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Open Education Week

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This post is re-published with permission (under CC-BY license)  from the BCcampus web site and was written by me in my capacity as Director of Communications.

If there’s one word we’d like used to describe BCcampus, one word that underpins everything we do, that signals our philosophy and our very reason for being, it’s this:

OPEN

Open Road

So – welcome to Open Education Week (March 5-10, 2012).

At BCcampus, we’re celebrating by highlighting, in the next few days, the myriad ways we live, work and breathe Open here at BCcampus. We’ve started by posting our Open Agenda statement front and centre on our web site, permanently, for all to see. It states:

“BCcampus is committed to being open in everything we do.

We are a publicly-funded organization serving British Columbia’s post-secondary sector. The goal of higher education is the creation, dissemination, and preservation of knowledge, and as such we have an essential responsibility to distribute the results of our work as widely as possible.

This has implications for how we operate on a daily basis.

Connect:

Our public meetings and events are streamed live online whenever possible. We will take photos and notes of our face-to-face events, and screen shots from our online events, and post them on our web sites and through our social media accounts on Twitter and other social media sites. We encourage speakers and participants to do the same with slides, photos, videos, crowdsourced notes and discussions. We will post archival video of keynote addresses, presentations, panels and discussion sessions on our web properties for anyone to view and comment on. Speakers, facilitators and attendees of all events, online and face-to-face, will be made aware at time of registration that their image and contributions can and will be shared in these ways.

We are committed to open data and open information, which is about proactively releasing information to our stakeholders on an ongoing basis. We will distribute all BCcampus reports, web content, and other media resources using the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 Canada license (see below).

Collaborate:

We are always seeking ways to give the post-secondary system a stronger say in BCcampus strategic planning and priorities, and expanding engagement through online technologies. We will enable moderated commenting on all our web pages where appropriate, and make use of opt-in mailing lists to disseminate information and solicit feedback.

BCcampus has a solid reputation around open educational resources in the context of professional development and academic growth. Resources developed as a result of BC Online Program Development Fund are mandated to use an open license.

Our professional development activities through the Educational Technology Users Group and SCoPE have a long history of encouraging open sharing, reuse and remixing of knowledge and resources.

In the interests of remaining transparent in our business processes, BCcampus will refrain whenever feasible from signing non-disclosure and confidentiality agreements with vendors and partners.

Innovate:

We are committed offering data in a more useful format to enable our stakeholders to leverage it in innovative and value-added ways. BCcampus supports freedom of choice in technology and where possible source files will also be made available in open and free file formats. Our commitment to an open agenda in developing our applications and services is mentioned in our Strategic Plan for 2012-15: “The Challenge-Driven Innovation approach requires us to be more transparent than we think we are now, making our strategies, plans and key documents network-accessible to our system partners, tagging each with an open license, providing our source code for download where appropriate, and using crowdsourcing techniques to openly solicit input from stakeholders and partners in the form of challenges to be solved. CDI is about socializing responses to innovation challenges.”

The wealth of open, shared resources and knowledge are compelling many learners, faculty and institutions. At BCcampus, we want to cast a wider net, so this week you’ll hear more about other aspects of the Open Agenda: how the economics of Open might work, about the Creative Commons Canada project, about an Open Textbook pilot we’re heading up, and about the next round of the Online Program Development Fund.

During this year’s Open Education Week, we hope to demonstrate how Open makes sense.

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Running slower to run faster

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I’m in hard training for my sixth half marathon, and I’m running slower than I ever have before. Much slower. As in, almost 2 minutes per kilometre slower. I’m also running without a pace group – as much as I love the comeradierie, they all go too fast for me.

That’s right, I’m running slower, it’s hard work, and I’m doing it alone and I’m doing it so I can get faster.

Say what?

It’s all about heart rate zones, and lactate thresholds. I’m wearing a heart rate monitor and paying attention to my body – it’s the most personalized training I’ve ever had.

Also the first heart rate monitor chafing I’ve ever had, but I can deal.

Warning: I’m about to blind you with science.

A couple of Saturdays ago I gave myself a birthday present: a trip to the Peak Centre in Burnaby so they could put me on a treadmill and run me ragged while taking a drop or two of blood from my pricked finger every three minutes.

Yeah, I know, bling would have been nice, or a weekend getaway, but there was no one around to spoil me so I got myself something I could really use. Something that would give me back my running, get me back to training and return me to sanity.

