Positivity Matters - Lincoln

Positivity Matters - Lincoln:


Vision Statement: 

Increasing goodwill and connectedness by bringing awareness to people of their strengths while fostering positive psychology in Lincoln.

Adviory Council:
Cathy Behrns - General Manager at KZUM 89.3 FM
Martha Florence: Director of Community Engagement at NET 
 & board member of : 

• Sheldon Art Association
• The Malone Center
• Partnership for a Healthy Lincoln
• City of Lincoln Libraries

Laurie Fraser - Co-chair, Cause Camp 2013
Paul and Shelley Freeman - The Cameron Effect
Nick Hernandez - Social Entrepreneur at Positivity Matters
Bob Rauner - Executive Director at Partnership for a Healthy Lincoln
Sheila Stratton - Radio Host of The Joy Factor

Community Theme Advisors:

1. Positive Psychology

• Nick Hernandez - Founder, Positivity Matters
• Debbie Way - Director of Community Outreach, Roper and Sons
• Fred Luthans, George Holmes Distinguished Professor of Management, UNL

2. Positive Connectedness - Jim Keck -  Senior Minister, First-Plymouth Congregational Church
3. Philanthropy 

• Brian Wachman - Executive Director at United Way of Lincoln and Lancaster County
• Angie Zmarzly - Program Associate at Woods Charitable Fund

4. Positive Health - Bob Rauner, Executive Director, Partnership for a Healthy Lincoln 

5. Positive Education:

• Nick Hernandez - Dance Instructor, The DelRay Ballroom
• Sue Letheby -  Director, Illusion Theatre Project TRUST site

6. Arts, Sports, & Culture:

• Ann Chang - Artistic Director, Lied Center for the Performing Arts
• Mike Smith - Professional speaker and Founder of Bay 198 and Skate for Change
• Deb Weber - Executive Director at Lincoln Arts Council

7. Storytelling, Media, & Journalism:

• Cathy Behrns - General Manager at KZUM 89.3 FM
• David Martin - Executive Producer at Timeline Productions and Organizer of True Stories Live

8. Economy

•  Rob Simon - UNL Associate Professor of Practice - Marketing
• Amanda Thonen - Lincoln Startup Weekend Organizer

9. The Built Environment and Placemaking 

• Gus Ponstingl, Urban Designer

10. The Natural Environment

• Andrea Anthony - Development Director, Community CROPS
• Anne Hintz - Chair, Lincoln Earth Day 2013
• Bertine Loop - Horticultural Therapy Expert and host of the radio program How' it Growin on KZUM 89.3FM 

11. Neighborhoods

• Nick Hernandez - President, Havelock Neighborhood Association

12.. Leadership Development

• Laura Uridil, Youth Leadership Development, Leadership Lincoln
• Stacy Leners - Owner-operator, Blur Parties

 Links to the Posts of Positivity Matters:
Positivity Matters: Main Entry
Calendar
Positivity Matters - Lincoln
Happiness Lincoln 2014
Positivity Matters Around the World  
Drivers of Positive Community Development
10 Great Places of Lincoln x 10 Great Things to Do at Each

Happiness Lincoln: A Summit on Wellbeing

Happiness Lincoln: A Summit on Wellbeing

What: A summit on positive psychology and wellbeing in partnership with UNL's Center for Civic Engagement.
When: Saturday, November 8, 2014
Where: On the city campus of UNL in the Nebraska Union | 1400 R St | Lincoln NE 68508
Registration: www.happinesslincoln.eventbrite.com
Why:

• To spotlight wellbeing research and practical tools that can help individuals, organizations, and communities flourish

• To celebrate Lincoln, NE being among the top 10 cities  in the U.S. in wellbeing for two years running 2012-2013.

• To commemorate 15 years of research, scholarship, and practice since the first positive psychology summit took place - September 9-12, 1999 Lincoln, Nebraska.

Conference Design:
The structure of the day is built around factors of positive mental health identified by the World Health Organization:
"Mental health is defined as a state of well-being in which every individual realizes his or her own potential, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully, and is able to make a contribution to her or his community." 
Rooms:
Auditorium | Nebraska Union
Room 202/Ubuntu Room | Jackie Gaughan Multicultural Center

Schedule:

Auditorium 9:00-9:10am | Nick Hernandez: Opening Remarks

Auditorium 9:10-9:35am | Prof. Fred Luthans on Evidence-Based Positive Psychological Capital: Leading and Developing the HERO Within 

Auditorium 9:35-10am | Prof. Emeritus of Psychology at UNL, Richard Dienstbier, author of Building Resistance to Stress and Aging, on mental toughness and the effects of love and affection on brain development

Break | 10:00-10:10am 

Auditorium 10:10-10:40am | David Gould on Fostering Wellbeing and Civic Engagement in a University Environment

