Jessica Imbrogna

Over the last few weeks I have been writing a profile. I chose to follow Maria Kindelan on her quest to find her voice and use it to advocate what she’s passionate about.

If you were to talk to Maria today you wouldn’t be able to tell she ever lost her voice. She’s personable and very outgoing. I was shocked to hear that she had just started being the open person she is within the last few years. Maria told me that starting at the age of six; her life was like a “Cinderella story.” She said her step-mom would never let her go out and play or let friends come over. “We did a lot of cleaning,” Maria told me. This went on until Maria was about 12 years old. Up until this point, she told me she had been brainwashed by her step-mom to not talk to her father or mother, and basically not to speak at all.

Maria had a tough childhood; she was held back from not only enjoying her life, but living it too. She was never able to speak up and fix what was going on.

Now that she is much older now, she is in the process of finding her voice. She wants to find it, and use it to better the life of someone. Her starting point is with the FGCU Dance Company. Dancing, and art in general, is something Maria has a huge passion for. This is how she expresses herself and relieves her stress. She is the president of the club and puts in a lot of time and effort daily. I’m planning to follow her to a Dance Company practice as well as any event they may have going on.

Edison State College is moving forward in the process of changing the institutions name.

Although Edison has been in the name of this institution for 51 years, this is the second time in five years that the name will be changing. Originally Edison College, they then changed the name to Edison State College. Now they are taking Edison out of the name completely. If all goes to plan, Edison State College will be Florida Southwestern State College by Summer 2014. 

In 2009, a committee asked to start the process of trade marking Edison State College’s name. The US Patent and Trades Office eventually rejected the trademark application due to an institution in New Jersey, Thomas Edison State College. The name was too similar and they had already completed the trademark process.  Joe Guzzardo, Communications Director at Thomas Edison State College, said, “Our institution first registered the trademark for Thomas Edison State College in 2003. We have been using the name for most of the 41 years we have been in operation.” Edison State College then reached out to TESC asking for concurrent use; however, the idea was rejected.  

Teresa Morgenstern, the Director of Communications at Edison State College, says, “Our options were to continue with the Edison State name and face legal entanglements due to such online presences as our website and online classes, or to change the institution’s name.”

After deciding changing the name of the institution would ultimately be a better option, Jeff Allbritten, President of State College, sent out a college-wide email asking for some name suggestions. He also held four Town Hall Meetings, one on each campus and center. All faculty, staff, students and community members were invited to attend. “Our geographic reach stretches across five counties and over 4,700 square miles. The new name needed to embrace the entire region,” Morgenstern says.

Although many suggestions were submitted, Florida Southwestern State College was selected as the best fitting name.

There are currently two bills regarding the name change going through the legislative process, one in the House and one in the Senate. One of the bills has to reach the Governor for the final signature of approval. Morgenstern says, “We anticipate officially changing our name to Florida Southwestern State College on July 1, 2014.”

Shannon Ring, a freshman at Edison State College, says, “When you type in Edison State College online, many schools with similar names pop up. I have met people who almost applied to the wrong college. Once the name is changed I feel there will be a lot less confusion.”

The institution is estimating a cost of $300,000 to change the name. “Which will come from auxiliary funds, not student fees,” said Morgenstern.

“We do have a statue of Thomas Edison on campus that is supposed to give us inspiration. Is it going to be taken down now just because the name is changing?” asks Ring.

According to Morgenstern, although there will be changes, Thomas Edison will always be a part of the spirit of this college. The Board of Trustees approved renaming Lee Campus (Fort Myers) to Thomas Edison Campus and the statue of Edison that is currently on the Lee campus is there to stay. “We wish Edison State College all the best with its future plans,” said Guzzardo.

“Our name will change, but the core of what we do, which is to continue working with our fellow institutions, business and community leaders remains steadfast,” says Morgenstern.

My main goal at the beginning of this semester was to build a professional image rather than maintain my personal image on my social networks. For the most part, I have been achieving that goal. Although I have put out a few tweets that didn’t serve much of a purpose, all have been appropriate.  However, my other goal was to tweet daily and I do not believe I have been achieving that. Currently I’m tweeting a few times a week. My problem is that I’m unsure of what to tweet. In order to get back on track with this goal I’m going to have to find what I feel most comfortable tweeting about and “tweet my beat.”

