Working at the Office of Creative Services has definitely been a learning experience. I had to stretch to think of eight new and creative ways to describe lists of honors and awards for the Founder’s Day Teaching Awards book; write my first blog ever; and be more e-mail-savvy than I’ve ever been before (is ending with “sincerely” too outdated?). But I think the hardest, and best, thing I’m learning here is how to manage my time.

My time management skills have always been nonexistent. My excuse is that I “work best under pressure,” but in reality, I can’t work on papers or projects until the last minute because I have so many other things I’ve procrastinated on that need to be taken care of. Despite my terrible habit, my work has always been finished and I’ve earned good grades.

Working at OCS is forcing me to learn and practice time management skills. Everything we do at OCS has to be tracked on this program called the Infowit Job Tracking System. Editing proofs, writing profiles, and writing blogs—all are tracked and billed to clients or recorded as overhead through this software. The ability to see who is paying me for each hour of my time has been a nice incentive to stay on task.

If only our professors would track our work and pay us accordingly, I know I would be a more dedicated student. I can see the project names in Infowit now: “IUB Psychology 101, Read pages 72-120”—or “IUB SOJ 917 Communication Law Review, Write/Edit.” My apartment might even get cleaned once in a while if I could bill someone for my time.

But even though I’m not getting paid, I am trying to apply the concept of job tracking to my schoolwork. Lately, I’ve tried breaking projects down into a few hours every night. For an annotated bibliography that was due two weeks ago, I allocated three hours each night to work on it. However, change is coming slowly: the three hours were 11 p.m. to 2 a.m.—after I took a nap, ate dinner, and caught up with Facebook and Perez Hilton.

A holiday weekend would have been the best time to apply this new method, but I didn’t take advantage of it. Hunting for Easter eggs with my 4-year-old brother trumped research papers and I didn’t get anything done. Consequently, I was at the library until at least 6 a.m. Monday and Tuesday. But like I said, I do my best work under pressure.

The Office of Creative Services is proud to report that the Von Lee Theatre building that houses our office has received the prestigious Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Certification from the US Green Building Council. The Von Lee is the first LEED certified building in the City of Bloomington and the first LEED building to be occupied by Indiana University.

The LEED Green Building Rating System provides standards for environmentally sustainable construction. Among the elements incorporated into the Von Lee that contributed to the LEED certification are these:

• Reused a previously developed site, minimizing the environmental impact
• Utilized proximity to bus routes
• Installed a green roof and reflective roof
• Maximized water efficiency/usage by 20%
• Optimized energy performance levels
• Enhanced refrigerant management by reducing ozone depletion
• Managed construction waste by recycling and/or salvaging 50% of non-hazardous debris
• Purchased building materials with recycled content
• Purchased building materials that have been extracted, harvested or recovered, as well as manufactured within 500 miles of the project site
• Implemented an indoor air quality management plan
• Installed low-emitting materials to reduce air contaminants that are odorous, irritating, and harmful to the comfort and well-being of installers and occupants
• Reduced indoor chemical pollutants by providing a permanent entryway system to capture dirt and particulates from entering the building and provided proper ventilation in areas where hazardous gases or chemicals may be used
• Provided thermal comfort that supports productivity and well-being of building occupants
• Purchased green power (renewable energy certificates - 100% biomass) which assists in “greening up” electricity and neutralizing carbon

In addition to receiving the LEED certification, the Von Lee redevelopment project has won a Revitalization Award for Historic Preservation from Downtown Bloomington Inc., an Outstanding Design award for renovation/modernization from American School & University, and a Certificate of Appropriateness from the Bloomington Historic Preservation Commission.

The project team included: Tartan Realty Group, Inc. (developer), Gilliatte General Contractors, Inc., OKW Architects (design architect), Tabor Bruce Architects (architect of record), Sieben Energy Associates (LEED consultant), Smith Neubecker, Inc. (structural engineer).

With Apple’s recent firmware updates to the iPhone and iPodTouch, users can now save a ‘webclip’ to the device’s home screen. When you add a Web site to your home screen, the default icon is a cropped image of the site. This tip explains how to add a custom icon for your Web site. The process is similar to adding a favicon, or favorites icon, to your site.

First, create a PNG image, name it apple-touch-icon.png, and upload it to the root of your Web site.

I have created an IU webclip icon and posted it to the iu.edu/ indiana.edu server. If you have an IU subdomain (such as creativeservices.iu.edu), this webclip won’t work by default. To get this to work with an IU subdomain, you’ll need to either upload the PNG file to your own Web account, or add the following line of code to the head of your documents:

< link rel="apple-touch-icon"
xhref="http://www.iu.edu/apple-touch-icon.png" />

I can’t tell you how truly proud I am to have won the coveted Damen’s Favorite award for my towering “Blue Almond Trees” cookie sculpture. What many are calling a “work of art” and others call “breathtaking,” these cookies took years to concept and minutes to bake. This recognition of my years of culinary research and experimentation is a wonderful start to the holidays.

The Sculpture

View image

Following the success of our 2006 Cookie Contest, the Office of Creative Services is once again hosting a baking contest at noon, Dec. 14, at the home of Marcia Busch-Jones. The contest is open to all Creative Services employees and will be judged by five staff members, all of whom are precluded from entering the contest. Accepting bribes is discouraged.

Contest Rules

This year’s contest has two categories: Cookies and Bars. Each cookie or bar will be judged based on appearance and flavor. Entries must be homemade, and each person can enter a maximum of one time in each category, for a total of two entries. Please bring approximately two dozen cookies or bars for each entry. Judges: please refrain from compromising your palates with alcohol, spicy foods, or excessive sweets prior to the contest.

Categories:
Best in Show
Damen’s Choice
Best Taste
Best Appearance

On Thursday, October 25, my colleague Jane Below and I presented Branding Takes All at the 2007 IU External Relations Retreat. Our session focused on successful Web site branding through the use of new trends and technologies, and the important role research plays in successful branding. We reviewed and discussed high quality brands on the Web and reviewed case studies of some of our own branding projects. We are offering the presentation for download including our notes.

• Download PowerPoint File (11MB)
• Download PDF (2MB)

If you are a Web professional at Indiana University, you might want to attend the June IUMMUG meeting.

We will be discussing a new committee tasked with investigating and recommending solutions for the following issues: accessibility, creative commons licenses, IU web servers, IU search engine, visual identity, RSS feeds/multimedia, privacy/disability information, vision/outlook/Web 2.0, integrating institutional data, calendaring, and intranets. This committee will be launching a Web site in fall 2007 with resources for IU Web managers. Visit the IUMMUG site for details.

And yes, Bob will be giving away prizes :)

Wednesday, June 20
1:30 to 3 p.m.
Kelley School of Business Room CG1034