Master GraphicDesigner

Spending eight years straight I am due for a break, I am a bit sad because it was announced that the Valedictorian and the Salutatorian recipients will not be announced at graduation due to how the course is ending after graduation.  So enough about graduation problems and now focus at the month on hand.

The Plan:

This was the month for us to turn in our Internet Marketing Plan, this was given to us 10 months ago, however, a few students mentioned they had not started on it at all, I started mine in January, and then took some time off. I was smart enough to reach out to the professor ahead of time and begin to ask her questions and work more diligently on it as the class opened up I was already ahead of the game.  While the first week was relaxed it was to give us time to add the final touches and fine tune our IMP.  While a few of us struggled we helped each other get through this.  

Discussion board Week 1: This was all about marketing campaigns, while I feel a couple of students did just enough to get by, overall a few of us did a great deal of research and gave positive feedback, and helped each other grow, I am going to miss this class!

Week 2 Assignment:  This week we had an assignment, this is one I worried about but had to get all of this work done before leaving to Atlanta for five days, however, I got a 100% on it as it was conducting innovative ways and it was a fun assignment.

Discussion board Week 2: If writing about marketing campaigns was not hard enough, implementing them was a challenge and explaining them was just as bad if not worse, but the one thing I have learned is that just because you have a monthly budget of $100 K does not mean you need to spend it.  I find dividing it up and spending a little here and a little there, and putting some in a reserve fund for emergencies.

Here we are into the third week, a lot of us are a bit overwhelmed some started new jobs, others just felt that an assignment on top of the last week to finish up our IMP was way too much pressure, and then the lack of an instructor who did not show up to live class ticked a few of us off.  Overall, after looking over all I can and running my paper through Grammarly, I submitted my IMP on Friday, June 21, 2019, now I have to stress on waiting on the grade of this paper.

Discussion board Week 3: Persuasive presentation, this is now putting it together, in persuading someone or our target audience to accept our plan, again not enough input from certain students, but yet those who thought about their post, and did the research shared what they learned.

Week 3 Assignment: Pitching the presentation this is one I planned on doing and keeping it simple, some would say that it is the safe way out, but not everything has to be heavy duty work, why not keep it simple and easy and of course to the point.

With Week four being all our brand, it is now time to put this education into my own business, and see how I can rule the online digital world, one business at a time.

The tears are beginning to hit on and off because I know the end is coming to the close for now in my academic journey.  I want to pursue a PhD, but not sure where I can go, but for now I will be taking one year off, since I’ve been in school now for almost eight years without a solid break.

Now on to the month at hand, this month was class number 11, called Internet and the Law.  When I saw I had this class a few months ago I will be honest I dreaded it, but then when it came up, I smiled and thought to myself, it is time to learn what is legal and what is not.

Part of that thought process changed because back in March, I posted an opinion and people jumped on me saying nasty remarks and judging me, and of course when doing my research and providing the proof (thank goodness for the proper research skills I’ve learned to do this) to the local authorities it was considered cyber bullying.  

So when this class came up I rubbed my hands and said, “oh goodie” and it was great to learn the following:

Jurisdiction: basically learning who has the power to make the decision over a case, and how the process works, what is looked at, and is the claim in the same state or does it cross state or country lines and if so what laws take precedence.

Copyright:  This one I was already familiar with due to being a graphic designer as well as some knowledge in the recording arts area, it is interesting how many people think that when they take a graphic off of google that they can change the color and claim that they ‘own it’.  WRONG!  Just because you change the color or add details or morph it into something different that copyright still belongs to the photographer, and that if you don’t have a 2257 or a 2258 that releases that gives you the right that legal action can be taken against you.  The same argument I get into with others when they think they can add music to a website and nothing can happen, wrong unless you have permission or have paid for the right to use that song you can also have legal action taken against you.

Cybercrime - I enjoyed this very much, because of the class discussion and the opinion and views of others in the class. Some class mates think that laws are too strict, where I find them not strict enough, and of course if someone is phishing for information to gain unauthorized access to information. In all honesty, you cannot tell me they are not aware they are committing a crime, because they are phishing for info to be given to them, they are aware of what they are doing and should do the time for the crime.

