Friday Footnote #38

Each week we share loads of content amongst Team ION and with our network. Content which inspires us, which we find helpful or that just makes us smile. We thought we would start sharing these insights every Friday. Welcome to Friday footnote!

Our amazing alumni

We love our alumni. We really do. We are never happier and prouder than when we see their fantastic success stories. We also love the fact that they speak so positively about our programme and the impact it has on them as individuals and their businesses. 

We especially love chatting to our alumni about their leadership journeys. Our latest chat took place this week where we caught up with Emily Roberts from M-Sparc on the Isle of Anglesey. You can watch it on our YouTube channel.

Whilst you're there you can also catch up on chats with delegates from Wolfestone, Miles Hire, Abbey Glass, Make It In Wales and Pharma Group.

If you check out our LinkedIn feed, we have been sharing chats between Bangor Business Development Manager Felicity and delegates who are just about to embark on their leadership journey with ION. There are some great insights into what they are hoping to learn, and how they will know that the course has been successful. Definitely worth checking them out.

Just to emphasise how awesome our alumni are, Felicity (Fliss) realised this week that on an upcoming programme, 75% of applicants signed up following a referral from a former delegate. Fantastic news, thanks again to our awesome alumni.

Music maestro's

This week Sibil joined our team as a Project Assistant. Keep an eye out on our social feeds in the next few days to find out more about the latest member of the dream team.

In Sibil's first team meeting we took part in #popmaster, as we do every week. Amazingly, we got full scores - 39 - for only the 2nd time ever. Sibil is now contractually obliged to attend every team meeting!

This week also saw another ION Team social take place. Adam took on the 'Ken Bruce' role and ran a music intro's quiz featuring intro's from everyone from Bruce Springsteen (Adam's hero!) and The Housemartins, to SClub7 and The Wonder Stuff. Congratulations to Suzanne who took the glory.

Inspiration

Here are just a few things which piqued our interest this week:

• How radical collaboration could save the day - and the planet (EY)
• Welsh Government asking for suggestions for co-working locations (BusinessLive)
• How to embrace change using emotional intelligence (Harvard Business Review)
• 3 science-based strategies to increase your creativity (TED Talks)
• It's taken decades for social innovation to become mainstream. We can't take decades more to act (IDEO)
• £200m support for non-essential retail, hospitality and leisure businesses (BusinessNewsWales)
• Future of high streets: how to prevent our city centres from turning into ghost towns (The Conversation)
• Maximising the potential of the agile corporation (The HR Director)

A perfectly rectangular February

For all fans of symmetry, February is perfectly rectangular. This made Adam very happy.

Continue your leadership journey

Our leadership programmes are currently fully-funded until the end of August 2021. We were delighted earlier this week to announce our next ILM Level 5 Leading Growth programme which will be starting in July 2021. Find out more on our courses page.

Our upcoming New Leaders programme in Bangor has just 5 spaces left so get in touch with Felicity (Fliss) in our Bangor team on ionleadership@bangor.ac.uk to find out more. 

Team ION

PS - Missed previous #FridayFootnotes?