the alias

Well, technically it’s two new directions because the first Direction would be Zayn Malik leaving One Direction.

Say Geronimo, say say geronimo!

I have no clue why this post is starting off that way, I believe it’s because at the start of this week I woke up with the song stuck in my head even though I had never heard it before so i’m going to roll with that.

On Monday of this week I basically stayed up all night and worked on adding the EMA shortlist. I also changed the website up adding in information about the awards ceremony and a map to where it was as well as the speaker information. Then on Tuesday we had the big group meeting because last week it was postponed and I showed all of this. After the group meeting I worked with my group linking the entries to the assigned work (because for a lot of the work we had to reupload or convert them to PDF in order for them to open up in a new window or they would automatically be downloaded). We did most of them (except for four because I had to ask Kathy for the files) and then after that was completed we simply finished off with a group meeting chat. Later Kathy gave me the files for the four entries we did not link too so I added them and currently it’s all about updating whatever needs to be updated. The focus for next week will probably be integrating the ticket sales website to the website, which I tried to speak to someone about last week but a lot of people left right after the group meeting so I couldn’t find the person in charge. Either way, EMA Website group in the HOUSE!

This was the major week.

The week of the redesign.

After receiving about half the bios for the judges everything became a go on Tuesday. 

So on Tuesday after the weekly group updates I divided up the roles of the website turnover. Since Gajinder and Redda weren't there it was just me, Jade, and Angelo. I gave Angelo the task of turning all the judge bio pictures black and white because we discussed previously that it would make everything look more uniform (especially for those judges who gave us selfies). Jade got the task of changing the website colours and then uploading (which ended up to be embedding) the EMA wrap up video on the top of the page. And I was going to be linking all the judge pictures to a separate bio page because some of the bios were too large and would look uneven next to short bios.

Yup. Best title ever.

This week was reading week so of course nothing was done. The end.

After last weeks sort of semi melt down that I had, this week seemed like a breath of fresh air. In fact this week was actually pretty relaxing. Web. Relaxing. Weblaxing. Here's a gif that displays my emotions for this week in Media Practices and the EMA website.

This week was the worst week of the semester so far. And I should have known it was coming.Basically the end of the week was summarized by one gif and one gif alone:

This week I brought my group together and we discussed the changes that we were going to make to the website for phase two (when the submissions ended) we had spoken before about how we would be making changes but nothing about what those changes would be. I felt that it was super important for us to discuss all of that this week since next week we will actually be making a lot of those changes while follow up changes will be done through out the rest of the year.

I also presented to the rest of the fourth years about what we were doing.

As for meetings I meet up with the video group who had finished the video to discuss my thoughts on the video that they made for me. Personally I don’t like it too much because its much longer than need be but I think it’s acceptable for now. I also meet up with the graphics team about the intro that they would put in front of the video from the video team just to tell them my thoughts on it.

Now you might be wondering by now, ‘why was this week bad?’

Well, the EMA website did not do its job.

The submission form closed almost 4 hours earlier than it was suppose to.  I had double-TRIPLE checked to make sure that the form was going to close at 12am on February the 8th and I was correct. I was absolutely right. That was the exact time it was suppose to close. However it closed before this. Why? My theory is that wordpress wasn’t configured to EST timezone. I am SO very annoyed because with all the wordpress sites I’ve made I’ve never had to actually configure the timezone and the ONE time it actually matters apparently it had to be done?

I am just so very upset at this point. And I really don’t know what else to say.

Me this week:

That is all. Except not really, though I kind of wish it was. This week a whole lot things happened and I just stood looking extremely confused and understanding nothing. It's high school all over again.

Anywho, submissions for the EMA were suppose to close on January 31st but that all changed. I'd like to say that I'd get to that but it's really hard to go in order especially when everything was all thrown about this week. A lot of our work, as usual was done on Tuesday. This is because Tuesday is really the only day that we can get together and I found that when we do all of the work together we can accomplish everything much faster in terms of fixing the website or anything that happened to break on the website. This week we spoke about important tweets to direct people to the website. Gurjinder, Redda and I spoke to the social media group about releasing these tweets and facebook posts that focused on three things: 1. The immediate deadline. 2. The fact that professionals would be judging their work. 3. I can't remember what it was but it was something good trust me.

I also spoke to the Awards Ceremony team about promoting at other schools and trying to get more submissions into the Digital Design category because it was seriously lacking.

After working between 15 days straight between my internship and my part time job I was not looking forward to this weeks class. But at the same time I was looking forward to it. I felt like going to class and working more on the website was something that needed to be done. 

Although it feels like last week was only two days ago, that is not exactly the case at all. This week my EMA team got a few things done in terms of the look of the website and the overall feel of it as well. We fixed the un-working Province box and the weird layout of the forms and discussed quite a bit of things. 

Personally however the amount of work I’ve done hasn’t been all that monumental. 

