Final Thoughts

As I sit here and write my final blog I must admit I'm both relieved and bummed about it, more so relieved let's be real. I've come so accustomed to having to blog every week that it went from homework to actually kind of fun. I got a kick out of reading other people's blogs as well. Seeing what's going on in their lives, reading everyone's different writing styles, and their opinions on different things, ranging from our class reading to what's going on in social media, was always my favorite part.

Those words, "my favorite part" I thought I would never say when it came to the blogs. Initially I thought it would be a hassle, 3 blogs every week for 13-14 weeks sounded unbearable. Now I'm considering either keeping this blog or making a new one, I mean why not?

I even recently went back and looked at my first blog post, expressing my goals for the semester and how I planned to make my ideal goals a reality. I know for a fact that I didn't reach all of my goals, however after I came to my senses halfway through the semester I know that I came damn close.

I'm proud of myself and everything that I've accomplished this semester. I gave my all and nothing less, even sometimes my grades or attitude doesn't show it. So in the case that I do not continue to blog, I leave you with this final post, kind of bringing everything full circle.

Until next time, friends.... Hopefully.

Laziness At Its Best

Have you ever gone the extra mile to do something what you consider to be the, "easy way"? Lord knows I have, and I've recently took notice of that when I found myself using Snap Chat to take pictures. These pictures aren't normal Snap Chat pictures, meaning they're never sent, I usually just save it and keep it moving. I consider this to be easier than using the two other camera apps that I already have on my phone for one reason, and that's the shortcut tool. Since my front camera doesn't work I need to turn my phone around to take a picture of myself, as if I'm living in 2007 or something. So for me I find it to be a lot easier than turning the camera around and guess where the button is.

Another way my laziness helps me create flawed logic is by using Twitter for my news source. For example, when I saw someone on Facebook comment about Paula Walker's death I didn't believe it until I went on Twitter and saw that it was trending. Even then I didn't fully believe it until I went to Wikipedia and Google for the definite answer.

Lastly, back when I had an iPhone the front camera on that phone didn't work either, so whenever I face timed with my sister I would literally pull up Photo Booth on my laptop and turn my phone around so that she'd be able to see me and I'd be able to see her. I even questioned myself after doing that foe the first time, but after the second time it made so much sense.

I know I cant be the only one, so does anyone else have any outrageous lazy techniques?

A Non-Profit Can't Run Without Profit!

Recently I was elected as VP of Alumni Relations in Sigep, hold the applause, and since taking the position I was thinking of ways we could reach out to older alumni.I took a break of thinking and read my final readings of Measure What Matters, and Chapter 13 caught my attention. Paine talked about how to measure for nonprofits, and the importance of keeping in touch with your community. Since the organization is nonprofit it runs mostly on goodwill and volunteerism, so not keeping in touch will with your constituencies you will shoot yourself in the foot.

This, in my opinion, is happening with Sigep and our alumni. We keep in touch with alumni who've graduated with the last five years, but what about the guys before them? The only time we see them is at Homecoming and most of them just complain about how things are and how things look and, "Back when I was here, blah blah blah." When speaking with most of them I can tell that it all comes from not being kept informed of what's going on. A lot of the men are in a position to donate to the house so we can fix the things that need to be fixed, but that can't be done if they're left in the dark.

Paine tells us the ways we have to communicate with our community, such as social media, can also shoot us in the foot. Using low to no cost tools to measure your data can be difficult to keep track of who is in your community, which can damage your accountability and metrics. In this day and age nonprofits have to almost operate as profits to get donations. But again not knowing who your target audience is will damage your accountability.

Since I see this similarity now I want to take my position and work with the rest of EC, executive council, and work on our communication and relationship with our alumni. So in another words I'm going for position of the year this year.

Phinally!

After a four hour drive to Greensburg, PA with Chem, hanging out for and hour and a half at his place, and an eight hour Greyhound bus ride, that was of course off schedule, I can finally say that I made it back home! After that trip I feel that it's safe to say that I went to hell and back to get home, especially since I had to go through Pittsburgh. Now as much as I would love to talk about my hatred for Pittsburgh, that is a discussion for another day.

Let me tell you just how awful that trip was. The guy in front of me couldn't resist but to recline his chair all the way back, and not only did he ignore my brutal but kind request, he also would rock back and forth. The nerve of some people! There was also a woman who would frequently walk to the front of the bus just to ask the bus driver unneccesary questions. She would even hold conversations with other passengers and stand in the middle of the aisle. However, I must thank this woman, because when she was two people away from getting to me I pretended to be asleep, therefore causing me to fall asleep.

Now, I must enjoy this time home because if things fall into place I may not becoming back to the City of Brotherly Love for awhile, at least until 2014. So I must enjoy my time spent with all of my family and friends. I have to take advantage of forcing my mom to take me to my cheesesteak place, Jim's, which by the way delivers to out of state. Sadly the order has to be a minimum of $32, but if you and a group of people would want to digest a piece of heaven, let me know! I have to enjoy and take advantage of every opportunity that comes my way.

Hope you guys all do the same. Have a good break people!

Reputation

The other day when talking to Chem we were bouncing around ideas of how Sigep could expand our name in not only the ONU community but in the Ada community as well. By expanding our name, by helping others and doing positive things in the community, we are building our reputation in a positive way. And by building our reputation we in our community we are forming strong relationships with our community as well. After the conversation I couldn't help but notice the striking similarity to this weeks reading of Measure What Matters.

This week Paine talked about how important it is to build a solid and positive reputation with your public. The worst your reputation is the more likely you are to catch negativity, such as people knocking at your door wanting to shut you down or sue you. She also made a connection to Grunig and Dozier, from the democratic party, who made a statement stressing reputation:

"Communication with publics' before decisions are made is most effective in resolving issues and crises because it helps managers to make decisions that are less likely to produce consequences that publics make into issues and crises. If public relations staff does not communicate with its publics until an issue or crisis occurs,the chance of resolving the conflict is slim."

Having a good reputation and strong relationships gives a good back bone for if a crisis occurs. Your community becomes your support system, helping you in the event of a crisis. Similar to the SeaWorld situation. Remember,  it can take years to build a solid reputation but it can only seconds to destroy it.

Do the Creep

Okay, so has anyone else realized how creepy and annoying Facebook is getting? It's starting to remind me of that one family member, usually uncles, that no one is really fond of and everone has to keep an on at family togethers. Or maybe that's just my family, so try to put yourself in my shoes.

At first you could see who was online by seeing the green dot on your messenger list. Then came the ability to see how long ago they were online, but now things are out of hand. The other day when I was on the site on my laptop I could who was online and via what medium, mobile or web. So now the, "sorry I can only use Facebook on my computer" is no longer an option, but again that could be just me.

It also bothers me that people can now see that I saw their posts or message and also when. Again, another excuse is not out of the window further obligating me to respond to people I may not want to talk to to begin with at a faster pace, thanks for that Zuckerberg.

I'm now waiting on the day when people will not only see how many people view their page, but can also see who has and how many times each individual has done so. Soon after that you may start to see who viewed your posts and pictures,

whether the liked or commented on it or not.

I dont know how you guys feel, but Facebook just needs to calm down. Or go back to the way it used to be. Whichever is easier.