SPAM-  No we are not talking about the over processed canned meat that comes in a variety of flavors, but emails you get in your email that some call spam. It is interesting how many people think its unsolicited, when in fact they did sign up for it realizing that they forgot to uncheck a box to not be added to any deals, or special promotions or additional marketing materials.  It was good to learn that there was a way to unsubscribe and know that a company has 10 days to comply with the opt-out request that they MUST have marked clearly on the emails and of course the fines when it is not done in the 10 day period.

Privacy - Just like with cybercrime this was another one where the response of classmates were interesting, some thought that companies don’t have the right to spy, and if one uses company equipment to check personal information like email, or banking if the company has the right to monitor that?  First of all there are always limits to what is considered ‘private’, but if you are going to use company equipment to do personal and private things, then that is your own fault, because again YOU are aware that the equipment is monitored. If you have your own personal device (cell phone, laptop, tablet, iPad) then the company has no right to monitor your usage during your authorized break times and areas where electronic devices can be used for the privacy of information that employees have to avoid it being recorded or screenshot.

Defamation - Is a form of communication of a false statement that harms the reputation of the law, an individual, business, product, group, government, religion, or nation. It is one thing to be upset at a company for a product you ordered and did not receive it.

On the other hand if you did receive it and you go on any social media platform to say that you did not and begin saying how XYZ is a theirs, and a liar and begin to say you contacted them (and didn’t) and the representative was rude and make a big stink.

If you continue to make untrue statements XYZ can and will come after you and pursue legal action against you, especially if they can prove that your statements have caused damage to their business, losing clients and money due to your untrue remarks.

So overall lesson is remember people are entitled to their opinions and can call you an idiot, but they cannot go on a dating site stealing a photo of you and say that you have herpes or AIDS to slander or cause you problems.  Always remember that once you post it, it’s now ‘live” and it will never go away as it is now cached forever.

As for my overall three objectives for this month:

1.    Get through the month without stressing myself

2.    Understand the differences in defamation, slander and freedom of speech

3.    Improve my research skills a bit more from week 1, I did better each week!

This class did meet these objectives as I got more in depth with learning about CAN-SPAM Act and had fun with being creative in my presentations and overall I learned that even sometimes social media posts can lead to being sued if not careful and can damage individuals and then people can be sued.

By taking this knowledge it has helped me learn that when websites have TOS and Member Agreements that they need to be read, rather than just clicking I agree to by-pass the reading, because you never know what you have subjected yourself to.  For some reason that those rules or guidelines are violated, using the “I did not know” will not fly, because you were presented with them, if you did not read them then it is your fault, and will still be held accountable for your actions.

So when I start my own company Southern Belle Solutions, I will actually make sure anyone who does business with me understands this policy before they sign any contracts.

Onward & Upward

The tears are beginning to hit on and off because I know the end is coming to the close for now in my academic journey.  I want to pursue a PhD, but not sure where I can go, but for now I will be taking one year off, since I’ve been in school now for almost eight years without a solid break. 

Now on to the month at hand, this month was class number 11, called Internet and the Law.  When I saw I had this class a few months ago I will be honest I dreaded it, but then when it came up, I smiled and thought to myself, it is time to learn what is legal and what is not.

Part of that thought process changed because back in March, I posted an opinion and people jumped on me saying nasty remarks and judging me, and of course when doing my research and providing the proof (thank goodness for the proper research skills I’ve learned to do this) to the local authorities it was considered cyber bullying.   

So when this class came up I rubbed my hands and said, “oh goodie” and it was great to learn the following:

Jurisdiction: basically learning who has the power to make the decision over a case, and how the process works, what is looked at, and is the claim in the same state or does it cross state or country lines and if so what laws take precedence.

Copyright:  This one I was already familiar with due to being a graphic designer as well as some knowledge in the recording arts area, it is interesting how many people think that when they take a graphic off of google that they can change the color and claim that they ‘own it’.  WRONG!  Just because you change the color or add details or morph it into something different that copyright still belongs to the photographer, and that if you don’t have a 2257 or a 2258 that releases that gives you the right that legal action can be taken against you.  The same argument I get into with others when they think they can add music to a website and nothing can happen, wrong unless you have permission or have paid for the right to use that song you can also have legal action taken against you.

