Blogging on Geocaching in Business and Education

These entries originally appeared in Skip Ward’s Blog

“Communication, Learning and Coaching to Drive Behavioral and Organizational Change”

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A Word from the Author

Geocaching is a game or sport that has existed for a decade. However, only recently has geocaching entered mainstream marketing in business and higher education. The same is true for secondary school education.

As you will learn from these blogs, it has exciting application to our marketing, communication and educational professions. My career spans all three areas and I was delighted to discover this game or sport as part of a course I am taking on mlearning (mobile learning) in a year plus certification program in Emerging Technologies from the University of Manitoba.

I trust that this will provide an opportunity to achieve a knowledge level of competency in information about geocaching and will inspire other to get out and use their smart phone.

An awareness level is defined as “you know it’s out there” and a knowledge level is that you have enough information to ask solid questions to a subject matter expert. I believe these three blogs and the materials replicated here will provide enough input, and interest in hitting enough hyperlinks, to move one and all to the knowledge level.

Why place it in written paper form? Many folks don’t read blogs! As a communications and marketing guy I learned awhile ago to recycle materials in different medias to reach a maximum audience.

For questions or comments, please feel free to contact me at skipward65@gfmail.com

An Innovative, Emerging Participant-Centered Activity Pages 2-3 Marketing and Communication: A 10 Step Plan Pages 4-5 Geocaching in Secondary School and Higher Education Pages 7-8

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An Innovative, Emerging Participant-Centered Activity

I am always on the hunt for new and attractive ways to use mobiles for learning, communication and marketing and the article quoted below opened a few new doors. The author reminded me again of one of my favorite Lessons Learned, “You don’t know what you don’t know.”

This is the first of a series of three blog entries. This entry serves as an introduction to what I think is an exciting marketing, communication and educational tool. Part 2 will be on use of geocaching in marketing, communications and team development. Part 3 will explore the use of geocaching as a teaching tool. All three entries will be supported by slides, print materials and a video on my Slideshare site. Stay tuned! And don’t forget to visit my geocaching photo stream on flickr.

What is geocaching?

“Participants (a.k.a., “geocachers”) use GPS systems to hide and find “geocaches” almost anywhere in the world. (They can even be found in Antarctica.) A simple geocache (or simply “cache”) is a small water-resistant container with a logbook and pen in it. You can buy specially designed caches, but a regular Tupperware container will do. Unlike pirate treasure, caches aren’t buried. If you can find your way to the GPS coordinates, you should be able to find the cache. Note that the caches listed on geocaching.com may come with clues to help you find them. (“Look for the missing brick in the ivy-covered wall.”) Dain Schroeder, “Treasure Hunting with Your iPhone?

How long has it been around?

A full decade. However, it has only recently entered the fields of marketing and education. In fact, start ups have recently emerged to professionally develop geocaching campaigns for businesses.

What iPhone app did I download?

I downloaded the free Geocaching Intro app and found three caches near our home. I immediately went after one. Lesson Learned- Do it in the cool of the evening, not at noon when it is 101 F in Houston! Then I went all out for the $9.95 US version loaded with more than I even wanted to know! Global caches in our global world. As we were driving to New Orleans for the 4th of July I hit the app and found 4 caches as we whizzed

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by. The bottom line, however, is this is a no-to-low cost approach. Most smart phone have GPS and most have smart phones. The app is free.

I don’t have an iPhone (yet!)

No problems. Free apps exist for Androids and Windows Phone 7. Visit this site to download the apps.

Example Use in a Class

GPS and Geocaching Guide for Educators by Dr. Alice A. Christie, Arizona State University President’s Professor Emeritus. Sample lessons

“Teams of students will use GPS units to locate geocaches that their instructor has hidden around their school campus. Students will return to the classroom with the recovered geocaches, examine and discuss the contents of the geocaches, determine a number of possible ways to categorize the contents of each geocache, and then use Excel™ to create spreadsheets and graphs that represent the categorized data. The contents of each geocache can be sorted in two or more ways.”

What does a cache look like? What am I looking for?

They come in all sizes and shapes! BYOP (Bring Your Own Pen) to sign the logbook. And, if you take a token out, the rules say you must drop your own little keepsake into the cache for others to find! They can be easy to find, as in PNG (Park and Grab), or more challenging to locate. And you will be given clues along the way. When you get near the stash, the app will announce that you are close!

