Will Automation Steal The Soul From Social?

There have been several interesting side discussions sparked by my Bob Fass post about his largely unrecognized precursor contributions to social media. Some of them are still simmering, with the most common thread related to where marketing and public relations intend to take social.

Right. If you work in the field, they are talking about you.

And what they have to say might not be taken kindly. There are a growing number of people who are weary of social networks not because they don't like to connect but because conversations are being recorded, even jacked. Some marketers feel they must. Numbers are the measure counted.

"Why spend time counting tweets and retweets when I could actually, you know, connect with other people?" asked David Flores, reflecting on the internal struggle he and other marketers and communicators feel.

Why count indeed? For all the talk about social freeing people from the trappings of unearned authority, some of the liberators have worked diligently to erect new ones. Never mind that the scoring is stacked.

As the New York Times recently cited, some researchers think that only 35 percent of Twitter followers are real people. The balance is made up of bots and semi-automated accounts. That means an account boasting 10,000 might only reach 3,500. But if you ask me, I think it is generous in some cases. Bots attract bots, giving accounts the aura of popularity while never reaching a real human being.

Geoff Livingston recently touched on this too, writing Pop Created The Twitter Link Farm. He focused in on the increasing number of links, with one of the most interesting comments chalking it up to a platform shift. While that might make sense because Twitter never considered itself a social network, the platform shift from conversation to broadcast is a symptom of what marketers measure.

They measure actions (tweets, retweets, link clicks), which discourages dialogue. It discourages it because conversations are not valued on the action scale. It discourages it because the more organic conversations take place, the more marketers have to drown them out with frequency. And it discourages it because scalable actions require automation, which means the marketer isn't participating.

The crux of it reminds me of an Internet infancy story. 

Once upon a time there was a company called America Online (now Aol). No, it wasn't the oddly popular but not so relevant multinational mass media giant we know today. It was a pay-based online service that was the precursor to some of the services people rave about today.

It was also, for many people, the only real option to access the Internet. Sure, there were other choices like the defunct Prodigy or eWorld but not really. Much like they do now, people (and companies) tended to gravitate to where the most people were and that was America Online.

In more ways than one, Twitter is almost akin to the America Online chat room, except it hosts unlimited people as opposed to 23 people at a time. And, in more ways than one, Facebook is akin to America Online communities (with the advent of streaming over threading), right down to its aspiration to be your total and complete online experience. Sure, other networks have borrowed ideas too. Most aren't so new.

For the era, this service worked remarkably well. Most people couldn't even conceive of an Internet without it. It felt like America Online was relatively immortal. And perhaps that is why in addition to charging people $2.95 per hour for usage, the company decided to allow marketers to post links and program bots to run some conversations.

That generated some extra revenue for the company until something unexpected happened. Since marketers knew that the only way to increase their exposure was to increase their frequency, they literally drowned out all human conversations until no one was left except chat rooms of bots, churning away at their pre-programmed content.

How long before marketers reach critical mass again? It's anybody's guess. 

There are only two outcomes for abused message delivery systems. En masse, marketers will either push messages to the point where they become irrelevant (direct mail and pitch lists) or the platform will eventually elevate the rates until it is inaccessible (television) to anyone except those with deep pockets (television and radio). When that happens, people will migrate away to other networks instead.

From my perspective, longevity will favor those marketers that avoid the temptation of the short-term gain because people drive networks, not numbers. After all, as soon as you start thinking about people in terms of numbers, whether how many followers they have or some secret sauce social score, there is a good chance you have already lost them (unless you gamed social to get them in the first place).

At least, that is what I think. What does Brian Solis or Guy Kawasaki or Scott Stratten think? What do you think? Will automation steal the soul from social? Is there something on the horizon that might replace it? Or maybe you would like to strike up some other conversation? The choice belongs to you. The comments are yours. I'll read them too.

Lions And Labels And Agendas, Oh My. They Made Me Blind.

