Originally a series of three blogs. They have been placed into writrten print format for those who don't read blogs. Communication, Learning and Coaching to Drive Behavioral and Organizational Change http://change-leadershipllc.com/learning/

1. 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”

2. 1
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

3. 2
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

4. 3
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.

5. 4
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

6. 5
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?

7. 6
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

8. 7
Geocaching in Secondary School and Higher Education
GPS and Geocaching in 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, 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)
Geocaching Podcasts with Yodio and Google Voice
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 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.)

9. 8
Geosciences
The Geological Society of America supports 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