Almost a year ago I had the fortune to stay overnight in Portales, New Mexico.  The nicest hotel option I was aware of was a Holiday Inn Express.  I reviewed their website and made a reservation. 

What I quickly learned, through the school of loud knocks, was this hotel was located adjacent to an active railroad line.  Something that wasn’t even hinted at on their website or at check-in.

While I did blog about this last December, I also wrote a review on TripAdvisor.com (which is the reason for revisiting this topic).  Since December 2010 a whopping 228 people have read the review.

Since my railroad rock and roll event, there have been four other reviews posted.  None were responses from the Holiday Inn Express.

Maybe they don’t want to draw attention to it, since it is, really, the only option in town?  Perhaps.

Either way, there are 228 people who read the review and didn’t see a response from the hotel management acknowledging the problem, addressing plans to install more soundproofing or even offering free ear plugs to those on the railroad side of the hotel.

Typically, silence is golden.  In this case, I am not so sure.

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness…”

In the Tale of Two Cities Charles Dickens was clearly not referring to the University of New Mexico Football program.  However, comparing the opening news conferences for two of its most recent head football coaches reveal two very different styles.

When Coach Mike Locksley was introduced as UNM’s head coach in December of 2008 he said “This isn’t a rebuilding project. I look at it as a renovation. I’ll be putting my personal touches on the great foundation that’s already been laid.”  But it was his comment about lighting up the scoreboard and adding a third digit to the scoreboard that haunted his 2-26 record.

When Coach Bob Davie was introduced as UNM’s 31^st head football coach (November of 2011) there was no talk of lighting up a scoreboard.  There was some plain talk to the Albuquerque Journal, “So it’s gonna take a while to build this thing back up. I’m not gonna panic. I’m not afraid to lose a game to build a foundation for the future.”

Coach Locksley told fans what they wanted to hear, he talked of the possibilities.  Coach Davie is telling things like it is, talking about the realties of walking into one of the worst college football programs in the NCAA.

Will Coach Davie have success?  If he coaches like he handles opening news conferences, UNM will have a winning record before Davie’s contract expires.

One of the many great spectacles in college football is a packed LSU Tiger Stadium with the crowd chanting “TIGERBAIT” as the opposing team enters.

In another arena, sports icon Tiger Woods is making a spectacle over his lack of response to an early morning car accident into his neighbor’s tree.

While he did issue a brief statement on his website, which raised more questions than it answered, he has yet to speak to law enforcement about the accident.

It raises the question: How much information is enough to satisfy the letter of the law while placating the arena of public perception?

From the legal perspective, Tiger’s attorney provided “license, registration and proof of insurance” to officers; the bare minimum.

In the arena of public perception, it isn’t as cut and dry.

Tiger has been successful because of his athletic abilities.  Leveraging his consistency and discipline, marketers have helped elevate Tiger Woods into a sports icon who has earned the public’s trust through product endorsements.

 In all of those endorsements you’d be hard pressed to find images or references to his wife and family.  That’s because he is fiercely private about his personal life.

If he had wrapped a golf cart around a tree at a golf course, I have a feeling we would have seen Tiger owning up to the circumstances and the public curiosity would have moved on.  However, since this occurred off the course, it is, in Tiger’s mind, out of bounds.

And here lies the issue.  The public is clamoring for information about Tiger’s private life.  In this era of reality television and a 24/7 news cycle, there are some who think he owes the larger public a more detailed response than what appeared on his web page.

Tiger was wrong waiting 48 hours to make a statement; it should have been issued within 24 hours of the accident.  While it did provide personal responsibility, it raised more questions than it answered.

Despite the hovering helicopters, stalking media, and crowd that is yelling “TIGERBAIT”, this Tiger is consistent about not commenting about his personal life.  That discipline will be his key to moving past this incident.

