You know what (d'oh) I've just realised this is a flipping portmanteau too!
So anyway, first keynote of the day gives an idea of the size of the conference - approx 2,500 people all trying not to cross the Bb/WebCT divide... The "my head" thing is weird here too, you know, not giant and posterised like in Nice but definitely in too many places. Mary and I even found ourselves discussing whether a smaller, spinning head was better than a big static one - answer no, not really, and note to self, never, ever, ever have another photo taken, ever.
Keynote kicked off with someone introducing the introducer...always a bit odd. Surprisingly Michael Chasen was very excited to have Steven Levitt doing the keynote (what were the odds?) I read Freakonomics about a year or so ago and quite liked it - certainly liked it better than the Gladwell liteweight stuff from last year's keynote. I think Levitt gave quite a good keynote. I thought it was entertaining, interesting and he did avoid (to some extent) getting sucked into a talk about education, although as an economics professor he did have more relevant experience than some previous keynotes - Cal Ripkin Jnr for example. He told two or three funny stories and then talked about some of his current work studying the economics of prostitution, particularly with regard to pricing strategies. It was interesting and also made everyone in the room think slightly differently about the engagement of guest lecturers (yes, he did get a prosititute to guest lecture one of his classes). One of the best bits was at the end when MC came back on stage and realised he was going to have to follow the prostitute story... he was almost lost for words.
Felt like a nice light start to the conference, but on reflection did focus on some big concepts like the importance of ideas, commitment to keep pushing ideas even if others try to stop you, not following the mainstream, finding something that is "yours" and authenticity in designing learning activities and experiences ...albeit from a very unusual angle.
2 comments:
was the smaller spinning head attached to your shoulders while it was spinning?! a bit omen-ish, if you ask me... :)
glad to hear MC is as *excited* as ever about life. sounds like a good start to the conference, anyway - my kind of keynote: easy listening, but with things for you to ponder on afterwards.
the spinning head was a bit freaky. Not so much omen or exorcist as "how to get ahead in advertising". Alarmingly for half the time it looked like my head was growing out of Malcolm Murray's forehead. Yes it was a good keynote, not sure what the Bb "talk about the keynote" memo looks like..."try to weave the word prostitution into every client conversation" hmmm, think not.
Post a Comment