Seth's Blog: What does your brand stand for? - 6 views
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Jason Finley on 30 May 13"A brand that stands for what all brands stand for stands for nothing much." At the first RF conference Peter McConville and Tom Sabo ran a really interesting activity where we looked at schools' mission statements from across Vermont. As a part of this activity they asked if individuals could recall their own. Not many (if any) could. It is too bad really. Coming from a corporate background myself, I understand the power of an organization having a common and driving statement of intent. To me what was striking, and unfortunate, was that it wouldn't be at all challenging to get fairly close if you just said something about students who strive to become life-long learners who are global citizens that give back to their community. Maybe it is just me, but I think that a mission statement should be as unique as the schools, communities, and individuals that are striving to fulfill that mission. It should be a mantra, a way to identify what is truly important to your school, a means of sharing your school's common sense of purpose, to communicate your school's common sense of direction to fulfill that purpose. My sense is that a mission statement should be the keystone for the very unique work that we do in our schools, it should be more akin to Dan Pink's My Sentence. But, read though most and you'll find that they seem interchangeable and ambiguous. I think that it may be better to not have one at all if it doesn't really share the message of what your individual school is about and what it specifically strives to be. Does your school's mission statement really share your school's mission?
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Jim Mooney on 12 Jun 13Jason Thanks for posting this. Question - how do I copy this post over to another Diigo group I am working with? Jim
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Jen Kravitz on 13 Jun 13Mission statements are pretty generic... NEASC is moving away from asking schools for mission statements but instead for statements of core values and beliefs about learning in the hope of getting more school specific statements.