"How we can get people to actually solve problems instead of pushing agendas?" — Amy Vernon 

This is a question that has been rolling around in my head since Amy Vernon asked it in response to an open call for conversation last week. My short answer coached the problem in politics, but the problem is much more hardwired into human beings than we might think. If it wasn't political labels that drive the diatribe and prevent problem solving, it would be something else.

It might be religious labels. It might be ethnic labels. It might be occupational labels. Or it might be the books we read. The music we like. The clothes we wear. The activities we pursue. The experiences we've had. The places we live. The places where we were born. The people we know.

We wake up every day with several thousand labels around our necks. We let them shape us and allow them to shape our perception of other people. We make ourselves slaves to them. And there is no end to how many we might make up. It's why we have nice things. And it's why we can't have nice things.

We've been indoctrinated into addiction. It took our entire childhood.

The truth is we spend most of our childhoods being indoctrinated into labels that make life easier and harder because every label carries an agenda. That's the point. Someone invented them to give life directions, expectations, and excuses. And then our parents and guardians conspire to pass them along just as most of us will when we have children too.

They aren't the only ones. Every peer and role model you ever had did the same thing, for better and worse. Many labels are moving targets, falling in and out of popularity with minorities and majorities.

It doesn't really matter what those labels might be. They blind us by casting bigger shadows than the people who wear them, they bind us to limitations and opportunities, and they consciously and subconsciously tint the lens that we wear when we try to solve problems as individuals and groups.

The only people not overtaken by them have to make a conscious effort to recognize them for what they are, strive to be objective even when it feels impossible, and struggle to retain their sense of self-esteem while not subscribing to stereotypes that the greater society values. It's one of the most difficult things anyone can do in life because people are genuinely afraid that all they can be are their labels.

Who would you be if labels didn't define you? Besides happy, I mean. 

I once had a friend who was struggling with motherhood. She insisted that she wasn't a good mother. The idea was pretty absurd to me because my perception of her abilities vastly eclipsed her own self-perception. So I gave it my best shot. She needed to free herself from the shackles of a "good mom."

After I asked her to write down the definition of everything she considered to be a "good mother," we both took a breath to admire the sheer weight of expectations. Without going into too much detail, suffice to say that the label she had placed on a pedestal was unreachable and unachievable.

Mostly, her list included everything she thought her mom did right, the opposite of everything her mom did wrong, several dozen expectations that are currently popular in society, several dozens values dedicated by faith (even though she was agnostic at the time), and so on and so forth. Once she took it all in and could laugh at how grandiose her job description was, I offered an alternative concept.

"Just like your husband married you and not the idea of a 'good wife,' your son wants to be raised by you and not the idea of a 'good mother,'" I said. "If you are you and do everything from a perspective of unconditional love, then you will be better than a 'good mother' because no one can be you better."

You would be surprised how great people can be when they aren't paralyzed by labels. She did fine.

So what does that have to do with solving problems? Almost everything. 

Have you ever noticed that some of the most explosive companies in history have come out of nowhere? There is a reason for that. They are generally started by entrepreneurs solving a specific problem or changing the status quo.

Why can't big companies do the same? Some of them can, but the advantage belongs to the startup in that they haven't saddled themselves with labels, policies and office politics. People focus on the objective at hand, without any other distractions. Their teams aren't always proven as much as they are ready to prove themselves. And whatever idea they've been turning over is all that really matters.

So let's say the problem is more altruistic, like thirsty children. How do we solve it? Charity: Water says the best way to solve it is to build water projects that put clean, drinkable water closer to the source.

All that stands in their way to deliver it is labels. Some people don't like their business model. Some people don't like that the founder is Christian. Some people don't like their partner organizations. Some people don't like that the program helps people abroad as opposed to at home. Some people worry about project sustainability. Some people want to support another charity. And the list goes on.