Break to Panel Sessions | 10:40-10:50am

Room 202/Ubuntu Room 10:50-11:30am | Panel on Healthy Communities

• Shawn Ryba, NeighborWorks Lincoln 

• Dr. Bob Rauner on Healthy Schools

• Tim Rinne on Local Food

Auditorium 10:50-11:30am | Panel on Culture and Wellbeing

• Randy Bretz, Curator of TEDxLincoln

• Bob Hall, Founder of Flatwater Shakespeare  

• Pat Leach, Director at Lincoln City Libraries

Break to Lunch | 11:30am-1:00pm

Auditorium 1-1:50pm | Dr. Dan Baker on What Happy People Know and What Happy Companies Know |

Break to Panel Sessions | 1:50-2pm
 
Auditorium 2-2:40pm | Panel on Designing and Sustaining Great Workplace Cultures

• Randy Hawthorne, Firespring

• Dan Krick, Lincoln Industries

• Larry Sternberg, Talent Plus

Room 202/Ubuntu Room | Courage and Heroism | 2-2:40pm

• Prof. Ari Kohen on heroic action.  

Break | 2:40-2:45pm 

Room 202/Ubuntu Room 2:45-3:25pm | Reverence and Magnanimity |

• 2:45-3:05pm | Prof. Emeritus Dan Wheeler on Servant Leadership
• 3:05-3:25pm | Dr. Shelley Freeman on forgiveness, compassion, and the Cameron Effect. 

Auditorium 2:45-3:25pm | Philosophical and Historical Perspectives

• 2:45-3:05pm | Lisa Wilkinson, Associate Professor of Philosophy at Nebraska Wesleyan University on Charis
• 3:05-3:25pm | Jim Meehan on William E. Hall, a Pioneer of Wellbeing Research

Break | 3:25-3:30pm

Auditorium 3:30-3:40pm | Closing

Planning Council:

Martha Florence, Director of Community Engagement at NET-Television.
Nick Hernandez, Founder of Positivity Matters.
Linda Major, Director of the Center for Civic Engagement at UNL.
Laura Uridil, Youth Leadership Lincoln coordinator.

Advisors:
Dr. Katherine Loflin, led the Knight Foundation's Soul of the Community research
Shannon Polly, covered Cincinnati’s CoreChange Appreciative Inquiry Summit
Sheila Stratton, Host of the Joy Factor on KZUM.  

Registration: www.happinesslincoln.eventbrite.com
 
Links to the other posts:
Positivity Matters: Main Entry
Calendar
Positivity Matters - Lincoln
Happiness Lincoln 2014
Positivity Matters Around the World  
Drivers of Positive Community Development
10 Great Places of Lincoln x 10 Great Things to Do at Each

...Be Happy! Tue, Feb 21 7pm at NWU

Forum Film Screening: "Happy" - A Community Event

Door Prizes - signed copies of the following books: 

Emotional Equations by Chip Conley
Delivering Happiness by Tony Hsieh

The How of Happiness by Sonja Lyubomirsky - as featured in Happy
Drive by Dan Pink

The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin

What:  

The Happy Movie is a 90-minute documentary that sets out to answer what makes us happy. Academy Award-nominated director Roko Belic takes viewers to the bayous of Louisiana to the deserts of Namibia to explore the secrets behind our most valued emotion. These stories and more will lead viewers to a deeper understanding of how to live a more fulfilling, healthy, happy life.

Following the film, a panel of NWU professors who have expertise in the area of happiness and positive psychology, will share their thoughts and offer insight.


NWU's Happy Panelists:
Ted Bulling
Frank Ferraro
Abigail Mitchell

Where: 
 Nebraska Wesleyan University
Olin B Lecture Hall - located in the Olin Hall of Science
One block east of 50th St and St. Paul Ave

When: 

Tuesday, February 21, 2012 at 7pm

Cost:

A priceless opportunity to connect with community at no cost to you.

Why:
Developing our strengths to find personally meaningful ways to connect with our neighborhoods.

We hope you 'like' Positivity Matters! 

Positivity Matters Around the World

Positivity Matters - Chicago:
Jamie Johnson - Account Manager at Orbitz, Life Coach, and founding member of Positivity Matters - Chicago
Strategic | Input | Adaptability | Connectedness | Futuristic

Positivity Matters - Las Vegas
Liz G. -   Zappos associate, and founding member of Positivity Matters - Las Vegas
Input | Learner | Includer | Positivity | Adaptability

Links to the Posts of Positivity Matters:
Positivity Matters: Main Entry
Calendar
Positivity Matters - Lincoln
Happiness Lincoln 2014
Positivity Matters Around the World  
Drivers of Positive Community Development
10 Great Places of Lincoln x 10 Great Things to Do at Each

Drivers of Positive Community Development

Drivers of Positive Community Development:

1. Positive Psychology 

Positive Psychology emerged at the beginning of the new millennium as a movement within psychology aimed at enhancing human strengths such as creativity, joy, flow, responsibility, and optimal performance and achievement. Most study of human behavior has focused mainly on what goes wrong in human affairs: aggression, mental disease, failure, and so on. While it is essential to study and contain such pathologies, it is equally important to understand those aspects of human experience that make life worth living.

2. Positive Connectedness 

Friendship, bonding social capital, bridging social capital, etc.
3. Philanthropy

“A philanthropist is anyone who gives anything - time, money, experience, skills, and networks - in any amount, to create a better world.”