SinkAlex at Peak Centre explained that my heart rate is an indication of the lactate in my blood produced by exercise. The harder you work, the more lactate is produced. A lower intensity – about 70% of maximum heart rate, your body is able to get rid of all the lactate it’s producing. Go faster, and lactate builds up, it fills up like a sink and eventually overwhelms the body’s ability to deal with it, producing lactic acid and the attendant cramping, fatigue, and inability to continue running (or biking, or whatever).

The goal of training is to “widen the drain” at the bottom of the sink – to train the body to handle increasing amounts of lactate. Translation: if you’re training based on your lactate threshold profile, you don’t get tired as easily and can perform better.

It also has to do with fast twitch and slow twitch muscles. the faster you go, the more you’re using fast twitch. The slower you go, the more you’re using slow twitch.

My training heart rate is now determined by five zones the Peak Centre guys figured out for me using data from my lactate threshold test.

BUT here’s where my eyes opened wide: there are “intermediary” fast twitch muscles that can act as slow twitch, and handle all that lactate for longer periods. It’s really important for endurance athletes to “recruit” those intermediary fast twitch to act more like slow twitch. By continually pushing my “easy” pace into Zone 2 all those years, I was encouraging my intermediary fast-twitchers to stay fast twitch, I wasn’t increasing my aerobic treshhold or my lactate threshold and I was hitting a wall in terms of performance. I got frustrated and started to lack motivation.

(Those extra ten pounds I gained since the last fall haven’t helped either, but that’s another matter.)

As it turns out, my 6:30/km (or faster) pace - the pace at which I did all my long and “recovery” runs for the last three years, was probably in Zone 2, “junk mile” territory. Also, I’m not doing enough training in zone 3 – lactate threshold pace, and therefore not training my body enough to handle faster running.

(Yes, I missed nearly every Wednesday night track workout while I was training last summer and fall).

Alex explained that 10-15% of my training should be at lactate threshold, Zone 3, between 6:23 and 5:56 per kilometre; but the other 85-90% should be under aerobic threshold, Zone 1, under 150 bpm – or about 8 minutes per kilometre. When I first started doing it I had to stop and walk frequently to keep my heart rate down. It’s getting ever so slightly better, but I really need to concentrate on running at these paces.

What’s the upshot of all this for me? By running slower according to my own body chemistry, I can train my body to run faster at the same heart rate.

So today my 70% HR is 8:00 per km, but in a few months it might be 7:00, and my race pace will be faster yet.

I won’t be hitting my goal of a 2-hour half marathon this May during the Vancouver Half Marathon. I’ll be lucky to break 2:17 – close to a personal worst. However, if I keep at it, consistently training in my correct zones, I can expect to push my Zone 1 to faster paces and set a personal record in the fall.

 

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Surveying would-be students

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Since I’ve been with BCcampus we haven’t focused much on post-secondary students as an audience. The primary audience for our communications efforts is made up of representatives from post-secondary institutions themselves. After all, it’s the presidents, vice-presidents academic, directors of information technology, registrars, people at centres for teaching and learning technologies who we deal with regularly. They’re the ones we have to persuade that working with BCcampus is cost-effective and provides better service to students and faculty. Students are attached to their university or college, and therefore are a secondary audience for us.

That being said, many of our services are student-facing: ApplyBC.ca, the provincial application service; CoursesBC.ca, an online course directory, MyCreditsBC.ca, a new service that provides unofficial electronic transcripts for students of eight institutions. Not only that but students also use the learning management systems, and get their learning experience from faculty who use educational technologies. It’s worth getting the student take on the landscape of online student services.

We surveyed student applicants through ApplyBC recently – it was a “toe-dip” – a foray into taking the temperature of our secondary audience. I’ve included a synopsis of the results below; you can find the full report and survey results on the BCcampus wiki.

We are also surveying post-secondary stakeholders, and that report will probably be available later in February.

Synopsis:

With this survey BCcampus sought an overview of student’s perceptions and attitudes toward existing online student services. The survey was purposefully short (in order to increase chances for completion) and was meant to complement, rather than replace, detailed user testing of existing tools. The questions were also meant to situate BCcampus services within the landscape of the broader provincial system.

The survey respondents were mostly would-be post-secondary students (not yet accepted into a higher-ed institution). Results indicate:

  • minimal awareness of post-secondary online services in the British Columbia system;
  • fairly strong approval of ApplyBC, the provincial application service;
  • lukewarm support for existing services for post-secondary students in general;
  • strong support for additional and enhanced services in the future.

