Fish Have a Philosophy?!

I hope that this long weekend is treating everyone well! We had plans to go to the beach this weekend with some friends but plans fell through and I found myself stuck in town.  It has been a great weekend and I decided to catch up on my reading with some of my free time... Recently a friend told me about these Fish! books, and I was a little intrigued but also a little unsure. I read a lot of productivity, leadership, non profit management and business books and the books sounded a little sappy to me at first. I have to tell you I devoured the first book in about three hours (quick read)!!! I discovered that Fish! is a book that should be read, shared and lived.

I think we all go through periods of burnout. Times in our lives or work that where you are just too overwhelmed or too tired to feel like you can keep moving forward. I personally have not been burnt-out but I have been tired and like many of you have been working lots of extra hours and could easily let burn-out set in if I gave myself too much time to think about it!  This book helped me develop a new energy for my work, and brought me to understand a little bit better how passion and attitude play into our daily tasks.

The book told a story to illustrate how work issues that we are all too familiar with - including employee retention, employee engagement and burnout - and deal with them in a positive, productive, meaningful way. There is a series of books in the Fish! family and I just ordered Fish! Tales from an internet bookstore, and borrowed Fish! for Life from a friend so I will keep you posted!! I am super excited to get further into this series and I plan to pass the books around the office too! I would highly recommend the Fish! books!

Though It May Be Too Early to Start Shopping for a Halloween Costume...

It's never too early for LCCT to start gearing up for October's National Health Literacy Month! You might be thinking, "do they realize that October is almost five months away?" The answer is yes, but don't worry. We do have a reason! We've got big plans for Health Literacy Month and want to get everyone involved, so we're loading up the bandwagon starting now! That means there's no better time than the present for you to tell us about what you’ve been doing, or what you’d like to do to improve communication between Central Texas patients and their healthcare providers.

Your efforts are making a difference in our community, so don’t let them go unrecognized. No effort is too small! Tell us what you're up to and let us promote your commitment to improved health communication during National Health Literacy Month!

Here’s what we need to know: What are you doing to combat low health literacy? What projects or discussions has your organization started to address the problem in our community? Do you want to join the health literacy movement, but don’t know how to get started?

Comment and tell us about it! Let's put our heads together to make this Health Literacy the biggest Central Texas has ever seen!

Just the Facts: The need for digital literacy in our community

Did you know?

• Almost 1/3 of American households still lack a broadband connection.
• Adults age 25 and older with college degrees adopt broadband at almost triple the rate of those with only some high school education (84% versus 30%).
• The broadband adoption rates for White and Asian non-Hispanics exceed those for Black non-Hispanics and Hispanics by 18% or more.
• 73.4% of employed Americans are broadband users, compared with 61.9% of the unemployed and 50.5% of individuals not in the labor force.

For those of us comfortable in this tech-driven world, it's hard to imagine just how wide the digital literacy divide still is. Let's make digital literacy awareness and education a priority in Central Texas--it can only make our community stronger!

Finally, a moment to blog

Take a moment. Breathe. Austin's 8th Annual Great Grown-Up Spelling Bee for Literacy was a success! So many hours spent chasing sponsors, writing sentences for words, marketing, scripting, recruiting spellers, wranglin' together decorations, Rudy's BBQ, Texas Tea, bee-shaped chocolates, noise makers, black and yellow napkins, yada yada yada. But praise be, for our efforts were not done in vain! Months of preparation and support from all of the LCCT staff and our incredible volunteer Beehive Committee helped us host the BEST Great Grown-Up Spelling Bee ever!

And what's more, we didn't make this error on the certificates...