Congratulations and a note of caution to this year's recipients of the Tech Savvy Superintendent award

Congratulations to this year's winners of the Tech Savvy Superintendent's awards.

What an honor - but as yourself, how much of the Tech Savvy Superintendent award is really an honor and how much of this is a marketing opportunity for sponsor/vendors?

For those lucky ten school systems with honorees who will receive this award on Friday, February 20, you may want to reconsider.

Just last year, Dr. Weast, Montgomery County Maryland's Superintendent of Schools, was named as one of the 2008 Tech Savvy Superintendents. Not only did Montgomery County taxpayers send him to receive this award, but the schools wound up purchasing over 3,300 fancy whiteboards from Promethean, the sponsor of last year's awards. The Montgomery County Council is holding a hearing February 23, at 9:30 am to figure out who picked up the tab for these wonderful tech toys. Curious taxpayers want to know, especially since the four unions serving the school system gave up their negotiated pay increases to make up for public funding shortfalls as a result of the downturn in the economy.

Think carefully before your school system and taxpayers find themselves in the same situation - or at least hide the checkbook before your superintendent gets on the plane for San Francisco.


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Here is the invitation to become a sponsor of the recently announced Tech Savvy Sup awards.

From the invitation to become one of the three sponsors:

Leadership Support Is
Essential to Your K-12 Sales

Be an integral part of the most venerable gathering
of superintendents in North America.

Top educators believe in supporting those who support them. The
Ninth Annual Tech-Savvy Superintendent Awards (TSSA),
produced by the eSchool News Network, is the ultimate sign of
support not only for the year’s 10 winning superintendents, but for
chief school executives from coast to coast who are fighting to
ensure the effective use of technology in our schools.

Sponsor eSN’s 2009 Tech-Savvy Superintendent Awards.
Establish an up-close-and-personal encounter with well over 100
key superintendents.

If you’ve ever tried to set up a meeting with the Chief Executive
Officer of a public school system, you know it can be devilishly
difficult. But as one of just three sponsors of the eSchool News
Tech-Savvy Superintendent Awards program, you’ll get the
undivided attention of more than 100 superintendents at the
high-prestige event of the year!

In addition—through the print, online, eMail, and video channels
of the eSchool News Network—you’ll get electronic marketing
opportunities via eSchool News Online, video exposure via
eSchoolNews.TV, and display advertising in the national print
newspaper eSchool News. Altogether, you’ll get an effective,
sustained marketing reach to nearly one million executive educators.
And your marketing exposure hits in multiple media formats from
October 2008 through April 2009.

In February, the eSchool News Network and the Century Club
100* are teaming up while the American Association of School
Administrators (AASA) conference is under way.

The Ninth Annual Tech-Savvy Superintendent Awards ceremony
itself is scheduled for from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m. at an AASA
headquarters hotel in San Francisco on Friday, Feb. 20, 2009.
But the benefits of sponsoring the 2009 TSSA program begin
months earlier, in October, with a call for nominations issued
throughout the eSchool News Network. Hundreds of superintendents
are nominated by their colleagues and peers. Then, past years’
TSSA laureates join with the editors of eSchool News to select the
2009 winners. Each of those 10 winners are profiled in the print
newspaper, the February “AASA Show” issue of eSchool News.
The 2009 winners, along with past years’ laureates, program
sponsors, eSN editors, and the full membership of the Century
Club 100 are invited to the luncheon ceremony at one of San
Francisco’s finest hotels.

As part of the Century Club 100 annual meeting—a by-invitation only
affair customarily attended by well over 100 superintendents—
the eSN Awards ceremony brings together the 10 new superintendent
winners and the sponsors’ chief representatives. Each sits
for an on-camera interview with eSN.TV. At the start of the awards
ceremony, each sponsor’s chief representative brings greetings to
the gathering. Several members of the sponsors’ sales teams are also
invited to the luncheon to solidify relations with the full assembly of
superintendents. eSchool News records the event as a video feature,
issues press releases to all local news media of the winning
superintendents, and covers the proceedings for publication in the
April issue of the print eSchool News newspaper.

Only three companies can be sponsors of this high-profile, high prestige
program. Please speak with your account executive today to
learn more about this multi-month, multimedia marketing program.