And I can’t help but look at the results and ask if I have achieved my goal.

The goal being very simply to make my students laugh and think.

And of course there is the application of the laughter and thinking into some real world possibility.

How often to we link the comic side of things with the thinking side of things?

Not often enough is the short answer.

Well there is an answer to this challenge.

Marc Abrahams: The founder of the Ig Nobel Prize describes some past favorites – including some connections to other Gel 2011 presentations. See also Marc’s Annals of Improbable Research.

Marc Abrahams at Gel 2011 from Gel Conference on Vimeo.

What is a teacher?

Public education?

Smart?

Not?

Economics vs intellectual?

I am moving to a new school in September to help create the UAE’s leading mass communication program.

I say leading because if we are going to just do what is typical today there would be no point in moving to CUD from ZU.

We are going to put a program in motion that is in constant re-invention.

We are thinking of journalism in terms of the craft and the delivery.

We are thinking advertising in terms of what, who and where.

We are thinking about PR in terms of the story and delivery.

No more we need huge expensive pools of equipment to make media, WE DON’T NEED A HUGE SET OR A HUGE LAB.

What we need is people who are engaged as mentors and learners.

Watch this video this to me is where CUD’s mass communication program is going.

You name it, from National Geographic to a local radio station, it is being broadcast to the world through Livestream.

And what I really love about Livestream content is the simple fact that this alternative content is easy to find and watch.

How much SXSW do you get to watch?

And Facebook Live? Did you even know about Facebook live?

And when was the last time you listened to Mike Tyson talk about his ability with a computer?

Again here we have a resource that is being under used by so many groups and organizations who need to get their message out.

And once you start watching Livestream content it is hard to turn back to traditional TV.

Why? That one word, convenience.

And then there is this little piece on fashion that made me sit back and listen as Oscar de la Renta talk about among other things truth and business.

There is a lot of noise out there on the Internet and once again a way to break through the clutter is with a service like Livestream.

Yes there is an element of torture in sitting a final as it does bring on stress and all sorts of anxiety.

But there is another side to the written final, and I am not talking multiple choice, a full no holds bared 100% essay style exam and that is the love of the written word.

This may sound funny but it is really interesting to look at the way people write and what they add to their sentences in terms of font size and colour. In this case both font and colour are added manually becasue this is not a typing exercise.

There is something about a well written piece, this coming from the guy writing this on a computer.

Fast Company recently had an article talking about the technology/old school reality.

87 percent of them supplement gadgets with paper productivity, and 47 percent thought their personal and company efficiency would improve with better note-taking.

I have actually spent a little more time with my students provoking better note taking and to get there I have ditched PowerPoint or Prezi for the notes being written on the board.

There is something about scratching an idea onto a board as busy minds wait to unpack the thoughts.

And then there is the whole thought process itself when it is tied to digital tools. I personally think technology is forcing us to do things too fast and with too little thought. Apparently I am not alone.

As another Fast Company blogger pointed out, critics and researchers see paper as a medium that allows for deeper thought and focus. By its nature, it’s a single page that you pick up and give a key position to, and you can see exactly how much you have done with it. On another level, paper lacks hyperlinks, search boxes, and notifications, the kinds of context switches author Nicholas Carr believes have rewired and distracted our brains.

No matter how you slice this onion there is not denying the reality that a little hand writing can do wonders.

We spend a lot of time thinking about career options and that usually takes us off in some far flung direction.

Web design, app creator, conference organizer… and then there are the things we don’t even know about yet.

But what about all the things we just use and do on a daily basis.

Butchers, bakers and candle stick makers as career options?

The Red Wing Shoes Repair Service looks like something we need in every city!

And maybe this is a career option for many!

I think we need to think a bit more about the here and now.

Imagine the possibility!

Of course we don’t or we like to say we are not innovative.

The biggest failure today in pretty much every industry is failing to see the ability to innovate what we do.

And education is top on my hit list of places and process that have failed to even scratch the surface of innovative thinking.

The problem for educators today is that the system has become so rooted around architecture, space and time that the innovation we need is simply the thing of fantasy dreams.

Columbia makes cloths BUT they are also leaders in personal innovation, really.

Check out this video.

Cool Hunting Video Presents: Omni Heat Electric from Cool Hunting on Vimeo.

If Columbia can be innovative with something as common as the boot, glove and coat what is stopping you from bringing innovation into your workplace?

You!

The problem is that we, the creators of content and delivery systems, are not paying enough attention to how people or which people are using media and how.

All too often we are relying on old data or how we are using media.

But if we are not the target audience then there is a problem and more often than not we are creating for others.

Here is some research. to look at.

Music is king when we talk media, really?

We knew that music matters to young people, but that 83 percent said they could not imagine life without music compared to 28 percent who feel the same way about TV shows just how integral music is to their lives and how secondary TV has become–more on that in a bit.

Forget about today’s youth coming to you you need to get media to them in every way.

To reach Millennials, you have to be where they are. Everywhere that they are.

Old media distribution is losing ground with youth.

In 2009, we found that 73 percent of collegians and 60 percent of high-schoolers watched TV online. In 2011, those proportions had grown to 86 percent of collegians and 67 percent of high-schoolers. Coincidentally, watching TV shows via streaming is growing among older adults, too, according to Pew Research.

If we really want to make our media work for us we truly need to think about the whole audience environment, something we are not doing very well.

I recently had the opportunity to speak to the co-chairs of the UAE chapter of Women in Film and Television.

It constantly amazes me that there is still such a glass ceiling in place when it comes to women and cultural industries.

Well Michelle Nickelson and Dedra Stevenson both have great stories to tell.

And I love the fact that TEDxAbuDhabiU also had a place in the development of their own relationship.

WIFT is all about collaborative relationships and as I listened to these 2 women talk about what they are doing, why and how I was inspired.

Here is the podcast of that interview I hope you are inspired as much as I was.

Is it really that bad if news begins to take on a more entertaining stance?

Isn’t the real issue whether the message is getting through?

The Swiss have found that what is being covered in their constituency is entertainment and less news.

The Swiss media tends to prioritise entertainment over news, according to a report into the country’s media released by Zurich University on Thursday.

It found that disasters, football and scandals dominated reporting in 2010 – ahead of the Swiss diplomatic spat with Libya, cabinet elections and the UBS tax crisis.

The Swiss Yearbook on media quality found that the media was reaching fewer people.

Maybe it is time they though more about how the news is reported?

Why is entertainment or soft news so much more engaging?

What does the Swiss media think?

The report into media quality in Switzerland is the second of its kind, with last year’s inaugural study causing a furore after it suggested that the popularity of news websites and free newspapers was eroding journalistic standards.

Maybe the standards of journalism are evolving and maybe there is no such thing as the news media but news medias!

Malcolm Gladwell spoke about this idea of there not being one definitive product but products!

Maybe it is time to stop thinking of media in singular terms.

Watch this video and think in terms of medias.

This is literally food for thought!

Not usually.

Sure we do a survey here and there but do we have any other way to figure out what impact the conference or meeting is having on people who attend?

Yes we do thanks to technology, home videos!

This is not a new idea BUT it is a far easier idea to activate today.

Check out this TEDx idea.

I would love to see this happen at every event I go to, this is a great way to create yet another degree of engagement!

Here is a sample of what they got.

Imagine if we took it to the classroom and actually had students make the educational videos of our classes?