Goals for the Summer (Finally)

Today in the elevator (after I had fetched coffee for a cast member), I started conversation with the host of a sports radio station that shares the floor with us. He asked me something that I hadn’t really thought of: Do you want to be an on-air personality one day?

To be honest, I have yet to outline my goals for this internship, something that my last boss taught me was critical in making an internship fulfilling. As it’s been a few weeks (and after not knowing how to answer the host’s question), it’s time to figure out what I want from this summer. While my mindset has been to learn as much as I can, having specific goals will allow me to plan ways to achieve them, making my learning more organized.

First goal, be on the radio. This may be a littler superficial, sure, but I would love to have a story to tell or a comment to chime in. This is where gaining confidence comes in. As I’m more comfortable with the cast members (who are Atlanta celebs!), I can interject more of my thoughts in conversation and they may include me on-air.

Second is to make connections with members of different stations. Our floor is home to six or seven shows, so that shouldn’t be hard. I run into different people often, so next week I will try to be more intentional.

Third, learn how sales works. Media buying is becoming bigger and bigger through radio, TV and internet. Half of our floor is taken up with salespeople who work with the financial parts of every show here. This could be an interesting and fun career for me in the future (and one I hadn’t previously considered), so learning from them could enrich my experience.

Wish me luck as I try to make these goals reality!

P.S. LOOK WHO I GOT TO MEET!

Ingrid Michaelson at The Bert Show

First day…

This morning, my alarm began it’s annoying buzzing at 4:10AM.

No, you didn’t read that wrong. Yes, it was awful. At first.

But I woke up (at 4:15AM) EXCITED! As you have hopefully seen from my personal website and digital resume, I started an internship at The Bert Show, a nationally syndicated radio morning show. At my internship with ADP last summer, I drove to work each morning listening to their funny stories and antics. Upon learning they had interns, I decided I had to be one.

So here I was, at 4:15AM trying to make myself look presentable enough for my first day.

Here are the answers to the most common questions I got once the morning was over:

1. How was waking up at 4AM? (Followed by a heh heh heh) 

It really wasn’t bad! Once I was awake, I was good to go. Perhaps it had a lot to do with excitement for my first day…I’m counting on that to get me through the rest of the summer.

2. What did you do?

After learning the lay of the land, I (and the other intern working) gathered up information for the Entertainment Buzz and learned how to index the show.

3. Index the show?

Yup! That means I sat and listened to the show and typed up each conversation. This required fast hands, so I’m sure I missed a few things. They said it’s a learning curve, so I’m thinking that will only get better with time. I was very thankful for my transcribing experience with Furman’s Center for Teaching and Learning, because that prepared me.

4. How did you like it?

I loved my first day! It was overwhelming and exciting all at once, much like I expected. After learning the general skills of producing a fully functional (and wildly popular) radio morning show, I’ll get to dive deeper into a specific part of the show. My goal for the next couple weeks is to figure out where my interests lie.

I’m still figuring out my goals for this internship. My last boss suggested that that is something I should do before each internship to give myself a little direction throughout the summer. So stay tuned because you’ll be hearing them soon!

Personal Site

I spent most of last week working on a personal website to display my portfolio and resume. It serves as our final grade in my Digital Communications course, but it really is only the beginning since I can send this to potential employers as a digital portfolio…they’re all the rage these days. Check out my site here.

Don’t Make Me Think!

I loved the name of this reading for today called “Don’t Make Me Think: Krug’s First Law of Usability.”

Krug is a usability expert who is writing to give us some tips and tricks of how to make our own sites more user-friendly. His true audience is companies that cannot afford to hire usability experts (him) so he’s kept it short and engaging.

The First Rule: “Don’t Make Me Think!!”

This reminds me of the “Is Google Making Us Stupid” reading because his whole idea is that users should not have to even site on the site for more than a few seconds before locating their goal. That definitely makes sense for company or shopping websites in which users must reach their goal…or find it elsewhere.

Things that make us think:

• Obscure word choice. – Keep it simple!
• Groundbreaking work. – You can explain yourself, your purpose, and how to navigate.
• Unclear navigation. – Use a top nav bar to keep everything in its place.
• Where should I begin? – Be sure to create clear separation lines between chunks of content.

Why is this important? A good website, like “good lighting in a store” makes everything better. Look better, feel better…which helps a customer’s enthusiasm and morale. Happy customers are more likely to come back.

