A small step for Xerox. A huge step for High School Kids.

I think our company has the best record of all the players, HP, Oce, Canon, Ricoh, et al, in supporting education and communities. Just one more step can help us by helping others. If we lead the Reinventing Text Book business. The kids win because they will not drop out of high school at 50% rates in the US. Our partners win because they have a new product to sell. We win because more clicks, more after sale revenue.

My bet is that the missing piece is that you don't see how Print is the best way to amplify signal to break through the noise in a High School classroom. If you really believed that, this would be a done deal and we could all focus on the interesting problem of fixing High School, instead of the pressing problem of growing the company.

"OK," I say, "Keep an eye on your RSS feed and I'll try to prove it to our viewers in the next couple of days."

Preview of coming attractions:
In one of our next episodes, I will tell you how I was able to increase homework compliance to about 85% in a totally dysfunctional inner city Vocational High School. it was done with essentially no cost to anyone, without taking more than 3 or 4 minutes of the teachers time, and with no badgering or threats. And it all depends on digital printing. Stay tuned.

For our RSS viewers, the post will be titled: Homework Compliance with Digital Printing.

from South Africa
Anybody else wonder why all the really cool stuff doesn't happen in the States. I'm betting, like so many other innovations these days, this is already happening in South Africa or someplace in India, or maybe in the Middle East. My theory is that we live in too much noise and life is too easy to want to change. They think it's because we're dumber. I may be wrong. But I know we are not dumber than anyone else on the planet.

Here's the story:

Xerox supports solid education
Monday morning started well for the management and learners at Tom Naudé Technical High School when they received a sponsorship of R100 000 from Xerox Data Master.

The cheque, handed over by Xerox CEO, Mr Jacques Nell, forms part of an even larger sponsorship, which includes a full-time Xerox technician on the Tom Naudé premises. “It is with great pleasure that our company has decided to invest in education for Tom Naudé High School, due to the fact that Tom Naudé delivers (produces) excellent students every year,” Nell said.

He added that companies like Xerox can employ students from the school and send them on further training to become service engineers in the company. “This is the main reason why we invested in a school that delivers top students. This is a top reward for a top school,” Nell said.

An all-smiles Tommies principal, Mr Ferdie Liddle, thanked Xerox on behalf of the school. “It is worth it to do business with Xerox because you get more out than what you have to put in,”

Mr Jacques Nell, CEO of Xerox Data Master, paid a welcome visit to Tom Naudé Technical High School to hand over a cheque to school principal, Mr Ferdie Liddle, in the company of Mr Ben Mphahlele from Xerox.
(Photo: Anna-Marié Schoeman)