We’ve known it for a while.  People don’t read half the stuff we produce on paper… or even on blogs. 

We know it and yet for some reason we continue to invest in words that sit in unread documents and websites around our schools. It’s a simple knowing-doing gap.  Time to try something different. Video perhaps.

What follows is the first in a series of videos that will attempt to tell the story of our school in ways that connect with people.

And before anyone asks, it was not expensive.  Certainly cheaper than any brochure you are likely to produce this year.

Food for thought.

 This video was produced by Emily and Josh Brooks for ISB Communications.

Arguably, one of the most pressing issues when it comes to school admissions is the lack of concrete definition as to what the job actually entails. 

The more I think about it, however, the more I am convinced that there are three distinct competencies that define our art; three aspects of our role that can be captured by three simple words: story, process, and people.

It goes without saying that we are managers of a process.  All those forms, documents, reports, data entries, and online questionnaires have to be coordinated and aligned in order to ensure that the right decisions are made at the right time by the right people.  It is the Admissions Office that captures this information and facilitates its movement around the school.

What is equally obvious is our storytelling role within the school.  I have elsewhere spoken of the communications ‘backbone’ of the school, of which the Admissions Officer is a critical component.  Any school that can point to an alignment between the Board Chair, Director, Communications Director and Admissions Officer is already in a good place. 

The purpose of this article, however, is not to speak to either of these competencies, but rather to float the suggestion that one of the most important and yet under-rated aspects of our job is the whole business of managing ourselves and managing others.

Most of the time, one of the reasons why people are offered positions in school admissions is because they have highly developed ‘people skills’.  They are personable, friendly, and can relate across a range of social and cultural barriers.  They often speak more than one language and are able to communicate in ways that others understand.

However, being a ‘people person’ and knowing how to manage people effectively – particularly when those we come into contact with may sometimes be anxious, manipulative, aggressive, or just plain rude – are two different things and, in my experience at least, we spend little time thinking about and reflecting upon the complexity of the interpersonal relationships we encounter almost on a daily basis.  We give even less thought to the emotional strain that these relationships have upon our own professional and personal sense of well-being.

And over time, if left unchecked, there is no doubt that these things tend to take their toll.

So how do we manage ourselves by learning to ‘manage’ the relationships we have with others?  How do we respond when we encounter ‘difficult’ people?

This was a question we took to a recent team Away Day at the International School of Brussels.  Facilitated by a local coaching expert, who also brings experience of research in neuroscience, we took a day to think about how often we encounter these challenging situations, what it feels like to be placed in this position, how the brain responds, and – critically – strategies for managing both our own response and framing the expectations and responses of those around us.

The day was just the beginning of a much longer conversation; just as this article is intended to do no more than throw out into the mix the suggestion that a definition of admissions that does not give serious consideration to the importance of managing complex human relationships at a time of transition is no definition at all.

Brussels has been my home now for more than ten years, but only in the last twelve months have I discovered one of its best kept secrets. 

Nestled away in the far corner of the commune of Watermael-Boitsfort at the entrance to the Forêt de Soignes, the area known as the Coin du Balai (‘Broom Corner’) is arguably one of the last remaining rural communities within the city limits of Brussels with a charming combination of character and quirkiness.

The beginning of the story
If you believe the book of legends, you could easily be forgiven for thinking that the kings of old were constantly getting lost in the forests of Europe and benefitting from random acts of kindness by naive strangers, unaware of their true identity.

True to form, this is ‘precisely’ what happened to Emperor Charles V.  He lost his way during a hunt on the outskirts of Brussels and was fortunate enough to stumble upon a local, who offered his guest a slice of meat on condition that he told no one – for fear of being arrested for poaching.

Upon his return to Brussels, Charles summoned his new acquaintance to the Royal Court.  Rather than punishing him for his crime, however, he pardoned the man and bestowed upon him and his descendents the right to cut wood in the forest to make brooms.

The man returned to his home and, in time, this corner of Brussels was to adopt the name Coin du Balai.

Where people sit out front
When the Palais de Justice was built in the second half of the nineteenth century, many of the evicted families from this part of the city centre – Les Marolles – moved into the small houses built for them that, today, characterize the neighbourhood in which I live.  With only a few exceptions, these are not the mansions of Uccle, nor the villas that pepper the landscape beyond the Ring.  At the same time, the folk that live here know that this is somewhere special.

