We had a great Online Services kickoff meeting with about 20 folks from throughout the company to unveil our plans for improvement over the next year. This has been such a great initiative to be a part of and it just keeps getting better. The week was full of gearing up for some more future state planning ... yes, more planning ... but a lot of doing as well, so it was pretty exciting. Best part of the week at work though was the new marketing spin that our Chief Marketing Officer and executive staff unveiled at what was called the, Aflac All Access Webcast. Tuesday night they showcased our new Aflac tagline to the agents throughout the US, and then they brought all of the 4,500 headquarter employees together to unveil. 
Aflac used to have the tag-line of: Ask about it at work ... and now, it reads: Aflac, we've got you under our wing. Doing this helps align us with what we're really about, delivering the promise to people in their time of need ... now, more than ever. Of course, with any new marketing plan you have to give the employees free t-shirts.
And to give employees free t-shirts, of course you have to showcase them on a catwalk with Right Said Fred's "I'm too sexy for my shirt" song in front of 500 of your peers ... ok, so you don't necessarily have to do that, but we did. And for some reason, they asked me to be a part of the show. So my pal Sabrina (pictured here) and five of our friends dressed up in crazy gear for the new shirt unveiling.
I of course wore my flannel cut-off shirt, Maverick style jump suit, NASCAR hat and aviator sunglasses with prefabricated sideburns of glory. When the music started playing, it was on like donkey kong and we rocked for a good minute with the white hurricane dance. Our crew received the loudest cheers by far and it was a great morning for Aflac that has created a big buzz at work.
I also had the chance this week to participate in National Volunteer Week as the keynote speaker for the Tri-County Volunteer association where I spoke about moral opportunity. All of my new old lady friends thoroughly enjoyed it:) I tweaked my speech for the Toastmasters contest this weekend that went well. Although I did not place, it was a great experience ... and Dad/Barb were there to see me:)
They came down on Friday where I met them in Atlanta to visit one of Barb's friends Jean.
Friday night we went to get some grub and ice cream before a good night's sleep in Atlanta. Saturday we woke up to venture to the Georgia Aquarium. The favorites included the sea otters, crocodiles and of course ... Nico the beluga whale! After adventuring under the deep blue sea, we went over to the World of Coke for my first visit to the history of Coca-Cola. It was a great exhibit, including a free taste-testing at the end. Each continent had it's own carousel of drinks, so of course we had to taste at least something from each. All of the Coke employees told people to try out this drink called the Beverly ... wow, they got us good because that was the worst drink ever! Overall, it was a wonderful experience strolling around in the ATL though and I'm glad they enjoyed the stay.
Sunday we woke up in Waverly Hall for some delicious upside down french toast and a trip out to Callaway Gardens. There we walked around the beautiful gardens, the butterfly garden,
down to the birds of prey show and over to Cason's Garden for a push-up pop. After a beautiful day at Callaway, they joined to watch me coach a soccer game, which didn't turn out great, but those kids are awesome. Dinner with some of the pals and a stroll along the RiverWalk closed out a wondermous weekend! Thank you both so much for taking time out of your schedule to come and spend with me, and now that you're the first to take a picture with me in the new pad, I can't wait to fix it up with Jenny so you can come and see the finished project.
I've got another busy week ahead, but after locking in my home interest rate at 4.75%, I can't imagine how good it's going to get:) Thanks again all, and until next time, have a great week.
Alwayz,
Nate
One more year man and you'll be a teenager, wow that's weird:) I hope you have an awesome birthday man and don't think I won't get those birthday spankings in before it's all said and done.This week at Aflac went by, once again, ridiculously fast, but for a different reason than usual. I had my Six Sigma Green Belt training all week long. Six Sigma is basically a methodology used to identify the root causes of problems in the workplace and it helps identify potential solutions that could be implemented. The teacher took us on a magic school bus ride back to statistics class where I calculated more variables of inverted relationships than Jerry Springer does in a show (ok, maybe that joke was a bit of a stretch ... get it?:). I learned a great deal about project management and will begin using it this week for our Online Service initiative to help reduce call center volume hopefully. In addition, we finally had a chance to present the Future State of Policy Service to my boss' boss and his boss, with his boss in the room and her boss too (yes 5 boss dudes and ladies) ... it was awesome. It went swimmingly and our Executive VP seemed to thoroughly enjoy the effort we put into it, she even took the time to thank Mike for all that we had done. My manager Shara and Mike let me do the whole power point presentation, which was a great experience for me ... now we just have to start doing all that we talked about! 
No soccer action has been played in the last two weeks because of all of this rain, and then the kids are on spring break this week ... so, it'll be three weeks before En Fuego gets a shot at our first victory;) On the other hand, the Miss Georgia Pageant program book is in full swing. As of today, we have doubled our ad sales since last year. In 2008, contestant ads were not very well advertised and we still had the girls sell over $17,000 worth of ads. This year, I asked my fellow board members if I could have a few minutes in front of the ladies and parents at forum weekend a few weeks ago. Now, I'm not saying that it's all because of me, but this year our ad sales have already exceeded $36,000 and I am cutting production costs by $4,000 ... which equates to a net increase of greater than $20,000 in a year ... wondermousness!How could I top that? Well, I just had to start the weekend:) I was very fortunate a few weeks ago to win the Toastmasters International Area Speech contest which allowed me to move on to this weekend's Division C contest with contestants from the surrounding cities. 
There were six of us that competed ranging from 1.5 year Toastmasters (me) to 15-35 year Toastmasters (almost everyone else). Needless to say, it was a very tough competition ... but I am happy to say that my speech on "Moral Opportunity" won me first place with a bid to go on to the District/State competition in Atlanta at the end of the month ... wahoo. So, please keep your fingers crossed that I don't get so nervous that I answer my knees when they're knocking on the podium:)This weekend was also Ricky & Whitney Parsons wedding down in backwoods Moultrie, GA. A few of us got together on a gift, and wrapped it amazingly (pictured) so that the married couple would know who had been there. It was a beautiful wedding and the reception was a blast. 
They had one of the most delicious sparkling white grape and 7 up mixes I've ever had that complimented the fruit tree very nicely! Of course, we all cut a rug and I danced with the flower girl. All in all, it was a pretty tasty week I must say.