Making Sense of Web Writing

I was very excited about this reading from the title alone. “Writing Web Content that Works” by Ginny Redish. This is fascinating to me…mostly because any career path I choose in communications will likely involve writing for the web. In fact, I’m writing for the web right now!

Redish provides TONS of tips and tricks to make web writing easier and more effective. She frames this idea with site building, so this is perfect for what I’m in the middle of.

Before beginning a site, Redish argues that the most important consideration is not the color scheme or font styles, but the AUDIENCE. She provides seven clear steps to understanding a particular audience, and thus, better writing web content for them.

1. List your major audiences. Make a “Who Do You Know” list about what types of people will visit your site.
2. Gather information about them. See how they communicate online, watch and listen to them in non-web situations, and understand how they would use your site.
3. List major characteristics for each audience. Figure out their demographics, emotions, social & cultural values, key phrases/quotes/vernacular, and technology use.
4. Gather your audiences’ questions & tasks. Make sure you’re aware of what each audience needs from a website like yours by understanding where they come from.
5. Use your information to create personas. I think this one is a little over the top, but Redish suggests you profile fake people within your audiences. This helps narrow and focus you as your build–thinking of actual people rather than broad audiences.
6. Include the persona’s goals and tasks. Think about what your persona needs from the site, what they will use it for, and how they will think through it.
7. Use your information to write scenarios for your site. This could be “Max needs to learn about digital communications. He is intrigued by blogs (he’s a millennial). After stumbling on Conventional Creation, how can he learn more?”

**That number 7 is very important to my website as it is a key part that my professor is grading my webpage on. Every piece of the site has to make perfect sense and be perfectly functional for a scenario. No scenario matches a function of the site? Delete it.

Redish also provides the main functions of a website and homepage…

1. Identify the site & Establish the brand
   – Logo & Name
   – Mission statement
   – Tag line
2. Set the tone and personality of the site through style & design
   – Language (use your user’s words)
   – Colors, fonts
3. Help visitors understand what the site is all about
4. Let people start key tasks immediately
5. Send each person on the right path, effectively and efficiently

*It should be content-rich, but not wordy because most people don’t read much on the homepage.

A lot to cover on just a home page, but it all makes sense. Many visitors go to a site for a specific purpose and may get frustrated if they are confused by content or navigation. As my professor said in class, it’s best to keep it very simple and really utilize the navigation panes to break the site down in clear ways.

To spare boring you with the dirty details, here is her most interesting and applicable advice.

• Don’t make news your home page
• Use a search box at the top of the screen (or no open field boxes at all)
• Build your site up from the content, not just down from “Home”
• Think through your navigation, then build and write clear links
• Relate everything on your site to a certain scenario (or user experience)
• Trash irrelevant information

Next Creation..

Like I mentioned in my last post, my newest project will be a personal website…so all of you out there can learn a little more about me rather than mostly about digital communications. It will function as a portfolio, online resume and thinkspace in one!

Includes:

• About me
• Resume (which I love)
• Creations from this class (slideshow, video)
• Published press releases
• Stay tuned to see what else makes the cut!

Audience:

• Potential employers in PR & broadcast fields. (This is an exciting and relevant way to make me stand out in the applicant pool!)
• Professor (duh)

Platform:

Wix. As I said before, I have little experience in site-building, so using Wix will make the process a lot smoother as I learn strategies and ideas about building my personal website. It’s the platform recommended by my professor, so it is (presumably) the most liked platform she’s encountered.

Mission statement:

Still working on this……I’ll have one I promise!

Wish me luck!

Structure of Planes (not the flying kind)

Next-next on the docket is Garrett’s (or Jarrett, as I affectionately call him) second chapter, which delves into ideas significantly less obvious than user experience. Thanks for the warm-up, Jarrett, but this blogger is ready for the confusing stuff!

Chapter 2: The Elements

God, that’s a foreboding title.

Why This Site Works

Next on the docket (after a very time-consuming video creation…hope you love it as much as I do!) is WEB DESIGN! Not going to lie…I’m pretty excited for this. I had some experience in Photoshop and Premiere Pro before this, so Web Design is completely new. Although I once dabbled in (aka was forced to) HTML and writing code (aka really forced), I am about the farthest from an expert in web design as you can get.

The good thing about this class? I won’t be a novice for long!

Phone Stacking: a social experiment

Phone Stack Creation