In Andy Weir’s novel The Martian, astronaut Mark Watney finds himself in an impossible situation: He’s stranded in the deserts of Mars with limited supplies. Left behind by his team in a sudden evacuation, he must learn to survive in a strange, inhospitable world—or die trying.
It’s a scenario that might sound eerily familiar to school leaders. In the last 15 years, the landscape of school communication has changed dramatically, so much so that it almost feels like we’re on a different planet. In 2011 (the same year The Martian was published), just 39% of Americans owned a smartphone, according to Pew Research Center. Last year, the figure was 91%. Social media use has exploded in similar fashion. Even more significantly, the rise of artificial intelligence in the last few years is steadily redefining what it means to live in a digital world.
How can we contend with this strange new environment? It might be tempting to bury our heads in the sand, to stay the course as though nothing’s changed—but that’s not an option if we want to survive or even thrive. Instead, we must do the only thing we can do: adapt.
In The Martian, that’s exactly what Watney does. Instead of giving into despair or writing off his environment as impossibly hostile, he learns to work within his new circumstances. He figures out how to synthesize water from hydrogen and oxygen. With that water, he grows his own food supply. Over the course of more than 500 Martian days, he continually works to adjust to his new reality until—spoiler alert—he’s finally rescued.
On the one hand, no one is coming to rescue us from our new digital landscape; like it or not, we’re here to stay. But on the other, we also have a few advantages over Mark Watney. For one, our new world, even with all its challenges, isn’t nearly as inhospitable as Mars. In fact, digital technologies—from apps to social media to AI and beyond—actually have the potential to make school communication easier and more effective than ever, provided we know how best to use them.
But most importantly, unlike Watney, we’re not exploring this brave new world alone. Think of your fellow school leaders as other astronauts, and this edition of SchoolCEO as your survival guide. We may have crash-landed here, but we all made the journey together—and together, we’ll decide what life on this strange planet will look like. After all, our mission isn’t just to survive. It’s to make this new world our own.
In Andy Weir’s novel The Martian, astronaut Mark Watney finds himself in an impossible situation: He’s stranded in the deserts of Mars with limited supplies. Left behind by his team in a sudden evacuation, he must learn to survive in a strange, inhospitable world—or die trying.
It’s a scenario that might sound eerily familiar to school leaders. In the last 15 years, the landscape of school communication has changed dramatically, so much so that it almost feels like we’re on a different planet. In 2011 (the same year The Martian was published), just 39% of Americans owned a smartphone, according to Pew Research Center. Last year, the figure was 91%. Social media use has exploded in similar fashion. Even more significantly, the rise of artificial intelligence in the last few years is steadily redefining what it means to live in a digital world.
How can we contend with this strange new environment? It might be tempting to bury our heads in the sand, to stay the course as though nothing’s changed—but that’s not an option if we want to survive or even thrive. Instead, we must do the only thing we can do: adapt.
In The Martian, that’s exactly what Watney does. Instead of giving into despair or writing off his environment as impossibly hostile, he learns to work within his new circumstances. He figures out how to synthesize water from hydrogen and oxygen. With that water, he grows his own food supply. Over the course of more than 500 Martian days, he continually works to adjust to his new reality until—spoiler alert—he’s finally rescued.
On the one hand, no one is coming to rescue us from our new digital landscape; like it or not, we’re here to stay. But on the other, we also have a few advantages over Mark Watney. For one, our new world, even with all its challenges, isn’t nearly as inhospitable as Mars. In fact, digital technologies—from apps to social media to AI and beyond—actually have the potential to make school communication easier and more effective than ever, provided we know how best to use them.
But most importantly, unlike Watney, we’re not exploring this brave new world alone. Think of your fellow school leaders as other astronauts, and this edition of SchoolCEO as your survival guide. We may have crash-landed here, but we all made the journey together—and together, we’ll decide what life on this strange planet will look like. After all, our mission isn’t just to survive. It’s to make this new world our own.