Response rate:

There were 7,190 applicants using ApplyBC during the survey period. Google Analytics for ApplyBC show 12.64% of visits derived from search traffic and 15.48% derived from direct traffic for the same period.

Thus, approximately 2,013 applicants came from direct or search, and therefore would get the popup invitation to take part in the survey (7,190 * (12.64% + 15.48%) = 2,013).

Of the 2,013 potential respondents, 249 emails were sent as a result of applicants choosing to participate in the survey, approximately 12% of eligible users.

Of those 249 emails sent, 63 completed surveys were collected. However, 79 eligible respondents clicked on the link, leaving 16 incomplete responses. Those 16 were not counted in the survey results described here as there was not enough data gathered from them to make a thorough analysis.

Total participation rate in the survey is approximately 3% (63 / 2013 * 100).

Conclusions:

It is possible there is a gap between expectations and the reality of the B.C. post-secondary system that bears further research. It also may indicate the respondents have not thought through what the landscape of post-secondary services for students might look like. This could be a function of the survey design or inexperience, as the overwhelming majority of respondents are not yet post-secondary students.

The survey responses could also indicate that researching and applying to university or college online is such a basic expectation it’s not perceived as a separate “service.” In many ways online services are now perceived the same way electricity or indoor plumbing are perceived: so ubiquitous that their origins and function are unconscious until they break down or disappear.

Today’s post-secondary students expect online services to work without undue delay or complexity. For the most part they do, but the post-secondary system could be providing a better experience overall.

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Coffee Joulies review: first impressions

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I was so excited about coffee joulies when Chris told me about them last spring, I immediately signed on to Kickstarter to help the inventors hurry along the manufacturing process. The idea is: put some bean-shaped metal-and-secret-process-type thingies in your hot drink, and they will immediately cool it to a temperature you can drink without burning your lips. Then, the joulies store the heat and slowly release it, keeping your coffee, tea or whatever a perfect temperature.

Perfect! Just what I need! I don’t put milk in my coffee or tea, so it’s always too hot when I first get it. Then, when it cools, I tend to drink it up fast because I hate it when it’s not warm enough. What if I could put some cute little metal coffee “beans” in my drink and have it perfect temperature for hours? Sign me up!

For months I received email updates on the development of the final product (they weren’t readable on my iPhone, which was annoying, but we’ll just leave that aside for now). And I was SO EXCITED to see the package in my mailbox – finally – this past week.

So here is one of my five-pack of “little” magic beans:

Coffee joule in the palm of my hand

THEY’RE HUGE!

(I texted that to Chris, who immediately responded with “That’s what she said.”)

At the time I sent them some seed money through Kickstarter, Coffee Joulies didn’t have a web site, but they do now http://www.joulies.com/ – and when you read carefully, you are warned:

“Each Joulie is about the size (and shape) of half a medium chicken egg.”

And how many chicken eggs do you need in one cup of coffee?

“Using all five Coffee Joulies in a 16oz thermos displaces 3.75oz, leaving enough room for a full tall coffee/cappuccino/latte. Make sure to tell them that at your coffee shop so they don’t charge you for a 16oz coffee.”

So here’s what 5 joules (two and a half chicken eggs) looks like in my 12-oz mug at home (luckily I have one that is clear):

They displace nearly four ounces! Yeesh! Something I thought I could discreetly carry in my bag for my once-or-twice weekly run to Caffe Artigiano is suddenly a weight-bearing exercise. I guess I could keep them at work to put in my tea mug, but gimme a few weeks of upper-body strength training so I can pick it up without busting a bicep.

Bigger may be better though, if they work as advertised. I put four in my 16-oz mug this morning and sure enough, I was able to drink my tea right away, but as soon as the lid was off, my morning beverage started losing heat just as quickly as if there were no joulies added (it was just that much heavier). I’ll give it a week, try them in my insulated mug and see if they work any better, and report back.

 

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Old sports. New aches.

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Baseball glove

It was the week of doing sports-that-I-did-a-lot-years-ago-but-stopped-and-boy-am-I-sore-after-trying-to-relive-former-glory. My back still hurts from it.

First was climbing – on real cliffs – outdoors. On real rock. Thing about real rock is: it’s hard. As in, I banged my knee, and only realized later that night, after I got up to leave, that It Hurts.

It was better in a couple of days though.

It had been about eight years since I climbed outside. But it all came back, like riding a bicycle. I didn’t lead anything, I let Erich do that. I did top-rope his routes though, which were about 5.8 or 5.9 in difficulty (which is really not all that difficult in the climbing world).