Cybercrime - I enjoyed this very much, because of the class discussion and the opinion and views of others in the class. Some class mates think that laws are too strict, where I find them not strict enough, and of course if someone is phishing for information to gain unauthorized access to information. In all honesty, you cannot tell me they are not aware they are committing a crime, because they are phishing for info to be given to them, they are aware of what they are doing and should do the time for the crime.

SPAM-  No we are not talking about the over processed canned meat that comes in a variety of flavors, but emails you get in your email that some call spam. It is interesting how many people think its unsolicited, when in fact they did sign up for it realizing that they forgot to uncheck a box to not be added to any deals, or special promotions or additional marketing materials.  It was good to learn that there was a way to unsubscribe and know that a company has 10 days to comply with the opt-out request that they MUST have marked clearly on the emails and of course the fines when it is not done in the 10 day period.

Privacy - Just like with cybercrime this was another one where the response of classmates were interesting, some thought that companies don’t have the right to spy, and if one uses company equipment to check personal information like email, or banking if the company has the right to monitor that?  First of all there are always limits to what is considered ‘private’, but if you are going to use company equipment to do personal and private things, then that is your own fault, because again YOU are aware that the equipment is monitored. If you have your own personal device (cell phone, laptop, tablet, iPad) then the company has no right to monitor your usage during your authorized break times and areas where electronic devices can be used for the privacy of information that employees have to avoid it being recorded or screenshot.

Defamation - Is a form of communication of a false statement that harms the reputation of the law, an individual, business, product, group, government, religion, or nation. It is one thing to be upset at a company for a product you ordered and did not receive it. 

On the other hand if you did receive it and you go on any social media platform to say that you did not and begin saying how XYZ is a their, and a liar and begin to say you contacted them (and didn’t) and the representative was rude and make a big stink. 

If you continue to make untrue statements XYZ can and will come after you and pursue legal action against you, especially if they can prove that your statements have caused damage to their business, losing clients and money due to your untrue remarks.

So overall lesson is remember people are entitled to their opinions and can call you an idiot, but they cannot go on a dating site stealing a photo of you and say that you have herpes or AIDS to slander or cause you problems.  Always remember that once you post it, it’s now ‘live” and it will never go away as it is now cached forever.

Onward & Upward 

I cannot believe that I am only three months away from graduating with my Masters! This Journey extended past six months, I was supposed to be done in January of 2019, but had to take some time off for me and to balance my health and my schooling, guess I cannot walk if I am not healthy to do so, so now after a two month break, and a previous withdrawal from this class, I am back with a vengeance and ready to be done.

So the one thing I have noticed is that the majority of people hate group projects, because there always seems to be one or two students who do not do the work, and leaves the rest of the group in a pickle, sort of how I felt when I had to withdraw from this class back in January, and leave my team members to do extra work.  However, I must say that this group was phenomenal not only did we communicate through the board, but we set up a group chat on our iPhones, and kept in touch, also when we had questions about our individual projects we helped each other out, and even through the group project. This was one heck of a good experience, we all enjoyed each other.

This showed me that people can make things work, and we are capable of working in groups as long as there is communication and compromise. I also enjoyed learning how to write a press release and how to improve on the small things needed to convey the message in a short and sweet but informative.

Secondly, writing a crisis response was fun, I was pulling my hair out, but it gave me a chance to learn something new and evolve with the assistance from my classmates, as what to add or what sounded conflicting, and that extra eyes are better than just your own!

Writing both a crisis and press release, challenged me to be creative and unique and to use new words that made the articles ‘pop’ but yet were able to be understood by the reader, by adding a word that is not over used can catch the interest of your readers who may not be targeted, but now have become engaged in what you have to offer or what you have to say.

How to incorporate things in my IMP is going to be a challenge as sometimes finding those to influence or how to influence without becoming over bearing or pushy, but I think by networking you can engage more contacts, and partake in more local events and increase everything overall.

Personally, I came into this class thinking that it was going to easy-peasy and behold of how wrong I was.  It didn’t help that I was working 14 hour days for ¾ of the time while in this class, however, with advanced SEO helped me understand a bit more of what I need to use when designing websites, and fine tuning things just a bit more.

