The Invigorous Journey of Chris

This month in Writing for Interactive Media we wrote journalistic posts that required a few major elements. One of the major elements were to include a first-hand interview subject. This assignment created an opportunity for us to interview someone who had first-hand knowledge about the subject we were writing about. The second element we worked on this month was to avoid the use of I or we. This is important to create more credible content.

Additionally, this month, we gave a lot of feedback to our fellow classmates on their posts. This was a great opportunity to see what other people were writing about as well as learn from their writing styles. More so, this was a good chance to share some of the things we learned and our topics. I liked getting to know the other people in the class through their storytelling. Also, gaining feedback was very important. Knowing that other people support the work, and that the writing resonates with other people is very inspiring, and helpful as we progress through the course.

During the first week, we started off by reviewing about me pages. We learned the importance of creating an about me page. One thing especially important about having an about me page is to help introduce yourself to your audience. This page is a good way to share with your audience who you are, what you are writing about, and what makes you credible enough to follow. We learned about “about me” pages by looking at already existing pages. I looked at Lewis Howes, Tim Ferris, and Janet Mock’s pages. Each of these pages had something different and unique to pull from. In the end, I was able to take feedback from my fellow classmates and from the industry leaders to create my very own about me page.

As the world pushes forward, we consistently see changes in how people communicate. To think, less than three decades ago, majority of people did not have a cell phone. Looking back even one decade ago, people were just learning just how smart a phone could be with the launch of the iPhone. With this new technology came, a desire for more information. People wanted more access; without having to wait on someone having to deliver the mail at their doorsteps or wait on a dial tone.

With this access at the tip of our fingers, came the revolution of communication as we call it today, new media and communications. In order for content to reach its intended audiences, content creators had to learn how to not only create compelling content, but also distribute the content in places where the intended audiences could find it.

In a gist, that is what we learned in New media and communications this month. We learned about Journalism competencies like the art of storytelling. We learned how important it is to evaluate the accuracy of the story that is being told. In addition, we learned how to build our own content ideas. From there we learned how to tailor our content to reach the audience who would read our content. During this week, we read an interesting article from, Ken McArthur on how to find your audience . Once we knew who our audience was, we could create persona’s that would help us target them. For instance, if we knew our target persona was a mom who was looking to save money, we would create content about coupons and deals and partner with mommy bloggers to get our content into our target audience hands.

This invigorous journey has come to an end. I graduate from Full Sail, on August 7th. Time surely flies by fast. I have reached Mount Twelve, the peak of my experience here at Full Sail. This month, I added my executive summary to my business plan and pitched it to a panel of my previous teachers. All in all, I had a great experience. Let’s take a look back at what I learned through each month.

From my first journal entry, I stated my intention for this program was to: “use entertainment, media, and technology as a platform to create a company that has a long-lasting social impact on the world.” As I embark on Launching Living Openly, a nonprofit organization, I would say I have accomplished this goal.

Month one, had us learn about the art of Mastery. We were introduced to Robert Greene, the author of Mastery and a few great leaders. I had the pleasure of researching masters in the entertainment industry like Steve Jobs and Oprah.

We also created a Mastery Journal Time line of all the things we wanted to accomplish each month. Take a look at my slideshare: http://www.slideshare.net/ChrisDonnell/chris-mastery-journal-timeline

Month two included learning about the differences between Robert Greene and John Maxwell. Both have very different leadership styles. As I reflect back, I remember, I want to be more like John Maxwell rather than Robert Greene.

My dream in life is to help people see their lives more clearly with a hope that the world we become a better place because of it. I believe if you can understand yourself better, then you can understand people better, and ultimately be able to understand the world better. With understanding comes, acceptance, and with acceptance comes connection. For me, the connection is the reason why we are all here. So for me, that is the goal I want to help everyone reach.

Because I am a huge fan of the power of entertainment, I want to use entertainment as the platform to make a difference in the world. This type of dream requires a person highly skilled in servant leadership. This is why the leader I want to become is a leader more like John Maxwell.  This dream also requires knowledge of the Robert Greene type of leader, especially since the entertainment world is highly motivated by advancing oneself like Greene talks about in the Law One, of his book 48 Laws of Powers when he says, “Never outshine the master.” I want to know how people are motivated in order to be a better leader.  Being aware of their leadership style and habits, will help me help them in seeing their lives more clearly.  Though I am a mixture of the two styles now, with more practice and learning, I soon hope one day in the near future, my leadership style reflects more like John Maxwell.

