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Thursday, September 30, 2010

Skyscrapers, Powerpoints and Hispanic Marketing

I've spent the last four months interning for The San Jose Group, a multi-cultural Hispanic marketing and advertising agency. It has been an eye opening experience for so many reasons. For one, it was my first exposure to a marketing and advertising agency. Second, it wasn't just any old advertising agency I was working for...we specialized in creating campaigns and supporting fortune 500 companies in marketing to the ever growing Hispanic population.

Here is a brief synopsis of my experience:

On my first day on the job, I was going through the Junior Executive Training Program and I learned I was coined a Consulting Junior Executive. Well, the title sure sounded fancy didn't it? I EVEN GOT MY OWN NAME TAG ON MY DESK. It was fun to just be working again as it had been about two months since my college graduation. The office is situated at 233 N. Michigan Ave and provided for gorgeous views of the Chicago River and Millenium Park. With skyscrapers all around I wasn't in little ol' Harrisburg, PA anymore or DC for that matter. My first day I sat down at my desk and had absolutely nothing to do. Uh oh it wasn't another one of those internships where you spend most of your time checking your fantasy football scores then doing actual work. I quickly learned my fears were absolved as I soon had more work then I could keep up with. I assisted in the completion of projects which acquired new business and provided strategy consultation for some existing clients.

The growing Hispanic population in America is something to definitely take note of. The new Census being released next year will really open a lot of Americans eyes that the Hispanic population won't be a minority for much longer. Finding ways to market and advertise to them effectively will provide many challenges for companies that are not prepared.

I loved my experience with San Jose Group and it has further my determination to land a position with a marketing and advertising agency.

-JC

Monday, April 19, 2010

Determining Success

Welcome back,

How do we know if Social media is working? I'm sure the question comes up in board rooms across the country nearly daily. Many companies employ social media simply because they feel they need to. They see company xyz is doing it and for fear of feeling obsolete, hire Andrew the 21 year old for his knowledge of social media. Well to make sure Andrew is successful in his tactics or bets used in their transition into social media they must define metrics to determine ROI.

Figuring out whether social media is providing ROI is a tricky matter however. Therefore, it is imperative in determining the metrics early on to provide yourself with a benchmark. Aaron Uhrmacher, author of How to Measure Social Media ROI for Business, provides greater detail about how metrics can be either quantitative or qualitative. After creating the metrics the company can see later down the road the success of Andrew and his social media bets.

Until next,
JC


Sunday, April 11, 2010

The value of social media in politics

Whats up everyone?? I hope your enjoying spring and the great weather.

While last year's November poll results were monumental in numerous ways one of the lessons that has gone slightly unnoticed from that historic election is the advantage social media gave Obama's campaign. President Obama was involved in sixteen social media channels including myspace, Facebook, Twitter. One of the great advantages about being involved in social media is that obviously Obama can not call every eligible voter but one thing he can do is connect with them through social media. Social media was used by the President among other things to rally his base, keep his supporters connected and make known his stand on many issues. But perhaps the best way that Obama used social media was by connecting to specific ethnic groups, by joining "MiGente (Latinos), BlackPlanet (African-Americans), Glee ("gay, lesbian and everyone else") and others." To read more about Obama's use of social media read What Businesses can Learn From Obama's Social Media Strategy.

Some people are starting to learn from Obama and his use of social media in politics. Read

With social media, student school board members exercise influence. It is obvious there is a ton to learn from how Obama connected with normally hard to reach bases. This is enviable and in fact businesses could learn a great deal by not just marketing but in fact participating in the many different social media channels.

Until next week,
Jc

Sunday, April 4, 2010

Are page views old news?

Hope everyone is having a great weekend, and holiday if you are celebrating easter!

This week I am going to be discussing analyzing traffic towards websites and whether it should be done via page views.

Every week, I can log onto Google Analytics and see a great wealth of iJust Joshin'nformation regarding my viewers. The first analytic I always look at is how many page views I have received. Secondly how many of them are unique views? I can see in what states or even countries readers are viewing my posts and even see how long the average reader is spending on my url. However, is tracking the number of unique views I receive for my blog the best measure?