I am really thankful for the examples that were provided to help assist throughout this month’s course even while on a Master level, Professor Johnson was very understanding and was willing to work outside his “office hours” to make sure things were copasetic and that there was a full understanding on assignments.

Week 1:  This was all about the researching of our competitor and what our case-study company needed, as well as ten keywords we felt that would be important, for my company Maximize Digital Media. These ten keywords were as follows: branding, graphic design, social media marketing, mobile marketing, web design company, online marketing, event promotion marketing, SEO marketing, Effective social media marketing and marketing consultation services.  Included with this research was also finding out the cost-per-click between broad, phrase and exact keywords.

Week 2: Focused more on pay-per-click (PPC) as well as a proposition that was to provide an outline and a working strategy to help Maximize Digital Media and its two co-founders Chrissanne Long and Craig Hosking with pay-per-click (PPC) advertising and how it can work for the business as a whole.  The goal in mind for Maximize Digital Media is anticipated to bring more money in advertising the digital media services that Maximize Digital Media offers, with a strong return on investment (ROI).  Although I missed the entire point of this week’s assignment it was to be pitching to a company of services, I was looking at pitching it to my case study company and well I should of read more carefully to what the actual assignment was.

Week 3: I want to say was one of my favorite weeks as because it talked about how to maintain your site and in a healthy way, which is one thing that the majority of companies forget about, and fail to maintain it and monitor their results and rethink the items that are not working and focus on what is working. While having a website for any business or any industry is important if it is effective for your establishment to be on the world wide web, but there is more to a website then just a design and making it look pretty. Granted presentation is everything and is an important part of your site, but so is maintaining its health, by making sure that if you have links, that they are all still working and are effective to your line of work, failure to be on par with these things can lead to loss in your revenue and can be a determent to your site overall and a loss in ROI and up to losing your business.

Week 4:  This one is added to what week one was only by narrowing it down to your “local” area so by adding the city, or county and state, you are focusing more in a ‘general’ area versus a broad range that is out of your ‘local area’ so this is just making the search more narrow and effective in your area.

To wrap up this month, I can’t wait to see where I go from here, and knowing that I have just four more months left is a big weight off my shoulders, and I hope to be working more in my fields after seven years of schooling!

Onward and Upward

References

(n.d.). Retrieved November 21, 2018, from https://maximizedigitalmedia.com/

18 Reasons Why Social Media Marketing Is Important For Any Business. (2018, October 08). Retrieved November 21, 2018, from https://www.contentfac.com/9-reasons-social-media-marketing-should-top-your-to-do-list/

18 Reasons Why Social Media Marketing Is Important For Any Business. (2018, October 08). Retrieved November 21, 2018, from https://www.contentfac.com/9-reasons-social-media-marketing-should-top-your-to-do-list/

Ariely, D. (2010). Predictably irrational: The hidden forces that shape our decisions. New York: Harper Perennial.

Basic Alignment Principles in Graphic Design (with Examples). (2018, March 23). Retrieved December 7, 2018, from https://www.printwand.com/blog/basic-alignment-principles-in-graphic-design-with-examples

Boudreaux, R. (n.d.). Effective design principles for web designers: Proximity. Retrieved December 9, 2018, from https://www.techrepublic.com/blog/web-designer/effective-design-principles-for-web-designers-proximity/

Brotherton, C., & BrothertonFreelance, C. (2018, January 04). Why Fixing Broken Links Is Important For Your Website. Retrieved December 9, 2018, from https://www.abrightclearweb.com/why-fixing-broken-links-is-important-for-your-website/

Castro, M., & Hosking, C. (2017, November 10). Digital Marketing Agency | Lakeland Marketing Agency | Web Design. Retrieved December 9, 2018, from https://maximizedigital.com/

DeMers, J. (2015, September 20). The Top 10 Benefits Of Social Media Marketing. Retrieved November 24, 2018, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/jaysondemers/2014/08/11/the-top-10-benefits-of-social-media-marketing/#2d7799241f80