We add in additional angst if we make a political issue, where political labels complicate the process. Instead of dealing with the problem. Suddenly, who solves how much of the problem under what criteria and conditions as well as how do they go about it all become subject to the agenda purview of this party or that party and all those special interests, with little concern for actual outcome. The net result becomes a thousand-fold document that costs one hundred times more to accomplish significantly less than what is required.

Nobody is exempt and the test is self-evident. Think of an agency that solves our water problem. Now impart different labels on it, one at a time inserting the label ahead of the word agency. Like this: "_______" agency for water.

Christian. Islamic. Jewish. Satanic. Democrat. Republican. Libertarian. Jeffersonian. Secretive. Communist. Domestic. Conservative. Liberal. International. African. Jamaican. Japanese. Home-Based. Government. And so on and so forth. Which one would you give to?

If you're being honest, certain descriptions might have elicited a positive or negative emotional reaction. It might have been slight, but your prejudices exist, possibly based on your proximity or positive and negative experiences with people who have claimed to represent those things or what you have been told to expect from such people. In swapping the labels, you may even forget the problem.

How do you overcome prejudices and agendas to solve problems?

My oversimplified definition of public relations applies here. While I have more academic definitions, I often say that public relations is the art and science of making "we" out of "us and them." If you want to solve problems without being plagued by agendas, the only possibility is to ask people to temporarily check their labels (not their values) at the door.

It's a tall order to be sure, especially because most people don't even know they exist. They do. They exist on a grand scale, such as those who judge us by the color of our skin. And they exist on a small scale such as how much we might weigh or the shine of our shoes. So if you find someone to set those things aside, even for a little while, then hold onto them tight. They are rare individuals.

At least, that is what I think. I would love to know what you think. I'd also love to know what Dr. Steve Nguyen thinks, and Roger Dooley, and Sandeep Gauntam, or anyone who makes psychology a primary interest as opposed to me, about two classes short of that degree (it was my minor).

Of course, we need not stop with psychologists or people with a bent for the human condition. Anyone can chime in, especially Amy Vernon, who opened the box on this relevant topic. And if this topic is too far removed, that's fine too. What would you like to talk about? The comments are open. Let's talk.

Bob Fass Beats Everyone In Social Media. Good Morning, 1963.

Ask any social media expert what he or she knows about Bob Fass and most will stare at you blankly, head bobbing but without recognition. They never heard the name before. He isn't "known" in social. He doesn't have a klout score.

And yet, he ought to be known in social media. His ground-breaking work in social media using radio as his medium started long before many social media experts were born. And frankly, he did it better than most people do today.

"But wait," you say. "Radio doesn't count. It's broadcast."

While that might be true for some shows and stations, it was never the case for Fass. Beginning in 1963, he became a pioneer of free form radio. Anyone who called in was given an opportunity to speak about any subject under the sun. There was no plan. There was no format. There was no automation. He didn't fake it.

He didn't even concern himself with a niche. He never worried about his identity. He never once thought of himself as an influencer. He never did anything to chase down listenership. He was merely human, looking to elevate the unsung heroes of New York City from midnight until the break of dawn.

As a result, anybody and everybody was allowed on his show, especially counterculture figures like Paul Krassner, Bob Dylan, Abbie Hoffman, Arlo Guthrie, Timothy Leary, and Allen Ginsberg (to name a few). Listeners were allowed to call in and talk to any of them. One even suggested Dylan sing better, a comment that gave everyone a good laugh. Nobody was hurt by it or needed counseling.

It was a scene where the freedom to think and hash things out made sense. And most of the time, people just called in because they wanted to have a good time. For a few hours every night, they weren't alone.


The scene mostly played out much the same beyond the station too. The so-called virtual community that Fass had created eventually spilled into the streets. He hosted a Fly-In at JFK airport. He organized a Sweep In to clean up city streets. He had a hand in Yip In at Grand Central Station. His listeners marched on the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, 1968. His measured results made history.

But even as they did, Fass never let it go to his head. He wanted to connect with real people. He invited two-way communication. He wanted people to experience life in real time. And he still broke convention at every opportunity. If he liked a song, he might play it once or all night long. His call.