For further information:

What is geocaching? YouTube, short, simple introduction

Geocaching Wikipedia, excellent list of variations

Geocaching.com The official site

Be sure to visit my flickr site the set on geocaching: tips, key words, links to videos and more! By the way, there are over 54,000 photos of geocaching as of today July 8, 2011 @ 4:21 PM.

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Marketing and Communication: A 10 Step Plan

Last night I was sharing the geocaching concept with the fellow that manages a local restaurant. It was Show and Tell time so I opened my app and up came three nearby geocaches. One in particular grabbed our attention. A customer of a nearby restaurant has created a geocache because of the fine food served. A raving fan, to use the term coined by Ken Blanchard, provided free advertising for this establishment.

-One marketing example is Project A.P.E. Cache. In 2001, 14 geocaches were placed with 20th Century Fox to publicize the movie Planet of the Apes. Each cache represented a fictional story in which scientists revealed an Alternative Primate Evolution. The caches, marked ammo containers, also included an original prop from the movie. Only a few Project A.P.E. caches exist today.

-In 2007 students used geocaching to promote Coca-Cola for their campaign in the National Student Advertising Competition, a student contest run by the American Advertising Federation. For further information check out Students Campaign for Coca-Cola.

-UC Berkeley, Oxford University and the University of Ottawa have up to 47 geocaches scattered around campus. Florida State University has 20 caches on or near campus and many people try to “collect” the full set. Brown University has 14 tiny or nano caches that take you on a tour of the university’s Providence neighborhood. In effect, students, and others, have created sets of team building events or campus orientation to new students in a social context. Purposively or not, the universities have crowd sourced the work.

-Joshua Noble is the director of tourism for the Kingman, Arizona Area Chamber of Commerce. His cache superimposes historic photos over the modern-day locations and hopes to use such old photos to draw geocachers to various historic points of interest in and around the city.

- A number of state and local parks encourage geocaching to attract visitors. Lincoln City, Oregon had 500 coins made. These coins have an icon and are trackable.

Bottom line- This is a yet generally untapped marketing and communication tool in business or at the higher education level. As we will see in part 3, geocaching has a growing number of adherents in the classroom, but not yet in the marketing arena. I suspect that, although around for 10 years, the vast majority of people

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really don’t know what it is all about. I personally have asked about a dozen 20 somethings and only one had gone geocaching (in a state forest) and the other had a roommate who was in the game.

How might creative and innovative minds put geocaching to work to draw in customers or raise awareness of academic programs? What are the steps?

1. Do your due diligence.

• Review the three blogs in this series. Check out the resources at the end of the blog entries. Visit flickr and review the photos and descriptions. Review the video and slide materials on Slideshare.

• Prepare a list of questions for geocaching enthusiasts. • Facilitate a meeting with current geochachers within the business or

university. Some universities have student geocaching clubs. Check out Kansas State University, Marshall University, Fort Hays State University There is your gold mine! Or check this site to determine if there is a local geocaching club nearby. Contact that organization for support.

How long have they been in the game? What was the one best experience they have had in finding a cache? What are the Lessons Learned? Be sure to capture these as that will help you avoid the errors they made! How do they think your business or university can utilize geocaching? Remember- the wisdom is in the crowd, the knowledge is in the network!

2. Go on your own geocaching adventure! Meet together afterwards to discuss as a group. Use the After Action Review (AAR) process- What did you expect to happen? What actually happened? What did you learn?

3. Assuming your adventure was fun and that you successfully located a geocache or two, determine the business case for change. Of course the object is to raise awareness of your organization, but be very specific. What do you want to raise awareness about? If a business, what is special about your product or service? What are you proud of? What’s your elevator speech? If you represent a university, what makes you a cut above others? What do you do better than the others? What’s your elevator speech? Or is there a particular cause you support, such as the environment But stay away from hot political issues!

4. Conduct a Risk Analysis. What might go wrong? What would you do? What might become a barrier? How would this barrier be removed?

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5. Review your resources. Do you have funds to have a special cachet box made, symbolizing your institution? Do you have funds to put in some “swag” representing your business or college? (Companies abound. Old Time Wooden Nickel produces custom made tokens, for example. Consider your human resources. You have a great marketing and communication opportunity to harness your current employees or students (and alumni) to create a “raving fans” campaign based on their creation of geocaching boxes with something you supply and they augment with their own creativity. Geographically it may be possible to have a global reach!