There are signs of community everywhere.  Since moving to the area, however, there is a one single image that sticks: the benches and chairs out front.  Despite the fact that this is an area full of alleys and paths, leading up behind the houses to secluded gardens, lush vegetable plots and stylish art ateliers, this is a place where people choose to sit out front.  The wooden benches placed directly onto the street, despite our unpredictable climate, appear to be in constant anticipation of lazy Sunday afternoons and long summer evenings; of any day, in fact, that gives opportunity for local residents – both young and old – to interact more, watch more, meet more, and generally feel connected to one another.  This is a place where children still ride their bikes in the streets after dinner and impromptu street parties are apparently the norm.

People of the forest
What I have also come to understand, however, is that the story of this community, which today is made up of an eclectic mix of locals as well as short and long-term expatriate families, continues to be caught up in the much bigger, unfolding saga of the forest that wraps around it.  More than a daily recreational space for walking, running cycling, and spotting all manner of wildlife, the trees are a constant reminder of our connection to nature, as well as our responsibility to the environment.  In short, the trees dictate a way of life built on principles of sharing, respect, and the art of recycling.  Nothing here is wasted.

Walking through the streets and observing my neighbours - leaning out of their windows towards one another, walking their dogs, or enjoying the world go by from the comfort of their bench - I used to wonder how the area became such a magnet for environmentalist, New Age or ‘hippy types’.  The more I think about it, though, the more I believe that something else is going on.  At least, as I look at how the forest has changed me in the last twelve months, I now suspect that the Coin du Balai, rooted as it is in the story of the trees, simply has a habit of changing the folk who come to live here for the better.

This article was written for publication in (A)WAY Magazine in September 2012 and is reproduced here with permission.  The full article can be found here.

Last week saw another edition of the European Communication Summit, with 600 communicators representing Europe’s financial, corporate and political spheres coming together in Brussels to reflect upon ‘The state of the art in communications and leadership.’

The opportunity to join such a distinguished and engaging group of people each year is both personally humbling and professionally provoking; reminding me that there is a world of ideas, stories and experience out there, well beyond the relative bubble of life in school.

With the event now past, a number of thoughts continue to linger and I’m left wondering to what extent they are helping us to decode the future of international school marketing and communications.

So here’s what I learned and what it subsequently (in no particular order) led me to think. 

1. We will never understand communications unless we understand how the brain works. 

 For centuries, philosophers have been wondering how it is possible that meaning is conveyed between the speaker of a message and those who are its recipients.  Put simply, how do I know, when I speak about a ‘tree’, that those around me will decipher the notion of a ‘tree’ from what would otherwise be meaningless, white noise.  Neuroscience, says Professor Gerhard Roth from the University of Bremen, Germany, is beginning to help us understand how the brain makes meaning, but it also throws the complexity of communication into sharp relief. 

Key question: Have we ever considered the meaning that is being made out there by our relentless production of web pages, print publications, flyers, and newsletters?  I’m guessing that, if we stopped to consider how much of it is simply interpreted as ‘white noise’, we’d be shocked into utter silence.

2. Augmented reality is a revolution that has already begun.  

According to Wikipedia, augmented reality is ‘a live, direct or indirect, view of a physical, real-world environment whose elements are augmented by computer-generated sensory input such as sound, video, graphics or GPS data.’  It is best understood, however, when you see it in action.  Here’s an example, shared by Sean MacNiven, Head of Communications Innovation at SAP, of a nearly-possible future:

Key question: As we think about how day-to-day marketing tasks such as the school tour for prospective families, how will this technology begin to shape and enhance the stories we are telling about our school?  Could we imagine a day when walking into a classroom is enhanced with layers of explanation about precisely what learning looks like in this space.

3. Collaborative networks are founded upon the principles of swarm intelligence. 

According to Dr Volker Witee, who specializes in the organization of complex behavior, when birds migrate, they only each have a vague sense of where they are going.  Together, however, they can pinpoint their destination with remarkable accuracy.  This really is the wisdom of crowds in action.  Looking across to collaborative networks, he explains, the same principle applies: knowledge is held by the self-organization and in a decentralized, rather than hierarchical, manner.  Moreover, consensus is the result of swarm intelligence, not its starting point. 

