The MAGIC of #nzpf2014

Greg and I flew from Christchurch to Invercargill on Wednesday to join the CORE crew for the 2014 New Zealand Principal's Conference.

 Our first session was the social event Kai at the Mai Mai with a true Southland experience.  It was fabulous to have time to interact with our CORE whanau and the delegates in a social scene.  I really enjoyed the opportunity for the inevitable selfie of two - first up Luana and Paul Ego!

Thursday morning Greg and I filled a slot for Mike and ran a session on Social Media in schools.  I thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to work alongside leaders to look at how they might best use Social Media to meet their needs.  Using the new learning from Patti Dobrowolski's keynote we were able to think about what the "Social Media dream" might be for our organisation in one year and look at three bold steps to get the desired result.  

A workshop with Patti in the afternoon allowed me to see how this process might be able to be used with schools and teams.  

The day concluded with a stunning keynote by Richard Gerver.  

Thursday night's entertainment was a true colours race off at the velodrome, before a stunning dinner. 

Friday started with a truly inspirational Pasifika performance by St Patrick's Pasifika Group.

Brendan Spillane's keynote was one of the many highlights for me. So many ideas are percolating around how to make his MAGIC ideas a reality for me in my personal and professional life. 

Hekia Parata closed the conference with her address.

Ben Witheford closes the conference...

 Stunning visual recordings of the keynotes during the conference!

What a pleasure and a privilege to have been part of this stunning conference.  

Keynote shared docs:

Richard Gerver part one

Mo Fox

Richard Gerver Part two

Patti Dobrowolski

Brendan Spillane

#nzpf2014 Hekia Parata address

Five positives of education in New Zealand

1. Small, smart sassy country - good and smart strategic choice by migrants to make this place the best that it can be.
2. Values skills and education
3. diverse and culturally aware set of communities! Amazing progress in our responsiveness to diversity.  Moving from being culturally aware to being culturally responsive
4. Self managing, determining education system.
5. Great architecture - elegant system and machinery allowing us to be as good as we can be.

Using smart technology to its full potential as an analogy to using our smart education system to its full potential.

Five positives of education leadership in New Zealand
1. The people, the leaders, the ones who manage the individual school ecosystems
2. We provide rich, broad, deep, engaging programmes for our learners
3.  The ways we embrace information, evidence and inquiry - developing individual learning programme.
4. Change - the challenge and opportunities it brings.
5.  The environment - modern learning practices. Connecting to, engaging with our whanau.

A personal thank you and acknowledgment to all involving in teaching, leading and learning in New Zealand.

Challenge - to see and connect the chapters of learning... from sector to sector.  We must navigate new pathways. Our success is in the transitions between our sectors.

#nzpf2014 Brendan Spillane Keynote

High Performing people 

Joy is not about ourselves...
Joy is about what I give...
We are social, therefore joy is much more about what you give!

Write a letter of gratitude to someone who has been a very special person in your life!  Go and deliver the letter...

The act of being generous and good and kind to someone else is healing and good for us.

When we think about who we can be generous for we can shift a focus.

Getting above our times means we must be able to find the stairs, rise above, look down and see if our priorities are truly visible.
The complexity of the role of working in education with learners means we are asked to carry an enormous level of emotional labour.
Carrying the story of families, of hard times, of tragedies, we are always visible.
We are bombarded by sources of speed - the pace of change and life!
Technology speeds us and we need to find sources of calm... finding the source, the connection to the deep calm.

There must be sacrifice and renewal in every day.  We must build renewal into our day, every day...
'The juggler's brain' a sad phrase to equate

Multitasking is mediocrity.... not everything matters equally!
Standing in front of our learners we need to have a great deal of hope...
What will schooling be like in 20 years time?
"what does it mean to be human in these technological times...?'

Gobalisation, personalisation... two mega trends..... is there another megaatrend that might balance us out a little...
"The way we are working isn't working..." Mindful Leadership Global Forum - lets gather and talk about different ways of working and being.

We have survived because of our collaborative gene not our competitive gene.

What is our stance - we take our stance everyday - where do we put our feet!
IN relationship to each other we take a stance... our leadership has a sound, a resonance, a keynote, a word or phrase that denotes us... how comfortable we are with those we are with...

We need to stand in front of our people with a great hope in our heads and our hearts...
Humility and reolve
Dan Pink...  from drive 2009
Mastery
Autonomy
Purpose
Clarity of purpose... It is a responsibility of leadership to rise up and be awre of the clarity of purpose...

Recommended Reads

1. Let your life speak! - Find your third point of Ariadne's Thread

Find your joy - Protect your joy

When who you are is close to what you do is your joy....
Connect with yourself...
Take enough time to read our own life, our own book....

2. Write your three words down... At the end of your days, what do you want to be remembered for/as

3. Share it with a few other people - Don't stay in your inner circle....

4. Prioritise and Diarise - design simple systems and structures that align with your vision and values... and review your progress regularly...  weekly? find ways of working on the things we value and believe in....

5. Help those you lead to do the same. Be intentional about this.  Who will you be a mentor to? What will work for them?

6. Professionalise our health - Be intentional about this.  Get out of BED and row with your oars....

Absolutely MAGIC session!  So much in this to take into our lives....
Thanks Brendan for the MAGIC!

Shared Google Doc notes