6. Based on answers to number 2 above, what are some items you can put into the cache and what can be used as the cache? Where might you hide them? Brainstorm. Don’t eliminate any idea. Put them all up on the board. (I prefer to give meeting participants a pack of post its and then have them write one idea per post it. Then when they all have generated ideas I have everyone stand up and place their post its on a brown paper wall I set up and move them around as they see what others have suggested. The audience groups them themselves. All in all, this is a time saver and a more physically involved approach. )

7. Set a meeting with Senior Leadership to review the business case for change, potential risks and responses, resource issues and high level communication plan. Secure buy in. You can adapt the slides found on Slideshare if you need support. Remember- buy in and support from Senior Leadership is critical to the success of any change process. Checkout John Kotter’s eight step change plan. It is a classic.

8. Create a Steering Committee and write a charter including roles and responsibilities of all members and ensure that they have read and agreed to the document.

9. Go to the official global geocaching site, Geocaching.com, and register. You can get a basic free membership or pay for one for $30/year.

10. Create a written communication plan on raising awareness, and interest, in your geocaching campaign. The plan should include who does what by when. Someone must oversee the plan and I suggest the traffic light approach- Green if completed, yellow if in trouble and red if a train wreck. For further information see Communication Plans- The Triple Ts of Transparency, Truth and Trust and Presentations and Media That Stick.

For further reading and ideas see Hiding Your First Geocach and Setting up a Geocaching Marketing Campaign

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Geocaching in Secondary School and Higher Education

I strongly recommend anyone interested in this topic grab a copy of the 2010 book by Brut Lo, a technology professional development coordinator with the California Technology Assistance Project. The book,

GPS and Geocaching in Education

GPS and Geocaching in Education, is published by the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE). Lo includes nine activity worksheets that will spark the imagination of every instructor in every academic area.

Lo writes that “Students should learn the process of finding and creating geocaches through tried-and-true instructional methods like modeling, guided practice, and perhaps a culminating activity.” P. 65. Students will learn about the larger world, make abstract concepts like math and chemistry real, improve logic and problem solving skills, practice community and small group etiquette, and improve writing by posting on online. (p. 99)

One very clever lesson is on geocaching podcasts for English Language arts, Science, and Social Studies for levels 6-8 (ages 10-14). Questions are placed in the geocache and students are required to record their answers with their mobiles. In class all will listen to and discuss their answers and are assessed on the accuracy and completeness of their recoded answers. They can use

Geocaching Podcasts with Yodio and Google Voice

Yodio (free to call in to record, free to combine with photo from a digital camera) or the free Google Voice app for recording in the field.

Another clever spin is for the instructor to record a podcast to support the quest. Adding the sound files to a geocache trek provides both teachers and students the option of adding indoor materials. And it offers the option of providing further background information. For examples, see the PodCacher site. Listen to an example of a California geocache podcast at www.podcacher.com/?p=154. (You will be taken to iTunes.)

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The Geological Society of America supports

Geosciences

Earthcaches. An EarthCache site is a special place that people can visit to learn about a unique geoscience feature or aspect of Earth. Visitors to EarthCache sites can see how our planet has been shaped by geological processes, how we manage the resources and how scientists gather evidence to learn about the Earth.

Examples include:

- The Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore park in Michigan is America’s first National Lakeshore, established by the 89th Congress of the United States on October 15, 1966.

- Flint Hills Rock Velvet Cake in Kansas “Few places in this country demonstrate the connection between landscape and people better than the tallgrass prairie in the Flint Hills. The Flint Hills and the surrounding area are shaped by the rocks that lie directly beneath the vegetation and soil—the same rocks which made cultivation difficult and led to the use of native prairie grasses for ranching.” From http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?wp=GC2M6Y3

Check out An Earthcaching Teacher’s Guide for further insight.

Geography

The Degree Confluence Project. The goal of the project is to visit each of the latitude and longitude integer degree intersections in the world, and to take pictures at each location. The pictures, and stories about the visits, will then be posted here.

February 20, 2011 marks the 15 year anniversary of the start of the Degree Confluence Project. In 1996 Alex Jarrett and Peter Cline made the first visit, to 43°N 72°W in New Hampshire. Fifteen years later, over 11,000 visitors have submitted over 91,000 photographs for over 11,000 confluence visits in 183 countries. For full deals see this site.

What are your thoughts? Is this a worthwhile emerging technology?

Contact me at skipward65@gmail.com