Key question: As international schools provide learning experiences to students from all corners of the globe, how do we understand the relationship between this ‘crowd’ of learners and the knowledge, skills and dispositions that we know they need to discover?  Is there a way of learning that places more value upon the group than the individual?  And if so, how on earth would we begin to communicate this vision of learning to parents arriving on our doorstep?

4. Communications never changed anything.

Dr Leandro Herrero, founder of the Chalfont Project and specialist in organizational structure, talks about ‘7 inconvenient truths about change’.  They hardly need explanation:

·         Communication is not change

·         It is not change unless it is behavioral change

·         Social change is pull not push

·         Social change is viral, or it isn’t change

·         There is an act in activism (Clicktivism is not activism)

·         Employee engagement is not employee bombardment

·         Social movement leadership is backstage leadership

Key question: We might have communications in our job description, but many of us are also focused on a number of change management issues that will determine the future of the learning communities we are connected to.  Do we understand that information bombardment is a cul-de-sac for change?  How long will we continue to believe that ‘clicks’ count for anything?

5. We may be communicators but can we even speak our own name?  Sitting listening to Marie Terese Letorney, founder of Ask Your Voice™, I am struck by two simple observations.  First, many of us spend far more time developing our written or visual communication skills than working on the art of public speech.  Second, we should not underestimate the extent to which the reputation of our organizations is linked to who we are and how we introduce ourselves.

Key question: Have we ever considered the importance of tone, pace, resonance and intonation when thinking about how we introduce the name of our school to people?  If not, it may be that prospective families are making false assumptions about our organization just by the sound of our voice.

6. 84% of communicators feel misunderstood.  The European Communication Monitor is currently the largest survey amongst communication professionals across 42 countries and the 2012 results perhaps only confirm what we already know: many people, particularly those in leadership positions, still don’t understand what it is that we actually do.  And this is across the board, not just in schools.

Key question: Are we yet clear on the role, function, and value of school communication, or even how and where we fit into the organizational chart of our institution?  It may be just a personal view, but in speaking to colleagues around the world I continue to believe that many outstanding communicators are struggling with a lack of articulation about the relationship between their role and that of other key storytellers in the organization: the Board Chair, the Director, and the Admissions Officer.  If this isn’t worked out, then we’ll always be part of the 84%.

7. Visual communication is a modern art rooted in our past.  Dr Herbert Heitmann, President of the European Association of Communication Directors and Executive Vice-President of External Communications for Royal Dutch Shell, believes that the future trajectory of our art may be leading us back toward the traditional art of visual communications; where art is a form of storytelling, based on various visual tools and techniques.  Today, Heitmann explains, there is the technology out there, such as the 3M Hotspot, that will analyze your visual communication and highlight those elements that are known to attract the eye.

Key question:  When we pull together our next ad campaigns, will be bother to think about what the reader will see, as opposed to what we want to communicate?   Just for fun, I tried out the technology on one of our more recent adverts (above).

And that, in a nutshell, is it: seven reasons why these events are worth their weight in gold, seven ideas that might just shape the future landscape of what some of us call work.

I keep returning to the idea of ‘good enough’ parenting, probably because I think I’m not.

Peter Perfect, on the other hand, was of altogether different stock.  A regular contestant in Wacky Races – the hit US late-60s children’s TV show in which eleven cars raced against each other in various road rallies, with each driver hoping to win the title of “World’s Wackiest Racer” – Peter drove the Turbo Terrific 9 and, despite the painful unreliability of his vehicle, lived up to his family name by never failing to congratulate poor Turbo on how well it was doing.

Looking on from the stands, I imagine that Peter’s parents were impossibly proud.  I also imagine that Peter’s positive and courteous outlook on life must, in some way or another, have stemmed from the good fortune of more-than-good-enough parenting.  After all, as we all know, perfect kids come from perfect parents.

Or do they?

Taking a moment to think about my own children, none of them are Peter and certainly none of them are perfect.  They’re all different, all loved, and all just regular kids – an apparently random mix of beauty, happiness and integrity, tainted with brokenness, fragility and more than a hint of selfish ambition.  In fact, thinking about it, they’re all just like me.

But doesn’t this just go to show that imperfection breeds imperfection?

Maybe, but the truth is, despite being a fan of Wacky Races as a young child growing up in the 70s, I never saw Peter’s parents watching from the stands.  They were apparently never there to congratulate him when things went well or support him when disaster struck.  If they existed at all, it is safe to say they were likely far from perfect.