During my Writing for a Mass Audience class on Monday we practiced more on how to tweet effectively. We used our two textbooks- Writing Tools by Roy Peter Clark and On Writing Well by William Zinsser- to give us a topic. Coincidently, it was William Zinsser's birthday, so we made it more of an honorary exercise. Part of the exercise was to make a possibly boring subject into a tweet that many would be interested in reading. After reading some sections in the book, we combined the content and our own insight to produce really great tweets.

Writing a good tweet doesn’t happen in 30 seconds, it takes thought and a little bit of effort. First of all, you want to be tweeting the right things at the right time. For example, if a huge game was on you would want to be “live tweeting”. Live tweeting means you tweet about the content while the event is actually happening; usually accompanied with the events hash tag. This can attract an audience and more followers. A good tweet also has some of my own personal voice and insights in it. I want to keep my tweets professional, newsworthy, and reliable; however, I also want my followers to get to know me. Last but certainly not least, I believe it’s important to have a good understanding on what it is you’re tweeting.

After looking at a few FGCU students tweets, I found some that I thought really stuck out. The first one I found was Justin's. 

I really liked that he quoted the tweet and then added his own insight. It gives credit to the original poster but also shows Justin is interested and what his personal thoughts on the matter are. 

I then looked at Jill's profile. Almost all of her tweets are a good example of a top tweet, in my opinion. However, I chose this one as my example:

I love this tweet for many reasons. The first being the way she phrased it. By saying "here at the FGCU Soccer Complex" shows she's physically at the game reporting the score. Although a very simple tweet, I am able to see her personality still. I also really liked how she "mentioned" the FGCU Women's Soccer team.

The third profile I looked at was Sam's. Although clearly new to Twitter with only a few tweets, she's off to a good start. 

I liked this tweet because she quoted the original poster and also  included the article with the full story. By not simply retweeting, she was able to also add a bit of her own voice with her insight which I think is very important.

Building a professional online presence has become a very important factor for aspiring journalists. They have to create trust between them and their audience. In my opinion, this can be achieved by consistency. If a writer is consistent with posting, and also with the content that they are posting, then their audience is more likely to keep checking to see what that writer has to say.

Journalism has changed so much over the years; with the growing technology aspiring writers need to keep in mind how they’re portraying themselves on their social networks. I found a great website that gives a bunch of tips that I highly agree with to have a successful and professional online bio, whether on Twitter, Tumblr, or Google++ and so on, you must keep it simple. On Twitter especially you only have a certain number of characters allowed, and keeping you’re bio simple and to the point will make it easy to read and look more professional. Another main factor of your bio is you have to keep it updated, make sure it’s the most updated version of your life. You also want to make sure you are utilize the hash tags, tagging is the main way for more eyes to see your profile. For example, you want to make sure you put your college and major, hash tagging your major will make your profile pop up when that hash tag is searched. For employers who are searching for qualified journalists they may type in the hash tag search box “Journalism”, and your profile would come up under the search if you had it hash tagged in your bio. Reserving a small space at the end of your bio for a passion you have, or something you are working on is also a great thing to add. When it does not come off as distracting, it will give your page a personality.

I looked on Twitter for some profiles of FGCU students and staff to see how some of the people in my school portray themselves. I found one of my past professors, Dr. Aboulnasr (https://twitter.com/DrAboulnasr
). His profile is very simple yet professional. He also keeps his tweets strictly to news stories, important recent events and to communicate with his students. I also found a classmate, Nick, (https://twitter.com/NicholasIdler
). His bio is great with awesome use of hash tags. He would be able to be easily searched for and the employer would automatically see what he’s working on. A very professional page however he has no tweets yet. I also found a friend of mine, Anna, (https://twitter.com/Anna_Fabis
). Her profile is very empty because she has no bio at all. It is very obvious that she uses this as a personal page
. After reviewing these pages I decided I would hire my past professor if I had to choose between the three. His page is very well put together with very professional tweets.