PSCDA
Member News
PSCDA President's Message - December,
2007
By Roger Howson, Claims Dispute Resolution
A HOLIDAY HELLO FROM PSCDA
Raise your hand if you are already over-scheduled with too
many obligatory holiday festivities. Now, keep your hand
raised if you have a year's worth of reporting to catch up
on before 12.31.07. If there's enough strength in your arm,
hold your hand high a while longer to acknowledge the stunning
realization that you CAN still accomplish every one of your
2007 goals and objectives amidst the holiday season shopping,
family gatherings, office parties, AND a plethora of PSCDA
meetings.
Saturday morning, December 1st, you
will want to attend the follow-up Lassoed by LinkedIn workshop
by Matt Youngquist.
If you are looking to effectively expand your business connections,
job search, and/or professional associations show up at the
Mercer Island Community Center at 9:00am with $45 in cash,
check, or stolen merchandise. (Alan Hay, PSCDA Board Member
tells me that stolen merchandise will NOT be accepted- only
legal tender.) Come learn more about LinkedIn…besides,
who DOESN'T want more emails in their in-box?
On December 6th at next Thursday night's PSCDA Meeting fellow
PSCDA member, Joshua Staffieri, M.S., Educational and Career
Planner for Green River Community College, will keep us all
enthralled with a presentation on the Gallup Organization's
self-assessment, StrengthsFinder. If, like me, you don't
visit the PSCDA website nearly enough (and Mixie does such
a masterful job of keeping it current), here is a quick recap
of what you are in store for at our December meeting:
Do you have the opportunity to do what you do best every
day? Chances are you don't. All too often, our natural talents
go untapped. From the cradle to the cubicle, we devote more
time to fixing our shortcomings than to developing our strengths.
To help people uncover their talents, Gallup introduced the
first version of its online assessment, StrengthsFinder;
in the 2001 management book Now, Discover Your Strengths.
This book was more than five years
on the bestseller lists and ignited a global conversation,
while StrengthsFinder
helped millions to discover their top five talents. In StrengthsFinder
2.0, Gallup unveils the new and improved version of its popular
assessment, language of 34 themes, and much more. While you
can read this book in one sitting, you'll use it as a reference
for decades. Loaded with hundreds of strategies for applying
your strengths, this new book and accompanying website will
change the way you look at yourself — and the world
around you — forever."
What Josh can offer then is a simple overview of the assessment.
He would encourage all who attend to take the assessment
in advance so that he can break down some of the 34 strength
themes in order to better help us to understand the results
and benefits of the assessment.
For those that are interested in
purchasing an assessment, they can visit any major retail
bookstore (e.g., Barnes & Noble)
and purchase the book, StrengthsFinder 2.0, which includes
a one-time user code to take the assessment online. The book
can be purchased on-line as well at Amazon.com for only $11.97,
or people can visit www.strengthsfinder.com.
Seriously, you won't want to miss out on this opportunity
to explore your hidden talents so that you will be better
equipped to help your own clients discover THEIR hidden talents.
Now that I've set the bar for your expectations so very high,
Josh can be counted on to far exceed even those lofty expectations.
As 2007 comes screaming to an end,
please save time on your 2008 calendar for the first Thursday
of each month. January's
PSCDA guest speaker will be Jane Field from the Washington
State Employment Security Department. In February, PSCDA
Board Member, Allan Hay, will entertain us with more wisdom
form his book- Memory Mining. And the March meeting will
feature a presentation from another PSCDA member, Dr. Miriam
Reiss. (More about that later…)
It behooves you to show up to each meeting because you never
know when PSCDA past president, Susan Lauzac, or Bellingham's
PSCDA Board Member and Web Master, Mixie Eddy, might show
up. (Tom Washington has Mixie convinced that she needs a
valid U.S. Passport to travel between Whatcom and King County.)
Happy Holidays, and we look forward to seeing each and every
one of you at the next PSCDA meeting!
Roger Howson, PSCDA President
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