Month three, was all about Project and Team management with Nick Carver. I learned four key lessons from Project Management class. These are the four lessons: • Determine the Behavior of the team member • Understand the Personality • Create a Friendship Culture for the team • Have High expectations

A big “aha” moment occurred when we learned about the “friendship, culture.” Companies like Google and Facebook implements a certain culture that allows for its employees to be treated like friends. IN projects, team members step up and take on project tasks rather than the project leader assigning. The teams also act like “family” in the way they eat together and choose not to compete with each other. This type of culture creates a better environment and allows for more productivity. This is definitely something, I would like to implement for my next team project.

Month four is all about branding. We learned the importance of creating a strong brand identity to reach the audience, we believe, would best resonate with our product. This month we have learned the biggest misconception about the word “brand.”  A brand is what customers perceive your company or product to be, not what the company says it is.

We created a company overview and a brand identity report for our companies. The report included, key things like a positioning statement, list of services and activities, an audience break down, our business model canvas, a product mark-up, a logo, a tagline, mission statement and a mantra, an idea of our corporate culture, and a competitive brand analysis. Altogether, this report pushed us to “zoom in” on our idea for a company and come up with concrete plans to begin bringing the vision to reality.

When I think back over month five, it’s hard to figure out where to start. I think I’ll begin with the book that I have wanted to read since 2003. Some of you may know it, it is called Rich Dad, Poor Dad. After I finished reading it, all I could say was “mind blown!” Rich Dad, Poor Dad, is an eye opening story of how two people can see things from two different perspectives. Rich Dad, Poor Dad, Robert compares lessons surrounding money between his two dads. Both men have completely different views of money. The best quote to share is – Rich thinks “assets are things that keep money in your pocket and liabilities take money out of your pocket.” Another good quote was Rich thinks assets are. A liabilities that they think are assets. This was completely revolutionary in my way of thinking. I will definitely begin implementing these lessons as I think more and more about money.

In addition to reading Rich Dad, Poor Dad, we also took a sweeping dive into business finance principals. We started with the basics like reviewing income statements and balance sheets. Then we moved on to reading 10-K documents and analyzing business cases. We ended things by creating our very own pro-forma for the company we plan on starting. Pro forma means forward looking. The pro-forma will be used to see how the company will make money and how the company will spend money.

For me, the most beneficial part of the Negotiation and Deal Making Resolution course was getting to practice my negotiation skills. Hands-on experience is one of the reasons why I came to Full Sail. Learning how to do things is great, but practicing them is even better. Each week, we were given fact sheets and a role. I have been a television producer, an employer, a partner all in one month.

Separating the people from the problem is very useful during a negotiation because there will be times where two parties may have an issue with the actual person but need to do business with them. By separating the person from the problem, the negotiator can look past the issues they have with the person and zero in on the problem at hand. To be honest, this can be used more than just for a person you have a problem with. You can also use this for people you like. Just because you like someone, doesn’t mean you have to allow them to take advantage of you during a negotiation.

From day one, Advanced Entertainment Law kicked off with a bang. Our instructor, Cassi, set the stage with explaining all the legal terminology that we would be hearing in the coming classes. We learned the difference between substance and Process which basically means, substance is the type of law that we are working with and process is how we deal with that law. We heard familiar terms like Jurisdiction and how a person can be brought back to a particular place where the alleged wrong-doing occurred by using something called the Long Arm statute. Cassi explained, the difference in the types of courts from Federal to State and which types of cases each court hears. All of these legalities made for an interesting first day.

Throughout the class we also learned about the four different types of intellectual properties, which are, Trademarks, Trade Secrets, Copyrights, and Patents. We learned what you can protect with each type of intellectual property and for how long those items would be protected. The key take away from this class is, protecting your intellectual properties helps you if and when someone decides to infringe on your work. The most common type of intellectual property that we see everyday is Copyright. We hear about artists like Sam Smith “borrowing” parts of their songs from previous works. In Sam Smith’s case, it was clearly apparent that Sam sampled from Tom Petty therefore, Tom Petty will now earn royalties on Sam Smith’s hit song, “Stay with me.”