Things I can still remember to do without killing myself or my partner: tie in, belay, clean gear off the route. Those things are easy and I’ve done them in the gym in the intervening years. Skills that required a little more searching of the memory banks were: securing myself so that I can clean an anchor, safely setting up the rope at anchor so my belayer can lower me, setting up a rappel, and rappelling itself (whee!).

We did three routes total after work Wednesday, on a sunny cliff that catches the evening light on Mount Wells. Those three routes were enough to give me sore trapezoids and forearms for two days. I loved every minute of it.

Best of all, I was climbing with the guy who first taught me how to climb sixteen years ago, when we were both living in Regina, SK. It was delightfully strange, both of us sixteen years older, but still being just who we are.

Well, I think we’ve both mellowed out a lot since then. Which made it even nicer.

Second was playing softball, which I did Sunday at a nice diamond near the house of Lauri, a colleague of mine, and her husband Chris. They invited a bunch of friends co-workers and family for a Labour Day Weekend ball game and BBQ and they couldn’t have picked a better day.

I had nearly forgotten how much I used to love playing ball in the summer sun. I practically grew up playing ball. After I graduated from high school I played on a fairly competitive beer league for a couple of years. We had actual practices and even won a tournament or two. I have a pretty good throwing arm, I can field really well, but I never did get proficient at hitting the ball.

Just before I went over to Lauri and Chris’s I had tea with Roger and Jim, plus friends Trevor and Ken. We were talking about how people who play team sports as youngsters (or who played music in bands or orchestras, or who sang in choirs) seem to be better at forming relationships. I avowed that I never was great at team sports, but I did sing in choirs. It wasn’t until I got out on the ball field and started throwing the ball, making a few outfield plays that I remembered the fun I had practicing and playing with the team when I was a young adult.

Thing about softball is: you can form teams and just play and have fun. Lauri and Chris host a lot of international students in their home, and there were a couple of Chinese and Korean students, plus some friends who are recent immigrants from Russia, who had never played before.

We formed into two teams: the Hot Dogs (theirs) and the Slurpees (mine). The Slurpees – well – we, uh, sucked. I think we scored maybe 3 or 4 runs, while the Hot Dogs scored about 20.

But we had a blast. And that was all that mattered.

Photo by Brian Lary

 

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The prize for the most hellish running injury goes to…

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PLANTAR FASCIITIS ladies and gentleman! A big thumbs down for this nastiest little injury you never want to experience.

It sneaks up on you literally at night. You wake up in the morning with a twinge of heel pain. It goes away after you walk around a bit and you think “Huh. That was nothing.”

Send help immediately.

But then it happens a couple of days later. And another after that. Soon it’s every morning when you get up.

But it feels better when you go for a run, so you don’t think much about it. Except, slowly, it gets worse. Soon, your foot starts hurting after you’ve been sitting at your desk for a couple of hours.

Then, if you still do nothing about it, you’ll end up having foot pain while out for a run. When you get up from bed or from sitting more than an hour you are hobbled. Then you’re in real trouble. Don’t believe me? Read this.

I know all this because I’ve been there, several years ago. It took six months or so to heal completely and get back running: physiotherapy, massage, ice baths for my feet, no-impact cardio (I couldn’t even push off the wall when swimming laps, or do hills during spin class). For a time, my only real workout was daily stretching. It was demoralizing. It sucked.

So, this morning when I got out of bed for the third morning and the niggling little twinge in my left foot was worse, I knew I couldn’t ignore it. Different foot this time, I caught it earlier, and I know what to do. Here’s hoping I won’t have to be off for long. I’m signed up for two half marathons in the next six weeks and I’m determined to finish both of them.

My first massage appointment is tomorrow. Wish me luck…

Photo: Aches and pains by quinn.anya used under Creative Commons license.

Thanks to @FootSourceMD for the link to information about plantar fasciitis.

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Context is everything, but I’m sharing my slides anyway

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I had the pleasure last week to attend the spring ETUG workshop (http://etug.ca/) in Nelson BC. ETUG is sponsored by BCcampus, my employer, and once again reminded me why I love my job. The passion and enthusiasm of educators and technologists in the post-secondary system is inspiring and infectious.

The morning of the last day was a hands-on session, and I chose “Developing your Elevator Pecha! Are you Open4Learning?” during which Elena Underhill and Kyle Hunter from BCIT presented the “Elevator Pecha:” a mash-up of Pecha Kucha and the Elevator Pitch which consists of 10 slides, 10 seconds each.