Don't Bite the Hand That Feeds You

One thing that stuck out to me in this week's reading of Measuring What Matters Paine talked about keeping a good relationship with your local community. As Paine said "Communities with which you have good relationships can defend you in crisis." With that she used the example of when the killer whale killed the trainer the at SeaWorld, PETA attempted a "Free the Whales" campaign on FaceBook against SeaWorld. However, thankfully for SeaWorld they established a solid relationship with their customers and their Facebook community so the campaign wasn't successful.

This reminded me of many personal situations. One specifically was my when I got in my first school fight in fourth grade. I didn't do too bad in the fight, and by that I mean I won by a land slide, and was had to meet with the Vice Principle with the other kid the next day. Before the meeting, a couple of people were pretty "anti-Darnell" wanting me to get the suspension, even though the fight wasn't my fault. But, just like in PR, in real life you will  hit crisis and the unexpected. However, I had a SeaWorld moment of my own, and thanks to my good reputation with the teachers and the majority of my peers I walked away clean and the other kid got the suspension.

If you do what your job correctly such as respond to your customers and community in real-time, keep them up to date, and deal with crisis in a swift and professional fashion you'll build a good relationship and reputation with them. That's how they can help you in crisis, if one person has an issue with you and tries to bring negative PR to your company, your community can come to your aid and it'll backfire on the one rebel. I think that is one of the most important things to take from this chapter.

Mobile Blogging

Last week, and once before if I am not mistaken,  I mentioned that I wrote my blogs on my Galaxy phone out of excitement in getting my Galaxy back. Well, I would like to point out just how convenient it is. It's so convenient that I'm writing this blog on my phone as well. I can be anywhere and can just pull out my phone and begin to blog. Before I got the Blogger app on my phone I would depend on my god awful memory to remember what I wanted to blog about. Now I blog as soon as I think about it, because blogger is now in my pocket.

I think part of the reason I find this so amazing is because I know journalists and professional bloggers use their mobile devices to do their jobs. Reporters even use their iPhones to do news stories now. With the availability of iMovie and other video editing apps, camera lenses you can attach to the iPhone camera and special iPhone/iPod tripods make it all possible.

In the Broadcasting/Multimedia Journalism department we've begun doing that for our practicum class. If there's a small news story we want to do we can use an iPod touch to film it and it'll be little difference from if we used an actual camera.

Social media and technology is in fact a fast paced and ever changing, and now I get it. If you're not a believer take a look at how things were last year and how they are now and you just might be surprised.

Black Jack

So it's finally happened, I finally turned 21. There's one thing that I noticed about turning 21, when people ask "How does it feel?" there's an actual feeling. Has anyone else been asked that question? The last 20 birthdays I hated that question because I always thought "What do you mean? I feel the same as I felt yesterday." But this year I felt different when I became a year older. I felt the satisfaction of being blessed to see the day that I turn 21, especially without getting an underage, and a headache that almost leaves you begging for death.

But anyway, I know if it weren't for my friends here my day of birth it wouldn't have been as great as it was. Two people specifically made it happen, Chem and Taylor. The two of them stayed by my side the entire night and put up with me being a diva and out of control and they showed no shame that they were associated with me. To them and everyone else who wished me happy birthday and celebrated with me I thank from the bottom of my heart.

Now it's officially safe to say that the streets of Ada are no longer safe with a 21 year old Darnell Sample walking around. So watch out y'all,  because this is just the quite before the storm.

Creeping To the Max

In this weeks reading of  Paine's Measure What Matters she spoke on measuring the things that you can't control. When I first started to read it I paused and thought about when my grandfather use to measure my height when I was a child. I like to think that that's remotely similar, but you can be the judge of that.

Paine told that the uncontrollable can be measured in five levels:

1. Lurking
2. Casual
3. Active
4. Committed 
5. Loyalists

As creepy as the word lurking is, lurking would actually be the equivalence to liking something on Facebook or retweeting a tweet and never really going back to give it a second look. So it's needless to say that there isn't much loyalty involved there.

The definition of casual engagement relates a little bit to the term itself, this is where one would download a video from Vimeo, Daily Motion, or most likely YouTube or following someone on Twitter or Instagram. It's important to keep in mind and measure the ratio of new and repeat visitors since this is typically where the relationship ends.

If you're like me and keep up with iFunny on the daily basis, or Twitter or another social media outlet, then you are performing active engagement. This is where you actually participating and using the tool. If I'm on iFunny and I see a picture that I find just down right hilarious then I'll download it, and share with my friends, either through social media or face to face. 

One reason why Facebook took MySpace off of the map is because the people who registered and made an account with Facebook were more satisifed with what Facebook had to offer. This is what's called committed engagement.Through active engagement you obtain loyalists who not only are committed to you by favoring what you have and what you have to offer, but also being active on your sight and coming on the daily basis. So, again, it would be like me with iFunny. It's important to understand loyalty because it's cruciacl to know what people think about your site, organization, and/or product.

These five levels of engagement, and engagement in general, is important to measure because it helps to build relationships, protect and promote your brand which can help make your products, orginazations, site, and/or all around reputation.

There's No Place Like Home

For those of you who didn't know I am from Philadelphia, West Philadelphia to be exact, born and raised, but the playground is not where I spent most of my days. I preferred to stay on the front step and let people flock to me. Anyway, if there is one thing I'm looking forward to more than my 21st birthday, which is November 13th so mark your calendars, is finally going back to Philly for the first time since the semester has started.

The closet I came to being in Philly is when Chem and I woke up one Saturday morning and decided to go to Pittsburgh just for the hell of it. But even then I was still at least six hours away. On a side note, it really bothers me that how far away Pittsburgh and Philly are. I know they're on opposite ends of the state, but six hours though? God could have did us a favor and made Pennsylvania just a tad bit smaller and give the rest of the state to Ohio, because lord knows Ohio needs it.

But back to business, every year when November hits my heart gets filled with more and more anxiety and excitement to finally return to the City of Brotherly Love. I can't wait to see my little wiener dog too, Mokito. He is the only animal in this world that I love equally as much as Meadowlark Lemon, every other animal falls short, way short, not even a measurement short.

Then, in respect to tradition, I'm heading straight to my best and oldest friend in the world house, Rick. Rick and I go all the way back to fourth grade and every time I come home he is the first friend I see when I get back and the last one I see before I leave. I love all of my friends equally, but Rick is the definition of a bro. Once we link back up we'll be like Rush Hour once again. Then I can go see Shanice, also my best friend and who I view as a sister, Deja, the Camilles', Onji, and the rest of my friends and family

Speaking of family, the biggest reason why I come home, to see my mommy, dad, and sister. Those three goofballs are the reasons why I work so hard and do what I do. Primarily my sister, not to say that I love her more than my parents because I love all three of them equally, I'm just closest with her and have the strongest connection. No matter how much she gets on my nerves, argues with me, and makes me want to strangle her, I can't wait to see that guber.

One thing I could never do is call Ada my home. I take the phrase, "Home is where your heart is," very seriously and as much as I love Ada and memories and friends I've made here, it'll never have my heart. Philadelphia has my heart and even though these next few weeks will be slow, it'll still be completely worth it once I finally make it home.

It's Finally Happened

As some of you may remember from last week, I wrote a post about my Galaxy and iPhone and how I wanted to go back to my Galaxy so bad. Well, just a few short days later while doing laundry and rocking out to some music, my iPhone falls out of my pocket, still attached to my headphones though thankfully. However, I made the fatal mistake of trying to be cool and pick up the phone by the headphones wire. Just a few inches off of the ground, the headphone input jack disconnects from the phone causing it to fall face first on the concrete floor of my basement's laundry room and completely shatter the screen.