Product and Artist Management, we learned the various facets of managing an artist and a project throughout the stages of the product lifecycle. The entire month was filled with interactive learning from lecture, to guest speakers to visiting live events.

During the class we also heard from several guest speakers. One of those speakers was Danny Flores. Danny is the founder of Maximum Entertainment Group. He talked about his experience in the entertainment industry and shared stories from his many touring adventures. Another guest speaker was Boone Fowler. Boone is the Visionary Social Architect and Entrepreneur.  He has big plans to create a music facility that is free for artists to create and showcase their music in Orlando, Seattle, and Nashville. He made this facility sound very interesting and once it’s complete, I hope to visit one if not more of them.  Author, Scott Vedder also spoke to our class. Scott, was probably one of the best speakers we heard from this month. Scott helped our class see how we can make our resumes stand out against the pack. Scott is witty and fun and makes writing a resume seems fun. The biggest takeaway he shared was to cover the name on the resume, and see if you can, someone would know that this was you and not just some generic person in this role. If you can craft a resume to make it very individualized, then you will have a better shot at standing out amongst all the other resumes being submitted to hiring managers.

Month nine is all about entertainment publishing and distribution. The text, titled, Entertainment Media Publishing And Distribution, we used this month, was written by our Course Director, Kim Craft.

Throughout the month we learned several ways how media is published. We learned how books, music and video games are published. We also learned techniques and ways to get our personal projects published.

One of the most interesting things we learned was the difference between traditional and self-publishing when it comes to books. The traditional route takes much longer and the author looses some of the control in the process. With self-publishing, the author retains the majority of the profit and 100% of the ownership. Depending on the particular circumstance, self-publishing may be the way for most people to go. People just starting out with writing a book, should definitely look into the self-publishing route.

Throughout Digital Marketing, I learned key market trends for key performance indicators like click-through rates for email and landing pages. I’ve studied how we should measure pay per click campaigns as well as effective strategies for running those campaigns. I have also learned effective digital marketing strategies that encompass the major digital marketing channels. These channels include: email, social media, website, digital advertising, affiliate marketing, search engine optimization, and paid search. All of these used together can provide effective returns on investments for integrated marketing campaigns. This slide share about the power of integrated marketing campaigns does a great job of explaining the results that can occur if these marketing channels are used together effectively.

Developing a business plan was one of my original goals for applying for the Entertainment Business program. I wanted to know the inner workings of the entertainment industry and be able to learn advanced business practices in a year. I surely have met this goal. Originally, I intended to work in the entertainment industry, but as the courses went on, my mission got a bit larger.

Month eleven, taught me to look at the industry, the target market, and make appropriate financial projections in order to be prepared to start the organization. I’m happy to say that I gained the basic foundation to complete my business plan and apply it to my company Living Openly.

Month eleven is finally here. It seems not too long ago, I was starting here at Full Sail. The months surely went by fast. This month was no different.

As I reflect back to month one, I recall the goals I set for this course.  Simply put, I wanted to develop an executable business plan. I’m happy to report I have accomplished that.

Developing a business plan was one of my original goals for applying for the Entertainment Business program. I wanted to know the inner workings of the entertainment industry and be able to learn advanced business practices in a year. I surely have met this goal. Originally, I will say, I intended to work in the entertainment industry, but as the courses went on, my mission got a bit larger.

I’ve decided to start a nonprofit organization. The organization will still have media properties, which will be useful in getting the message across. I expect to use all of the material I have learned from Mastery, executive leadership, project management, branding, negotiation, finance, entertainment law, product management, digital marketing and business planning to make sure the nonprofit is met with success.

This course has taught me to look at the industry, the target market, and make appropriate financial projections in order to be prepared to start the organization.

Month ten is here and that mean’s I am in Digital Marketing. It’s hard to believe that I am almost done with this Entertainment Masters program. One thing I know for sure is, I have learned a lot in just a few short weeks. 

