Fight. Fight. Fight.

Today's post is on my mind and it is on my heart. I share it with you not as an encouragement to focus on negative circumstances, but as a way to proactively face reality.

I believe our generation has a unique challenge. We will be affected by disease, chronic illnesses, and health scares of all kinds in a unique way. As things become clearer to me that my MS diagnosis is real, I reflect on the fact that so many of us are one degree (if not the degree) away from a story of health depletion. I am blown away at how "normal" it is to hear about tragic situations...and bummed at how desensitized we can become to that news. There are variations in severity, but what we consume (in all forms of the word) and how our body reacts is becoming more complex than we can comprehend.

My question is: how do we respond? You are thinking to yourself right now about that example of sickness which most resonates with you. It is no joke. I get it. Our response is what will set us apart from those who came before us and those who come after us. Crazy stories of life and death are all around us. It is not time to play cliche games of optimism versus pessimism. It is time to grab the bull by the horns. What you see below is an internal conversation I had with myself recently and is by no means meant to be the answer for the masses.

Kev...

1. Do not even think about shedding what is important when things are at their worst. Whether it be friends, faith, family, sports, work, pets, yard work, or just plain being social, now is not the time to think about giving them up. It's not "don't give them up," it's "don't even think about giving them up." Your mind can't handle the thought of giving them up.
   
2. Address the situation head on with those who matter. Don't play games. Be straight up and let those people in who need to be in.
3. Have a tough skin. My grandfather, Colonel Norm Chase, was infamous for the saying, "When the tough gets tough, the tough get tougher." See the title of this post.
   
4. Let love out. Everyone has a different reaction to support. Some people want a ton of it and some people feel awkward when given it. No matter how you take love, I think giving love is more important during the rough patches.
5. Thinking about the worst-case-scenario is okay. Use it as motivation to face things differently.
6. Pray.
   

Little Help Here...

I am working on a "lesson plan" for a leadership presentation I am doing on Friday. What I would like to do is give some examples (e.g., video, audio, purely name examples, music lyrics) for the different historical leadership theories. I'm looking for examples for each of these. Let me know if you have ideas!

GREAT MAN (ONE) – persons are born with certain heroic leadership traits/qualities

TRAIT THEORIES – certain traits or characteristics distinguish leaders from followers (who someone is makes him/her a leader)

BEHAVIOR THEORIES – what a person does makes him/her a leader

CONTINGENCY THEORIES – situational or contextual variable influence what leader behaviors will be effective

INFLUENCE THEORIES – studied the influence process between leader and follower (e.g., charismatic, leadership vision, etc.)

RELATIONAL THEORIES – how leaders and followers interact and influence each other

What are they learning sitting here?

You may have seen this before, but I think it's a good depiction of where students are with technology today. It is a call to action, but it also leaves me with a lot of questions. It's not that I don't know this stuff already...adapting to it is the topic of conversation.

Techno Beats

I'm back to my discussion on social media and networking. It's not going away, I've realized, because it is here to stay. And, it's about time for me to embrace it (or at least acknowledge that I need to pay attention to it in order to stay on top of my game).

I went to a conference this past weekend, where I had the opportunity to hear from a guy named Evan Korzon. Evan started a business called scvngr, which essentially organizes national text message-based scavenger hunts. Pretty cool idea with low start-up and maintenance costs. I admire his entrepreneurial spirit.

The challenge is understanding how technology appropriately fits into your (read: my) daily work/life. I still stand by the fact that face-to-face interactions are invaluable. BUT, technology can help us connect before we have the chance to make those face-to-face interactions. Nothing profound to you I'm sure, but a new and interesting light-bulb moment for me.

Take Orientation at JMU for example. We can attempt to keep up with technology once students get here, but the fact of the matter is that students are connecting AS SOON AS they read the first line of their acceptance letter. We should provide ways for them to 1) connect online before they get here, 2) between when they come to summer Orientation and when they move-in, and 3) again during August Orientation. If I get into JMU in February, aren't I going to immediately look for ways to connect with other people who also got in? Facebook is only really meeting this need on a small scale. All you do there is join "JMU Class of 2012" and then there aren't really any catalysts for meeting people who have similar interests.

We need to "control" these interactions minimally, and only for the purpose of making sure correct information is out there (e.g., a student brings up the hypnotist coming to campus during August Orientation and wants to grab dinner with some people who may have an interest in studying hypnosis but he/she has the wrong date for the event). Otherwise they should remain public space and free for students to manage on their own. If they want to know who is interested in soccer or dungeons and dragons, they should hypothetically be able to search via a university source and have a soccer game set up on the Quad for their orientation date. These connections are necessary and are happening whether we realize it or not. Maybe it's time I make some bold moves to creatively meet this need. I think the possibilities are exciting and I don't think all ideas have been tapped.