Without Falcon Hockey...

Sorry to have been away for so long. I could go through a list of uninspired excuses, but I won't put you through that. I will simply say, life has been great lately, but extremely busy. And when I get busy, my mind doesn't work as creatively as I wish it would.

That being said, I wanted to highlight a topic that means a lot to me...The Bowling Green State University Falcons men's ice hockey team. For those that don't know, the Pittsburgh Penguins just won this year's Stanley Cup. The coach of the Penguins, who was brought up to the team with only 25 games left in the regular season, was Dan Bylsma. Dan is a friend of mine and a friend of my family's, so it was particularly enjoyable to watch him guide his team to victory. More relevant, Dan went to and graduated from BGSU, where he and his older brother both played hockey. Dan's success within hockey made me start thinking about some of my own successes in and around hockey. Further, it made me think about what impact I could have on the BGSU hockey team in helping it avoid being eliminated in the near future. After doing minimal research, I discovered that BGSU is offering a ticket package for out of state individuals. The ticket package is $120, and the tickets are distributed to under-privileged youth. This led me to the following list of thoughts:

Without Falcon hockey, chances are I wouldn’t have played hockey, and chances are then that my brother Brian wouldn’t have played hockey. Without Falcon hockey, my Dad probably wouldn’t have had the opportunity to be my coach or manager. Without Falcon hockey, I probably wouldn’t have gotten to see my brother win a State Title and play in three straight state title games. Without Falcon hockey my family wouldn’t still be able to laugh about countless private jokes that occurred while driving everywhere for games and practices. Without Falcon hockey I wouldn’t have gotten to see Niagara Falls or visited BGSU players' families in Canada. Without Falcon hockey our family wouldn’t have met and known nearly as many people in Bowling Green. Without Falcon hockey, my parents, brother and I wouldn’t have had a standing family date night on most Friday and Saturday nights around 7:30 during the fall and winter. Without Falcon hockey, I wouldn’t be able to say proudly that I attended a University that has won a Division I National Championship. Without Falcon hockey, we definitely would not be a hockey family who travelled all over this country and Canada together and separately.

To me, whether my small donation of $120 helps saves the program or not, it will at least give some under-privileged kids an opportunity to see a game or two. Who knows what that will mean for them or their future families? It certainly means and has meant a tremendous amount to me.

Remembering the Remembered

Memorial Day weekend is here. Living in Indianapolis, that means it is The Race weekend. But not only in Indy, but across the entire country it should mean so much more to all of us. Whatever your beliefs are, it is important to take not just a moment, but several moments to reflect on those that have helped shape this country with their lives. To all veterans of all wars, I say thank you. Your sacrifices have allowed me to grow as an adult and bring my own child into this world. Not to be cliche' but you really can't put any kind of price tag on that type of freedom.

I also want to take this weekend and remember those people from my family or people I have had the pleasure of meeting and knowing. Everyone has someone they should remember during this weekend. Family members, friends, colleagues, leaders, mentors, teachers...there is someone out there that made sacrifices for you and I. Two people that I remember on a daily basis, but particularly this weekend are my Uncle Tom who passed away a couple of years ago and a friend of mine from when I lived in Seattle who passed away far too young. Both gave me direction and insight about life that I will always carry with me. Although it is convenient to remember only on Memorial Day, I like to take time and recall greatness about those that I have known throughout the entire year. So in between race parties, cookouts, trips to the lake and spending time with friends and family, really take some moments and remember. Remember those that have impacted you that are no longer with us, and remember those that impact you today that you can still reach out to. You never know what your feelings may mean to someone who helped shape who you are.

To all of my friends and family, I remember you and thank you for all that you have given me. Have a great holiday everyone.

Transitions

Switching gears from my last, less than uplifting post, I thought I would try and sprinkle some positivity throughout cyberspace. Spring is a time of change and re-birth, and I have gone through a lot of this lately. My employer recently switched its name, my brother just had twins (a boy and a girl) to go along with their other son, my daughter is enthusiastically and aggressively potty training herself and at 36, I am learning that I may never fully become an adult.

As of Monday April 27th, Indiana Business College became Harrison College. As an organization, we all are extremely excited for this transition because our name now better represents who we are as an academic institution. Of our 30 programs, more than half of them are in fields other than business. We will be opening our first campus outside of Indiana in September of 2009 in Columbus, OH. Our online division represents students from 30+ states and 5 countries. It was the right time for a name change, all while maintaining our company core values and hands-on relationships with our students and graduates. On top of all of this, Harrison College was named to the "Best Places to Work in Indiana" list for the second consecutive year, and is the only education based company to make the list. Although this process was over an 18 month period, the amount of work that went into this transition was monumental. But already we are seeing the fruits of our labor with incredible positive feedback internally and externally. It is an exciting time to be a part of Harrison College and to be in this industry. Change isn't always well received, but in this instance, I think things went better than expected. I am fortunate to be a part of this transition.

