’m not saying that didn’t happen, but, as the Indy Star article alluded to, the accounting practices of these programs, while not Enron-ian, is not standardized by any means.  The money’s going somewhere, and without going through balance sheets, it’s pretty hard to understand what’s going on.   However, having expenses and revenue that are exactly the same does raise some eyebrows for anyone with some sense.

More on this later.

Here are my strengths….

STRATEGIC

The Strategic theme enables you to sort through the clutter and find the best route. It is not a skill that can be taught. It is a distinct way of thinking, a special perspective on the world at large. This perspective allows you to see patterns where others simply see complexity. Mindful of these patterns, you play out alternative scenarios, always asking, “What if this happened? Okay, well what if this happened?” This recurring question helps you see around the next corner. There you can evaluate accurately the potential obstacles. Guided by where you see each path leading, you start to make selections. You discard the paths that lead nowhere. You discard the paths that lead straight into resistance. You discard the paths that lead into a fog of confusion. You cull and make selections until you arrive at the chosen path—your strategy. Armed with your strategy, you strike forward. This is your Strategic theme at work: “What if?” Select. Strike.

IDEATION

You are fascinated by ideas. What is an idea? An idea is a concept, the best explanation of the most events. You are delighted when you discover beneath the complex surface an elegantly simple concept to explain why things are the way they are. An idea is a connection. Yours is the kind of mind that is always looking for connections, and so you are intrigued when seemingly disparate phenomena can be linked by an obscure connection. An idea is a new perspective on familiar challenges. You revel in taking the world we all know and turning it around so we can view it from a strange but strangely enlightening angle. You love all these ideas because they are profound, because they are novel, because they are clarifying, because they are contrary, because they are bizarre. For all these reasons you derive a jolt of energy whenever a new idea occurs to you. Others may label you creative or original or conceptual or even smart. Perhaps you are all of these. Who can be sure? What you are sure of is that ideas are thrilling. And on most days this is enough.

COMMAND

Command leads you to take charge. Unlike some people, you feel no discomfort with imposing your views on others. On the contrary, once your opinion is formed, you need to share it with others. Once your goal is set, you feel restless until you have aligned others with you. You are not frightened by confrontation; rather, you know that confrontation is the first step toward resolution. Whereas others may avoid facing up to life’s unpleasantness, you feel compelled to present the facts or the truth, no matter how unpleasant it may be. You need things to be clear between people and challenge them to be clear-eyed and honest. You push them to take risks. You may even intimidate them. And while some may resent this, labeling you opinionated, they often willingly hand you the reins. People are drawn toward those who take a stance and ask them to move in a certain direction. Therefore, people will be drawn to you. You have presence. You have Command.

INDIVIDUALIZATION

Your Individualization theme leads you to be intrigued by the unique qualities of each person. You are impatient with generalizations or “types” because you don’t want to obscure what is special and distinct about each person. Instead, you focus on the differences between individuals. You instinctively observe each person’s style, each person’s motivation, how each thinks, and how each builds relationships. You hear the one-of-a-kind stories in each person’s life. This theme explains why you pick your friends just the right birthday gift, why you know that one person prefers praise in public and another detests it, and why you tailor your teaching style to accommodate one person’s need to be shown and another’s desire to “figure it out as I go.” Because you are such a keen observer of other people’s strengths, you can draw out the best in each person. This Individualization theme also helps you build productive teams. While some search around for the perfect team “structure” or “process,” you know instinctively that the secret to great teams is casting by individual strengths so that everyone can do a lot of what they do well.

ADAPTABILITY

You live in the moment. You don’t see the future as a fixed destination. Instead, you see it as a place that you create out of the choices that you make right now. And so you discover your future one choice at a time. This doesn’t mean that you don’t have plans. You probably do. But this theme of Adaptability does enable you to respond willingly to the demands of the moment even if they pull you away from your plans. Unlike some, you don’t resent sudden requests or unforeseen detours. You expect them. They are inevitable. Indeed, on some level you actually look forward to them. You are, at heart, a very flexible person who can stay productive when the demands of work are pulling you in many different directions at once.

One of my past-times since I’ve moved to New Jersey is to spend time driving around Trenton.  Just to give you an idea, I live on the outskirts of Trenton, closer to Princeton than I am to the center of Trenton.  For those not familiar, Trenton is really close to Princeton but in no way similar other than they’re both located in New Jersey.

