During the past decade, the shoe/retail goods Web site, www.zappos.com has become world famous and grown into a multi-billion dollar organization by emphasizing an extraordinary customer experience—chiefly delivered by front-line employees who are deeply imbued with the organization’s mission, culture, and values. These employees are hired based on mission-appropriate “characteristics” (i.e., performance traits) that they possess. Then, at every point of their career with Zappos, these traits – which form the basis of the Zappos culture—are continually emphasized, encouraged, supported, trained, and rewarded.

Learning in the 21st century should be student-centered. Prescribed exam periods, de riguer in the 20th century learning model, are schedule-centered. They force students to perform in a “do-or-die” situation, whether or not they have adequately covered the material. Naturally, student stress levels shoot up in this high-stakes environment. Even worse, many schools schedule exam periods after break periods. Just when students should be using the time to rest and recharge, they are expected to work even more to do well on the exams that are to come.

There’s a new social network in town and its popularity is rapidly spreading across the Internet—Pinterest.

In many schools (and most other organizations, as well), performance evaluations are considered a waste of time or a meaningless bureaucratic exercise. What if evaluations could be used to actually increase performance—to help “average” teachers become excellent, and excellent teachers become even more outstanding?

Links may contain subject matter some consider provocative. Please view at your discretion. Most parents have given in to their teens' pleas for a cell phone. And, as school administrators know, cell phones are capable of much more than making phone calls.

Private schools annually wrestle with complex financial issues that center on the question of tuition. Board members often find themselves asking, “How can we keep our school affordable?” ISM believes this is the wrong question to ask.

As Business Manager, your job duties may also include those of Risk Manager and Facilities Manager. And with those responsibilities comes the never-ending duty of ensuring student safety at all times—on and off campus.

Greening Your Office Space Originally published on sierraclub.org Maximize computer efficiency Computers in the business sector unnecessarily waste $1 billion worth of electricity a year.

People frequently find themselves holding onto tickets for events that they can’t use for some reason—extras from season passes, illness, time conflict, etc. These could be for theater, sporting events, concerts, art exhibits. The list goes on. Well, The Bush School in Seattle, WA, has a program that puts those extras to good use—as a warm “thank you” to their teachers for all they do for their students and the school.

From time to time, we pitch a question culled from the ISM Advancement Listserv to our experts. This month, Michael Christopher, Assistant Headmaster—School Advancement, at Lausanne Collegiate School (TN) is at the plate.