Social media wants to be Radio Unnameable but can't reconcile the business side. 

There is a certain level of inauthenticity in most social media programs because, well, they are programs. At the end of the day, most want you to do something because they are commercial enterprises. There is nothing wrong with that, but sometimes people seen as leaders forget that.

What makes almost all of them fundamentally different from pre-social media mavericks like Fass is that Fass didn't necessarily have an agenda (certainly not a commercial agenda). Social media experts, whether purists or public relations practitioners, don't have the luxury anymore. Most can only pretend to be authentic as they are serving an agenda to capture more leads, listeners, exposure.

This isn't a criticism. It's an observation. Many social media enthusiasts that started five or ten years ago had to abandon their hands-on approaches in favor of scalability. So, almost without fail (there are exceptions), the solutions they turned to came from the same media they had once ridiculed — a mass media model built on number of messages, listeners, clicks, and shares — while rewriting history just to say they thought it up first.

So what is the alternative? And if there is an alternative, just short of open mic night, does encouraging it make any sense from a professional or commercial standpoint? My guess is probably not because the answer lies somewhere in the balance of those two opposing ideas. But what do you think? And by that, what you do you think about anything?

If this space was more like Radio Unnameable, what would we talk about? What you would like to talk about? I'm curious so feel free to suggest anything at all. I'm listening and I'm not alone. The comments are yours.

Digital Advertising Will Become An Added-Value Function

If you want to succeed in advertising and marketing, the first best practice to learn is how to stop following leaders and learn to leap frog over them. Right. Innovation is the fundamental ingredient to market disruption, especially for marketers who track industry trends. Their play books look different.

Right now, what some of these marketers and advertisers are telling me is that added-value content will always have a place but developing added-value functions can turn a customer's head. Why? These marketers know that it pays to be so good they can't ignore you (Steve Martin) instead of paying to win someone else over (SAP) to get some attention. Don't talk about something. Do it.

Advertisers and marketers can look at three critical trends to make it happen — technological advancement, physical-virtual convergence, and marketing functionality (innovations in operations and customer ease using technology, especially what we call mobile advertising today) for inspiration. All three point to marketing and advertising models that engage people beyond a click and start to consider every aspect of the customer experience.

• One device will eclipse the "any device" concept. When Google first announced Google Glass, I was surprised by the design (and perhaps a little disappointed). What surprised me was that despite Google knowing that 90 percent of device owners switch screens to complete tasks (Google | Think Insights), it opted to make Google Glass a standalone device (although it can run on an Android) and not merely a screen extension, which would prolong the battery life, potentially increase user storage, and reduce the number of components needed.

After all, almost every design and development trend suggests that we are moving toward an era where every smart phone has the power of a personal computer, making every screen and keyboard a potential extension of that device. The only reason you might want two devices would relate to privacy.

Otherwise, one smart phone with a hard or wireless connection will seamlessly transition from the phone screen (or some other device) to a tablet, to a desktop, to a television display, to a presentation projector with the speed and efficiency of all those tools as they exist today. One of the most interesting things is the very real concept of turning an entire room into a halo suite gaming experience. Outside of gaming, this is one step away from halo suite classrooms where students and teachers are projected into physical spaces in real time, with how they appear dependent on the perspective of the person in the space.

• The dual environment concept will cease to exist. For the better part of a decade, I've been helping communication-related professionals to stop thinking about "social media" as a medium unto itself with online friends as opposed to offline friends and more like another environment, where different mediums and duplicate media can be discovered (everything from newspapers to broadcast networks to seminars and classrooms). And yet, I know that the days of this effective analogy are numbered.

When you consider that 84 percent of shoppers are using their phones in a physical store (Google | Think Insights) or that up to 85 percent of the population use devices while watching television (The Guardian), it becomes readily apparent that what used to be viewed as two environments is converging into an augmented environment. Ergo, online and offline are becoming increasingly dependent on each other, with no distinction between brick and mortar or online stores.