Meyer, E. F. (2017, September 20). Five Reasons Mobile Marketing Is Becoming Even More Important. Retrieved November 21, 2018, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesagencycouncil/2017/05/31/five-reasons-mobile-marketing-is-becoming-even-more-important/#4483f293abb4

Online Broken Link Checker. (n.d.). Retrieved December 9, 2018, from https://www.brokenlinkcheck.com/

Online Marketing Made Simple: A Step-by-Step Guide. (n.d.). Retrieved November 25, 2018, from https://neilpatel.com/what-is-online-marketing/

Siteliner - Find Duplicate Content on your site. (n.d.). Retrieved December 9, 2018, from http://www.siteliner.com/

This month was a real challenge, mostly because it seemed as if there was no way to understand the materials no matter how much reading and research was done on the topic.

So let’s start with my exceptions of this course, My expectations was to learn more about marketing and how strategies work to our advantage and disadvantage.

Week 1: Was about our offer in relationship to the customer.  Here we were supposed to create our own Unique Value Proposition in our discussion. As for our development strategy it was broken up into three parts this month, this one was about who we were trying persuade to buy our product our actions to take and using demographics with the use of the AIDAS model.  In developing this section was a breeze, but when creating the UVP to be tested, I got very little feedback about it, from both students and even from our instructor of how to improve it.

Week 2:  The discussions this week were very enlightening as we talked about how to establish trust and authority, and got excellent feed back from a student stating how he did not believe it would take much to spruce up the website and make it really pop, as the website was in a good position (Chapoton, 2018). 

This weeks assignment I tanked very badly, it was about Conversion Optimization Strategy, As I struggled through this, and realized when I got the paper back, that I missed an entire section in which was why I tanked this part of the assignment, which taught me a lesson don’t do homework when you are exhausted. 

Week 3: I was in tears, because I had tried to meet with my instructor and it was nearly impossible due to my work schedule, when asking for an example it was pretty blunt that there should be no reason for an example needed as this is a “Master program” I agree, however some are visual learners and come to think about it when asking someone else to explain in layman’s terms it was a simple explanation of I needed to use the excel sheet and plug those numbers into the document file to create the assignment.  This was not even explained in our archived video it felt like we had to be a mind reader and know this, so after being told it was a plug and play process it clicked and the assignment got done on time.  However, when I went to double check I realized I turned in the wrong file, and had to resubmit and drop an email to the instructor explaining what happened.  When getting my grade back the feedback was good, and I was shocked that I did alright this week.

Now as I sit here and reflect everything that I have learned I still feel that I will ned help with my UVP most of all and maybe a bit more studying in IMAP’s and marketing techniques.

Only 4 more months!

This class for New Media Marketing was something that I was not expecting, I thought it dealt strictly with just social media, while the majority did, there were things like influencers and fans and how big the difference was between the two.

As for the original objective that I had for this course, this time I had no objective that I had but to just pass the class and learn what I could in order to help my final IMMS project for my case study company on Maximize Digital Media.  However, learning a lot of new things this month like influencers on how any company needs them, as they can and/or will break your company, and then your fans on how they believe that ‘they are’ your brand.

Secondly, what was learned is that when putting persona’s in my project was missed, but then I didn’t read closely and said that they did not have to be ‘real’ so I felt pretty stupid.  This made me realize that I need to slow down a bit and really  pay attention to details as it can become more of a problem if this was part of my job it could have caused problems for the company and could have effected any sort of ROI or a relationship with an influencer.

The other thing I really enjoyed in the second week was how to deal with negative responses, as I feel that the majority of individuals are afraid to approach this topic, because people are afraid of confrontation. During my BS program in social media is that every company should invest in critical communications department or individual who will plan and interact with both your employees and public to help with negative responses, and basically tell your public what you did wrong or what happened and how it will be corrected and prevented in the future, as well as anything that is being offered for inconvenience to those who are your current clients. Overall in the end it is better if you admit your wrong doing to the public first, before you are found out by the public and then you are having to deal with other negative responses as to your company being shady or irresponsible.

Now after learning how to approach my boss who is a book author and I am her social media specialist I can now give her a rundown of some changes that can be made and how it can work for her on a form of ROI, but now giving her a reason to invest a bit in advertising from her pocket book (personal investment) and how it can work to invest $50 a month and how it can lead up to a bigger payout in the ROI of being at $500 a month with a profit of $450 rather than receiving nothing. If you cannot invest anything in yourself or business how can you expect a return on nothing?

