Jim Stengel

Disclaimer: I’m going to hit publish on this even though there is a month’s worth of reflection and refinement worthy of the insights Jim shared with us.

Jim Stengel, a marketing guru, came to the PSU Speaker Forum to talk with us today about developing a brand successfully. To be honest, I didn’t have any expectations for this event. I was free and was looking forward to a nice lunch. I can hardly remember what I ate after listening to him.

Jim shared with us an acronym for developing a successful brand: AHA!

A – Ambitious Purpose

How can you impact the world, in an important and personal way?

Dove Real Beauty Sketches – Dove has a vision of a world where beauty is a source of confidence, and not anxiety.

H – Human Insights

Is empathy a core value in our organization?

Pampers UNICEF Partnership – Pampers partnered with UNICEF back in 2006 to attempt to eliminate MNT, a preventable disease that every year kills 49,000 babies in less privileged areas within the first month of their life.

A – Always On

Is our organization agile and able to serve customers on a 24/7 basis?

Princess Charlotte of Cambridge was born on 2 May 2015. This video was release by Pampers within 12 hours of her birth.

! – Organizational Energy

Are you engaged and energized by the work?

As a College, we used to be. It’s been hard to see a lot of good people leave. The changes around the College haven’t been always easy because we have often been operating with insufficient direction. There are great people here and our leadership transformation is just about complete with the hiring of two new Assistant Deans. I see no reason why I wouldn’t be posting an update in six months declaring that we’ve got our “!” back.

What is the Office of Learning Design brand?

Is O-LD “AHA!”?

  • Ambitious Purpose – we support World Campus courses that positively impact students around the globe
  • Human Insights – this is one of the best teams I’ve ever had the privilege of working with because empathy is a core value to each individual
  • Always On – while we individually strive to always be there for the faculty that we support, I think our systems and processes could stand to improve with regards to agility
  • ! (Organizational Energy) – we love spending time together and having fun outside of the office

So, I can confidently say that our office is AHA! And I think we deserve to celebrate that!

Can we do more to market our brand? Of course, but I am confident we can get there because we have all of the important elements now.

Question for the future: How can we tap into our students and use their energy to drive success?

Additional Take-aways

Why don’t more lead with a sense of inspiring purpose, empathy, and developing organizational energy?

Great leaders have said they spend 60-75% of their time with their people.

One bad hire can take the place down.

“(Second-hand) I walk into work every day stupid” – Jim shared a quote as a reply to a comment that trouble begins when people stop learning and become “experts.”

How to start to influence when you’re at an entry level? It all begins with conversations – it “goes good places.”

What happens when a team and leadership do not see eye-to-eye about the brand and mission? Acknowledge the differences, you’ll probably notice that there 80% overlap and 20% friction. You then focus on the friction.

Fire drill fiasco?

We just had to evac IST and objectively speaking, there are a number of issues I think we need to address (not necessarily in any order).

  1. We have to update the safety monitors for each section of the building. A lot of us just went through office moves and our responsibilities may have changed since then.
  2. We have to update everyone about meeting points, shelter spots, and how to manage students.
  3. We need to figure out a plan for the bridge. When is the bridge closed? How do we close off traffic? What about the street traffic? I know we cannot do anything legally about the street traffic, but that is a serious vulnerability as well.
  4. We need 2-way comms between safety monitors. Instant communication among the entire group and independent of cellphone towers.
  5. We may need to consider emergency lighting in the building. I just took a look around and I didn’t see a thing.
  6. We may need to be clear about egress routes and temporary signage for elevators.
  7. We need to make sure all faculty and staff know about evacuating the building when the alarm goes off.
  8. We need a way to inform people about when it is OK and not OK to enter the building.
  9. As the SAC represents different areas, the safety monitors should be responsible for informing their respective areas of any changes or reminders of what to do in threat situations. Our goal should be to develop an aware and able individual, not allow a sheep-mentality that looks to authority for well being.
  10. What happens after 5 PM? Who’s around to assist the students then? Perhaps we should assess and determine the preparedness of the students as a whole.
  11. What about coordinating with EECS on the other side of the building?

I should mention that I am one of the safety monitors, or at least I was before my office move, so much of this is my responsibility. Ultimately, we have a whole program in Security and Risk Analysis here at the College. It would be a shame to have something happen and not be as prepared as we could have been.

I don’t want to sound entirely negative. Lisa Ammerman and Peggy Stanton have done a great job organizing the safety monitors on our side of the building and we’ll continue to look to them for future leadership.

Good luck Ravi!

As some of you may have heard, a long time friend and colleague, Ravi Patel, has accepted a position to work at the College of Health and Human Development. Functionally, he is heading up their Learning Design group. His last day here was this past Friday, the 1st.

I started off this post with the title “Goodbye Ravi” and realized that after writing part of my first sentence, “As some of you may have heard, a long time friend and colleague, Ravi Patel,” that this post might sound like someone has died. Of course that is not the case. I for one am very happy for Ravi and supported his decision from the start.

I’ve known Ravi since I started working at World Campus Learning Design back around 2009. I started in 2008 as an instructional designer, but was assigned to a different collection of units in Outreach. Eventually I was welcomed to the Blue Team being led by the Awesome El Lehman. Ravi was on the Red Team. At that time, Ravi was supporting the IST and Homeland Security programs. Ravi left WCLD around 2010 to work at the College of IST along side Amy Garbrick and her team. I left WCLD in 2011 to join them and have continued in my role ever since.

Since 2009, I’ve been lucky to have shared many meetings, challenges, lunches, laughs and personal moments with Ravi. While I am very happy for Ravi, I know I am going to miss him here. I’ve already felt the distance between other good friends (Linas, Brian, and Dom) that I no longer work with since having left WCLD and am preparing for a similar loss now.

I hope to post a future update on how I’ve over come the distance with all my friends. Best of luck Ravi! I’ll miss you here.