In month one, I originally stated my goal for this course was to research and review current industry trends. This is definitely something I knew coming in would be beneficial because digital marketing is constantly changing and evolving. Keeping up with industry trends is definitely something that is smart to do. So far, throughout class, I have been learning key market trends for key performance indicators like click-through rates for email and landing pages. I’ve studied how we should measure pay per click campaigns as well as effective strategies for running those campaigns. All in all, I have most certainly maintained my original goal of researching and staying up to date on all the latest data and industry trends in digital marketing.

Besides learning and researching metrics for measuring the performance of campaigns, I have also learned effective digital marketing strategies that encompass the major digital marketing channels. Those channels include: email, social media, website, digital advertising, affiliate marketing, search engine optimization, and paid search. All of these used together can provide effective returns on investments for integrated marketing campaigns. This slide share about the power of integrated marketing campaigns does a great job of explaining the results that can occur if these marketing channels are used together effectively.

For our Product and Artist Management class, we attended two live events in the Orlando area and then identified both strengths and weaknesses of how the event was ran. The two events I attended were the Timicua event on March 15th and a grand opening of a new location for Downtown Credo. Both of these events had really great strengths making it difficult to provide recommendations for improvement. As I dug deeper, I was able to come up with three strengths and three weaknesses for each event.

Starting with the Timicua event. Timicua is community of people who gather to support access and a platform to local artist and musicians. The event on March 15th, featured Whitney James, a jazz vocalist along with two of her friends who also were jazz musicians but all three had very different styles. Along with their performances, an artist using an iPad painting app, painted along with each performance and we could see the visual above on a screen. I thought having this artist and a combination of the three acts was a major strength for this event. Though the event lasted longer than 2 and half hours, time fly by fast because of the variety of entertainment.

Another strength for this event is the location. Timicua events take place in an adjoining part of the founder’s house. The event space is state of the art including four cameras to live stream to audiences all over the world. This is a major plus and aligns with the mission of the organization by providing access to local musicians and artists. One last positive that also can be an improvement is the amount of people who attended. The event space holds somewhere around 80 or more people. The night I attended, I think the event space was at least 75% full. This is a major strength for any event to be almost filled to capacity. On the other hand, I think the capacity could also be an improvement. 

Admittedly, the organization may not want to do much more advertisement due to the safety concerns of inviting strangers into a family’s home as well as not being able to accommodate a much larger crowd, but I think more awareness could be done. I would suggest having one event once a month that is simply for recruitment. Current attendees could bring a friend and then tour the event space as well as sign up for a membership. This monthly event could create a social opportunity to meet with the community and build a better rapport with the regular attendees as well as grow the member base and advertise the future events. For me this is a win, win all over. The cost of doing such event would be extremely low if any.

Another suggestion for improvement would be for additional signage and better direction to the location. Having an event in someone’s home presents a challenge for new event attendees. Possibly adding something like “across from the high school” to the website could be more than enough clarification. Adding a sign outside the front of the house with the name “Timicua” during the event could also be helpful confirmation for people who have never been to the space before. Having a sign made is something relatively inexpensive and fairly easy to do. In fact, FedEx Office offers sign printing service beginning at $27.99.

The next event I attended was the grand opening of the Florida Hospital location at Downtown Credo. Downtown Credo is a non-profit organization as well as a coffee shop that supports, meaning, impact and community. The way they do this is by allowing its customers to name their own price for their coffee. The money Downtown Credo raises is reinvested to the community by promoting local artists through singer, songwriter nights, and a social entrepreneurship incubator program called Rally. 

The grand opening event I attended had three major strengths. The most obvious strength was the amount of people who attended. The coffee shop has two floors and is adjacent to the Florida Hospital but people were upstairs, downstairs, outside and everywhere. There was standing room only. It was a nice surprise. The advertising for this event was done extremely well. The second strength, I alluded to earlier is the amount of space. There was plenty of space for all the attendees to come and be apart of this new establishment. This was definitely a positive. 

The last major positive for this event was that the coffee shop gave away free coffee. Though I see this as a positive, I also see this as a negative. As a non-profit, I think they could have had some kind of donation bucket where people could give money to the organization. Sure, people who want to offer a monetary donation could, but there were no visible reminders. I think having a simple basket with a paper sign could have done the trick. No real cost to implement this. As a coffee shop, they have a marker, a basket and paper. This is a relatively cheap and quick way to build awareness that this is a non-profit organization in need of dollars. 