And why should they be?  Step away from parenting for a while and consider almost any other human activity.  We understand that one can be a great teacher without being good at teaching every subject at every grade level.  Equally, it makes sense to us that one can be a great footballer without being good in attack and defense.  Yet, when it comes to parenting, I suspect that most of us feel the burden of having to be pretty damn good at every stage of the most ‘wacky’ race of all as we accompany our children along the road that leads from infancy into adulthood.

And here’s the point I want to make: as parents we discover along this treacherous path that we’re far better at some things than others.  Some of us excelled at coping with sleepless nights and then made a hash of reading stories at bedtime.  Some of us spared the time to teach our children to swim and eat their vegetables, but couldn’t then cope with the thankless task of providing structure and discipline to teenagers intent on ‘discovering themselves’.  Some of us were simply never there when it mattered, but ultimately found other ways of being a constant source of love.

If you’re a parent, you’ll know what I’m talking about.  Some of us are strikers, some of us are goalkeepers and some of us are outstanding in defense.  But don’t for one minute think that you’ll ever be world-class in every position.  That’s the myth of Peter Perfect’s parents who, after all, were never written in to the story.

High above the city on a tall tower, or so the story goes, stood the statue of the Happy Prince, gilded all over in jewels and fine gold.  And from this particular vantage point, he could see all the unhappiness and sadness unfolding within the homes far below.

You probably know how the story ends.  A beautiful swallow happens to alight upon the statue on his way towards warmer shores, but is delayed by the requests of the Happy Prince to remove his jewels, one by one, and offer them to the people of the town who needed them most. 

Whilst the story ends with the death of the swallow and the demise of the statue, this is Oscar Wilde as his best, both evocative and uplifting; helping us all to reflect on life as a form of continuous 'giving away'.

Once upon another time, I find myself sitting at the piano, playing songs from a children's musical I had composed 'back in the day', based on the same story of the Happy Prince.  Now, I have never counted myself as a true musician - at least not in the sense of being properly trained.  I have, though, enjoyed the opportunity to work, at several moments in my life, with children and to witness, first hand, the way in which music can bring these powerful stories to life, providing a context in which young people can wrestle with and reflect upon some of life's most important themes.  Each time my hands play out these simple melodies on the piano, I remember the children who sang for their friends, their parents and grandparents.  I wonder where they might be now, how life was treating them and whether they remember the Happy Prince.

Life as a forming of giving away. 

Stepping away from the piano, I am reminded of this simple thought and, if I'm honest, begin to feel a little sad.  I mean, there are all these fragments of my story - my life as it happens to have played out to date - that have each been meaningful, brought so much joy, and a strong sense that 'this is who I'm meant to be right now'.  But today these moments are relegated to grains of sand on a distant shore; dreams that, for one reason or another, got swept aside by the relentless current of 'real' life.

Now, tell me if I'm wrong but I don't think I'm alone here.  I believe that many of us look back and see episodes, themes, even whole chapters of our lives that seemed like gifts we could treasure and share with those around.  But, at one moment of another, they were gone.  We changed direction, took a different path, ran out of time or simply out of steam.

So, in the end, does everything end up the way of the Happy Prince and the dead swallow lying at his feet?

The more I think about it, the more I think the answer's "yes".  We are each born, covered with jewels and fine gold - each piece a gift destined to define and give meaning to a moment in our lives.  But here's the deal: it is only ours to give away and every day represents a ‘peeling away’ that reveals something of who we really are.  No I don't write children's musicals any more and I will surely never be a priest or academic, sitting in the shadow of Oxford's spires.  As a wise man once said, everything - yes, everything - has its time and there's no going back.

So the moral of the story?

The happiest prince (or princess for that matter) is he who looks back at the end of his life and enjoys the memory of what he had, not the regret of what he lost. 

Stepping off the train, somewhere on London’s Central line recently, I noticed an advert asking the community of underground commuters to submit their stories of kindness on the Tube.

The request, I later discovered, comes from artist Michael Landy, a man determined to celebrate what he calls ‘everyday generosity and compassion on the Tube’ by collecting and sharing these tales of hope as works of art.