Initially I was happy because I could finally go back to using my Galaxy and have no worries about my phone not doing what I want it to do. I would get all of my notifications as fast as I could blink, including the notification that I look forward to everyday, iFunny. By the way, if you're a friend of mine who doesn't look at iFunny on a regular basis, I don't what you're doing with yourself and our friendship is now in question. There was so much joy running through me that I completely forgot that I pulled an all nighter that night and felt like I slept for days. That was until it hit me that there were things about the iPhone that I'll actually miss.

For one, this might sound a little weird, but the thing that I'll miss the most is the "Places I've Pooped" app. This app dropped a pin where ever I was showing that was where I used the the bathroom. I could share it with my friends, tweet it, Facebook it, the whole nine yards. I never shared the app, but if we talk everyday then you know all about it.

Other things I'll miss is face timing with my sister. Before coming to college my sister and I were inseparable and never spent more than a week apart from one another, and even though it's been three years we still haven't adjusted to the change. Now even though my front camera didn't work I could still see her so it worked out for me anyway. I'll also miss the use of emojis and the flash alert I got when I received notifications. Other than that, there's nothing else that I'll miss about the thing. I can now go back to using my social media outlets the way I loved to do it before. And even to further show my happiness, I wrote this post on the Blogger app on my Galaxy.

Good day, people.

Would You Happen To Have the Time?

In this weeks reading of Measure What Matters, Paine spoke on perfect measures. There are seven steps one can take called, "the seven steps to perfect measure. Those seven steps are:

1. Define your goals and objectives
2. Define your environment
3. Define your investment
4. Determine your benchmark
5. Define your key performance indicators
6. Select the right measurement tools/vendors and collect data
7. Turn data into action

After completing the steps it's important to present your results to your supervisor, professionally and successfully. To be successful at this, you will need to use every persuasive bone you have in your body, doing so will give you more exposure to more major projects and tasks.Visuals, such as graphs and charts, are important when presenting results, and Paine also gave advice on a some key actions when presenting your results to your boss:

• Ask for money 
• Get commitment 
• Manage time 
• Buy influence
• Get outside help
• Just say no

Of those six key actions time management stuck out to me the most. Not just because it's the end of the semester and there seems to be not enough time in the day, but because literally everyone struggles with it. It's a key that is often overlooked when it shouldn't be. You can manage your time by making a deadline for your tasks, goals within that deadline, and making time efficient goals within those goals. Basically, time makes or breaks the entire operation, so if you don't have time you don't have anything.

I Miss My Galaxy

For all of my friends who may be reading this, I have a confession to make, I did not always have an iPhone. My dad sent me my iPhone a couple weeks ago, telling me that it's from my uncle who no longer wanted his iPhone 4. The Galaxy Express that I had before the iPhone was fairly new, but since my dad insisted on me being on "team iPhone" I threw in the towel and decided to use it anyway.

Mind you, I had an iPhone before, back in high school, but switched to Android shortly after college started for me. Android phone's can act a little slow at times, but everything on my Galaxy was right there, available to me whenever I needed it. It had shortcuts for me from my lock screen, two music players, ton of memory, and everything looked so clear, smooth, and sharp. And don't get me started on the amazing battery life. That phone was amazing in every way shape and form and I am completely head over heels for it.

Now this iPhone, on the other hand, I'm not too fond of. At first I thought I had to readjust to the iPhone life, using emjois, having a pass code, and only using one iTunes for music. But now I'm beginning to think that I am (as the kids today say) not about that iPhone life, though. For the most part it's how my social media is used on the two phones.

On my Galaxy it was simple to use Twitter, if I wanted to switch from my timeline to my interactions I could merely swipe the screen. On the iPhone I have to press the tab buttons at the bottom, which could make me end pressing a random tweet or if I slide it I could accidentally retweet/favorite someones tweet. Facebook is also the slowest thing in the world on my iPhone. When it even opens up, it responds to my every move one second late. Every. Single. Time. My Galaxy at least had the courtesy to force close itself if it was taking too long to open up and when it opened again it would be at it's top speed.

A lot of people with iPhones tell me I'll get use to again, and that it's so much more reliable. Oh yes, it's reliable but, it just manages to tell me what exactly I don't need to know. It's great that it tells me that Bejeweled and Temple Run wants me to play again or that the App Store has updated an app. However, my emails, snap chats, tweets, and (sometimes) texts usually don't come through until it's too late. iFunny doesn't even notify when there is a new feature out, I just have to guess. The Galaxy, though (yes, you guessed it) did all of that.

At this point, I just decided that I'm just going to keep my precious Galaxy as safe as possible and just use this iPhone until it breaks. Let's be real, it's me we're talking about, it's bound to happen.

Up Til Dawn

This past Friday, a couple of brothers and myself participated in the Up Til Dawn event at Kinghorn. At the event we stayed up from midnight until 6:00 am, the approximate time the sun would start to rise, all for awareness of acute lymphoblastic leukemia. While there we did different activities to help us stay awake through out the night.

The first event was zumba, which I was uber (yes, I said uber) excited about because I've always wanted to go to Zeta Zumba during Pink Week, but always had to work. It turned out to be pretty fun, and just like a live version of dancing games from Wii or Kinnect. I also came to the conclusion that women are the target audience for zumba due to the excessive sexy hip movements

Second we played a variety of "Minute to Win it" games in teams, which basically ended up being Sigeps versus Zetas since people started inching away after Zumba. After dominating those games, cosmic bowling (played with 2-liter soda bottles filled with water and glow sticks), cosmic four square, basketball, and an awesome fashion show we watched a presentation that summed up why we were there.

The presentation showed us that the event and all of its proceeds were for the St. Jude Children's Hospital, we learned what the hospital did for children through their research and advocacy. We raised money by receiving pledges and donations from people, which I believed to be another motivation to stay awake. My group, I believe, raised about $50 and even though that isn't much it's more than nothing. 

As my brother Keith frequently said through out the night, "Guys, this is such a good thing we're doing here." and I completely agree. I was going to be up all night anyway, doing God knows what, so why not be up for a good cause? Like I said, that $50 may not be much, but if it could save just one child's life then I did something right.

The Steps To Success

For this weeks reading I read the first two chapters of the book Measure What Matters by Katie Delahaye Paine. In the second chapter of the book Paine said, "Before you can achieve success, you have to decide how you’ll know when you get there." When it comes to measuring your success you need measurable objectives so, with that being said, she gave us a step-by-step procedure for choosing and reaching a consensus on measurable objectives:

1. Understand your background                                                                                                              -This ranges from listing out your goals to knowing who your competitors are. 
2. Assemble your team                                                                                                                            -Every single person from every single position is on board.
3. Ask them what they mean when they say, "Damn, we just got our butts kicked"                                    -This shows how they deal with failure. You want to record their responses.
4. Ask them what they mean when they say, "Congratulations, you really kicked butt last week."              -This shows how they deal with success. Record this as well.
5. Ask everyone what their objectives are                                                                                               -Record their answers to this also and keep asking them "Why does that matter?" and recording those answers too until they have a true, measurable objective that relates to the bottom line.
6. Once responses are up, have people vote on the highest priority. 

Those steps lead you to success, if done correctly. Starting with the first step and understanding your background, if you list out your goals, your competition, to demographic and stakeholders it'll make everything easier when you assemble your team. Having the right people on your team makes all the difference as well, that's why it's important to ask them what it means to them to get their "butts kicked" or to "kick butt" and to ask them their goals. I like to believe that's why it's written down, because that way you always have your goal in sight. Voting on the highest priority will make tasks easier by knowing how important it is and how fast it needs to completed. 