Another improvement this event could have done is had a clear program or some kind of indicator that something was going to or about to happen. The founder, Ben just kind of spoke and people may or may not have heard him. There was no microphone downstairs for him to use. There was however a microphone upstairs that the singer, songwriter was using to sing his music. This is another quick fix that could have instantly improved this event. Having Ben use the microphone to welcome people and then letting them know something was about to happen at a specific time and then doing that thing at that specific time could have improved the overall experience. 

This month in Product and Artist Management, we learned the various faucets of managing an artist and a project throughout the stages of the product lifecycle. The entire month was filled with interactive learning from lecture, to guest speakers to visiting live events.

Week one, we started with learning about Artist managers and how they help develop long-term careers for an artist. We learned the many ways an artist can gain revenue including through touring, merchandising, sponsorships and endorsements, and licensing. In addition to the development of an artist, we also learned about the relationship between the artist and the artist manager. In the end, the artist can veto any decision an artist manager makes in most scenarios unless the artist gives up that right.

Later in the month we learned a bit more about Product Management.  We learned that Product Management is very much for people with an entrepreneurial mindset. For this lecture we watched a video about a Harvard microwaveable cupcake.  This video demonstrated the way a group with an entrepreneurial mindset can create inventive products.

During the class we also heard from several guest speakers. One of those speakers was Danny Flores. Danny is the founder of Maximum Entertainment Group. He talked about his experience in the entertainment industry and shared stories from his many touring adventures. Another guest speaker was Boone Fowler. Boone is the Visionary Social Architect and Entrepreneur.  He has big plans to create a music facility that is free for artists to create and showcase their music in Orlando, Seattle, and Nashville. He made this facility sound very interesting and once it’s complete, I hope to visit one if not more of them.  Author, Scott Vedder also spoke to our class. Scott, was probably one of the best speakers we heard from this month. Scott helped our class see how we can make our resumes stand out against the pack. Scott is witty and fun and makes writing a resume seem fun. The biggest takeaway he shared was to cover the name on the resume, and see if you can someone would know that this was you and not just some generic person in this role. If you can craft a resume to make it very individualized, then you will have a better shot at standing out amongst all the other resumes being submitted to hiring managers.

From day one, Advanced Entertainment Law kicked off with a bang. Our instructor, Cassi, set the stage with explaining all the legal terminology that we would be hearing in the coming classes. We learned the difference between substance and Process which basically means, substance is the type of law that we are working with and process is how we deal with that law. We heard familiar terms like Jurisdiction and how a person can be brought back to a particular place where the alleged wrong-doing occurred by using something called the Long Arm statute. Cassi explained, the difference in the types of courts from Federal to State and which types of cases each court hears. All of these legalities made for an interesting first day.

Moving on to day two, our class learned about the four different types of intellectual properties, which are, Trademarks, Trade Secrets, Copyrights, and Patents. We learned what you can protect with each type of intellectual property and for how long those items would be protected. The key take away from this class is, protecting your intellectual properties helps you if and when someone decides to infringe on your work. The most common type of intellectual property that we see everyday is Copyright. We hear about artists like Sam Smith “borrowing” parts of their songs from previous works. In Sam Smith’s case, it was clearly apparent that Sam sampled from Tom Petty therefore, Tom Petty will now earn royalties on Sam Smith’s hit song, “Stay with me.”

As you can see, in two days we learned quite a bit of information. The rest of the classes were filled with even more information. We had multiple opportunities to put the information we learned into play through presentations, research papers, and tests.

Learning to negotiate is a more intricate process than most people think. Generally, people think that negotiating is allabout winning, at all costs. In actuality, negotiating is more about reaching a mutual beneficial agreement. There are several ways someone can reach this ideal scenario, and it includes focusing on three main negotiation tactics. The three main tactics include, mutual benefit, understanding both parties best alternative option and finally, separating the people from the problem. These terms all come from “Getting to Yes,” a book by William Ury. Throughout the book, Ury, explains these tactics in detail. To learn more, I found a few videos, that went a little deeper into the three main tactics, mutual benefit, understanding both parties best alternative option and finally, separating the people from the problem.

