A Pop Star Dies, A Nation Disappears...

Now THIS is social commentary - for the past weeks Iran has been the number one story - now it's faded from the headlines over the death of a washed up, and apparently drug-addled and financially ruined pop-icon who the media have spent the past 20 years vilifying - what's THAT all about? Guess they are mad they won't have him around to kick anymore.

CNN dedicated the whole night Thursday to Michael Jackson, the proclaimed "King of Pop" - Iran was reduced to ticker status. The Iran posts on Twitter dried up, replaced by RIP MJ...

What does it say about our society when a nation is in revolution, trying to free itself from oppression, that world economies are near ruin, and we forget that completely so we can mourn a musician? Yes admittedly a musician who in his prime changed the music industry (some would say saved the music industry with "Thriller" - I own one of those 100 milion copies sold) and pop culture, paving the way for a generation of stars.

Michael Jackson will probably be the last of the great icons - there will be no more Elvises, or John Lennons, or Michael Jacksons - those stars who many remember where they were when they died. Here is an interesting article on that subject from the New York Times carried by my local paper - Fame Will Never Be The Same.

I give Michael Jackson full dues for who he was and what he did, but he was at best a shell of himself when he died and the media revelled in that, spending most of their time the last twenty years vilifying him as a child molester and for being just plain weird - now all of a sudden he was a genius and an icon who will be missed - that's the real story - the hypocrisy and gnat-like attention span of the media, and of society as a whole.

And what of Iran? Has it disappeared from Western consciousness? Is it yesterday's news? Even the Twitterverse has dried up and the number of green avatars is shrinking. Yes, much of the drying up of news is likely due to everything being shut down in Iran, but where has the World's outrage gone? Oh yeah, it's been put aside for MJ. Rest in Peace Michael - maybe now you will have the peace and joy that seemed to elude you in life.

Let's mourn for Michael Jackson and his family, he will be truly missed and remembered by millions of people. But let's not forget the millions of people strugglingto be free either. Time for the media to get their eyes back on the stories that matter - Iran, climate change, the world's failing economic systems and so many more that will impact us in the following days, weeks, and months. Hmmm...

(Map from Iran Tours)

Strengths Finder - So That's Who I Am!!...

At NSCC we are in the process of revamping our performance review processes. We are taking a positive spin on performance management and one way to do that is to identify strengths, not weaknesses. In order to do this this we are using Strengths Finder 2.0 from the Gallup organization.

Strengths Finder 2.0 is a set of 177 paired statements for which you have 20 seconds per pair to select on a Likert-like scale the one that most resembles who you think you are. After completing the questions, your answers are analyzed and the results are returned listing your top five strengths from a list of 34 themes.

The work behind the Strengths Finder approach was done by Dr. Donald O. Clifton. Here is a brief biography of Dr. Clifton from the Clifton Strengths Prize:

"Over a 50 year career, Dr. Donald O. Clifton established a movement in psychology that focuses on talents and strengths. This work earned Dr. Clifton recognition as the Father of Strengths-Based Psychology in an American Psychological Association Presidential Commendation. Dr. Clifton’s core philosophy was to have people focus on what was positive and right with themselves, and to build on their strengths to achieve their full potential."

I first took version 1.0 of the Strengths Finder (known as Strengths Quest) shortly after beginning my job as academic chair. Here are my top five strengths from that test:

1. Learner
2. Intellection
3. Achiever
4. Developer
5. Arranger

The big surprise to me after taking this first version was how closely it was to whom I thought I was (each strength is described in details in supporting reports). Over the years I have done Myers-Briggs, DiSC, and others and always had some disagreement with the results. I did not have those same disagreements with Strength Quest.

I also asked several of my friends and colleagues what they thought of my results and almost unanimously they said that it was me - we had consensus :-).

As the College continues to roll out our new performance system, many of us will be taking workshop training in this new strengths-based approach. In preparation for this workshop, I took the StrengthsFinder 2.0 battery this past week, almost six months into my position as academic chair. Here are my top five strengths:

1. Learner
2. Intellection
3. Input
4. Achiever
5. Responsibility

As you can see, three of five of my strengths have remained the same (Learner, Intellection, and Achiever), while two have changed - Input and Responsibility, which replaced Developer and Arranger. Input is about collecting and storing things, responsibility is about committing to what you do, achiever is about is about drive and arranger is about organizing and getting things done (these are all very brief paraphrased descriptions - to get the details buy the Strengths Finder 2.0 book). Now, all of these strengths describe me and I believe that I possess them all - they help me do the job that I do.

The question for me is why the changes from the first test? Were these my sixth and seventh strengths and I simply re-ordered them, or has six months as an academic chair given me a different "perspective" on my strengths and impacted their order. Hopefully this will become clearer as I go through the workshop and we adopt our new strengths-based positive attribute performance management system. What do you think? Hmmm...

The Incredible Shrinking Man - Me!!

I weighed in the other day at a svelte 333 pounds. Now that I have your attention (and mine!), this is my public announcement that I plan on doing what it takes to lose weight - and I will be periodically posting on my progress as a way to motivate myself (besides the obvious health benefits).

I don't really have a target weight, but I do want to feel better in my clothes and to feel fitter overall, so I will mostly be eating better and exercising more - there is no easy way to do this.

For me this adventure will bring some fundamental lifestyle changes which I hope I can stick to. We'll have to wait and see. Stay tuned...

P.S. This is my "before" picture:

Which Serenity Character Are You?

Thanks to my friend Leah for this one. Here are my results of the Serenity personality test:

You are Malcolm Reynolds (Captain)

Malcolm Reynolds (Captain) 75% Derrial Book (Shepherd) 70% Dr. Simon Tam (Ship Medic) 70% Zoe Washburne (Second-in-command) 55% Wash (Ship Pilot) 55% Jayne Cobb (Mercenary) 50% River (Stowaway) 45% Kaylee Frye (Ship Mechanic) 40% Inara Serra (Companion) 35% Alliance 35% A Reaver (Cannibal) 0%	Honest and a defender of the innocent. You sometimes make mistakes in judgment but you are generally good and would protect your crew from harm.
Click here to take the "Which Serenity character are you?" quiz...

Firefly was one of my favourite TV shows and Serenity was recently voted the best sci-fi movie of all time in the UK, beating out all of the Star Wars movies. Hmmm...