This is kind of how Julie and I did our Storify project, we had our goal, talked things out, such as: ideas, weaknesses, and definitely the competition. So we got together and did the best we could on the assignment. We thought of the negative outcomes and all of the positives but, we had our objective and stuck to it because we had an understanding for why it mattered. That's pretty clutch process to success.

My First Storify

After my first live tweeting experience I made a Storify of it! Check it Out!


Also, while I was tweeting I went to ONU's Twitter page to see what they were doing to promote not only Balloon Glow but also the entire Homecoming weekend. On Twitter there were only three tweets concerning Homecoming, including a retweet from a student. Facebook on the other hand had many posts, and pictures of the entire weekend. If figured that most of the alumni that Northern was targeting is on Facebook so they went out of their way on this medium.

Neglecting to use Twitter was a big no-no. Every book that we've read in class says not to do that. You want to expand your brand to all mediums and stay active in the conversation. The retweet they had of the student should've been one of MANY retweets. On my timeline I saw numerous Homecoming tweets ranging from being stressed and just wanting to have fun all the way to their excitement to see all of the alumni wo were returning. However, they did do the right thing by relying on Facebook, since 1 in every 9 people have a Facebook so building that community was probably a lot more likely than Twitter. But at the same time the average age of a Twitter user is 35 years old, which is probably the average age of our almuni.

Twitter is a great way to communicate with journalists, and everyone in my class live tweeting was technically a journalist, not professional but a journalist to say the least. It's the best way to communicate with them because it's talking to them in real time. And with the use of the hash tag, #ONUHC13, it made it easy to find out information about Homecoming and what was going on. Hopefully, ONU starts to use Twitter soon because the best time to get into real time is NOW.

Livin' On a Prayer

Oh we're halfway there, half way through the semester that is, and I am definitely living on a prayer. At the halfway mark, I started thinking about my initial goal for myself at the beginning of the semester and I am both disappointed and proud of myself at the same dang time.

I'm disappointed in myself for obvious reasons, I slacked off a bit (and by a bit I mean a lot). I'm not where I imagined myself being at the beginning of the semester and I don't like it. As much as I want to blame this on the Government shutdown, unfortunately I can't and can only blame myself. However, I see where I went wrong with my goal and here are somethings that I'm planning on doing about it:

• No more negotiating: Telling myself, "If I finish "this" I can go have fun and come back to start "that" later". NO. No more! Because later never comes until a day or two before everything is due. 
• Use my planner: Just because I don't use my book bag anymore doesn't mean I have to stop using my planner too. For this PLAN to work I need to use my PLANNER. (See what I did there)
• Take notes: This one isn't a big issue but I eventually get bored, space out, look at the clock, get mad at the time, then space out some more. That's kind of become a whole thing now and it needs to stop. ASAP.

I could go on forever but I'd eventually probably start to repeat myself. But, I did say that I was proud of myself because I'm not out yet, I'm still in the ball game. Most people who have the realization that they're screwing up when it's too late. The majority people don't realize it until they've already flunked out, and some of those people don't even notice it then. Me, I'm noticing it now therefore, I'm making the change right now. I mean it, I refuse to lose, I'm in to win.... That's all I have.

Lighting Up Awareness

This year at ONU's Homecoming my fraternity, Sigma Phi Epsilon, held our seventh annual Balloon Glow. This year was my third year being apart of the fraternity's biggest philanthropy event of the year but, this year was the first time I ever had to live tweet it. Since this was for the latest assignment in my Social Media class I would've chose any event during Homecoming weekend but, since I was going to be at Balloon Glow anyway (and probably tweeting) I figured I might as well choose this one.

I like to think that I did a pretty good job live tweeting for the first time, but I wouldn't be telling the honest to God truth if I say I didn't find it a little difficult. The obvious things got in the way, being in charge of the music and the difficulties that came with it (i.e. the balloon pilots wanting to hear a song with "a beat"), seeing people I know and being completely distracted, and most of all remembering to press "Tweet". I often do this with text messages, however with so many distractions it was hard to remember to tweet about something and to finish it.

The things that went well, I think, were my pictures (not to toot my own horn but, yeah they're pretty good) and, thanks to Julie, I didn't forget the hash tag "ONUHC13". That was actually my biggest concern since I never use a hash tag, unless I'm bored or mocking sorority girls with Gibby, so I constantly reminded myself "use the hash tag" or "I don't care how cold it is, use that hash tag before you put your phone and hands away". And best of all I got a retweet too!


Overall, the event was a blast, the hot cider was to die for, and this years t-shirt is hands down my favorite of them all. Now I can officially check live tweeting Balloon Glow off of my bucket list.

More about ONU and this event can be seen on my Storify account! Username dsample13

Venting

One thing I love about my brothers is how open we can be with one another. Quite often my brother, Chem, and I hang out, do random shannigans, and just talk. Yesterday I turned to Chem and said to him, "You know, sometimes I just sit and think to myself, 'Man, I am really dumb'". Naturally Chem burst out into laughter for he was not expecting me to say that but, I was actually quite serious. At the end of each day, I think about all of the things that I do and say and think about just how ignorant I am.

Don't believe me? For example, one day Aggie says to us, "I'll need to let you go early because I have a meeting with the president." Let's stop right there, obviously it's President Dibiasio she's talking about but, for some reason in my head there was some confusion. Without thinking, I ask "Wait, Obama or Bibiasio?" Really, Darnell? Really? Who really thinks of that? Why in the world would that make sense at all? It's Ada, Obama probably doesn't even know Ada is in America let alone Ohio.

Here's another example, a few weeks ago, Chem and I are hanging out again, this time on our front porch, where I notice a ladybug. Once again, without thinking, I asked Chem, "Is there a such thing as a man bug?" There aren't enough words to describe the look on Chem's face of how dumbfounded he was by that question. I'm surprised he didn't yell at me for rant that I went on for 10 minutes on how sexest that was.

Those two examples are just the tip of the iceberg. Other not too bright things that range from forgetting to go to class (You know those situations where you just know there's something you had to do but forgot? Yeah it was one of those moments) to asking different people if Mother Goose was real before finally turning to the internet. Now when I think about the things that I do I also ask, "Am I really just not that smart or is this all still a cultural difference. 

Back in Philly, for the most part, everyone thinks like me. When I told a couple of my friends back at home the president story it all made sense to them but, it didn't make much sense to them. I've had friends in high school also forget to go to class and even friends in college, even though that one is rare. However, even though Phily is a big a city we all are pretty close minded individuals. I didn't know other places in the world, besides Philadelphia and Africa, exsisted until I was 5 and went to Delaware for the first time. We're so narrow minded that we view Philly as a state by referring to the tri-state area, Pennsylvania , New Jersey, and Delaware, as the "Philly Tri-state area", replacing Pennsylvania in that list. 

I know I can't blame Philly for my ignorance for ultimately it all falls on me but, I still like to think that it plays some type of role. In honestly I just wanted to vent and get that off my chest. 

Burned Bridges

Recently on Twitter there was a popular twitter account that went by the name "Stuff on a Rabbit" and I immediately started to lose friends and unfollow people. It wasn't because this page some how hacked my account but, because people thought it would be funny to retweet me pictures from this account. Most people would love or find some sort of amusement from that but not me because I have the BIGGEST fear of rabbits. The second someone would retweet something from that page I'd delete it, then unfollow the person and rip them a new one when I see them in person.

