Face (Up)Lift(ing)

by Jerry Madsen

Ch-Ch-Changes: For those who have made it to our South Bend campus recently, you have started to see some of the first signs of what will be a very visible marketing campaign to our students, faculty and staff in the coming weeks and months.

Our IvyStrengths Communication Committee has been extremely busy working on new displays (click on photo to enlarge), designing posters, creating individualized door hangers and other projects, most of which are to be completed before Laurie Schreiner's visit and keynote address at the Annual all-Region In-Service on August 16.

Forget about Harry Potter: I know the big book news this past week was the release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (spoiler alert: Harry lives in the end, but he gives-up magic after he learns of the true power of his strengths), but we have a bit of book news for you here at Ivy Tech. 

After the "Intro to IvyStrengths" sessions last month, I had a lot of people asking, "What Strengths resources does the school have available to students and employees?"

My typical answer: "None".

But that was then and this is now.  Starting next week, the libraries at the Elkhart, South Bend and Warsaw campuses will each have copies of the following books available for check-out:

• 6 copies of StrengthsFinder 2.0 by Tom Rath
• 6 copies of Now, Discover your Strengths by Buckingham & Clifton
• 6 copies of How Full is your Bucket (Educator's Edition) by Rath and Clifton
• 2 copies of First, Break all of the Rules by Buckingham & Coffman
• 2 copies of Soar with your Strengths by Clifton & Nelson
• 1 copy of Discover your Sales Strengths by Smith & Rutigliano
• 1 copy of Follow this Path by Coffman & Gonzalez-Molina
• 1 copy of 12: The Elements of Great Managing by Wagner and Harter
• 1 copy of Go Put Your Strengths to Work by Marcus Buckingham

If you have any suggestions of other Strengths resources you'd like to see on a library shelf, please let  us know!

Strengths in the 21st Century: Knowing I'm a big fan of iTunes, one of my colleagues emailed me today and asked if I was aware that author Marcus Buckingham was now making Podcasts available for free?  At the time, I did not know this, but now that I do, I'd be remiss if I didn't pass this along to you.

And in case you are wondering, you don't have to have an iPod to download and listen to music or Podcasts through iTunes; you just need a PC or a Mac.

Comments

[Cheryl King]

In regards to Ch-Ch-Changes.

I have some thanks to send to the communications people.

Heidi Henke did a terrific job designing the ivy strengths posters. She put them together very quickly and they look great! Way to be responsible!

Jenny Hemsworth, interior design para-professional, matted all the square strengths cards for all three campuses and helped me fill the cases. One of her strengths is positivity, so she did it all with a smile on her face.

Jetta Cruz is awesome! she swooped in and made alot happen fast. I feel much better about everything getting done by the deadline. Is that strategic, woo or activator? Probably all three.

Thank you to all the communication committee members. I don't think I have ever enjoyed meetings more.

[Chris]

I like what you guys are doing. I'll keep an eye out for other strengths resources as well. I know that Marcus Buckingham has a podcast series that is part of a summer set of conference calls. It's a step through his book "Go Put Your Strengths to Work". But I think it ends after the summer. Is there a different podcast I'm missing?