You can see it at work everywhere. The breakthrough of Airbnb isn't a collaborative economy as much as it organizes the physical world in order to create new opportunities. The same can be said for Uber, which organizes personal transportation in select cities around the world. And, in the near future, proximity tools will help you find the shirt you see online inside the store you're in (or vice versa), right down to the shelf. And perhaps, with membership, make visiting the cash register optional by either automatically checking you out or allowing you to check yourself out.

• Digital advertising is poised to become a functional utility. Within the next year, more marketers will begin to retool how they view mobile and digital marketing by looking beyond promotional pushes and toward a deeper understanding of digital-to-physical engagement. McDonald's is already taking the first step.

While some elements of its new Monopoly iAds campaign are clunky, others are well ahead of other marketers in that McDonald's is trying to get people in the store whereas most marketers are trying to get them to like a Facebook page. Expect McDonald's to move the ball further down the field by making an optional digital game board next year (as opposed to a downloaded game board) and offering real time mobile rewards during in-store visits.

The underlying push here is not all about promotion, but rather developing digital advertising that becomes part of an organization's operation by offering a functional benefit to the consumer. The concept will manifest in different ways. Stores could migrate inventory lists into an interactive proximity app or chains could include citywide searches; a mobile app that can tell you what needs to be serviced on your car; games, tools, and utilities that deliver value-added mobile functions as opposed to value-added content alone; and physical events that include live social coverage, enticing people to attend right now.

Another thought about the future of marketing. Everyone always likes to talk about eyeballs, but sometimes the best marketing advice for any business is much more hands on and increasingly simple.

Even the woman who cuts my hair knows it. She doesn't market herself using Twitter, but she does take advantage of technology. At the end of every session, she schedules my next appointment. The application she uses automatically sends me a reminder the day before. If I have an unexpected conflict, I can change it.

Some people might consider this good customer service. Others might consider it good marketing. And therein lies the sweet spot. When your customer service and marketing efforts become so seamless that they are virtually indistinguishable from each other, then it becomes difficult for anyone to ignore.

Networks Drive Discussions. People Drive Networks.

Everything you think you know about social media today will be obsolete in the next five years. This assumes you are lucky. It's equally likely that everything you know will be upended in the next six months.

This concept of temporal acceptance, perhaps more than any other, is a critical component of any discussion I lead or give about social media. There is a risk in introducing the idea, even if it is the most honest observation someone can make about social media. Most people don't like change.

Instead, most people want to hear about new technologies because the tools tend to drive most discussions. They want to know what these new tools are, how to use them, and if there are any emerging techniques that will give their organization an edge. Those kinds of discussions are useful, sure.

And yet, change has always been the driver of all communication-related fields. We all know it. Marketing, advertising, public relations, and corporate communication have always been in a constant state of change. What social media has done is move them forward at a faster pace, primarily because social media has attached itself to the rapidly accelerating pace of technological advancement as opposed to a singular technology like a radio or television set. This is a space that changes in a blink.

I don't even lump technologies together anymore. I tend to define them as tools (hardware), applications (software), and networks (platforms) with each of these overlaying sectors capable of disrupting the other. In fact, there are so many that no one person can possibly keep track of them all. There are thousands upon thousands of them; ideas that could be the next disruption force in communication.

How do you reconcile this as a communicator today? You don't necessarily have to think about tools.

When people talk about social media, they mostly get it backwards.

When I spoke with the Council Of School Board Association Communicators a few days ago, I anticipated one of the first questions asked in relation to my presentation. How do you, as a communicator, prioritize which technologies to use to reach your audience? They could answer the question themselves. It was easy.

I handed out sticky notes and asked the attendees to write down two of their favorite social media networks, the ones where they spent the most time. Then, while I shared my background, one of the attendees volunteered to sort and stick their responses to the wall in clusters.