I am often asked why an almost 21 year old man is afraid of rabbits and there are three reasons for that. The first reason is before I made my first trip to Delaware for the first time, when I was five, I had never seen a rabbit before, so you can imagine my surprise the first I layed eyes on it. The first thing I thought was "Is that a mutant squirrel?!" Needless to say, I freaked out immediately. 

My second reason is thanks to Disney Channel, the original one not the one that kids suffer through now. This was around Halloween time and this commercial comes on with, what appears to be, just a normal rabbit morphs into the creepiest demon thing I ever seen in my entire life. That set the tone for my fear for the rest of my life. The third reason, however, is still quite the mystery to me. The Easter Bunny and myself have been mortal enemies for as long as I can remember. I remember being a baby running from him in the mall, screaming my head off in fear. The reactions to this day have not changed to this day. 

Some say that my is irrational which makes sense since leporiphobia, the fear of rabbits, is the abnormal, debilitating, and often paralyzing fear of evil mutant bunny rabbits. I truly believe that rabbits were placed on this Earth by the Devil himself. Anyone who finds them cute can not be trust, they're under the spell. Even showing me a picture of a rabbit will send me into a panic attack. I refuse to go into my friend Julie's room because, her roommate has a picture with the demonic little creature. I get anxiety just thinking about it. 

Thanks to holidays like Easter bunnies are all over the place and falsely loved since the thing has nothing to do with Easter. And with social media we can't escape thanks to advertisements and Twitter pages. Everyone thinks we're all going to die from a zombie appocolypse but, no. Mark my words, it will be because of rabbits and if you think I'm crazy then you can not take refuge in my anti- rabbit home with me when the day comes.  

Never Say Never

Last year when the app Snapchat came out everyone constantly told me, "You have to download Snapchat" but I always refused. The reason why is, contrary to popular belief, I'm not much of a people person 90 percent of the time. I usually go out of my way to not talk to people, which is why I always have headphones on and take very complex routes to go to the simplest of places. So I always thought to myself, "If I don't want to talk to talk to most people, why would I want to see how many weird faces you can make?" But, it wasn't until Gibby persuaded me to download it over the summer did I slowly but surely get addicted. 

Before I downloaded Snapchat I was perfectly content with "stealing" people's phones and snapchatting from there. Now I am often caught snapchatting myself. 

My new goal in life is to make sure my two best and oldest friends in the world, Ricky and Shanice, get in my best friends section. I just need my current ones to stop snapchatting me as much. 

Pinkies up!

Last week I made a post about a handshake that I started called "sprinkles". Now that people know what sprinkles is, people want to know when it's appropriate to use sprinkles. With that being said I give the dos and donts of sprinkles.

When it comes to using sprinkles there isn't much etiquette, for the most part, it's much like anytime you would use it as if it were a high five or a fist bump. Sprinkles is primarily used for greetings and goodbyes however, here are some situations you would use sprinkles and how to use it:

While walking:

- If you're walking and someone you know is approaching you it doesn't matter if you're the top or bottom sprinkle. Verbal communication isn't necessary nor do you stop walking. 

- If you're walking and the person you see is across the street be sure the person sees you before initiating sprinkles. (There's nothing more embarrassing than a one person sprinkle)

- If you're walking and the person you see is driving, same rules apply. 

- When walking and you see someone you know sitting you're automatically top sprinkle. 

While sitting:

- If you're in class sitting down and you're friend walks, whether they sit near your or not, sprinkles is called for (long distance sprinkles is the best sprinkles). The person to initiate is the bottom sprinkle. 

- If you're sitting down and you're buddy is walking by, since you're sitting down you're bottom sprinkle. Basically the opposite of when walking. 

In a Group:

- The person who initiates sprinkles must be bottom sprinkle. Those in the group respond with the standard top sprinkle. 

- If just three people the bottom sprinkle uses both hands as initiation and the responders sprinkles back with just one hand. 

Random situations:

- If you're friend rips someone a new one, says something funny, or has a good  comeback sprinkles is necessary. Initiate with bottom sprinkles. 

- When someone says something that you completely agree with (you're picking up what they're putting down) you initiate as the top sprinkles. 

- In competitive situations it's a free for all. You can do sprinkles from the bottom, top, left, right, diagonally, a 22 degree acute angle, a 126 degree obtuse angle, close up, long distance, or you can even do a combination of handshakes and fist bumps, as long as it ends with sprinkles. 

That is the gist of the etiquette of sprinkles. Hopefully it makes sense to everyone. If not just follow my lead if you ever see me doing it. It'll come to make sense real soon. 

Expect the Unexpected

In this weeks reading of the Real Time the author spoke stressed how no matter how great your crisis team may be, no organization or company can be prepared for the unexpected. This made me think of my fraternity's annual homecoming, Balloon Glow. Year after year we prepare for the event by setting up tables at mac, selling t-shirts, and sending out flyers to local companies.We also think about back up plans for in case the unexpected happens.

To ensure we have a successful event, we work together in a swift and diligent fashion. Our philanthropy chair and his volunteers form our main team for the event who assign people certain tasks. Some of the include sitting at the Mac, to sell t-shirts and get information about the event and cause out, and sending out the flyers to local businesses with more information. This ensures that the information gets out quickly, and it also shows that we the know the facts of our cause which can set the tone of the event.

Having a philanthropy chair gives us a spokesperson for the event, or a "face" if you will. This way people know who to contact for any questions and know whose in charge. People can contact him through his e-mail or cell number that is provided on the flyers or on the Facebook event page. This makes things easier because, everyone is on Facebook and it makes it easier to provide updates. This way if the event is cancelled, we can let everyone know from there.

This process usually works for us but, since we can not control things such as weather or power outages, we can only hope for the best. Just like companies and their crisis teams.

Real Time Real Fast

In the reading of Real Time Marketing & PR the book's author, David Meerman Scott, expressed the importance of real time PR and responding in real time. I kind of had a feel for real time PR from the last book we read in class, Share This!, which told us that modern day PR is the same, just faster so organizations no longer have hours or days on end to respond to customers. Customers want their responses as soon as possible, so PR now uses social media as a tool to respond to customers and get feedback. Based off of the "Do's and Dont's" list, also from Share This, a real important do is to correct any mistakes in a swift and open fashion. And that is one thing this book focused on as well.

In the reading, Scott wrote about the incident that happened with United Airlines. Songwriter, Dave Carroll, was on an United Airlines flight when he noticed the baggage handlers carelessly throw his guitar case which resulted in his Taylor guitar breaking. Nearly a year went by and after all of the hassle and back and forth nonsense, Carroll still received no proper compensation for his damages. Due to the airlines blatant unconcerned interest in the matter, Carroll went on to make three songs on the issue, including the song that went viral "United Breaks Guitars". After becoming an Internet sensation, Taylor Guitars, and Calton Cases owners hopped on his bandwagon to work with him, United Airlines finally met with Carroll ten weeks after the success of "United Breaks Guitars".

That demonstrates how to not respond with your customers. The damage control for this issue had to be more than hell for their public relations department but, it all could've been avoided with responding to their issues from customers in real time. Weather it's over the phone, through email, or social media, United Airlines could've resolved the situation quickly and painlessly.