Learning a bit more in new media will help me prepare for my final paper, and how it can help my case study company to take them one step closer to success.

What a crazy month, but the best thing is I get to be off from school for a month to prepare for the last six months of my degree program here at Full Sail University. This month was all about Web Design and Usability.

The purpose of this class was to get a hand’s on feel on how web analytics work and to learn how and what to look for when you are building a site and how to test it before launching the site to the general public.

So let’s start with the first week:  Intro to usability we took a look at websites from the past and the look and feel, and let me just say WOW!  Technology has come a long way, and where we were from the early 1990’s  to 2000 and to our present day now, it shows how some companies like CNN and Sports Illustrated have come a long way in the way websites were developed with content.  If we were to design a page like we did back in 1990 we would be breaking a lot of cardinal rules of design, and we would lose business most of all.

Week 2: Usability was our topic and this is where we evaluated our case study company on how the site worked. With my case study company I found a variety of problems and errors that should have been caught by the staff before launching the site or in this case when there was an update to the site to assure things were working properly.

Week 3: Findability, was all about the scent of how easy can a site be found, how does it look as well as did we reach the consumer who was looking at our site, did they get around easily, I did a fantastic job in my assignment where my professor asked permission to use this as an example. This shocked me, but I am glad that it made an impression as to where I did not feel bad about wondering if I grasped the concept of this week with findability.

Week 4: Web Plan and proposal – Not only was this week about content. But we also evaluated another class members case study company gave one negative and one positive.  In addition we had to put a plan and proposal what we would present to our team for changes to our site.  

At first I dreaded but found that this class was fun in the end because it was all about what we felt needed to change in order to reach the consumer and our target audience to gain more exposure and of course bring in business and get a positive on our ROI (return on investment) of our business.

It feels good to be back,Ihad to take a 3-month hiatus from school, had had to drop this class three times due to medical issues and travel plans, yes it looks bad, however I rather withdraw from a class than fail it several times and be kicked out of school for something I could come back and do later, which is NOW!

At first I dwelled upon this class to be honest, however, after finding out that this was a study on behaviors of consumers such on myself, and our case study companies which mine is Maximize Digital Media. I could use some of my previous classes I had in organizational psychology and apply it to this course.

During the first week, I learned consumer decision making, so by analyzing and optimizing how consumers such as myself make decisions, and the approach we take as a consumer was very interesting followed by how we are influenced to make these decisions.

One of my favorite examples for this is what we see in the movies, for instance let me use the first Deadpool movie for an example, when he is talking to Negasonic Teenage Warhead, “oh no finish your tweet, give her a sec, and hashtag it” That on the local news it was mentioned that Twitter saw an influx in new people who signed up for a twitter account to follow Deadpool and Marvel Comics.  So, by mentioning sending a tweet, people went and saw it because they heard it in a movie (M.2016).

Now let’s move towards more selling behaviors in Marketing with consumers, take a Michael Bay film for instance when he uses product placement in his movies, it’s like it was in this movie I now must have it, so by seeing it in the movie we react to our wants as a suggestive selling.   If I see that there is a Pepsi product in Transformers, it now makes me want a Pepsi.  This gives us an influence to go buy it and at this point it is now considered a behavior that can be analyzed and optimized in marketing (S. 2017, June 23).

Consumer Segmentation was a bit stressful, but by using a unique value Proposition I was able to target the audience and the primary consumer for Maximize Digital Media, this included three parts to the assignment the introductory, a flow chart and of course summary paragraphs as how the segmentation related to Maximize Digital Media, I got so into the assignment that I forgot to provide my concluding paragraph on the case study and on my assignment which caused me 3 points of my grade, next time I need to pay more attention to details and double check my work.

By going into week three it was how internet marketing and how we use generated content to improve and bring back consumers, let’s face it, we don’t just want someone to come once, we want them to return and continue buying, so we need to provide them a reason, or a perk to come back, and keep them intrigue into us, because if we cannot offer the consumer what they need, then they will find someone else more than likely our competition and take their business there causing us to lose money while someone else gains the business.