An article,The Death of the Pageview, shows me that there may be much more important analytics which I should be devoting my attention to instead of simply page views. While this is purely hypothetical as I am not a for-profit blogger. However, if I was beginning a start-up company these are some of the anlaytics as shown in the article linked which I now know I should be paying attention to:
  • click tracking
  • event tracking
  • conversion funnel analysis
  • split testing
Please click on the link above to read the article in Read Write Start, for a much more complete analysis of the topics discussed above.
Enjoy the beautiful weather!
JC

Sunday, March 28, 2010

How to Find a job

Whats up everyone? Hope everyone is enjoying march madness.

You ready to learn how to find a job?

Well unfortunately I will not be providing that information because I do not possess that knowledge, but if you know how to find one please feel free to comment with your instructions:) Due to the fact that I am by no means an expert I'll be sure to reference

However, I can tell you what I think I know about finding a job and how social networking can positively influence your search. Lee Miller author of the article Social Networking has its perks, gives the great advice that if you want to find a job "get out from behind the computer!" While this is certainly true that it is necessary to get out and network face-face the computer and social networking can provide many benefits in the job search. Facebook is a great way to stay in touch with people and especially as you have friends graduate from college can see where they have moved onto career wise. Perhaps their place of employment interests you and you can forward them your resume or simply facebook chat them to reconnect. Linkedin is also obviously a great tool as you can join groups and see jobs that are posted.

The concept of The Blog Is the New Resume, is a fascinating and interesting trend which needs to be explored. Certainly a blog is a great way to show employers how you write and file many ideas and thoughts you have. However, if the blog is the new resume I feel I should probably start taking some more time in writing these posts! With that said I'm going to start working on next weeks post.
Till next week,
Jc

Sunday, March 21, 2010

computers in the classroom

What's going on? I hope everyone had a good weekend.
When I was in first grade, I remember playing on a an old Mac computer. We would all wait to get on the computer because we all happened to be addicted to Oregon Trail. Today's school children are not playing Oregon trail on an old Mac but are instead communicating with students around the world and have a wealth of knowledge at the fingertips. However, along with the available knowledge they also are faced with a wealth of distractions an inappropriate websites. Kristen Alloway of the New Jersey Star Ledger does a great job of detailing the conflict facing educators and handling technology in the classroom in her article, Students Discovering Online Collaboration.

My personal opinion is that technology and web 2.0 gives students an excellent opportunity if used correctly to collaborate online with others around the world. This information sharing that can be done by a student in class communicating with a student in a classroom in another country can be extremely beneficial in exposing school children to another culture and learning about the world around them. When I was a child and a student we had pen pals, now children can get even better experiences through online collaboration.

Therefore, online collaboration presents many wonderful opportunities but the dangers it presents must also be accounted for. Children can access websites that are inappropriate and instead of using the computers for educational purposes many times they will use them for their non-intended purpose.
Until next week!
JC

Sunday, March 14, 2010

Virtual Collaboration

Hey everybody, hope everyone had a good spring break! It's good to be posting again.

Group work is something all of my Kogod peers know far too much about. It seems nearly every class we have in Kogod incorporates group work. Group work while at times can be fun and rewarding at many other times seems to be simply put into syllabi by teachers to take up our time.
Most groups I have been apart of incorporate a mix of face-to-face meetings and online collaboration. Many times we'll get together and split up work and than collaborate it via e-mail or google docs.

Virtual collaboration is a novel concept but I believe it should be used as a complement to in-person group work not to replace it. Nothing can substitute face-to-face meetings where group members get to know each other and can share ideas. By doing everything virtually much is lost. I believe much of the best collaboration is done at face-to-face meetings. I have a lot of trouble imagining working in a group where we never meet in person. Maybe I'm old fashioned but I believe at least meeting in person a few times is the best method and by doing everything virtually much would be lost.
Until next week!
JC

Sunday, February 28, 2010

Second life? Try working on your first one

Hey everyone out there, readers,avatars, whomever.
This week I learned about second life which to be brutally honest I find disturbing. It is a completely bizarre concept to me and while it is just an extension of video games it is a great leap from traditional gaming. I understand the appeal of World of Warcraft much more than I do of Second Life. At least in WOW there are objectives and goals which people seek to accomplish. In Second Life it seems that you are basically just living a virtual life. It is frankly a bit sad that people would be living in a virtual world and doing mundane daily tasks such as going shopping, eating as through an online game instead of the real world. This form of socializing can not be healthy for kids or anyone for that matter.