SPRINKLES

Some people like to high five, others like to fist bump, I for one like to do what I call, sprinkles. Sprinkles is a hand motion that looks a little something like this:

To reciprocate this hand motion, you merely do this:

This can be done with someone who is right next to you, across the room, or even in a group all while not even having to touch the other person. It's perfect for flu season, trust me. I started using this in my senior year of high school, after seeing the movie Do The Right Thing but, I didn't start doing it heavily until I came to ONU. The initial response I got from it was positive, everyone was willing to do it and is always more than prepared to either initiate it or to do it back.

There is no cooler feeling in the world than to be walking down the street and the car driving by has their hand out of the window giving me the sprinkles. This took off more than I thought it actually would. I see people give the sprinkles to each other when I'm not around, which makes me so proud. I feel like the Steve Jobs of handshakes, because this handshake is revolutionary. My friend Ian frequently tells me how him and his buddies now do it in Canton.

Imagine if I could successfully have all of Ada to do sprinkles, then there's no doubt that I can get all of, if not majority, of Ohio to do it too. It may be wishful thinking but, I've come this far I might as well keep trying. 

#Hashtag

One major difference between fraternities and sororities is our big-little relationships. In fraternities some of the big-little pairs are pretty close, like me and my big or me and my little, for example, however the majority of them are not close at all. Sororities, on the other hand, have the strongest big-little bonds. The moment the new members find out who their bigs' are they almost completely lose their identity, losing their first names and address each other as "Big" and "Little". Oh, and I can't forget about their G-bigs' or "G!!!!!" as I'm so use to hearing it.

Since my big, Taylor, little, Gibby, and I are close we often make fun of the sorority lango, screaming "BIG!" and "LITTLE!" every time we see each other, mainly when we're around sorority girls.Twitter makes mocking them a lot easier with hash tags and Twitter accounts like, @biglittleprob and @TweetLikeAGirl two accounts that I see on my timeline that my sorority friends constantly retweet.

Most of our mocking is actually done on Twitter. When we returned to school, back in August, I tweeted my excitement to see Gibby with this tweet:

That tweet received four favorites, one from Gibby, of course, and the other three from sorority girls. I don't know if they knew I was actually mocking them, hence the "lol", or if they genuinely felt just how much I actually I wanted to see Gibby. I mean, I did miss the guy but, I would never actually express it that way.

 Gibby rebuttaled a couple of weeks later when we hung out one night with this tweet:

He received a little bit of buzz from that tweet as well but, the question still lies do they really think that's how we communicate with each other or do they know we were just, blatantly, mocking them? The world may never know...

Last Part of Share This!

This past summer I worked in a pizza shop as a line cook, and it was the worst the job I ever had in my entire life. It was always hot, the hours were ridiculous, and, to top it off, the boss was a real pain. He was short tempered, close minded, and as stubborn as they come. Everything that was done there was either done, backwards and the most difficult way possible or some way that was never heard of. And on top of that his prizes were outragous, $2.25 for a slice of pizza? Seriously?

He eventually hired an older Italian man, who has been in the pizza business for over 30 years, to help him out around the kitchen. Old head, yeah that's what I called him, often made suggestions to how the food should be made because, if you're charging people $7.00 for a cheesesteak from a ragedy pizza shop, it better be the best cheesesteak they've ever had in their lives. Of course our boss rejects all suggestions and later started to lose his customers. The chapter on internal communications in the last part of Share This made me think of that.

Your social engagements with your employees is very important in both the traditional and social media world. Being able to socialize with your employees, on a respectable level, and treat them well they'll being easier to work with. It was difficult working for my boss because the social engagement wasn't present. He didn't work well with others and it reflected in his work ethic and how he talked to us. Collaboration also makes a successful a workforce. Working together can turn a 30 minute job in and ten minute job with the help of others. There were times when my boss would take over my job completely making his job more difficult and me with nothing to do.

Above all listening to your employees is essential is a good employee-employer relationship, and if you're listening if you have to prove it. It doesn't mean anything to an employee if you don't act. Taking suggestions is apart of listening, so if you don't actually take suggestions into consideration, or at least attempt to, then your employees relationships wont be good. Good bosses makes employees enjoy their jobs a little bit more and make them actually willing to work. A good boss makes an employee feel like their working with the boss and not for them.

Meadowlark Lemon

A few weeks ago I was driving back from Lima with my brothers, Chem and Ian, cruising down Reservoir when I noticed a sign that said, "FREE KITTEN". Chem and I locked eyes immediately and I knew we had the same thought in mind, that we were getting a kitten that day, and Ian was on board 100 percent. We pulled into a driveway where a woman showed us five four week old kittens, some white with areas of grey and the others grey with some areas of white. They all were cute kittens but, none of them caught my attention more than the tiny all grey, fluffy, precious little kitten. Once I held him in the palms of my hand I knew he was the one we were going to take home and when Ian and Chem held him they knew it too. From that moment the three of us were proud owners of a kitten, a kitten by the name of Meadowlark Lemon.

There's only one way to describe Meadowlark Lemon, think about the happiest you've ever been in your life. Now think about that in the form of the cutest cat you've ever seen. No matter how upset you are or how bad of day you've had you can't help but to be happy around this cat. Everyone who has seen this cat falls in love with him, even the people who are allergic. The biggest and manliest of men expose their feminine side when they see Meadowlark Lemon, he is that perfect.

Unfortunately, since I live in the Sigep house, I can't have a pet which sucks for me and Chem. So Meadowlark Lemon lives with Ian in his apartment, I'm not too fond of the situation but I deal with it. I still get to see him as often as I can and we all still share equal responsibility for him. We all pay for his necessities such as, food, litter, and toys. All three of us gave him his flea bath and got rid of his fleas. And we all have and share the same amount of love for him but, lets be real I really I have the most love for him and he loves me the most. I swear, God put a piece of heaven in Meadowlark Lemon when he made him because, he is just absolutely perfect.

OFWGKTA

The other night I went to Columbus with a couple brothers to a Kid Cudi concert. I'm not much of a fan  of Kid Cudi, although Mr. Rager is a fantastic song and I was praying he sung it, the reason I went was for Tyler, the Creator. Tyler, the Creator is a popular Indie rapper who is known for his dark and provocative lyrics and song topics. Some of the topics of his songs are about his father issues and others are as dark as rape. Some said that he was scary or weird, when his first album Bastard came out, but, it was his video and song Yonkers that got his career started.

I for one have always been a fan of Tyler and afyer watching an interveiw of him on Youtube the other day talking about his style of rap.

The interview raises a lot of good points, starting with why he raps about what he raps about. We all have thought about dark things, things we wouldn't admit to our best of friends but, when it's said out loud people think of you as the one in the wrong. After listening to his first album, Bastard, I knew Tyler had a complex mind and was different from other rappers however, it was his sophomore album, Goblin, that I understood Tyler even more. My favorite lyrics from the opening song, appropriately named "Goblin", are "They claim the sh*t I say is just wrong. like nobody jad those really dark thoughts when alone. I'm just a teenager who admits he's suicide prone, my life is doing pretty good so that date is postponed." Those lyrics sum up his entire style, he raps about what he thinks and doesn't care. He's the same age as me, with a better life needless to say, so all he wants to do is be great. 

He also spoke on progression and how he wouldn't necessarily rap about the same things. This interview took place a couple years ago but, you can see that he meant that because there is a big difference in style and lyrics from his first album from his third album, Wolf.  