There wasn't any surprise, Facebook and Twitter were the most popular. Pinterest was a distant third, but still a noticeably pronounced cluster compared to the rest. There were several dozen others selected by one or two people, ranging from Tumblr and Goodreads to intranets and association forums.

"There is the answer," I said, pointing to the wall. "If I wanted to communicate to this group, then I would prioritize my communication presence much in the same way. Social media is driven by people, not technologies."

Assuming I already had a space to introduce new content and make announcements (blog, website, etc.), my social network assessment priorities would begin with Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest (but not necessarily exclusively). As long as I had a plan and the right assets for each priority network, these are the ones I would tap first (e.g., if I did not have enough visual content, Pinterest would not work).

After establishing planned communication on these networks, I would learn more about the other networks on the radar, even if only one or two people selected them. Each one would be considered based upon their ability to help me effectively communicate about common objectives that the organization and specific audiences share.

Tumblr might make an excellent place for a school board association to reach students. Goodreads might be an excellent network to develop a list of books reviewed by teachers and administrators. A network like Meetup could effectively be used by administrators or unions. There are many more examples in the presentation, specific to school board associations.

Even if only a few members of an audience are already members of these niche networks, the organization may be able attract more people over time. People will mostly be willing to join any network where an organization they know or trust has developed particularly strong assets.

For example, many grandparents joined Facebook not because they liked it but because they wanted to see pictures of their grandchildren. Most people join Kickstarter and other niche networks for the same reason. They are not attracted to the platform as much as the content someone has place there (like a crowd-funding campaign).

The same holds true for all new networks and platforms that are introduced over time. Communication professionals have to assess each potential network on how effectively it can communicate common objectives. Popularity can also be assessed, but mostly as it only relates to sustainability. Networks have to reach some critical mass to survive. Not all of them do.

Building social media into communication plans and measurement. 

Once communicators appreciate that social media does not exist in a vacuum, it becomes significantly more manageable. Rather than break out the entirety of social media into a separate section within a communication plan, each social media asset becomes a contact point along with any traditional communication.

In other words, if a school board association wanted to work with school administrators to establish a stronger academic foundation, social media tools like LinkedIn or Meetup would be included alongside any newsletters or grassroots outreach. Doing so also makes measurement much more effective. Using the principles behind Return On Communication, the measure of success would be based on successfully changing the academic foundation (with a secondary objective that it improves student performance).

How A Little Love For Learning Can Jumpstart A Reader

Summer can be a mixed blessing for most children. While it gives them a little more freedom to play, explore extracurricular activities, and enjoy more free time, it also separates them from their natural love of learning.

The break leaves many of them at a loss after the summer, which is why most teachers set their startup lessons to be either refreshers or benchmarks. They want to know what these children retain over the summer.

Theoretically it works, unless these the children were already slipping in proficiency. Many children are. My daughter is among them.

Despite private school, she ended first grade with an F reading letter level on an A-Z scale, which represents an early reader at the start of first grade (not the end). She landed somewhere in the middle of her peers, which was better than my son did at that age in public school (and he had outperformed most other students there). But it really wasn't good enough.

If we assume that most children drop two reading letters over the summer — because they gravitate to books below their levels, if at at all — then we might also assume students like my daughter would automatically face challenges in second grade. Ergo, even if her new teacher started teaching the class at an H reading level, my daughter would have been critically behind as a student reading at a D level.

You can see the potential problem here, especially because many parents are unfamiliar with the various reading level benchmarks. They simply see their children reading and smile, thinking it's good enough. It's not. My daughter would have been lost after the first few weeks of school.

How parents can develop an accelerated reading program for young students.

Awareness is always the first step. Take some time to become aware of reading level benchmarks and find out where your child finished at the end of the school year. It doesn't matter which benchmarks the school uses — letter, numeric, or Lexille (a.k.a. Lexi). All benchmarks correspond to a grade level.

