Well this week I visited the home state of my hero Will Rogers, Oklahoma. I was there doing a little speaking to folks about my take on common sense. You know that thing that everyone used to have but now only our grandmas and grandpas have.  And because common sense isn’t so common anymore, I’ve decided to repackage it and make it applicable to our modern Internet-driven age as Simple Sense. It’s pretty bad when you have to simplify something that is based on common sense.

Anyhow, the folks at Oklahoma Department of CareerTech and the teachers of Oklahoma got a dose of my Simple Sense, which has the power, if applied, to relieve-stress, increase-success, and improve-productivity, without any of the nasty side effects.

Now as students everywhere would be thrilled to hear, even teachers need a little schooling sometimes. These Oklahoma folks are spending the week talking about and getting tips on how to educate the Generation NEXT (you know, those who have never heard of a phone that plugs into a wall).  For this generation, short of twitter feeding them and serving up 5 hour energy drinks to keep them awake, you might have to pull a big stunt where you jump off of something and hurt yourself, jackass-style.

Outside the classroom, I noticed that things have changed with entertainment as well.  Every night that I look out into the house of the theater I work in, I see 2000 people sitting comfortably in their seats watching a show, but there are more than a handful, of all ages, that are texting, facebooking, taking pictures and sometimes I even see folks talking on their phones.  And this is all happening in a seat that costs $150.  My only guess is that someone else must have bought that seat for them!

When in Oklahoma, I said, “If a cat can lick its hind legs and get 3 million hits in the first 3 minutes, then the way we entertain and educate has to change.”  The good thing is that after my little talk with the Oklahoma teachers they got it, then again Oklahoma is home of the pioneer.

“In this modern day and age America`s newest slogan is: Mom, apple pie and high-speed Internet. They say you can live two weeks without food, a day or so without water but take someone`s smart phone away, and that person won`t last five minutes.”

– Will Roberts 

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