#TeamNorthBay compadrina Katy Foster and I will be presenting at #FallCUE this week.  Our topic: How Good Ideas Spread – Creating Cultures of Shared Knowledge.  We gave this presentation together at North Bay CUE in May 2014, so it’s been exciting to continue refining it to create more of a “playbook” on how all leaders – formal and informal – can facilitate #IdeaSpread in their local communities and global networks. (Yes, we know that #IdeaSpread sounds like some spin on Mayonnaise)

We’ve both met Chris through Twitter – and a few other #EDURascals out of Huntington Beach – and a recent tweet of his so beautifully captured the spirit behind our presentation that we just had to get him on record talking about it.

We love Chris’s “Top 3” approaches to his work as EdTech coordinator for a high school district with 600 teachers and 16,000 students:

1. Establish an environment that cultivates the sharing of practices using technology to promote deep sustained learning.
2. Remove roadblocks that prevent students and teachers from using tech to implement their ideas.
3. Experiment in using technology to do something that we’ve never done before.

Talking with Chris reminded me so strongly of the approach and attitude of coach and connected friend Robin Dubiel, whom I included in a post about how coaches help us disrupt our organizational (and individual) echo chambers: “How does working with me on projects influence their ability to think independently?  How might I be ignoring their ideas and knowledge in preference to my own?”  Leaders of all stripes, take note…and take heart.

I just saw this last night randomly, and, again, was reminded of our conversation with Chris earlier in the day: all leadership begins with a primacy on relationships, building connections across a system, and empowering the leadership voice in others.

We both look forward to meeting Chris someday – and the rest of the “OC” crew – face to face, and maybe tossing about a kettle bell or two just for fun.

Image courtesy of Chris (how did he know we were giving our session in a cornfield?).

Session resources here.