Here’s an example:

“I was going through a difficult time and I was crying on the train from Victoria to Clapham Junction. A girl offered me a tissue from a hand-made little cotton purse. Her grandmother made it especially for her to hold hankies. I couldn't tell her why I was crying or stop. But the care that purse was made with and the love it represents, somehow made things a little better.” (Anonymous)

The project got me thinking: What’s the point of kindness anyway?   What is the relationship between kindness and risk?  And, perhaps the most difficult question of all, is there still a place for random acts of kindness in a world where altruism tends to be treated with curiosity and suspicion?

In 2009, psychologist Adam Phillips and historian Barbara Taylor published a book entitled, On Kindness.  Their key question: Why do we ‘generally see independent people as strong and charitable people as dumber or less developed’?  And how did we ‘get to a place in human history in which … we interpret small acts of random kindness as suspect – as a repressed need to be recognized, as a sign of an overly submissive nature, or even as a symptom of mental illness’? (Psychology Today)

Phillips and Taylor conclude that, in contrast to the Enlightenment view that we are all naturally greedy (Hobbes), there is, in fact, something out there called ‘kindness’ – a way of being that reaches beyond our self-obsession and embraces risk and vulnerability for the sake of others.

In short, the girl on the tube who took a moment to offer the stranger a tissue from her grandmother’s purse was taking a risk, making herself vulnerable and doing something intrinsically good and creative.

That makes sense to me.  

Far away, in another land across the sea, a group of people sat in a room and tried to come up with the top-10 reasons why people look beyond themselves and give (make donations) to schools.  I never once heard kindness mentioned.  But increasingly I’m convinced that people give because, in the end, its right – it's a risk, an act of generosity, that throws up new and creative opportunities for everyone involved.

So who will smile because of you tomorrow?

Some ideas are worth playing with, just to see what floats to the surface.

For some years now, I’ve been fascinated by the question of how we come to know the Truth.  What are the conditions, in other words, in which people suddenly see meaning amidst all of the white noise and find that everything makes perfect sense?

Plato was one of the first to kick this conversation off.  For him, the pursuit of Truth involved looking inwards and simply remembering what was innately present within the human soul.

Most of us will recall his allegory of the cave, illustrated below.  You’ll notice the captives.  They are the poor, helpless unenlightened ones (the majority) who think they are seeing things clearly.  In fact, though, they are faced the wrong way and only watching the projected images of the cave-dweller higher up the cave.

Coming to know the Truth, says Plato, is a journey in which the captive rids herself of her ties and begins the long and lonely ascent up out of the cave into the sunlight.

So what has any of this got to do with school admissions?

Here’s my thinking.  What if we replaced the word ‘captives’ with ‘prospects’? 

Doesn’t this somehow capture the desperate and unenlightened state of so many families as they seek the truth of what school is best for their children?  Oftentimes, these families are led to believe that the images they see are ‘real’.  We know, however, that these websites, brochures and social media platforms are only the projected images of the marketing team who hide behind a wall a little higher up the cave.

And yet, despite the darkness and the flickering reflections, a family will often make that choice and begin the lonely ascent towards the first day of school.

So does it end there?  Absolutely not!  The route, these days, is treacherous and fraught with danger along the way.  Even the more resolute will become exhausted by the number of forms we ask to be completed.  Not to mention the ever-present peril of life of a waiting list.

Of course, none of this is true.  I’m just kidding.  Playing with an idea that was never intended for this purpose.

It does make you think, though, doesn’t it?

In his book, Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation (Riverhead, 2010), Steven Johnson examines how and why innovation occurs. 

Addressing this question from an environmental perspective, he is particularly keen to explore the spaces that have historically led to unusual levels of creativity in individuals and organizations.  Change your environment, says Johnson, and there is a chance that what begins as a ‘slow hunch’ will connect with other ideas and, in time, provoke the start of something completely new.

Seven years ago, a group of admissions professionals from schools in Central and Eastern Europe had a hunch that they should sit around a table and begin to talk about their craft.  At a time when there was very little by way of professional development in this field and even less allocation of funds towards those wanting to be trained in this area, this certainly seemed like a good idea.  Surely no one around that table could have imagined, however, how determinative this ‘hunch’ was to be for the future of international school admissions across Europe.