 Starting with mutual benefit, I found a video by Joel Peterson, speaking about “Conducting Effective Negotiations.” During his lecture at Stanford Graduate School of Business, he emphasized the importance of looking for a mutual benefit when negotiating with people. Mutual benefits are important because both parties walk away feeling like they got a good agreement. I definitely will take this with me in every negotiation I am apart of.

 The next tactic, knowing the best alternative agreements for each party in a negotiation is imperative. Margaret Neal talks about this. She shares a story of how she was asked to add an extra course a year. She knew her position was to remain at five courses. So she asked and offered an alternative to what the Dean had proposed. By entering into this negotiation, she knew here BATNA was to accept the fact that she would have to add an extra course a year. In the end, she was able to stay at five courses because she shared that she already is working with students for the equivalent time that he wanted her to work so in the end, it was a win-win situation. Always knowing your BATNA makes it better for you to enter a negotiation because you almost feel like you know exactly what you could loose if you don’t get what you want. Knowing the alternative makes it easier for you to ask for you want.

Six months go by fast. From the first day, we began learning so much useful information; it’s hard to figure out where to begin for this month’s reflection post.

 For me, the most beneficial part of this course was getting to practice my negotiation skills. Hands-on experience is one of the reasons why I came to Full Sail. Learning how to do things is great, but practicing them is even better. Each week, we were given fact sheets and a role. I have been a television producer, a employer, a partner all in one month.

 For each negotiation, I had to apply negotiation skills that we learned in class. A few key skills we learned included, separating the people from the problem, knowing my best alternative agreement, identifying dirty tricks, finding the interest and navigating negative emotions.

 Separating the people from the problem is very useful during a negotiation because there will be times where two parties may have an issue with the actual person but need to do business with them. By separating the person from the problem, the negotiator can look past the issues they have with the person and zero in on the problem at hand. To be honest, this can be used more than just for a person you have a problem with. You can also use this for people you like. Just because you like someone, doesn’t mean you have to allow them to take advantage of you during a negotiation.

 One last and major lesson I learned during this course was that negotiation means to work together to solve a problem. That was a big aha moment because many times when we think of negotiating we think of two opposing sides ready to go into battle with each other. We think of how we can get the most out of the other side and keep as much as we can. By reading “Getting to Yes” and “Beyond Reason,” I learned that looking for a mutual benefit is the best way to go when negotiating. The reason being, when you are looking for mutual benefits, you are not only able to reach an agreement you are also able to preserve a relationship. Plus, both sides end up happy. That sounds like a good negotiation to me.

By far, this month has been the most beneficial out of all the classes I have taken so far here at Full Sail. My brain is on overload. The time flew by so quickly, I am just beginning to catch my breath.

In month one, I made a goal to be able to read and understand a company’s 10-K document. I believe I have successfully reached it.

When I think back over this month, it’s hard to figure out where to start. I think I’ll begin with the book that I have wanted to read since 2003. Some of you may know it, it is called Rich Dad, Poor Dad. After I finished reading it, all I could say was “mind blown!” Rich Dad, Poor Dad, is a eye opening story of how two people can see things from two different perspectives. In Rich Dad, Poor Dad, Robert compares lessons surrounding money between his two dads. Both men have completely different views of money. The best quote to share is – Rich think “assets are things that keep money in your pocket and liabilities take money out of your pocket.” Another good quote was Rich thinks assets are. a liabilities that they think are assets. This was completely revolutionary to my way of thinking. I will definitely begin implementing these lessons as I think more and more about money. 

 In addition to reading Rich Dad, Poor Dad, we also took a sweeping dive into business finance principals. We started with the basics like reviewing income statements and balance sheets. Then we moved on to reading 10-K documents and analyzing business cases. We ended things by creating our very own pro-forma for the company we plan on starting. Pro forma means forward looking. The pro-forma will be used to see how the company will make money and how the company will spend money.

Four months flew by fast. Seems like only yesterday, I began my invigorious journey at Full Sail. What I have learned in that time is nothing short of amazing.

Month four is all about branding. We learned the importance of creating a strong brand identity to reach the audience we believe would best resonate with our product. This month we learned the biggest misconception about the word “brand.”  A brand is what customers perceive your company or product to be, not what the company says it is.

