Don Allen’s Horrible Minneapolis Public Schools Contract Makes the Strib
As MeganG pointed out in the comments of my post earlier today, Don Allen’s contract with the Minneapolis Public Schools is starting to get the attention it deserves.
Apparently, Mr. Allen’s marketing pieces play up the successes of notable alums, but contain serious factual errors that could be easily verified at Wikipedia. (ex. which high school did Prince attend?)
Strangely, Stan Alleyne is continuing to stand by Mr. Allen in spite of his sloppy work:
The school district’s legal department reviewed and approved the contract without reservation, district spokesman Stan Alleyne said.
“This was a good proposal that will benefit the district,” Alleyne said. “It’s legit and quality. We thought it was worth trying.”
But, the real money quote goes to Don, who said:
“It may have been a bad call to give me a contract,” Allen said, “but they didn’t have the talent in-house.”
Oh my.
This is definitely worth a read. Don’t miss the comments on this one.
February 22nd, 2011 at 2:34 pm
I also find the JHG comment that it was “flawed by design” to be unintentionally hilarious. Supposedly the erroneous content of the proposed ads done by Don Allen was purposefully done in order to generate free publicity.
This is all well and good if you operate under the “any publicity is good publicity” mindset, and all you care about is the number of Google hits your ads get. However, the message this sends is that the MPS did not even do basic fact-checking before approving this contract. I’m pretty sure they didn’t shell out $15k for negative publicity that the Strib article clearly demonstrates they could have gotten for free.
February 22nd, 2011 at 2:44 pm
@Ed, I happened to help Councilmember Don Samuels make those development update videos that you linked to, and I just noticed on Part 1 video, on youtube, IBNNORG has left a comment that says “Who care…”
LOL.
February 22nd, 2011 at 8:45 pm
I would like for Mr. Alleyne to confirm whether or not he was aware that the “legit and quality” product he purchased from Mr. Allen was intentionally “flawed by design,” in order to bring controversy and negative attention to the MPS no-bid process.
Perhaps this flawed product is just one cog in MPS’s demonically clever “waste by design” spending strategy, “doublespeak by design” p.r. campaign, and “failure by design” pedagogical strategy.
February 22nd, 2011 at 9:15 pm
@veg*nation, Don Allen seems to be playing at an entirely different level than what I’d expect from a contractor for the Minneapolis Public Schools. However, I think Don and I may differ in our perspectives of how high that level is.
February 23rd, 2011 at 8:55 am
@Ed: I think the bigger concern is how high Mr. Alleyne believes that level should be, since his decisions reflect on the MPS as a whole.
February 23rd, 2011 at 9:32 am
@veg*nation, great point. Perhaps Mr. Alleyne’s judgment is “flawed by design” as well?
February 23rd, 2011 at 4:35 pm
When Don Allen uses atrocious grammar, spelling, punctuation and capitalization on his IBNN website, is that “flawed by design” as well?
March 3rd, 2011 at 12:28 pm
[...] his 14 listeners (I was one of them) about research JHG did regarding the controversy surrounding Don Allen (of Poopgate fame’s) contract with the Minneapolis Public Schools. 24:40 into this, he states “the Jordan Hawkman Group did a lot of research on this, and they [...]
March 10th, 2011 at 2:32 am
[...] the revenue generated from the posts I’ve written about Don. One person clicked on one ad on one story, which generated 63 cents. And the ad impressions in aggregate have made me a penny off of [...]