I may have been able to read between the lines and know exactly what Tyler is talking about in his music but, for those who don't, Youtube is a great tool for clarification. As one of the top social media outlets, Youtube is able provide viewers with videos like these for people who want to know more. A song could sum it up but, this interview said it all and then some. 

To be as young as he is, Tyler, the Creator is a musical genius and will soon receive more VMA, obtain his grammy, and make it mainstream just like he wants to be. All he needs is to be given a chance.

Share This! Part 4

In the reading of Share This part four the authors spoke on the evolution of the Public Relation new duties as social media and multimedia become more popular. Social media is ever changing with updates being made constantly and new technology coming out so frequently todays technology could be out dated as soon as tomorrow, so it's crucial for PR to stay update with it all. However, despite the constant changes there are somethings that some things that stay the same, just to name a few, for example:

-Headlines
-Tags
Sharing/e-mail sharing
-Links
-Image/video gallery

The headlines is basically a summary of the to story, between 90 and 120 characters, it's easier to get an understanding of the story and it's easier to share through Twitter. This is mainly used in blogs and articles. Sharing through Twitter is one of the most popular ways to share news but, people still tend to share news through email, so to share through email is crucial to sharing. Tags and tag clouds makes it simpler to find a story, and can also filter other stories in the same category appealing to the readers and interests. Links are easy ways to back up facts for readers and image/video galleries gives more for the readers to view opposed to just one shot. The gallery can be shared, tagged, and made into links.

PR is becoming more modernized, making Twitter and Journalist best friends. Journalist now find it a lot easier to share stories through Twitter. It's really simple as all you need to do is get involved, use your current contacts, search, and curate lists. Being involved puts yourself out there, you can get involved by talking to people in the Twitter community who share the interests as you, and there's no easier way to find these people than through the people you already. Once you've drawn in those people you can search for more through the search tool. And sites like Listorious and PeerIndex already have a group of Twitter names in groups so it's a lot easier to find who you're trying to find.

This reading made it more clear as to why ONU decided to merge the English, Broadcasting, and Public Relations department, because the evolution of social media requires all three fields to manage this.

Who's Next?

As exciting as social media can be, the thrill can easily die out once the new thing comes along. We've all seen it happen before, when When Yahoo! became popular, everyone abandoned AOL, when YouTube blew up, people stopped using Google video, and when MySpace became popular, Xanga stopped being used, only to later be left behind by Facebook users. However, with Facebook being number one for well over eight years now, it's just a matter of time before the next big thing comes along and all of Facebook's users moved to that site and Facebook meets the same fate as MySpace.

Lets look at Facebook's biggest social networking competitors, Twitter and Instagram. Twitter allows you to update your friends, also known as followers, your whereabouts, what you're doing, random thoughts, etc., in just 140 characters or less. Twitter also has a Trending Topics area where the most talked about topics are displayed and can be viewed. Along with the Trending Topics, hashtags are used, for example #ThrowbackThursday, or for TV shows, and surveys. Those features are good for keeping up with current events, entertainment news, and just for fun and pure entertainment. Twitter consists of other features such as: favoriting a tweet, which is similar to liking on Facebook, and retweeting, which is like getting a favorite but better because that means they were thinking what you were thinking. Twitter can be complicated to understand once you start to use it but, once you get use to it can be equally as addictive as Facebook, giving it the capability of taking Facebook's place as number one.

Now there's also Instagram, whose popularity took off immediately, getting over one million users in its debut year, in 2010. Instagram is simply Twitter but focuses more on the use of pictures. Hashtags are equally as popular on Instagram as it is on Twitter, the most popular probably being #NoFilter. A filter is an effect that Instagram users can apply to their photos to make it look better and standout. And as of summer 2013 you can now upload videos to Instagram, no longer than 15 seconds. Another similarity to Twitter, you also have followers on Instagram and follow other people. Unlike Twitter however, you  have the ability to like photos, just like Facebook. For some people who enjoy photography, whether it's just pictures of themselves or have a knack for it, this has what it takes to maybe top Tumblr, but not Twitter or Facebook.

For all of its existence, Facebook would has been doing everything in its power in to stay number one, and to make sure its users keep coming back. Facebook lets you create statuses, post videos, pictures, and comments on friends statuses and posts, you can play games, create groups, keep up with events and birthdays, and so much more. You can even display your posts from Twitter and Instagram and post on your Facebook wall. You can link your Facebook with almost every account you have on any site. It's things like that that keeps Facebook as number one but, I still foresee the day that Facebook is thing of the past and all forgotten about. It may not be anytime soon but, when that day comes, who's next? Who will be ready to take Facebook's spot and be number one? Ponder on that.

Until next time.

Greek Life is THE Life

Before I moved from Philly to Ada everyone at home asked me the same question, "Are you going to pledge anywhere?" and my answer was always simply, "Oh, God no." Even when I arrived on campus I was approached by greeks helping me move in, gave me greek life brochures, rush schedules, the whole nine yards but, I still had no intentions of pledging anywhere. Not until the faithful day that I met up with Andrew Colyer in Mac for brunch, who insisted that I go to the Sigep house with him. After that I started to consider greek life however, it wasn't until I met the man, who is now my big, that confirmed that there was no doubt that I would be a Sigep.

What people in greek life don't understand is that being in a fraternity, or even a sorority for that matter, is more than a just the stereotypes that define them such as: all of the partying, polos and boat shoes, and drinking. It's a group of strangers who grow closer together eventually becoming a family, hence the terms brother/sisterhood. The bonds that I've made the past three years being greek life is undescribable. Outside of the 40 brothers in my chapter to turn to I also have a sorority of 80 women who I can always have a good time with as well.

In comparison to the friends I made here versus friends at home, my greek life friends will literally bend over backwards for me, while my Philly friends are just a tad bit selfish. For example, recently my uncle, who lived about an hour and a half away in Fremont, passed away. With my east coast family not being able to make I still wanted to attend the funeral. So when I asked around to borrow a car there was almost a battle royal over who would let me borrow their car, which was surprising because I shouldn't be left alone with someone's car keys let alone their car. My Philly friends, for example, I have a hard enough time putting just the thought of them coming out here to visit me, hell even at home too since I am always the one visiting them. It's almost a burden for them to come see me, or at least thats how it appears.

Joining a fraternity I expected the stereotypes but, instead I got what I least expected, a group of people I can call my friends, brothers, and family for the rest of my life. Greek life is the life, and it changed mine for the better, and I that I am forever grateful for.

The Million Dollar Man

In the reading of  Share This part two you learn how a business can succeed using social media through these six steps:

-Selecting Your Squad
-Choosing a Goal
-Start Listening
-Think Character and Content
-Integrate Your Outpost
-Measure What You Treasure


As I read through those steps my mind wondered as usual but, this time it was slightly relevant to the reading. I couldn't help but think about the That 70's Show where Fez daydreamed that his friends turned him into the Million Dollar man, aka the perfect man. Right off the back, yeah it sounds dumb but, hear me out first.

Selecting your squad demonstrated what parts of an organization tackle different issues that may be thrown at them. People having complaints about the product, for example, would be handled by customer service or public relations. On That 70's Show Hyde took care of Fez's coolness claiming to make him more "aloof". Choosing your goal, has the same concept for both the show and social media, you have to know where you want to take the changes the your making or what you're trying get people to fall for. According to the reading, if your business drive is "brand" and your social media goal  is to aware your customers, gain their attention, and build profiles. Just like Fez's goal was to make himself less needy so he can get the attention of a girl.