Finally, this week is a wrap up of consumer behaviors with online consumer survey creations, surveys are the way to go when anyone has just bought a product or was provided a service it allows the consumer to provide any feedback that can help us grow, or change if needed, personally if someone provided me with negative feedback, I would thank them for their honesty, see what I could do to ‘fix’ the problem and then make that change and use it as a form of positive criticism even though it was bad, but work it to the benefit of my business.

Onward and Upward.

References

M. (2016). Motion picture. USA: Marvel. Retrieved July 26, 2018, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UA0CuHkRGfw

This month is the third month that I am in my Masters of Science for Internet Marketing here at Full Sail University.  Honestly, I thought at the beginning that this was going to be easy since I have had classes in my Associates of Science in graphic design and in my BS in Social Media and communication courses along in marketing and business management courses.  

Now I did not think I 'know-it-all' but did think that it was going to be repetitive of what I had already learned, boy was I WRONG!  Now some of the basics of storytelling and why we storytelling and research and brainstorm was already a no-brainer.

There were two things that I struggled with this month it was learning to do a Pecha Chuka which is Japanese for chit-chat. For those who don't know what a Pecha Chuka is, it is a slideshow with limited words that contain 20 images and 20 seconds long.  It is long enough for you to get to your point and keep everyone's attention so approximately you are up there for six minutes and forty seconds max.  

Next thing was our storytelling video - the challenge was finding a topic and making a connection, I feel that I failed there, but kept in the two-minute window.  However, whatever may come of this will be a learning experience and help me improve in the coming months.

While learning about Mastery, it has helped become more detail-oriented in watching for details and having to remember the small things, like my references, I did have it, but forgot to include it in my presentation, it cost me a 5 point deduction, but I rather have that rather than being accused of copyright infringement and not providing credit to the originator.

How will this help me in the future is now that I know how to create a Pecha Kucha and get to my point quicker and keeping the attention of my audience by engaging them, rather than boring them to death and ugly power points, that can be emailed to them to read on their own.

Overall, my words of advice are simple, no matter who is teaching something on a topic that you may have heard, or seen, that each person who is teaching on some topic, can provide you with openers that you never thought you would know.  We all come from different backgrounds and have different methods, so don't be afraid to try someone different and see if you can learn something new, or provide them with your knowledge and experience.

Until next time,

Time goes by fast when you are learning.  It is amazing and shocking that I am already ending my second month here at Full Sail, and starting month three tomorrow.  This also means that it is time for an update on my journey to Mastery and my PDL if you missed my previous post you can check it out here: https://southernbellesolutions.tumblr.com/post/170242822164/the-work-ahead-and-the-goals-i-want-to-accomplish .

Under close consideration of how it met my original objective, is a very simple answer is it helped me enhance what I knew already, and opened my mind up to new ideas and suggestions.  In the photo above I consider myself still to be a red maybe a strong orange with being incompetence, but I do know that within the coming months I will be working towards that green light and hoping to help others succeed.

Now one of the many things that I never considered or even knew what an infographic was, by learning what it was, I found that you can have an infographic for many reasons and that they are very beneficial to not only you or your business but to your client to help reassure them as to why they are trusting you with their business.  As you can see down below the two different infographics that were created for my project. The first infographic was how to Maximize Digital Media can work for you and it services.

Followed by a crisis plan infographic, it is very imperative that every business has one, this is to show what you do should something happen, what are your actions to correct the problem and what will you be doing to prevent this from happening again.

My biggest thing I would do is that if something happens such as a security breach, I personally would contact the public media and be honest about what has happened, by taking personal accountability people will be glad to see that you can admit your goof ups.  Now if you knew and did not inform anyone of it and it was found out then you could potentially lose clients and eventually your business, so it is always in your best interest to be open and honest when you find out about any crisis and go public with it before it is found out.

So when building my own business SouthernBelleSolutions I will be using infographics for several areas in my business and they make great networking handouts for expos and fair's and most of all they are not bulky like an info packet would be.  This keeps it simple and yet if they want more information about your business they have your contact information where they can contact you for more details in the future.

References