Seven years later, to cut the story short, another group of admissions professionals came together in Brussels for an event entitled ‘Admissions Job-a-Like 2012’.  This time, though, one table was not enough as nearly 70 representatives from over 40 schools across Europe and beyond packed the conference room for a two day symposium on ‘The State Of Our Art’.

Hosted by the International School of Brussels, there was plenty to talk about as conversations focused on some of the most pressing questions of the day: How do we define our role within a learning organization? What kind of policy and protocol will support the work we do? How do we manage and make sense of the data we have to manage?  When and how does admissions connect to the Advancement Office?

“The thing that I’ll take away from this event,” said Kathy Messick from the American School of the Hague, “is the fact that this kind of gathering keeps us strong and cohesive.  Another person’s challenge may also be ours and this is an opportunity to support each other and come away with real strategies.”

So is it simply the case that 70 people sit in a room together, share the ‘pain’, hope to have good ideas, and shape the future of international school admissions?  Whilst it might be true to say that the wisdom is ‘in the crowd’, it is almost certainly a little more complicated than that.  And one of the most exciting aspects of this year’s gathering was the support offered by the events sponsors, bringing a new perspective to the various conversations.  Finalsite spoke about the emerging role of digital technology in telling the story of our schools, as well as linked up with the event organizers to develop an online collaboration space to keep the conversations going.  Similarly, Faria Systems were there to listen to the needs of admissions professionals as they develop a range of new, supportive software applications in this field.  Perhaps most significantly, however, Jean Vahey, Executive Director of ECIS, was also present and spoke of the historical lack of good professional development in this field and the ways in which ECIS will be looking to support this critical function in the future.

At the beginning of this gathering, an idea was dropped into the conversation.  Admissions, it was suggested, is akin to the maieutic art of bringing people to the moment of decision, understanding and choice.  In short, the role of the admissions professional is, contrary our misperceptions, a critical educational function within our schools, not simply a secretarial point of information.

So what’s the future of school admissions?  None of us have a crystal ball, but there’s a ground-swell of opinion out there and a bunch of questions that are not going away about the relationship of this function to the story of the school and the need for some kind of certification for those who are just getting started.  The conversation from this year’s Job-a-Like is almost certainly going to keep on growing and they will be demanding new kinds of spaces in which to share, learn and reflect together. 

So if your school was not involved this time around, it probably should have been.  Watch this space and look out for the ideas that begin to come from it.

Once upon a time, a large rock stood next to the sea.  Not even the force of a hundred men could move it.

Then, one day, a man known to be carrying the evil eye remarked upon the stone, whereupon it immediately cracked in two.  Such is the power of the evil eye, at least according to Turkish tradition.

It is for this reason that the Nazar amulet, still today, can be seen all over this region of the world, dangling from the bumpers of taxi cabs, pinned to the clothes of babies, built into modern office buildings, guarding doorways and worn as earrings or necklaces.  Turkish people remain convinced that, with it, they are protected from bad energy around them.

Walking through the woods on a sunny spring afternoon, a hundred million miles away from where this tale first began, two seven-year old philosophers were heard talking about luck.

It was international festival day at their school, a huge celebration of cultural diversity, tradition and, critically, extremely good food.

The day had begun with a visit to the Irish Stand.  The luck of the Irish may be famous, but on this occasion the ‘lucky dip’ did not impress.  Personally, though, I wasn’t sure what they expected for 50 cents a go.

It was gift of a Turkish eye at a nearby stand that really caught their attention this year.

Back in the forest, the conversation was now in full swing between Juliette and her philosopher mentor and friend, the little girl from just a little further down the street – who also just happened to be Irish.

I listened in with interest.

“I got this from the International Festival today.  It is supposed to bring you luck,” Juliette explained.

The little girl glanced at the amulet hanging around Juliette’s neck and replied that she too had one in her bedroom.  However, she added, the luck in hers had all run out.

“What do you mean ‘run out’?” Juliette asked.  “Do you mean like when a printer runs out of ink?”

“Exactly!” her friend replied. 

I could tell that Juliette was intrigued with the idea and wasn’t about to let it go. 

“Perhaps it hasn’t run out entirely,” she pondered.  “Perhaps it still protects you when you go to sleep?”

The girls walked in silence for a moment.

“I don’t think it does protect me when I sleep,” her friend declared, at last.  “because I don’t believe it works at all when I have my eyes closed.”