Before I moved up here, I basically knew that Trenton was a rough place that had seen better days.  It’s been rated among the most dangerous cities in the United States and is the opposite of a tourist destination – a tourist repellent, i guess.  Since I’ve been here, I’ve learned about Trenton’s better days.  It’s the site where the revolutionary war turned; that picture of George Washington crossing the delaware River was a depiction of him entering Trenton.  It used to be a city for manufacturing, even boasting on one of the bridges crossing town that “trenton makes, the world takes”.  It’s a historic city and the capital of one of our most important states.

However, I’ve also learned what happened that destroyed Trenton.  The riots of 1968 were especially bad here, as well as in Newark and Camden – two other places that have experienced massive decay.  (For some compelling reading on Trenton’s riots, check out this story).

I say all that to say, the city has seen better days and is still in the process of recovering from it’s worst days, even though they happened nearly 40 years ago.  What I see now is urban decay and it always reminds me of Baltimore….

I was addicted to the Wire for the first 4 seasons, but stopped watching when I moved here because it felt a little too real.  Literally miles from my house, I can drive around and see corner boys, graffiti depicting slain gang heroes, urban decay and poverty.  I don’t need it on TV.

What I loved about the Wire was that it depicted the harsh reality of life as a poor person in a very challenging city.  Classrooms in the schools were a disaster due to the corner kids who had been trained for life on the street corner not in the classroom.  Many of these kids were experiencing very real challenges that I cannot even imagine – crack addicted mothers, absent fathers, constant pressure from drug pushers to work, and friends who had chosen the wrong path.  The ones who just wanted to keep their nose clean and do a good job were faced with never-ending challenges as they tried to navigate this environment, many of them on their own.

Which brings me to Jasper Howard, the student who was stabbed to death after a party at the UConn Student Union on Saturday night, a story I described on my Twitter as “my nightmare”.  Jasper had a tough upbringing in Miami.  One story put it this way

“Howard, known as “Jazz” to his teammates, often talked about his tough time growing up in Miami. His mother, Joangila, worked many jobs to support him and his sisters, Keyondra and Jasmine, who is afflicted withmeningitis.

Howard, the first in his family to go to college, also spoke often about his dream of making it professionally so he could support his family.

“He was a good child, a wonderful, sweet, loving child,” Joangila Howard told CNN affiliate WSVN. “I just hope whoever did it turns himself in. [Jasper] didn’t deserve this.”"

For some reason, I’m sure we’ll find out soon, someone decided to take the life of this young man who was literally THE hope of his family and was simply trying to get an education and take advantage of the opportunities afforded to him by playing football.

I guess I say all this to say – the kids who are forced to grow up in difficult environments like Trenton, Camden, Newark, Baltimore and many other places where poverty ravages lives and families need all the help they can get, from all of us so that they can have the opportunity and the choice to enjoy something different.  I certainly don’t have all the answers, but I do have hope when I see things like the young man I saw crossing the street today who had purpose in his eyes and a bookbag on his chest and was not wandering around the corners but instead appeared to be headed home from school.  It’s kids like this who will change lives and communities.

Sadly, Jasper Howard will never get that chance but maybe this tragedy, no matter what the circumstances, will help us all to pause and remember that while shows like The Wire are not real, there are literally millions of kids trying to make the best of themselves and their families.  The rest of us should be doing everything we can to help these courageous kids and keep them safe.

Here’s the main deficiency I’ve seen of Facebook Fan Pages over Facebook Groups. With a fan page, you can post status updates. As Facebook continues to slowly hijack Twitter’s business model, the value of status messages continues to increase. Currently (and Facebook has not yet fixed this to my knowledge) this is the huge value of the Fan Page over the Group.

To my understanding, there are some downsides to the fan page. Using a fan page to create events is problematic as it only allows for inviting people that you are actually friends with. You can’t just invite anyone who is a fan of your page.

Also, there is the problem of ownership…let’s say you want to create a fan page, Facebook has made it ridiculously difficult to remove yourself as owner of the page. Not cool.

While groups are easier to deal with on both of those counts, I still believe the ability to post status updates makes the fan page more valuable. I’m sticking with the fan page.