~Laura Arrillaga-Andreessen, author of Giving 2.0

Philanthropists can increase their impact by identifying, broadening, and building their unique strengths and those of the communities they interact with to create positive environments where people can flourish.

4. Positive Health

Positive health describes a state beyond the mere absence of disease and is definable and measurable. Positive health can be operationalised by a combination of excellent status on biological,subjective, and functional measures.

5. Positive Education

Positive education is defined as education for both traditional skills and for happiness.
Video: Positive Education with Character Strengths

"Through learning we grow, becoming more than we were before, and in that sense learning is unselfish, because it results in the transformation of what we were before, a setting aside of the old self in favor of a more complex one."
~Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi 

6. Art, Sport, & Culture

Visual Art, Sports, Theater, Film, Music, Dance, Performance Art, Storytelling

7. Positive Media & Journalism

National Advisor: Meghan Keener - Positive Psychology Expert specializing in Positive Media.

Journalism, newspapers, television, internet, media, social media, advertising, internet, public relations

"Communication is a symbolic process whereby reality is produced, maintained, repaired, and transformed."
~James W. Carey, Journalism Instructor at Columbia University, died in 2006
 
"...the work done in media industries is a fundamental aspect of contemporary experiences – intellectual, emotional, political, spiritual."
~Horace Newcomb, Director of the Peabody Awards

8. Economic Development 

The process and policies by which a nation improves the economic, political, and social well-being of its people. Fostering innovation and entrepreneurship which results in the creation of new businesses or the expansion of existing businesses. Building the cultural life of a community is a good in itself, but it also helps in cases where when all other relocation or start up factors are considered, a business will want to choose your community.

Ideas for exploration:

Shared Value:
"...shared value (video clip 1)... involves creating economic value in a way that also creates value for society by addressing its needs and challenges. Shared value (video clip 2) is not social responsibility, philanthropy, or even sustainability, but a new way to achieve economic success."

Coworking:
We  see great potential for coworking to foster both economic development and positive social connectedness. "Coworking is a style of work that involves a shared working environment, sometimes an office, yet independent activity. Unlike in a typical office environment, those coworking are usually not employed by the same organization."
~Coworking Wikipedia Entry

Positive Technology Advisor: Zack Prager, Joy Dose & Gratitude Bucket


9.  Placemaking

National Advisor: Katherine Loflin - Principal at Loflin Consulting Solutions

"Placemaking is when you put place central to all your decisions, all of your thinking. It doesn't mean you stop growing and you stop becoming, but its that you never lose sight of where you live and the space that you share and how much it matters."

~Katherine Loflin host of Place Matters

"...quality of place creates human capital, and human capital generates economic activity and revitalization."
~Dennis Scholl on Place Matters

Placemaking is a multi-faceted approach to the planning, design and management of public spaces. Put simply, it involves looking at, listening to, and asking questions of the people who live, work and play in a particular space, to discover their needs and aspirations. This information is then used to create a common vision for that place. The vision can evolve quickly into an implementation strategy, beginning with small-scale, do-able improvements that can immediately bring benefits to public spaces and the people who use them.

Actions:

1. Identify the top ten public spaces (streets, bars, coffee shops, parks, etc.) in your neighborhood that draw people together and ten great things (reasons to be there, things to do, things to see, etc.) about each place.
2. Bring your strengths, drivers, and your neighborhood together to better your top ten public places.

10. Environment
Nature experiences, gardening, parks, etc.

11. Neighborhoods

Neighborhoods (walkable, about the size of an area that feeds into an elementary school) and neighborhood partnerships (bikable, an area the size of the neighborhoods that feed into a  high school) are ends in themselves, and they are also living laboratories to discover what works well. Each neighborhood partnership will have an advisory council and each city will have a central advisory council with members that are each deeply connected to one or more of the ten drivers of positive community development.


Is your neighborhood moving in the right direction?
Answer these simple YES/NO questions to find out.

1. Is the neighborhood cleaner?
2. Does the neighborhood feel safer?
3. Is the neighborhood more attractive?
4. Are there fewer vacancies?
5. Are there more people on the sidewalks?
6. Is there a popular new outdoor gathering place?
7. Is there a popular new indoor gathering place?
8. Is there new evidence of arts activity?
9. Has the local press reported on it positively?
10. Do people in the neighborhood generally agree that the neighborhood is getting better?


 12. Leadership/ Followership Development

"Leadership focuses on building alignment through inspiring visions. Leadership provides direction. The key is that leaders listen, and cobble together a vision from lots of people."
 ~Dave Logan

Leadership and Followership: What Tango Teaches Us About These Roles in Life
~Ira Chaleff

13. Play
National Advisor on Play: Emily Nash - Education Department Manager at Lincoln Children's Museum

Links to the Posts of Positivity Matters:
Positivity Matters: Main Entry
Calendar
Positivity Matters - Lincoln
Happiness Lincoln 2014
Positivity Matters Around the World  
Drivers of Positive Community Development
10 Great Places of Lincoln x 10 Great Things to Do at Each