Due to the fact that Jade and I have full time internships and Angelo does not I assigned him the task of putting together our project plan (everything except for the personal roles which we all did ourselves). After he completed that I got it back, edited it to make sure we had more deliverables and important elements in our time line and gave it back to him with a thorough example of the design elements that he could put on the plan to make it look unique and not just like an essay. 

I also created another means of contact with my group through an Ap called Wunderlist. The purpose of this was to be able to connect everything that needs to be done to everyone else in the group. With this Ap everyone is able to see if someone elsei n the group completed something. I did this in hopes that it would be a slightly better means of communication since two members of my group don’t have Facebook and so cannot access the Facebook group we made the week before.

Another thing I did was assigned schedules for the maintenance of the website. I did this in order to make sure that someone was checking the site and make sure it was operating every day, rather than have two or three people look at it one day and forget about it the next two days which could have the chance of being problematic especially with something that has such a big deadline coming soon.

Ultimately I wish I could have done more but currently the biggest issues that I am having is managing time with my group and my internship which gives me little time for everything really.

Guess what’s back? Back again? This blog is back. Tell a friend!

GUESS WHATS BACK! GUESS WHAT’S BACK GUESS WHAT’S BACK DUNUHNUH!

Now that this little Eminem reference is over it’s time to get back into the hang of blogging. After celebrating the end of the blogs I never thought I’d be back on this very blog writing again, though I don’t mind it at all. It seems like I’ve just gotten used to writing these things.

So this week was our very first week of Media Practices and it was kind of a messy blur. Teams being put together and only kind of figuring out what everyone was doing. I was put on the EMA Website team.

Because this was the first week, really nothing much has been done or set in motion. This week, I created a Facebook Group for the members of my time and we discussed that we would each think of what we want to change on the website to make it better and what we can keep the same.

 The purpose of that is so that when we join together in class next week we will be ready to hit the ground running. This is also a precursor to figuring out what we believe needs to be written on the semester plan in areas such as deliverables and what is in and our of our scope.

Well guys, our time is coming to an end. And quickly.

In simple one more semester we will be finished our four years of education.

Hopefully.

Right now i'm actually writing this blog post PAST the Friday night deadline which probably isn't a good way to end the course but between website building and two essays, I think blog posts are the least of my worries.

This week in class we spoke about THE EMERGE CONFERENCE! DUN DUNDUNNNNNNNN.

Basically we'll all have to pick teams and decide what we want to do for Emerge. Personally I want to do something that is the opposite from what I'll be doing for my internship, so hopefully that works out.

My question for you guys this week: Which team are you leaning toward?

Because to be honest, in terms of analytics someone always is.

This week we discussed analytics and measurement and really how you could tell if your website is meeting the goal you set out for it. With free programs like Google Analytics or paid programs like Raidan6 you are now able to track just WHO visits your website and other information like what brought them there, and what browser of device they are viewing it from.

Now everyone who knows a bit about computers knows about Google Analytics, however that doesn't really mean that you know how it works. So this class really helped me in terms of understanding just how one would go about using Google Analytics. Now that I know it's pretty obvious that the wordpress plugin will go right into my wordpress websites from now on.

I guess that's all for today. Short posts. I have two essays and a website to worry about.

Two weeks ago, I briefly went over the fact that I completely changed my final website idea. Yes. Completely. The whole design concept, the content and of course the company it was for.

And this week i'm changing something as well. I am changing my career goals. I no longer want to be a video editor, or a director, or a web designer. No.

I want to be the next Alex from Target.

It's a hard goal. But some way, some how, I will achieve it.

You might think i'm joking. Well I am. However with the way social media is now a days this goal, might actually be what some people want. Think about it, Alex, a normal teen who was just doing his job, became internet famous. Before his picture circulated he had 144 twitter followers.He now has over 60 thousand.  With that many followers he would basically rule the world. He could start a revolution. He could create his own book, promote it only through his twitter account and although he has done nothing to gain that fame STILL manage to get at least five thousand people to buy the book so he could make a profit.

It is insane. 

I think that social media has the power to make or break you. Even if you do something horrible you could get followers, and as the saying goes 'no publicity is bad publicity'.

Exhibit A:

 This tweet made Amanda Bynes a household name although she had been irrelevant for almost 2 years. It also made people realize that something was wrong with her and brought to light her mental issues and mental problems for people as a whole.

So it makes sense as to why some people would actually want this for a goal in life. It would make them incredibility influential. Yes, Alex may only have 15 minutes of fame, but in that 15 minutes he currently has so much power.

Remember Antown Dodson?

Hide yo kids, hide yo wife, and hide yo husbands? With his instant social media popularity he was able to completely move his whole family to a different area just by the money he was getting.

He has his own wikipedia page.

That is insane.

Right now even a marketing company is trying to claim that they thought of the whole #AlexFromTarget thing (though they've already changed their claims). It is this sporadic viral sensations that companies WISH they could dive into. So the question here for them: is HOW do we do it?

I think the shocking strange factor is the way to go. Be like skittles; taste the rainbow.