Jo and Samantha (both from Royal Roads University) and I collaborated on an Elevator Pecha. In 25 minutes, this is what we came up with:

Elevator pecha tori jo samantha

View more presentations from ToriKlassen.

In this instance, I added in some words that I used when I gave the presentation, because I thought the photos without the narrative might be inscrutable without context.

This is the real nub: what’s the point of putting slideshows online so people can view them in isolation? Presentations are not about the slides, they are about the presenter.

Alan Levine, the keynote presenter at this ETUG conference, made this point clear by way of example. He spoke without notes, and showed his collected stories in the form of short videos. He also does his keynote justice by presenting all the videos on his blog.

I met Alan three weeks ago at the Online Community Enthusiasts day in Vancouver. There, we got into a discussion about bringing playfulness to events. As it turns out he had written a post last November arguing that people who make presentations really need to learn some improv skills rather than Powerpoint skills.

Hear hear! I had popped in on Alan’s blog before, now I am a subscriber.

I am a half decent public speaker, but my background is in radio broadcasting. I have a fear of speaking off the top of my head, and I have a terrible head for memorization. I need that piece of paper (or more recently my Evernote notes on my iPhone) as a crutch. It’s a shortcoming I’m acutely aware of in my spoken word poetry, but I’ve been lackadaisical about improving on it.

However, my Elevator Pecha went extremely well because it was so focused and concise. I sense a crack in the dam in terms of my performance skills! Elena took video of everyone delivering their Elevator Pechas that day. If she posts them online I’ll share the video, and you can judge for yourself, and see the presentation in context, the way it was meant to be delivered.

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A farewell to 42.2

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Note: Before you read this post, I may have to call bulls**t on myself. I received two running books in the mail today after scheduling this post: “Relentless Forward Progress: a guide to running ultramarathons” and “Born to Run.” So I’ll see you on the trails this summer …

May 1, 2011: a perfect day for a marathon in Vancouver.

Weeks ago in the midst of training I sent my boyfriend Chris a message that said “No matter what happens on May 1, this will be my last marathon for a while.”

I did finish. That makes two finishes and one DNF. After last year’s DNF, I was relieved, happy and tearful Sunday when I crossed the finish line in 4 hours, 39 minutes and 27 seconds.

It was absolutely gorgeous weather. We had a clear view of the north shore mountains and it wasn’t too hot.

I started out with a 6:10 first kilometre but knew it was a little fast and tried to slow it down. The 4:30 pace bunnies caught up to me within 3 k. I fell into step with them. I met someone from New York City and someone from Utah. We chatted as we ran. For someone used to running with a group, it was nice. I felt strong, I felt good. I felt like my goal time of 4:30 was well within reach.

I was momentarily clock-blocked by a homeless guy crossing the street somewhere in the downtown east side. I was rounding a corner and he was blithely crossing the street as if nothing unusual was going on that day. I just laughed and carried on running.

I was grateful for my fuel belt in Stanley Park because they ran out of cups for the water stations. I just refilled my water bottle. The other people around me were gulping straight from the jugs, and picking up used cups. Tsk tsk race organizers! Stanley Park is often the place where something goes wonky during the race, because it’s so hard for the organizers to get in there and replenish supplies after the race has started.

Coming out of Stanley Park my pace was faltering a bit but I really wanted to stay with the 4:30 pace bunny. Just before the Burrard Street Bridge Chris was there with his camera, fresh water bottles, encouraging words and a kiss. But as I turned to resume running I couldn’t spot the pace bunny group. I never did catch up.

The bridge wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be. Or rather – it was harder than I imagined? I couldn’t keep up my pace over the long elevation gain. I put on my music, but by the time I crossed I knew I was going to have a hard time achieving 4:30.

At 30k (the point that marked my longest training run) the hurt set in. Unlike my first marathon, there was no stabbing pain of muscles seizing up – it was just fatigue. I could feel my SI joint, my quads and calf muscles tightening. I felt like I was trying to run on wooden legs.

I had hit The Wall.

I took my last gel and kept going. A lot of the time I was grunting with effort. My pace dropped to about 7 minutes/kilometre and it seemed there was nothing I could do to step it up. I knew I had to run over the bridge again, but I knew it wasn’t as steep as I had imagined, so I would be OK.