On top of a name change, I am blessed to be an uncle again, two times over! My brother and his wife were able to successfully deliver twins last weekend and the babies and mom are all home and healthy. I know that my brother and his wife are in for a giant transition, but I am confident that they will flourish with the support of both sides of the family. Having had my own child, I am constantly amazed at the entire process of bringing a child (or in this case, two children) into the world. Although stressful and life changing, I am happy to see two great parents have the opportunity to impact and develop two new children.

How can I possibly top the last two big events in my life recently? Well, for those of you that are fortunate enough to have potty-trained a child, I probably don't need to explain the giddiness associated with this monumental step. For those that haven't had this experience let me tell you, it is both prideful and hilarious. I am not sure I ever envisioned making up potty songs, cheers, clapping routines, high-fiving displays, dances and family bonding over a 23 month old asking to go potty. And then to see her laugh uncontrollably after doing her business, well, for those that know me, it is nothing short of spectacular. My parents used to bribe me with M&Ms when I went the bathroom. For our daughter, it is Elmo stickers that motivate her...combined with my singing and clapping. My wife often threatens me that she is going to get the Flip camera out and post on Facebook my horribly uncoordinated "Potty Dance" routines after each successful deposit by our daughter. So far, I have been able to prevent this from happening, but stay tuned...my wife is pretty stealth.

All of this brings me to my last point...I still don't feel like a full adult yet, and I am actually great with this. I stress like an adult over mortgages, the market, unexpected expenses, etc. But part of me is still able to keep things somewhat in perspective. I have a beautiful family, I enjoy my career beyond my wildest dreams and I can still have a lot of fun with my friends and wife. All in all, things are pretty good. I am not naive enough to think that everyone is as fortunate as me right now. There are a lot of people going through many more difficult transitions. My only advice is to look to the past and the future for happier moments. I am a big proponent of Lou Tice and his thought that (paraphrasing) "saying is believing." If you say that things will get better, you ultimately will believe things will get better, which will eventually make things better. Remember the positive factors in your lives and either continue your current transition upward, or help pull yourself upward over time.

You Never Know

My original plan was to write about my companies recent name change from Indiana Business College to Harrison College. I was and am very excited about the change and all that it represents, but I think I will hold off on that topic for a couple of weeks.

Instead, in a 48 hour period recently I received three stories of incredibly unfortunate news. First, a long time friend of mine and my brother’s learned over the weekend that his Dad has been diagnosed with lung cancer and his prognosis is not very good. Next a friend and former colleague of mine informed me that his mother has been diagnosed with leukemia. She learned of this news on the weekend of her three year anniversary from her recovery from brain cancer. Furthermore, the medicine she used to treat the brain cancer had a 1 in 1000 chance of causing leukemia. Lastly, a friend and former colleague of mine who has a son similar in age to my daughter’s, lost her husband suddenly over the weekend. I am not trying to bring everyone’s mood down with what is obviously depressing and tragic news. Instead, I am trying to encourage everyone to be aware that life is indeed far too short. It isn’t worth staying angry or frustrated over minor issues. Make time to reach out to your friends and family and value all of their nuances, even the annoying ones. Take an inventory of your life and look to revise or fix “opportunities for improvement.” We spend so much time rushing on to our next task, or working on the next project that we sometimes take things for granted. I personally am going to use my experience this past week as a wake-up call to appreciate those around me more and spend time enjoying life. I invite all of you to do the same and appreciate what you have and focus less on life’s negatives.

Friendworking

Last week, Seth Godin spoke about not being satisfied with just being good (exceeding-expectations-or-don’t-bother). So I am going to say that I had the foresight of Seth’s blog, and that all of my thoughts over the past two weeks were just good…so I didn’t write anything. Hopefully, my thoughts today will appear to be better than good and I will have a justifiable reason for not having communicated anything for the last two+ weeks.

Friends are really important. This may seem like an obvious statement and to some extent it probably is. But in today’s economy it is vital to keep up relationships with your friends and essentially add them to your networking mix. I have had a number of friends recently that were either let go or left positions due to the changing of their corporate environment. It is a scary time for all of us, but particularly in the Midwest where unemployment numbers are as high as 11-12%, and in individual cities can reach as high as 20% (Detroit for example). With all of the technology that is available, reaching out and communicating with friends is incredibly convenient. Making the effort to catch up with friends should be a part of your daily routine. Sharing knowledge about job status, industry trends and companies that are hiring can be an easy staring point for conversation.

I was fortunate enough to be able to help refer a former colleague and friend for a position with my current company. My colleague simply reached out to me after he was let go from his last position due to significant downsizing, and asked me if I knew of any open positions that he might be a fit for. We started having regular conversations via email, and when I learned of some openings within my company, I let him know and informed the hiring manager of his interest. He will now be starting with our company in a week. And all that I really did was connect him with a decision maker that I already know and respect via email. The end result is that a friend of mine is now employed and the company where I work is better off because they added an excellent individual.