As the Spring sun shone through the trees and illuminated our path, I thought how lucky both girls were to have this opportunity to talk to one another and consider questions that, in the end, probably none of us can answer.

The train from London Paddington left from platform eight.

By the time I reached the station, I knew that I’d be one of the last to alight and, as usual, the choice of available seats was limited.  Bags in one hand and coffee in another, I politely asked the woman in the corner if the seat next to her was free.

Apart from the fact that her coat may have needed to be laid out flat, it was clear that no one was occupying this seat.  The combination of her frown and audible expression of frustration made it clear, however, that she was far from happy with my ‘intrusion’.

As the train pulled out of the station, I could feel the tension and hoped that the next station would give me an excuse to move and find another spot. 

I closed my eyes and tried to ignore the vibe.

Twenty minutes later, I was woken by a tourist trying to pronounce our first destination stop.  After years of observation, I have to conclude that our friends from the US find it hardest to announce their arrival in a place named Slough.  Nine times out of ten, it comes out as ‘sloff’ or ‘slew’.

I smiled to myself and then remembered my neighbour.  I bet she wasn’t smiling, I thought.  But I could hardly dare to look.

Then, all of a sudden, she tapped me on my shoulder.  My heart sank and I prepared to defend my position.  Except that, when I turned towards her, I saw a kindness in her face that wasn’t there before.

‘I just wanted to say,’ she said, ‘in case you were getting off here that I’m sorry for how I was with you before.  It is just that I am about to have a really bad weekend and I took it out on you.  Please forgive me.’

It wasn’t at all what I expected her to say.  Not this side of sloff, anyway.

I quietly said that it was okay.  I was sorry she was going to have a bad weekend, I added.

This was her cue to tell me her story.  Her parents were recently divorced and this weekend she would be visiting them in Oxford for the first time in separate houses.  She explained how hard it was for her to make sense of what had happened.

I smiled sympathetically and went back to my book. 

If only she knew, I thought to myself.  I’ve been on this journey for years now, a divorced dad aboard the train of modern family life; trying my best to keep travelling closer towards those I love most in all the world; sometimes struggling myself to make sense of having children in separate homes – in separate countries.

As the train reached its final destination, the American family, I noticed, were busy gathering their things and excitedly debating how to pronounce Magdalen College.  I wanted to turn to my neighbour and let her know that it really was going to be okay; that even a broken home can provide a homecoming.  I wanted to tell her that I was trying to make sense of everything too and that I truly believe that, in the end, these things will all be well.

But before I had a chance to say anything at all, I noticed that she was already on her way.

When I did finally read the book, however, I realized that the point of Lori Silverman’s Wake Me Up When the Data is Over (2006) was not exactly what I had expected. It was less a book about data (and how to survive it), more about the role and function of storytelling to drive results and effect positive organizational change.  Data was not even listed in the index.

Talking of storytelling, I’ve thought long and hard, throughout my career, about the importance of narrative for schools, often saying that those of us who work in that cluster of related offices we call Marketing, Admissions and Advancement are integrally linked by a common job description: telling the story of our school and helping others find their place in that story.  That said, when I actually came to read Silverman’s book, I found myself strangely at odds with the general direction of this collection of essays. 

In fact, the more I thought about it, the more I became convinced that data and storytelling should never be reduced to a simple Either/Or – a junction where we are forced to leave behind all those complex numerical formulae, graphs and spreadsheets and run headlong into a sunset where every sentence begins ‘Once upon a time’. Surely, it is possible to understand data as a particular form or expression of the storytelling art; a form that also happens to be of increasing relevance to those of us who are charged with the task of capturing and passing on the truth about what learning looks like in our schools.

With only this hunch to guide me, I started to poke around and notice how data was being collected, used and passed on around me – at least in the External Relations Department of the International School of Brussels. Brian, my co-editor for the current book, was a colleague at the time and it was his practical insight and ever-thoughtful analysis of the situation that finally convinced me that we had some work to do.  We collected line after line of data, but no-one could say why we went to all the trouble. We produced beautiful graphs, but immediately filed them away for safe-keeping.  We measured where we were, but never stopped to consider where we actually wanted to be.  We mined the information, but shared it with no-one – so, not surprisingly, nothing ever changed.  Looking back, it was all ‘busy work’ that made everyone sleepy.