If you don't listen to the outside community you'll never know what it is you're doing right and what it is you're doing wrong. That why it's important to start listening. If Fez didn't listen to his girlfriend then he would've never wanted to change and his daydream, nine times out of ten, wouldn't have happened. That is also why it's important for companies to use social media, blogs, and forums as a fast easy way to receive feedback and give the feedback back. Being able to do that almost makes it feel like your communicating with another person face to face, bringing the human side of the business out, that's why it's important to think character and content. For Fez it was just bringing out more of what his girlfriend wanted out him, for a business it's going to be the public.

I didn't see it much in the last two, integrating your outpost, which is basically what social media you want to use out of the big four (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube) or measuring what you treasure. However I find it really interesting that I was able to draw those two connections. At this point I just hope that this isn't my overactive imagination only making sense in my head but out loud I make absolutely no sense.

The Hype

After my little run in with the Ada Police I couldn't help but think about the George Zimmerman Trial over the summer. I didn't do much research on the trial until after the verdict, however I was kept up to date via Twitter. During that time period I saw a variety of emotions and reactions to the trial all from people wanting "Justice For Trayvon" and all who felt as Zimmerman was innocent and did nothing wrong. Thanks to Twitter I was able to see news clips from the trial, read news articles, and actually gained some interest. Since I worked almost constantly over the summer it was a fast and easy way to get the news not only about the trial but other things what were happening at the time. However, with a tool like Twitter it can show that millions of people care about this topic but it can also show how fast people get over topics like this as well.

Think about it, after Zimmerman was found not guilty everyone on Twitter instantly became a lawyer, a civil rights activist, and/or Zimmerman's or Trayvon Martin's best friend. For those who were team Trayvon wanted Zimmerman's blood. You would've thought everyone on my timeline grew up with the kid, or something, bringing race into the mix and dropping legal terms as if they knew what they were really talking about. Team Zimmerman, on the other  hand, also threw in some legal terms, and praised Florida's flawed legal system. I for one had no opinion on the matter, since I was in the dark about the whole issue.

For two weeks the news talked about the Zimmerman verdict, people still tweeted about it, and even parody accounts added in their two cents, but that lasted just two weeks. Two weeks later it seemed like everyone is like, "Trayon, who?". Not a single tweet in sight, the news hardly reports, and you know it's real when it isn't even a Trending Topic anymore. The people who were so invested in the trial basically treated it like MySpace, it was something to do but, once something more interesting comes along people abandon it.

That's just my two cents, but I'm sure people will start to care again if the Martin family does an appeal. Until next time, y'all...

It This Racist?

The other night I was walking back to my house from the Taft building after finishing up a project that I completed in record time, 20 minutes more or less, and feeling pretty confident I got an A before noticing Ada Police in the Mac parking lot. Naturally I just continue to walk to my house and mind my own business until the strangest thing happened, the car's headlights turn on and the cop starts slowly driving behind me. I just thought, "Oh I must be in his way" so I move to the sidewalk out of the way, and that's just the tip of the iceberg.

As I start to cross College avenue to head down Union street the cop turns on the red and blue lights. Again, I'm just walking and minding my own business, so I don't turn around, I keep walking straight, and keep walking at the same pace. The moment I reach the corner of Union street the cop's lights go out, he makes a left and proceeds down College avenue, towards Rite Aid. I tell this story to my brother Chem and the first thing that comes out of his mouth is, "That's racist. That's real messed up, bro."

Now I for one never pull the race card, at least not in a serious way, but that situation did get me thinking about why the cop would do that and reasons why he shouldn't have. Now here is a few reasons why I would imagine the cop would do this:

-I'm a black man in Ada, OH (sorry for being so blunt but we all were thinking it and you know it)
-Anyone wearing BOTH a snap back and big deejay headphones would grab anyones attention
-I was walking relatively fast just for it to be 10:30 at night
-White Bear fourth meal was happening and ONU must be cracking down on people who leave without using their meal swipes

Now here are the reasons why he shouldn't have:

-Despite my head accessories, I was dressed in a shirt, tie, and dress pants due to my laziness of not wanting to change after the meeting I had earlier in the evening.
-I was wearing my book bag and had extra books and papers in my hands, so I was obviously just your typical college student walking from doing school work.
-I naturally walk fast since I'm from a big city. Walking is kind of our thing.
-I did absolutely nothing wrong.

After it's all said and done it all could've been worst. The cop could've gotten out of the car and approached me, or continue to follow me with his lights on. Hell, I could've even been arrested. But is that racist? Or is it just a cop doing his job? Or could he just be looking for anyone to bust no matter race?

Share This

While reading Share This I had my moments of thinking of more than just what I was reading so of course I had to go back and read, and once I did it all came together. The part that stuck out to me the most about it was the Part 1. This part stuck out to me for two reasons: one, because it elaborated how social networking sites were more than just Facebook and Twitter, and two, because it touched based on the sites demographics.

Remember when we were little kids and our parents referred to every Pokémon as either Pikachu or as a "Pokéman"? It's very similar to how our parents think any social media site is automatically Facebook, but thanks to this chapter it spoke on Twitters success along with Instagram, LinkedIn and user generated content sites like YouTube. All of these sites are around us, all of these sites are used, and all of them are unique and stand apart from one another, which is why it continues to be a success and it continues to gain a bigger following everyday. The scariest thing about that is that these sites following isn't just the younger people anymore either.

According to this chapter, the average age of a person on Twitter is 35, while Facebook is between 35 and 54 years-old and LinkedIn is 40. Do you know what that means? My parents and their friends have taken over social networking sites. I use to find when my father called me into his room to tell me he didn't like what I was posting on Facebook to be very annoying. I use to think that he just made a made because he wanted to keep an extra eye on me, how ignorant of me. He simply made a page for the same five reasons me and my age group made one: researching, finding information and inspiration, participating, and connecting with friends for entertainment.

You get so caught up in your own little world that you forget that your parents have a life too, they also get bored, that also need friends and fun. If they don't have that then they bother you and you won't have that. Part 1 of Share This helped me open my eyes to that. So if you felt how I felt or know someone please SHARE THIS book with them... See what I did there?

Taking Over The World

With this being my junior year in college I spent the entire summer anticipating how productive I would be this semester. But as usual as the school year quickly approached I found more ways as to why I shouldn’t be as productive and find the easy way out. That’s surprisingly worked out the last four semesters by just “winging” it and going out of my way to find the easiest way possible to accomplish a task. Needless to say it’s both a perk and one of my biggest flaws, however when it comes to this school year I will stay on top of myself like white one rice.

But lets think realistically for a second now, I know for a fact that there will be times when my laziness will over power my diligence and I will find the easiest way out of any given situation, with the exception of school. If I have reading that needs to be done I will no long just skim the pages, if I have a rubric I will not just see what I have to do to just meet expectations, I am going to read every word on every page, I will exceed expectations and then some. 

Now I know talk is cheap and I can talk crap now and not practice what I preach but I came with a game plan. In order to stay on top of myself I have been using my planner like it's going out of style, I think not just once, or twice, heck not even three times, but four times before making decisions between my social life and school work, weekends not included. I even have my most stubborn friends help me by forcing me to do work, doing work with me, or buying me food, and lets be real whose going to pass that up? 

So come May 2014 I’m going to look back on this school year and think to myself, “I did it. This was my year. I’m proud of myself.” And all of that starts now. I have success in my sights, nothing less, and there’s no looking back now.