Some parents just don't know. While I knew my daughter's level this year, we never knew my son's reading level when he was that age. If you don't know, don't panic. Look up the books he or she has read or looked at since the end of the school year. A search with the book title and words "reading level" will usually produce a landing page that corresponds to one or all benchmarks.

Discover books to move them forward. Assume that the books are at their reading level (or a little less) because children (like adults) tend to gravitate toward what they can read easily and not what will improve their reading. Have them read whatever is on hand (or that they have been reading) out loud to demonstrate their strength at that level. You'll immediately get a sense of their proficiency.

Depending on how well the student reads, choose books that are at their level (if they are struggling) and slightly higher. Make sure you double check the approximate level too as all book publishers use different measurements. For example, Penguin Level 2 books are generally first grade books; some "I Can Read" Level 2 books are second grade books; and some Scholastic Level 3 books are second grade books.

Encourage kids to read the books out loud. It doesn't take much time. Between 15 minutes and one half hour of reading time every day is enough to propel them forward. Just remember that from their perspective, natural story breaks make more sense than random page counts or hard time quotas. They'll enjoy reading to a preset goal.

It's also best for parents to pick the books. Sure, children can provide input, but parents need to be aware that young readers pick books based on topics and characters they know. From experience, these better known characters tend to have clunkier writing and thinner story lines. Too many weak stories will cause young readers to become discouraged. So try to pick books with strong stories while paying attention to the language lessons.

Learning words by sight is a tiered process. Any time a student comes across a word that he or she doesn't know, block out everything except the first syllable (or block out everything except the root word) with your fingers. Most of the time, doing so will give them just enough confidence to get it right. And if they struggle, explain any rules that might help: e.g., sometimes "gh" sounds like "f" and sometimes it's silent.

The point is that you always want to help them solve a problem as opposed to reading the words for them (and letting them parrot you). Only when all else fails do you read the word and tell how why they missed it. Then ask them to reread the sentence and pay attention to whether they've mastered the word on the next occurrence. If they haven't, add it to an index card.

Flash card drills help create intangible rewards. Every morning after breakfast and/or after lunch or dinner, my daughter and I now work through flash cards that are mostly made up of missed words. There are only about eight or ten cards to go through one time. (It's important to only go through the pile one time per session to ensure long-term retention.) The only other words I include are instructional words; words that may appear in second grade instructions like "complete," "correct," "length," etc.

If my daughter gets it right with no assistance, we put a mark on the card. When she gets five marks on the card, she keeps the card and rips it up. As she rips these cards up, new ones are added so there are always plenty of cards at various stages of completion.

She thinks of it as an achievement reward and each ripped up card is celebrated. And if she misses a flashcard word in a story, I give her a one-time prompt that she already ripped the word up and we don't want to add it back. She immediately remembers. As an aside, never offer candy or monetary awards because you'll risk teaching them to love the reward and not a love for learning — which I believe is the ultimate goal of any teacher.

When my daughter returns to school this year, she will be well beyond her peers. 

If you read through these accelerated reading steps, then you'll likely be left with one question. Does it work? Within four weeks, my daughter moved from F to K on an A-Z scale. At this pace, she might reach Q by the end of the summer. To put that into perspective, Q is the letter for a fourth grade reader.

A few days ago, I spoke to a group of educators about communication (and I'll be sharing the deck next week). It was during my presentation that I shared one of my observations about education: I have never met a kindergartener who wasn't enthusiastic about school. So if we want to solve the problems with education, then we have to look at what happens between kindergarten and the fourth grade.

I believe reading proficiency is one of the biggest things that happens or, perhaps, doesn't happen. Too many children have not met the reading level required for their grade level. Their parents don't know it.

At yet, reading is the core requirement for every other subject (including math, with its abundant word problems). It seems to me the problem is apparent. Unless the material is easy to read and the problem easily understood, how can they ever hope to understand it or solve it, let alone enjoy it? Exactly.

Literacy is the key to every other subject, along with a love of learning. It needs a little more attention. It needs a little more awareness. It needs more advocates. So how are you spending your summer?