I concentrated on my form and kept pushing, trying not to stop and walk. I imagined my legs being pulled up at each step, and that propelled me up to the bridge, which is at the 39 k mark. On my way down, I knew I was so close, that the pain would be over soon, that I was about to finish another marathon.

I started to cry.

That last 3k seemed really long, but suddenly there was the finish line and I heard my name being called. I cried even harder and tried to raise my arms in victory for the finish line camera. Sobbing, I walked through a line of volunteers handing out finisher medals and spotted a little girl.

“Can I have my finisher’s medal?” I asked. I think she was a bit scared because I was crying, but she handed it to me.

“Thanks sweetie!” I said, smiling as I put it around my own neck.

Then I went to find Chris, who was carrying the flask of Irish whiskey. It was the best finish ever.

I’m serious about the no more marathons pledge. The training takes up so much of my time and pretty much kills my social life. Plus, it’s HARD to run 42.2 k at a time. As in – painful, gruelling, grinding. It’s a long, long way to run.

Half marathons, on the other hand, are perfect. It only takes me about 2 hours to run 21.1 k – a nice morning’s run, and just hard enough to accomplish. The training is fun and it doesn’t kill my social life (which does include non-runners!). I still get a medal when I finish.

Last Sunday’s Vancouver Marathon was a great race to end this leg of my marathon journey.

Photo by Christopher Mackay

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How to enjoy a marathon

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I haven’t blogged much about it, but I have been training for the past 4 months for my third marathon: May 1 in Vancouver.

My first marathon was a triumphant 4:42:24 finish. My second attempt ended at the 15k mark with an injury to one of my upper calf muscles.

I’ve been ambivalent about running this marathon. Training is hard, it takes over your life. I haven’t been out in the evening in weeks. My friends are starting to wonder if there’s something wrong with me. Not only that, but I signed up to be a run leader for a spring marathon, not realizing my group would consist of exactly four people: me, two fellow run leaders, one of whom is not signed up for a race and who hasn’t completed a run more than 2 hours, another who injured her ankle hiking and had to drop out of marathon training, and our sole clinic participant who was in Hawaii for all of February and missed several crucial build-up runs.

But still, I slogged through my training, being sidelined by nagging injuries (that were caught early and treatable) only a couple of times. The whole time I’ve been plagued by doubt: do I really WANT to do this? Previously, the training was the most fun part of marathon training. Not so this time.

Of course, yes I do want to finish this marathon. I’ve worked so hard for this. I know the feeling of accomplishment after crossing that finish line and getting a medal is incomparable.

I think my problem is: I’m no longer a newbie. I know how hard it is. I’m under no illusions as to how much work it takes to cross the finish line after 42.2k. I’m under no illusions that race day might not be my day to have a good run. After last fall’s sudden, unexpected injury (it happened in the last week before the race) I know that any-freaking-thing can happen to derail my race plan.

I finished Saturday’s 3:30 run confident that I am ready to run Vancouver. Now taper starts. I’ve been doing everything I can to get into the right headspace to finish strong. I visualize the race each morning, including my triumphant finish. I listen to my marathon music mix, including Phoenix’s “Love Like a Sunset.” I imagine Chris (who’s flying in from New Brunswick the week before) waiting for me in the family area with his camera, a big hug and kiss to my sweaty, salty face.

I know that no matter what happens in the next 20 days, I will take whatever comes, knowing that life happens, the running gods sometimes have a sick sense of humour and I’ve done all I can to get me that medal.

If it’s true that the race is simply the victory lap after all the training, then I’m prepared to just enjoy the day.

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The way we do that thing we do

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During the weekday I am the communications manager for BCcampus, a post-secondary services organization that has 26 full and part time employees distributed throughout BC. Aside from the head office in Vancouver and the Victoria office, where most of the software development team is based, we have staffers in New Westminster, Nanaimo, and the interior. Needless to say, getting us all together physically in the same room happens infrequently.

Last Wednesday December 8 we took the day to do just that: sit down and talk with one another about how we do the things we do. This was my first All Staff gathering as a BCcampus employee, and as the Communications Manager, I was the organizer. (Uh – no pressure!)

I decided to loosely model the day in an “unconference” format, but instead of having people pick topics when they arrived, in the weeks leading up to the day I used email and the corporate wiki to gather feedback, questions, ideas and tips on what we should talk about. I tried to create a loose, flexible structure to give staff the leeway to set the agenda, contribute as much as they could.

The result was success – I wrote a post about it on our corporate blog, you can read it here.

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