I listened to the NPR segment on "Firms Seek Elusive Real Profit in Virtual Business" and while I find Second Life extremely unattractive it does offer many attractive business opportunites. Second Life has a great deal of users and the ability to market and sell in Second Life has great potential for businesses. Therefore, Second Life is something businesses need to be cognizant of for its business possibilities. Who knows maybe in a few years instead of learning how to make an advertisement on facebook maybe students of Itec 335 will be learning how to create an advertisement in Second Life.

While the business opportunities are plentiful the pure existence of Second Life I find scary. It frightens me that someone would rather spend their time living in this life as opposed to their real one.

Till next time,
JC

Sunday, February 21, 2010

InterNetworking

I hope everyone had a great weekend. Im getting ready to enjoy some olympic hockey, hoping USA can pull an upset over Canada.
Now onto this weeks topic. I was introduced to Linkedin last year in my Orginizational Behavior class. We were asked to make a Linkedin account and since than my Linkedin contacts have grown numerously. Also, I have become very familiar with it and begun to learn many of its benefits.
My main interaction with Linkedin comes in the form of an e-mail about once a week from a classmate or colleague requesting as an invitation to connect on linkedin.
While my interaction with Linkedin is limited I do find it has many positive assets. One of the main reasons I use Linkedin is when I am pursuing a job. Therefore, if I make a contact through an internship or another form I can formalize that relationship by following up with a Linkedin invitation. Thus, it keeps me in that persons mind and hopefully will have future benefits.

Linkedin is also a great way to do research. Before interviews, I will take the name of the interviewee and look him up on linkedin. This way I get some background knowledge about the interviewee and can many times view his or her work experience. Having this knowledge can be very beneficial in a job interview as it gives the person being interviewed some knowledge about potential talking points or things they could relate to their interviewer with.

Many of the benefits which I detailed about Linkedin are expanded upon by Guy Kawasaki in his blog post about Ten Ways to Use Linkedin. Therefore, while Linkedin may look like just another social networking site to outside observers once involved many of its benefits are uncovered.
Hope everyone has a good week,
JC

Sunday, February 14, 2010

Lack of concentration

Whats up everyone? Hope everyone is enjoying their valentine's day.
-Where has our concentration gone as young people? In the article "Students' new best friend:'MoSoSo," author Michael Bugeja states, "With a society that is increasingly amusing and distracting itself to death, what's at stake is nothing less than the collective conscience."
The mobile phone unfortunately is one of the main culprits. I believe many people don't realize the negative effects many of the smart phones can have. Constantly being glued to your blackberry or iphone, checking your gmail and editing facebook statuses is not good people!! It is dangerous, and it kills our ability to focus. You don't need to immediately respond to emails or friend requests. Take sometime to focus on the real world in front of you not your blackberry screen.
There is nothing that frustrates or irritates me more than when I am having a conversation with someone and they take out their blackberry and hold it up in front of my face. To me its the equivalent of holding a newspaper in my face. Focus on the world around you not the digital one in your pocket.

While I may knock the smartphones I have to say there is a lot that is attractive about them. The ability to have gps or use the internet on the go is very desirable. Marc Cieslak, the author of the BBC article, "Rise and rise of the GPS mobile" makes me further envious of gps enabled phones.
Smartphones clearly have outstanding benefits as many of my peers can attest. However, the fear of losing focus on what is going on around me outweights those potential benefits. Recent generations need to be conscious of our growing lack of conciousness.
See ya next week,
JC

Sunday, February 7, 2010

Corporate blogs=boring blogs

Generally, there is nothing I find less interesting than a corporate blog. I find them to be contrived, boring and simply speaking the company line. While I read very few blogs, what I do value in a blog is originality and creativity. I hope the blogger is going to be writing about a subject of particular interest to me and bring something that can't be found in other online or print publications. Most of what I seek I generally believe I can not find in a corporate blog.
In his article 10 Harsh Truths About Corporate Blogging Paul Boag makes many suggestions about corporate blogs that he finds to be well done. When browsing some of his selections instead of reversing my opinion about corporate blogs he simply reinforced them. I find them to be dry and lacking any interesting content. Boag says the Nokia Conversation Blog "does a great job of engaging users in conversations, asking for their opinions and starting discussions that generate many comments and gather many opinions" While that may be true, the discussions and questions being posed I have no interest in and have a tough time believing anyone besides electronic-freaks would care to comment either. Who really has the time or desire to sit around and comment on "what is the most feature in a web browsing device?" Maybe I just don't know the right people, but I can't think of anyone who would join that discussion board.
Those are my thoughts for the week. The verdict even if it is done "right" I still find corporate blogs to be dry and boring.