The turning point was the moment the conversation began. As a team, we simply set time aside and started talking to one another.  We discussed a set of nagging questions that just wouldn’t go away: How do we get a snapshot of the school on one page? How big do we actually want this school to be? How do we really gauge the health of our organization? With a transient international community, how do we preserve our institutional memory? How do we efficiently report to the Board? How do we make best use of management meetings? How do we assess the progress of our strategic plans and projects? What are the key drivers that define great schools? How do we find simplicity in all this complexity?

Every road led us back to the increasing role and importance of data.

To be continued.

An extract from the upcoming title, Effective Data Management in Schools (John Catt Educational Ltd), Brian Bedrick and David Willows, Ed. (Published April 2012). 

Well, that’s it for another year.

When the tree in the corner of the living room looks more like the sole survivor of a nuclear winter than a winter wonderland, then we tend to know it’s time to call it a day, pack up what’s left of the lights and twinkling ornaments, and return to our work-a-day lives. 

We’ve travelled, eaten, played, laughed, argued sometimes.

We’ve opened, bought, given, smiled, perhaps even cried.

But has any of this festive cheer changed us for the better?  Are we in any way different because of the story of Christmas that we have, in one way or another, re-enacted?

I’m not particularly speaking of faith here, although clearly this is where the story began.  I’m simply wondering whether, as the dark days of winter begin to take their toll (at least for those of us living ‘above the line’), the light that grew with all these ‘good times’ will be strong enough to last the onset of yet-again-ordinary life.

Or perhaps we’re accustomed to letting it fade away slowly – faith, hope and charity eroded by the winds of anxiety that accompany the stresses and strains of modern family life.

Looking back with the hindsight that January tends to bring, I notice that most of us head into the New Year firmly resolved to do less than what we did back in December. 

Eat less, drink less, make less mess. 

Could it be, though, that is where I tend to go wrong?  Are we too quick to extinguish the long shadow of the season and settle back into something less than real life?

American writer and broadcaster, Andy Rooney, died just before Christmas, only a few weeks ago.  “One of the most glorious messes in the world,” he once is reported to have said, “is the mess created in the living room on Christmas day. Don't clean it up too quickly.”

Don’t clean it up too quickly. 

The tree in our home is gone.  To be perfectly honest, I’m not at all sad about that. 

And yet, this year, I’m determined not to forget too quickly those few days of seasonal cheer, surrounded by those I most love in the world.   I’m determined not to forget the feasting, lounging, playing, and long half-meaningful conversations that end deep into the night.

That is my resolution.

After all, these are the moments that my children will remember.  The rest is nothing but white noise.

The postman rarely comes around our way, except to deliver bills or spam. 

Even at Christmas, this messenger’s route is stubbornly unchanged.  But it never used to be like this.

Perched on the window sill, back when I was the age my daughters are now, I can clearly recall the feeling of exhilaration as our local postman came into view at the far end of the street.  Holding an impossibly large collection of letters and small packets (the large ones would come later in the day by van), I remember, on each of the days between the end of school and Christmas Eve, trying to guess how many he would drop through our letter box.

The wait was almost painful, but eventually and without fail a dozen or so white envelopes, each one adorned with special festive stamps, would land on the carpet, spraying in all directions across the floor.

By Christmas Day, each one of these cards had been opened, read and placed on suspended strings right around the walls of the living room – a festival of colour and testimony to the fact, I thought, that my parents had so many ‘friends’. 

I still recall the magic that accompanied all this red, gold, glitter, and seasonal goodwill; simple messages of cheer now posted on a wall.  They never said very much (except for those who chose to add a typed attachment, describing in tedious detail the wonderful achievements of their children).  In the end, though, 140 characters was normally enough to get the message across.

A generation later, there is no one waiting for the postman.  Not in our house, anyway.  A few cards have dribbled in, but sadly not enough to hang upon the wall or convince the kids that anyone is thinking of us at this particular time of the year.

The Christmas card, at least at this end of the street, is dead; replaced by another Wall, where our messages of hope and love are posted by those we chose to call our ‘friends’.

The medium has changed, but our human need to reach out to others and let them know that we are thinking of them during this season of goodwill, clearly, has not.

And probably never will. 

This story needs little explanation.

It's simply an attempt to stand out from the crowd and tell the story of a school at a moment in time when words and pictures no longer differentiate us.

So sit back. 

Relax.

And if you like it, share it.