Our first project of the month was an entertainment brand audit. I choose to do my brand audit on the Oprah Winfrey Network. The audit consisted of me looking at the company’s brand identity, brand messaging, brand experience, and brand partnerships. Overall, the Oprah Winfrey Network had strong brand messaging and a strong brand experience. I felt the network could improve on its brand identity and brand partnerships. Since the company is less than five years old, I noted that the Oprah Winfrey Network is still trying to gain its footing and figure out who they really want to be as a network.

The next project we worked on was an entertainment research brief. I choose to compare internet companies like Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, and Facebook. These are the titans of the internet industry. What I mean by that is these four companies hold the majority market share of the digital advertising industry. Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and Yahoo make up 44.3% of the total market. This is just about 62 billion dollars according to a July 2014, eMarketer report.

The last assignment we worked on brought everything we learned in this month together. We created a company overview and brand identity report for our companies. The report included, key things like a positioning statement, list of services and activities, an audience break down, our business model canvas, a product mark-up, a logo, a tagline, mission statement and a mantra, an idea of our corporate culture, and a competitive brand analysis. Altogether, this report pushed us to “zoom in” on our idea for a company and come up with concrete plans to begin bringing the vision to reality.

In month one, I set a goal for what I hope to gain from the Project Management class. Specifically, the goal was to “attain project management skills.” What I meant when I wrote that was to gain an understanding of how to manage a project. What we learned in the Project Management class was so much more.

The class primarily dealt with how to work with people. This was an interesting take on project management because it flipped focusing on the project to the people who work on the project. I learned, by focusing on the people, you can do your best to make the most of any project. The best thing I learned is, given the best resources and the best people, a project leader has extreme influence over the outcome of the project.

Four key lessons from Project Management class are:

Determine the Behavior of the team member

Understand the Personality

Create a Friendship Culture for the team

Have High expectations

In order to determine the behavior of team members we learned how to study interviews of people and try to determine their DISC personality. DISC is a test that measures behavior and identifies how high a person rates out of four styles.  The four traits are: Dominant, Influence, Steadiness, and Conscientious. I measure high in Influence and Dominance. Our professor, warns us to not put ourselves or other people in a box based on their behavior trait because people can change. Another thing to know is that people’s behavior can change based on situations. Knowing this, I can identify behavior traits to learn ways to work with people and motivate them.

A second test we learned was the Myers-Briggs personality test. This test had many more different personality types.  Mine was ENFJ. This test can be useful in a team to identify personality types that work best for different types of projects and companies.

A big “aha” moment occurred when we learned about the “friendship culture.” Companies like Google and Facebook implements a certain culture that allows for it’s employees to be treated like friends. IN projects, team members step up and take on project tasks rather than the project leader assigning. The teams also act like “family” in the way they eat together and choose not to compete with each other. This type of culture creates a better environment and allows fore more productivity. This is definitely something, I would like to implement for my next team project.

Lastly, I learned that having high expectations for your team members can increase the value of their work and the outcome of the project. One group could be given a task to write down as many words as possible in a certain time period while another could be given the same assignment but told that they had to get 8 but could probably get 33 because the best group who has done it got 32 and this group was better than that. In this example, group two performed 100% better than group one simply because of high expectations. 

Reading lessons from Robert Greene and John Maxwell prompt me to consider which type of leader I am and which type of leader I want to become. Robert Greene leads with the mind-set of “what is in it for me” while John Maxwell leads with more of a servant’s heart. These two authors both make eye-opening points, and share convincing leadership skills. John Maxwell leadership style, in my opinion, rises above the two. If someone were to ask me which type of leader I am right now, today, I would say a mixture of both Robert Greene and John Maxwell leadership styles. The type of leader I want to become, far and wide, is a John Maxwell Leader.

 My dream in life is to help people see their lives more clearly with a hope that the world we become a better place because of it. I believe if you can understand your self better, then you can understand people better, and ultimately be able to understand the world better. With understanding comes, acceptance, and with acceptance comes connection. For me, connection is the reason why we are all here. So for me, that is the goal I want to help everyone reach.

Photo Credit: Mdjrdreamcatcher

Ghandi is always a great reminder of how to live your life as an inspiration to others. Whenever you see something wrong with the world ask "How can I be the change?" Beauty surrounds us. Sometimes we just need to take a little time to enjoy the view.