Image of Tiger Woods provided by the Baltimore Sun

While in route home from my youngest daughter’s soccer game, I looked at the clock and realized that the President’s address to a joint session of congress was underway.  I tuned to the news talk station to listen in.  There were people calling in and complaining about the healthcare plan, no Presidential address.  I scanned the entire AM bandwidth until it was clear the speech was not being carried live on any AM radio station that broadcasts in Albuquerque.

I turned over to my Sirius radio and “bam” there it was on CNBC and a host of other conservative and liberal outlets.
It is funny that a broadcaster gave me a reason to switch to satellite and it had everything to do with lack of meaningful content and nothing to do with commercials!

The teachable moment to my daughter brought to these random observations:

Everybody is talking, nobody is listening.  Instead of listening to the proposals, it was easier for a radio station to let listeners vent about the President’s plan instead of providing the opportunity to have them comment after they hear the President’s remarks.

Politics makes strange bedfellows.  During several election cycles, many broadcast VPs and General Managers have commented to me how the election advertising buys saved their month, quarter or year.  But after the election, a sitting President addresses a joint session of congress and it doesn’t warrant live radio coverage?  Instead, regular programming is the rule and a Presidential address to congress is no longer an exception?

The President loves his face time.  This President has had more “prime time” appearances during his first months in office than the last President had during his tenure.

Here is my dichotomy, on one hand I am bristled that I can’t hear the President of the United States address Congress; on the other hand, I can’t blame broadcasters for not carrying it because of all the airtime he’s sucked up already.

I understand the urgency of this President to get the issue in front of Congress before there is an expected majority change following the 2010 mid-term elections.  I also appreciate the same urgency of the minority to stall discussions as a long as possible, for the same perceived mid-term reasons.

Personally, I hope someone calls “do over” and we can have a process that engages the entire electorate with results that benefits all Americans without all the usual rhetoric.

This week the New Mexico Public Education Department (PED) announced its progress, or lack thereof, on improving the State’s high school graduation rate.  The measure, called Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP), shows New Mexico’s 54% success rate is one of the worst in the United States, which has an average graduation rate of 70%).

There are a number of reasons for the low scores.  For example, culturally, there isn’t a rich history of formal education.  It isn’t uncommon for some graduates to be the first in their family to get a diploma.  Plus there are changing family dynamics that find grandparents raising their children’s children.   Some would see those reasons as excuses… it is just reality.

The sad reality that the PED has failed is seen in many ways.  The most glaring is how it has left behind the most vulnerable special needs children. Looking at the 2008-09 school year only 4% of the State’s special needs population were proficient.  As a benchmark, the same group had 6% proficiency just four years earlier… aren’t you suppose to improve over time?

So, now that New Mexico’s chief executive officer has received the coveted “America’s Greatest Education Governor Award”, presented last month by the National Education Association, it is good to know we are finally seeing some measureable initiative to combat this problem that “suddenly” appeared.

Two days after the PED released the information, the Governor announced a plan to recapture as many as 10,000 drop outs, establish committees/taskforces and create brochures.  The Reader’s Digest version, it is an aggressive truancy and top heavy bureaucratic approach which is the same as trying to get toothpaste back into the tube.  He is focusing on the students who don’t want to be there instead of giving attention and resources to those who are in school.  The squeaky wheel isn’t even getting the grease (and it is $2.4 billion of taxpayer grease each year)!

Terry Abbott, when he served as director of communications for Houston ISD (and later US Secretary of Education) Rod Paige, would have an approach he called the “its much worse” strategy.  In this particular case, the approach would acknowledge the low graduation rate but then focus on something that was “much worse”, like the fact that after years of hard work only 4% of 11th grade students with disabilities are proficient in math.  He would then outline the plan to increase proficiencies and “define” the issue, instead of a headline writer setting the agenda.

Delivering “bad” news is expected when State government is involved.  The lesson learned here, provide workable and reasonable solutions when the problems are first identified, not four years after the fact.

Image: New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson accepting the NEA’s “America’s Greatest Education Governor Award”… thank you NEA for this “priceless moment”

Credit: Thanks to twitter for coining “Cash for Flunkers” on this issue