Star lecturer, local tutor

Listened to another TWIG podcast while running. One of the topics led them to discuss iTunesU and how it has the potential to change the way education is done. "Star lecturer, local tutors" was an idea fleshed out by Jeff Jarvis, one of the contributors. As I was on the treadmill listening to the conversation, I realized this is exactly what many of the big churches are doing right now. Mars Hill, Life Church, North Point...they really use the "star lecturer, local tutor" paradigm. Is this the natural result of the technology available? Is this good? Bad? Neither?

I thought about Campus Crusade and what the implications are for us. Are we the local tutors for college students? Or do we as staff aspire to the "star lecturer" role? I doubt it.

But perhaps there is an opportunity for us. We don't have just one star lecturer, we have tons. They are spread out all over the country and world, but they all have our DNA of "win, build, send" built in to them. If they lived down the street from us, we would have them speak at our campus weekly meeting as often as they would come. What if we began to use the available technology to have talks given via distance? My first thought was just other nearby universities in our region. What if a speaker in Bozeman, MT gave a talk on Wed night and knew that not only MSU would be watching, but WSU and UI as well? The speaker could connect with the audience in front of them as well as the distance audience. We could expose our students to the best in the region, yet not need the expense of travel and the associated financial and emotional cost on the speaker and local ministry.

There are technology and cost issues to be addressed, as well as learning how to present well (both by the speaker and the distance audience) in this new medium. I've also thought about development. If we show a distance speaker, it is one less chance for the local staff to be developed. But I have a feeling that gifted communicators will find themselves with opportunity to develop, and those that don't have the raw material to be great speakers will be able to focus on areas where their strengths can be utilized. It also could reduce stress on small staff teams that need to think about quality talks at their weekly meeting every week.

What would be the objective of doing this? It's not just putting on a better weekly meeting. It's building our DNA in to our campus movements, expanding our vision from our campus to the region, country, and world, and it's exposing our movements to great communicators. That's good for students and staff.

Step one seems to be trying this out with a narrow focus. Perhaps recording a weekly meeting talk in one location, putting it on Vimeo/other, and then showing it at another weekly meeting the following day/week. Are there any additional factors to consider?

The master of input...and the namesake for this blog

When you take the StrengthsFinder test and come out with a top strength of "input", and you grew up in the 80's, there is only one thing that can come in to your mind: Short Circuit. The movie was filmed in my native state of Oregon in the town of Astoria. In case you're wondering, yes, "The Goonies" was filmed there, too. Just one year earlier in fact. I'm not sure there is another town that has had more movies filmed there per capita. Here is a list, courtesy of Wikipedia:

Astoria was the setting of the 1985 movie The Goonies, which was filmed on location. Other movies filmed in Astoria include Overboard, Short Circuit, The Black Stallion, Kindergarten Cop, Free Willy, Free Willy 2: The Adventure Home, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III, Benji the Hunted, The Ring,^[11] The Ring Two, Into the Wild, The Guardian and Cthulhu.

But back to Short Circuit. Featuring such Hollywood luminaries as Steve Guttenburg and Ally Sheedy, the real star of this movie was a robot named No. 5. A government experiment gone wrong (that always happens!), No. 5 goes rogue and disappears to a coastal town where he is on the lam, trying to avoid being caught and destroyed by an overzealous military (that always happens, too!). The plot line was plenty enjoyable for a 10 year old, but the part I really remember is "Johnny 5", as he came to be called, reading/scanning everything he could get his hands on, book after book. (Kind of sounds like Google's latest project, huh?). After polishing off a stack of books, he would say "Need...more...INPUT!"

Well, that has been a felt need I've had for almost my whole life. Unconsciously, there is something inside of me that is always demanding more input: books, magazines, blogs, websites, newspapers, videos, conversations, random information from wherever...so much of it is interesting. And like No. 5, it all makes me feel kind of alive. So here's my tribute to you, Johnny 5, the poster-robot for the "input" strength.

Footnote: I didn't realize until reading the wikipedia summary that No. 5 was a "SAINT". It stands for Strategic...blah, blah. You can read the rest on the link above. But two notable things: 1) The input and strategic theme are tied together in the character of No. 5, and 2) there is a connection between input and SAINT-hood. I like it.

Is input really a strength?

Several months ago, the members of our WSU Cru staff team took the StrengthsFinder 2.0 test. If you aren't familiar with the test, it's a series of online questions that ask you to pick which choice is more "you", A or B. What is unusual about the test is that it times you so that you can't over think your answers. After you take the test, it produces your Top 5 strengths (out of the 34 identified by Gallup).

I had first heard about "StrengthsFinder" at our national staff conference in 2007 when Mark Gauthier, our national campus director, mentioned the test and how the Upper Midwest region in the USCM was really into it. Off-handed, he commented that he had ideation. He said something along the lines of "I'll say 'that idea is great!', but that doesn't mean I'm actually going to do it. I just love the idea!'" When I heard him say that, I thought two things: 1. I think I have the ideation strength, and 2. I need to take this test. I've rarely met a personality/self-discovery tool that I don't like.

Go forward a year and a few months, and my wife goes to a national mom's conference where they all do StrengthsFinder. She comes back with all sorts of insight in to herself and the other women that she interacted with, as well as ideas with how we could do it with our staff team. Somehow, she also got her hands on a list of the "Top 5" of all the leaders in our region. I guess all the local leaders/regional directors had recently done it. That was fascinating to look over. (Ssh, don't tell anyone.)

So after convincing our staff team to spend the money to buy the book (cheaper than buying the online test...and the test comes in the book that you get to keep), we all took it and processed our results. I put together a spreadsheet that was pretty fun to look at that incorporated the four different strength "themes" along with our team results. As we discussed the results, we were able to learn a lot about each other and how we function as a team/individuals. Many of us passed the word to students who began taking the test.

My top 5 were: 1) Input, 2) Strategic, 3) Learner, 4) Ideation, 5) Intellection. First thought when looking at the results: Is "Input" really a strength? What can you do with that? The Gallup organization says we are most happy in our jobs and life when we are using our strengths. According to this, I should spend my time reading and collecting information. Fortunately, there are also some tips on how to "put your strengths to work". This blog is an attempt to contribute towards that personal effort.