ISTE 2010 keynote - Final voting is underway!

[Of course I’m voting for Chris Lehmann since I nominated him and had him in mind from the very beginning!]

The final voting round for ISTE’s 2010 conference keynote speaker has begun! Here are your choices…

You can compare the list above with the final voting totals from Round 2 (my apologies for previously leaving Peter Reynolds off the bottom list):

All five of these individuals will be fantastic keynote speakers. I confess I would have liked to have seen Karl Fisch and Michael Wesch make the final list.

Note that there is no discussion allowed on the ISTE site for this final round. As Leslie Conery explains,

[ISTE is] staying truer to Surowiecki’s guidance and building on the public discussion that has come before to solicit decentralized and independent opinions. The votes for each of the keynote candidates will be made anonymously and the tallies will not be shown during the voting process.

In other words, ISTE would like you to look over what’s gone before and then make your own decision (which I believe is also what we did in Round 2?). I think that ISTE is trying to minimize groupthink and herding. I’m still not sure that prohibiting discussion (or “lobbying” or whatever you want to call it) makes sense (or is even possible in this hyperconnected age where we all can have voices outside ISTE’s site), but we’re all learning in this keynote experiment and I’m not going to second guess ISTE on its choice for this final round. I recognize that it’s difficult to set up a process that allows individuals to be informed, but not unduly influenced, by others. I and others have had plenty of opportunities to state our case for Chris; hopefully the final voting totals will mirror the previous round.

Question for which I don’t have an answer: If the final totals differ from Round 2, will that confirm or discredit the validity of this whole process?

Kudos to ISTE for trying this interesting experiment. Happy voting, everyone!

Comments

[JLW]

1.

Hello
thanks for keeping this open and informing us --

However, there is a discussion area -- you can find it here.

http://www.isteconnects.org/2010/01/05/crowdsourcing-reflections-on-the-final-phase-of-our-experiment/

I am wondering on the final 5 -- lots of wondering......

Will be interesting to watch.

[Scott McLeod]

2.

Hi Jen, thanks for sharing the link. That's a great place to reflect on the process. I don't think we're supposed to keep discussing nominees, though, either here or there...

[JLW]

3.

I understand the thoughts of discussing nominees and I do think that a bit of self-promotion to win votes (at this time) is uncalled for.

However, the blog post I provided did (in a way) solicit our thoughts -- however, I am still formulating mine.

My one major thought I am dwelling on is that of transparency and I guess the second would be honesty.

I know that ISTE is trying hard to open a conversation up with its attendees and make us feel perhaps influential about the keynote....but, if it is manipulated in anyway, it will could be much bigger than just bending the rules.

So, I would like an answer on why their top 5 do not agree with your top 5. And I would also like to know how they are inviting the over 18,000 attendees to have a voice -- if I read your stats correctly, the people who have voted so far represent >10% of that count.

I thank you for letting me share a bit more here. If you feel it inappropriate, feel free to edit or discard.

Jen

[Scott McLeod]

4.

Jen, your comments are always welcome here! I think the reason ISTE's top 5 doesn't match the top 5 from Round 2 is that it was going to contact folks to assess availability, cost, etc. I'm sure ISTE also considered whether folks had keynoted in the past at the conference.

[Gary Stager]

5.

Scott,

I have written a blog post about my nomination at http://bit.ly/59ls2m (An Honor to be Nominated)

Thanks for generating interest in this process.

Gary

[Hank Yamamoto]

6.

I would agree that the process should be open and unbiased. Thanks for keeping this site moving forward and for doing what we all do.

Personally I think you need to look at how "in touch" people are with what is being done in schools today. Chris and Jeff are the only ones that have that day to day experience. Alan is old news and Gary has keynoted before. So vote and lets get someone there that is actually in the trenched like we are.

[Hank Yamamoto]

7.

Sorry I wanted to add a link that I found on Youtube as well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SkDIklQbols