Reflective Essay #1

Eric Sheninger’s book Digital Leadership: Changing Paradigms for Changing Times provides some phenomenal insights as to how technology and social media can be utilized in public schools. My initial thoughts were that the first three and a half chapters came across as preachy and provided little insight as to how schools could specifically implement change. However, in chapter 4, once they said, if you don’t share your story, someone else will, and it will most likely not have the positive spin you want, I was hooked.

Since I’m not a building principal yet, I started using this book to find ways that I could enhance how I lead our orchestra programs in Bethel. This way, when I am interviewed I will be able to talk about how I previously used technology to make the programs I led more effective and how I could apply that the building level.

Shenninger writes about the importance of a clear vision for technology in your system. I started reflecting on my community and the technology they utilize most. Being apart of several neighborhood news groups on Facebook, I decided that Facebook would be the best platform for connecting to my community. Our high school orchestra already has a Facebook page, but when I assessed it, it became clear it was not being utilized very effectively. This is probably because I have provided little to no guidance as to how I want this page used.

As I continued reading through the book, chapter 5 and 6 focused on communication and public relations, which made me reflect on my main forms of communication in school. I use e-mail, our Skyward messaging system, and rely heavily on word of mouth to get information home. Needless to say, the effectiveness of my communication has been hit and miss. I decided that Facebook would be an excellent way to get information home to parents. A vast majority of my students’ parents are on Facebook daily, so to not utilize that method of communication seems ignorant to me now. My students on the other hand, seem to access Twitter more than Facebook, so next year I will be using two different platforms to communicate with two different subgroups of my stakeholders.

Chapter 7 of this book focused mostly on branding, which made me assess not only how my program is viewed as a brand, but how I am viewed as a brand. The idea is presented in the book that every time someone sees or hears your name, they have several labels that immediately and subconsciously go through their head. After reading this, I began taking inventory of what classifications people were putting me in. I then decided that not only did I need to be more active on Facebook and Twitter, but that my posts needed to be aligned with what I wanted people to associate me with. Using this as a guide, I am now slowly but surely molding my brand into what I want it to be.

In conclusion, Sheninger ended up providing some extremely useful insights to digital leadership. I can say that as a reader I will be making some immediate changes to how I connect with my stakeholders. How effective these changes will be remains to be seen, but I think a vast majority of them will yield some pretty stellar results.