Sunday, January 31, 2010

Sticking up for the internet

I couldn't think of anything that would anger Nobel Prize winner Doris Lessing more than responding to her inaccurate and arcane comments via blog form. So here I am! Since the invention of the internet the world as we know has been changed. Rather than complaining about these changes it is necessary to embrace the internets infinite power.

I don't think anyone would argue the power of the internet instead I believe many of the "elitists" would however argue that it is dumbing us (society) down. Does saying lol, omg and all those other stupid acronomys when I'm in my e-world affect me in the real world. Absolutely not, I like many of my peers understand how to separate how we speak on the internet with our friends to how we communicate in the professional world and an educational setting. I believe Doris Lessings comments simply reflect the thoughts of an elderly woman who never got the chance to experience and see the value of the internet. That is to be expected. Lessing, like my grandparents simply find the internet overwhelming and instead unfortunately would not be able to appreciatae its value. Perhaps, if she was born forty years later she would be walking around this winter with an iphone tweeting her views on Obamas State of the Union.

Jimmy Wales on the otherhand makes many more valid points than Lessing did in her speech. I agree with his point of view that the authority of writers can be under question with the ever expanding number of sources for internet literature. However, to Wales satisfaction I always take into account the author and the publication from which I am gathering my knowledge. I am certainly going to put a lot of credibility and authority with the Wall Street Journal Online. However, when reading a blog I will take it for what it is worth and not put great stock into any of the facts. That is not to say that bloggers like myself don't have credibility but instead I believe our creditibility lies in our opinions certainly not our facts or reports.

Sunday, January 24, 2010

Crowd Surfing for Crowd Sourcing

Welcome back, I hope everyone enjoyed their weekend. This week, I wanna talk a little bit about a term I had never heard before, crowdsourcing. The very basic definition of Crowdsourcing is to take tasks which are usually solved by an individual to pose them to a group of people or community through an "open call" to a large group of people (a crowd) asking for contributions (Wikipedia). Crowdsourcing in theory is a bit idealistic. To think that a problem can be posed to a group of people and then they will offer a free solution sounds in theory great but in reality a bit unrealistic. It was fascinating to see/read some of the varying views on crowdsourcing and than draw my own conclusions. Two of the varying and different perspectives I got to see were from the youtube video by Jeff Howe and the Forbes.com article by Dan Woods.

Call me a skeptic but I tend to side closer with Woods and doubt that any truly innovative work would be completed through crowdsourcing. Most things including wikipedia and the Netflix contest were fueled originally by individual contributions and than later put together and considered crowdsourcing. I tend to believe that all of the best innovations are created by extremely talented individuals as opposed to a group or collection of a less talented community. Albeit that community can improve on that product or help make it possible.

Thanks for reading
Josh

Sunday, January 17, 2010

Reality Mining and Facebook

Welcome back this week I'm just joshin' about the constantly evolving Facebook and reality mining. To start off, it seems everyday Facebook is making changes. The changes are immediately met with outrage by Facebook's dedicated users. However, after about a week and a few hundered groups protesting later everyone quickly adapts and forgets what they were angry about in the first place. Zuckerberg elaborates on future changes Facebook plans which actually seem pretty exciting, especially the social graph. It will continue to allow users to see what is going on around them and the celebrities and companies having their own profiles will be a strong addition.

I also read the article "Real-World Social Networks vs. Facebook Friends." I knew very little about the power of reality mining however, am not too surprised to find out the manager is not the one to usually know the most information. The power of reality mining is great as the author points out understanding social trends will help better predict the spread of disease. However, reality mining is very scary as well because I know I certainly wouldn't want my manager to always know where I am. Hopefully, a boundary will be established which will allow for reality mining to use its power for good while at the same time still protecting individual privacy.

Thanks for reading,
Josh

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

My first Rant

Welcome to my blog! This is my first post, I am a second semester senior at American University in the Kogod School of Business. I am writing this blog for my Itec social networking class.
“On my honor, all posts on this blog are my own”
Later