Friendship is not just about networking. But it certainly is a viable benefit in today’s economy. For those of us that are fortunate enough to work for companies or industries that are growing, make sure that you take time to reach out to your friends. After all, who wouldn’t want to work with someone that is already a friend?

Who Have You Complimented Lately?

Apparently my life isn’t nearly as exciting as I thought it was when I first started writing this blog. My weekly entries have now been stretched out to two weeks in between postings in order to come up with a story that won’t bore you (or me for that matter) to tears. I will try and lead a more interesting life to keep you entertained.

For those of you that know me, I am not the best at receiving compliments. I usually instill an “aw shucks” attitude when presented with compliments or situations of recognition. Last week I had several great things happen to me that got me thinking about giving and receiving compliments. First I received a request from a former colleague who asked me to recommend her on LinkedIn. I gladly wrote her a recommendation because she was a great teammate with my previous company and someone that I held/hold in high regard. She was also kind enough to write me a recommendation back that left me rather speechless. She went above and beyond with her comments and really made me feel great about our current and past relationship. Second, my current boss paid me some high praise in front of my peers during a one-day seminar. It was an incredibly validating experience to hear that the projects I have been working on were having the desired impact. Finally, a new colleague that I have recently formed a relationship with called me and asked for advice as it relates to skills I had exhibited with him in the past. It was very motivating and empowering to have someone that I respect, ask for my advice.

The reason I am mentioning these events is not to try and make myself look good amongst the half-dozens of people reading this right now. It is to help remind everyone how incredibly valuable compliments can be. We should all work to extend genuine, deserved compliments to colleagues, friends, family members and those that we interact with. The ego boost and feeling that accompanies a well deserved compliment can carry over through several days. And if you are thinking that this attitude is just a bit too rosy of a world outlook, then maybe you need to go out and pay someone a compliment. There are so many things occurring in the world right now that are beyond our control. But we can control and positively shape those around us by giving out sincere and deserved compliments. And in all honesty, what is the worst thing that can happen if we all started showing each other more appreciation?

Millennials and Elmo

Well, after a couple of weeks away due to travelling and staying up late watching Elmo offer up his insights on Springtime, birds, birthdays, friends and taking turns, I finally have some thoughts to share. First, Elmo and Sesame Street may be the greatest marketers of all time. But I may cover that topic at another time. The more relevant topic (depending on my audience I guess), is that of the Millennial generation and how they learn and function in the employment market. Millennials is the name given to the generation that was born approximately between 1982-2001. On a recent trip to the Columbus, OH area (where Indiana Business College is getting ready to open its first on-ground campus beyond the state of Indiana in September, 2009) I had the pleasure to meet with a number of area professionals. Included in my trip was a visit with the Columbus Chamber of Commerce, which was incredibly insightful. I also met with and had lunch with David Cofer of Cofer Consulting Solutions (http://www.coferconsulting.com/). David is a consultant that is currently working with the Columbus Chamber. Over lunch, David and I got into a conversation about Millennials and what environments they learn and work best in. This conversation combined with a number of recently viewed YouTube videos, really resonated with me. Millennials were born into a technology heavy environment. Unlike most of us from older generations, Millennials had access to laptops, IPods, PDAs, social networking sites, texting, emailing, etc. from a very early age. Their access to multiple massive streams of information and the ability to multi-task has been a part of their daily lives. The issue for older generations then becomes how does the rest of the world “catch-up” to this younger generation. From an education and employment standpoint, people like me and others in these arenas, need to find ways to keep these learners and employers from feeling like they need to “power down” when entering a classroom or workplace.

So, what is the solution? In my opinion, the older generations need to be willing to close the gap between what we are currently comfortable with and the ever evolving technologies that change daily. Even Elmo utilizes a computer for video messages and emails. My 20 month old daughter even mentions Elmo when I bring out the video camera (probably now outdated) or digital camera. She also pretends to type text messages on my Blackberry when she manages to wrestle it away from me. If educators and employers are not willing to push themselves out of their comfort zones and learn new available technology, then the gap between current generations and Millennials will only widen. Change is never easy, but if we are unwilling to attempt to keep up with the environment, then we will all suffer. From what I have been able to learn in a short time, Millennials are going to be an incredibly successful generation. They digest information more rapidly and are eager to be continually challenged. They have the ability to do more in shorter periods of time because of what resources they have available to them. The older generations would be wise to capitalize on these individuals and work with them instead of making them compensate to the “old school” way of doing things. There will definitely be growing pains for all generations involved in this change. But if we aren’t willing to try and change, then I think we are missing out on the big picture. I have no idea what to expect in terms of technology when my daughter is in kindergarten, let alone when she reaches high school. But I do know that I am going to be willing to try and stay even with the technology curve so that we can continue to have meaningful conversations and positively impact each other far into the future.