#livingopenly

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.